Wall Street Journal

Trump Suffers Mental Collapse Over Poll that Asks About His Obviously Collapsing Mental Health

Posted by on September 11, 2023 at 1:10 pm. 5 Comments :

The fragile state of Donald Trump’s massively bloated ego has been observable in his increasingly unbalanced behavior for years. He suffers from a severe case of Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Delusions of Grandeur, and age-related cognitive decline.

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Donald Trump, Snowflakes

With each new public appearance or posting on his sinking social media scam, Truth Social, Trump displays the depth of his dementia and desperation. His ranting grows more incoherent. His insults become more vicious and unhinged. His attempts to defend himself fall flat, and far outside the bounds of reality.

SEE THIS: UPDATE on Donald Trump’s Deteriorating Mental State

This weekend Trump went online to rage pathetically about a poll by the ultra-conservative Wall Street Journal that asked voters about the mental and physical health of both Trump and President Biden. The poll’s results actually placed Trump in a more favorable light. But just posing the question was too much for Trump to bear. Consequently he lashed out in a pair of comments that only made him look more deranged and decidedly weaker. In the first outburst he whined that…

“In a phony and probably rigged Wall Street Journal poll, coming out of nowhere to softened the mental incompetence blow that is so obvious with Crooked Joe Biden, they ask about my age and mentality. Where did that come from? A few years ago I was the only one to agree to a mental acuity test, & ACED IT. Now that the Globalists at Fox & the WSJ have failed to push their 3rd tier candidate to success, they do this. Well, I hereby challenge Rupert Murdoch & Sons, Biden, WSJ heads, to acuity tests!”

“Where did that come from?” Trump being confused about why the Journal would ask voters about the fitness of two septuagenarians to serve as president is in itself evidence of his “softened” mental condition. And it is similarly proof of infirmity that he reminds people of the test he took wherein he was able to identify an elephant and remember a few words. He gave as an example just some words of things that were immediately around him (person, woman, man, camera, tv). Contrary to his deliberate misrepresentation, it wasn’t an IQ test. It was a simple test given to people who were being evaluated for early signs of cognitive deficiencies.

SEE ALSO: YIKES! Trump Admits His Dreams of Dictatorship, While Bragging About ‘Acing’ a Dementia Test

Trump then goes on to issue a bold challenge to take on Biden and the family of Rupert Murdoch in some sort of competitive Cognition Bowl (Sunday on ESPN?). Setting aside the fact that he would certainly lose, the whole notion is asinine. But he doubled down in his next posting…

“Page 2: I will name the place and the test, and it will be a tough one. Nobody will come even close to me! We can also throw some physical activity into it. I just won the Senior Club Championship at a big golf club, with many very good players. To do so you need strength, accuracy, touch and, above all, mental toughness. Ask Bret Baier (Fox), a very good golfer. The Wall Street Journal & Fox are damaged goods after their failed DeSanctimonious push & stupid $780,000,000 ‘settlement.’ MORONS!!!”

So Trump insists on determining the time and place for his Psycho Sweepstakes. Lay odds that he will suggest one of his own hotel/golf resorts, and that he will charge admission to attend. It’s also cute that Trump thinks he would best Biden, an avid cyclist who regularly works out in the White House gym. Never mind that Trump is averse to any form of exercise, can barely walk down short ramp, and has trouble holding a cup of water. As for his golfing prowess, Trump is a notorious cheater who only seems to “win” his own contests.

It’s notable that Trump didn’t bother to post a link to the Wall Street Journal poll that triggered his tantrum. As usual, he just expects his cult followers to believe whatever he says without question. For the record, according to Newsweek…

“The poll found that 73 percent of Americans thought Biden was ‘too old’ to run for reelection next year, while 47 percent said the same about Trump, who is only three years younger than the president. Some 60 percent of respondents said that Biden was not ‘mentally up for the job of president,’ while 49 percent said the same about Trump.”

While the crosstabs for the poll were not published, the gap between Trump’s and Biden’s results is likely due to the lockstep views of brain-dead Republicans. Rational, free-thinking Democrats and Independents probably split on whether Biden’s age was a factor in their responses. But hive-minded Republicans have demonstrated their devoutly uniform anti-Biden biases and responded accordingly in obedient unison. With regard to Trump, Democrats and Independents probably also split, but cult-driven Republicans all vouched for his saintly perfection.

Additionally, the poll found that majorities regard Trump as dishonest (57%) and corrupt (58%). Biden numbers (50% and 48% respectively) aren’t anything to brag about (and are subject to the gap explanation above), but are far better than Trump’s. Which makes the GOP’s adoration of him all the more distasteful. They remain fervently faithful to their Dear Leader even though they concede that he cheats and lies. That’s not only a sick devotion to a messianic poser, it’s a dangerous signal for the future of American democracy.

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Trump and the Wall Street Journal Flagrantly Lie About COVID Fatalities to Malign Biden

Posted by on November 26, 2021 at 12:25 pm. 5 Comments :

The determination of right-wing media outlets to vilify President Biden on a constant basis is the driving force of their malicious editorial mission. Fox News, Newsmax, and others, keep up a perpetual parade of disparaging propaganda even when there are no facts to support their attacks.

Donald Trump, Coronavirus

Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal is among those media manglers hellbent on spreading disinformation intended to deceive their readers and damage Biden’s reputation. On Friday they published an article with an ominous headline declaring the advent of “Biden’s Covid Death Milestone.” Trump promptly tweeted a link to the article (via his Twitter ban defying spokes-shill) The gist of the hit piece was summarized in the opening paragraph stating falsely that…

“It would seem that Mr. Biden has done no better than Donald Trump in defeating Covid despite the benefit of vaccines, better therapies, and more clinical experience.”

The Journal’s argument was based on the fact that there have been about the same number of deaths due to COVID in 2021, during Biden’s presidency, as there were in 2020, during Trump’s. However, that disembodied “factoid” lacks both context and mathematical soundness.

The Journal conveniently left out the relatively massive expansion of the coronavirus and how it blanketed the nation from its inception. It went from nonexistence to pandemic in just a few weeks. That’s where the Journal’s math fell short. Here’s why…

Starting from zero there are fewer people infected and, consequently, fewer people to transmit it to others. The growth of incidents of transmission increases exponentially as the population of those infected increases. For instance, if there are ten people infected, growth of 100% would result in 20 total infected people. However, if there are 10,000 people infected, growth of 100% would result in 20,000 total infected people. So there are far more infected people, but the exact same percentage growth rate.

In real terms, during Trump’s last year in office the number of fatalities went from 10 (when Trump said it would soon decline back to zero) to 400,000, an increase of four million (4,000,000!) percent. During Biden’s first year in office the number of fatalities went from about 400,000 to 800,000, an increase of only 100 percent. That’s a fatality rate percentage decline of 99.9975 percent. So it is brazenly dishonest to say that Biden did no better than Trump. The truth is that during Biden’s term the United States went from 4000 people dying every day by the end of Trump’s term, to about 1,000 deaths a day under Biden, A decline of 75 percent.

What’s more, it must not be forgotten that more than 90% of the new hospitalizations and fatalities are among unvaccinated people. And those vaccine resisters are almost entirely Fox News viewers. It would not be inaccurate to call this the Pandemic of Fox News. Not surprisingly, the unvaccinated are predominantly Trump supporters and Republicans.

From the start of the pandemic Trump has sought to downplay its severity. In the book RAGE, by Bob Woodward it was documented that Trump had deliberately lied about the severity of the coronavirus, saying that he “wanted to always play it down.” Which he is still doing today. Trump insiders recently disclosed that he has refused to promote vaccines because it might upset his cult followers or, gawd forbid, help Biden.

The bottom line for these cretins is, as usual, prioritizing whatever is in their own political self-interest. They couldn’t care less about the suffering and loss of life that they are purposefully contributing to. And to that end they put out lies like this one in the Wall Street Journal that seek to suppress the successes of the Biden administration. Hopefully the truth will find a way to reach the American people through means other than Murdoch’s bullshit factory.

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How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Fox News Embraces Trump Shill’s Dangerously Seditious Election Challenge

Posted by on January 3, 2021 at 9:55 am. 3 Comments :

The bizarre and unpatriotic aspirations of Donald Trump, and his recasting of the already radically rightist Republican Party, continue to diverge ever further from the Constitution, and more ominously from sanity. That’s to be expected from Trump, whose tenuous grasp on reality has long been a major cause of concern. But the GOP’s willingness – and weakness – to march along in his goose-stepping spectacle raises the stakes considerably.

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Jeanine Pirro Fox News

Republicans in Congress are positioning themselves for a historic battle pitting democracy against authoritarianism. And the authoritarian side is being represented by such GOP “leaders” as Ted Cruz and Josh Hawley. They are supported by ten other Senate traitors, more than a hundred colleagues in the House republican caucus, and even out-going Vice-President, Mike Pence. Their futile plot is set to be implemented on January 6, the day that Joe Biden’s election will be certified by Congress:

“A group of Republicans has announced plans to reject electors from states they consider disputed if Congress doesn’t create a commission to investigate their claims of fraud. The effort, fueled by baseless allegations of voter fraud, drew support from Vice President Pence by Saturday night.” […]

“The statement calls for the creation of an electoral commission ‘with full investigatory and fact-finding authority, to conduct an emergency 10-day audit of the election returns in the disputed state.'”

For the record, the Congress has no authority whatsoever to create an investigatory “commission,” nor to impose a ten day audit of election returns. The session on January 6 is a ceremonial duty that merely affirms the election results already certified by all fifty states. The effort by these Republican extremists aims to challenge “disputed” electoral slates that do not exist. And they can’t succeed without both houses of Congress voting for their treachery. Of course, the Democratic-majority in the House is unlikely to play along with that.

Cue Fox News and their Senior Trump-fluffer, “Judge” Jeanine Pirro. She hosted Trump’s trade advisor, Peter Navarro, who has no expertise in constitutional law. And Navarro, as he is wont to do, went skidding perilously off the rails. He began by asserting that “the Democrat (sp) Party, as a matter of strategy, stole this election from Donald J. Trump.” And that led into this hideous exchange:

Navarro: They stole this. We can prove it. And other things… Breaking news: I would not be surprised to see a special counsel on this. And Vice-President Pence, he has the authority to give that ten day window to do what needs to get done, and I cannot imagine when you look at the facts he won’t vote the right way on that.
Pirro: And you know Peter, the interesting thing is that ten day window, it is something that they can change the date. January 20th cannot be changed. That’s constitutional. But this whole certification, the date can be changed.
Navarro: Well it can be changed actually. We can go past that date. We can go past that date. We can go past that date if we need to.
Pirro: Oh.

“Oh”? That’s a cute response by Pirro, an alleged judge, to a Trump administration official proposing a blatantly unconstitutional act. The 20th Amendment to the Constitution plainly states that “The terms of the President and Vice President shall end at noon on the 20th day of January [….] and the terms of their successors shall then begin.” That is not negotiable, nor subject to the legal shenanigans of anti-democratic authoritarians like Navarro and Pirro.

On Sunday morning Trump retweeted a random crackpot Internet troll agreeing with Navarro’s preposterous misreading of the Constitution. He also retweeted the screwball attorney, Sidney Powell, saying that “This ‘election’ was stolen from the voters in a massive fraud.” Never mind that she has never presented evidence of that in court, or that Trump’s own lawyers (Rudy Giuliani et al) threw her off their team for being even too deranged for them.

What’s more, both the New York Post and the Wall Street Journal, Fox News sister newspapers also owned by Rupert Murdoch, have also come out in opposition to Trump, Navarro, Pirro, and the rest of the Fox News deceivers. The Post published a headline story exhorting Trump to “Stop the Insanity“ and to “Give it up, Mr. President — for your sake and the nation’s.” The Journal’s Editorial Board went on record saying that…

“President Trump’s last and worst shot at overturning the 2020 election will come on Jan. 6, as the new Congress meets in joint session to tally the votes from the Electoral College. Mr. Trump wants Republican lawmakers to lodge formal objections to Joe Biden’s electors, and this kamikaze mission already has a few volunteers.” […]

“Any challenge to Mr. Biden’s electors appears doomed, since upholding the objection takes a majority in both chambers. The Democratic House would use the opportunity to excoriate Mr. Trump a final time on his way out the door, and grown-ups in the Republican Senate are unlikely to play along.”

And with that Fox News stands alone in their overly zealous, slobbering support for the failed president who is already halfway out the White House’s backdoor. Well, almost alone. Trump still has Newsmax, OANN, and the rapidly dwindling phalanx of cult disciples who still haven’t gotten to the acceptance stage of their political death.

NOTE: Twitter recently suspended the News Corpse account after 11 years without giving a reason. So if anyone wants to tweet articles from my website, please feel free to do so often and repeatedly. Thanks for your support.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Crybaby Trump Considers Probing Imaginary Anti-Conservative Bias Online

Posted by on May 23, 2020 at 2:14 pm. 2 Comments :

After ignoring the deadly risks of the COVID-19 (coronavirus) pandemic for months, Trump failed to respond with anything that remotely resembled leadership. He dismissed, and even mocked, the health experts. And he continues to pursue a strategy that is focused solely on boosting his ego and his reelection prospects, rather than on human lives. As a result, more than 1.5 million Americans have contracted the virus and nearly 100,000 have died.

Donald Trump Pacifier Fox

On Saturday morning Trump returned to the pastime that has been the priority for most of his presidency: Golf. But that wasn’t until after he revealed that he is embarking on an initiative that virtually no one considers relevant or even rational. As reported in the Wall Street Journal…

“…sources said the plans may include establishing a ‘White House-created commission’ that would work in conjunction with agencies like the Federal Elections Commission and Federal Communications Commission to examine bias and censorship online. A White House official told the WSJ that ‘left wing bias in the tech world is a concern that definitely needs to be addressed.’”

That’s right. Trump is suiting up to fight fictional foes and other figments of his fertile but frayed imagination. Note that the White House source explicitly states that only alleged “left wing bias” is the subject of this phony commission. That’s proof that the whole thing is a cheesy political stunt that has no credibility whatsoever. It’s just Snowflake Trump demonstrating how fragile his ego is and how determined he is to seek vengeance for his perceived delusions of persecution.

Trump, and the Paranoid Wingnut Confederacy he leads, is convinced that virtually every institution in America is biased against them. Whether it’s the Internet, the media, colleges, science, Hollywood, etc., he shivers in the wake of clandestine villains lurking under his bed. For the so-called “leader of the free world” Trump sure spends an awful lot of time whining like a colicky infant and throwing petulant tantrums.

Last week Trump tweeted that “The Radical Left is in total command & control of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Google,” and that “The Administration is working to remedy this illegal situation.” Like most of Trump’s assertions of secret cabals ruling the planet from some underground bunker, Trump has no evidence to support his deranged ranting. Likewise, he is incapable of backing up his reckless accusations of illegality by citing any breach of a law that actually exists.

However, this isn’t a recent mental short-circuiting by Trump. News Corpse reported on it a year ago when Trump was defending his bootlicking sycophants, Diamond and Silk, who falsely claimed they were being censored by Facebook. They weren’t. And exactly one year ago today Trump tweeted…

The problem with the “conservative voices” Trump is advocating for was not their conservatism. It was their repeated insistence on engaging in racist hate speech and inciting violence. The aforementioned Diamond and Silk were recently booted from Fox’s Fox Nation streaming platform for spreading disinformation about the coronavirus. Their bizarre conspiracy theories included advising people to deliberately expose themselves to the virus in order to develop immunity, and warning against getting a vaccination because it was part of a plot by Bill Gates to impose population control.

These are typical of the sources Trump relies on for his policy development. He rejects science and academia in favor of crackpots with ludicrous and unfounded schemes and ultra rightist agendas. Trump adopts these lunatics and passes their dangerous blather on to his cult followers. Then he publicly whimpers and sulks about how unfairly he is treated by the liberal overlords who he believes secretly control the destiny of the world. Poor baby. It must be so hard being the weakest holder ever of the most powerful position on Earth.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

Even Trump’s ‘Friends’ Think His Behavior at Coronavirus Briefings is Asinine

Posted by on April 19, 2020 at 12:48 pm. 5 Comments :

For several weeks Donald Trump has been serving as the host of a daily reality TV program known as “The Coronavirus Task Force Briefings.” Trump envisions himself as the COVID-19 pandemic’s Pat Sajak, spinning a Wheel of Falsehoods and propaganda. He has turned what was intended to be a platform for disseminating life and death information into a petty, partisan, political charade.

Donald Trump

No longer able to bask in the glassy-eyed adoration of his cult disciples at mass rallies, Trump is callously exploiting a public health crisis in order to advance his own reelection prospects. He has cast himself as the star of the daily briefings despite the fact that, due to his ignorance and ego, he has nothing of value to contribute. Consequently, he wastes the time of the public and the press by upstaging the experts so that he can disgorge more lies, brag about imaginary accomplishments, and yell at reporters.

Trump’s narcissism always gets the best of him. He can’t hold a thought in his orange-glazed noggin that isn’t laser focused on his own self interest. But his efforts to exalt himself are failing bigly. His approval ratings are sinking during a national disaster, a time when any other leader would be enjoying a “rally round the flag” bounce. And he’s reduced to having to boast about his TV ratings because the American people aren’t buying his lies.

Even worse, many of Trump’s closest allies are straying from the Trump dogma. Rupert Murdoch’s conservative Wall Street Journal published an editorial titled “Trump’s Wasted Briefings“ that said “If Mr. Trump thinks these daily sessions will help him defeat Joe Biden, he’s wrong.” GOP Sen. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia is warning that the president should “let the health professionals guide where we’re going to go,” and that the briefings have gone “off the rails a little bit.” Trump’s chief Senate bootlicker, Lindsey Graham, said that Trump “drowns out his own message,” and suggested that he appear once a week rather than every day. Even a reliable Fox News Trump-fluffer, Brit Hume, responded harshly to a Trump tweet about the briefings, saying that…

To top it off, one of Trump’s closest friends, Piers Morgan, appeared on CNN Sunday morning and delivered an uncompromising smack down (video below). He prefaced it saying that Trump “won’t want me saying this, but I’m gonna say it anyway.” And his elaboration pretty much confirmed that:

“I’ve been watching these daily briefings with mounting horror frankly, because this is not what the president should be doing. […and what…] this requires of any world leader is that they’ve got to be calm. They have to show authority. They have to be honest. They have to be accurate, entirely factual with what they’re telling the people. And they have to have the ability to show empathy. And on almost every level of that Donald Trump, at the moment, is failing the American people.

“He’s turning these briefings into a self-aggrandizing, self-justifying, overly defensive, politically partisan, almost like a rally to him. Almost like what’s more important to him is winning the election in November. No it’s not, Donald Trump. What is more important right now is saving American lives.”

To be sure, Morgan is notorious right-wing jerk with a long history of racism and misogyny. His prior remarks about Trump have been effusively laudatory. Which makes this criticism all the more painful for Trump. We can expect some infantile and insulting tweets aimed at Morgan shortly, because Trump’s most predictable trait is lashing out at those whom he feels have betrayed him. And that’s pretty much everyone, since his paranoia and persecution was affirmed in his own words when he said that “All I see is hatred of me.” Poor baby.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

POLL: Fox News Viewers are Hopelessly Gaslit Victims of Trump’s Propaganda

Posted by on May 7, 2019 at 12:45 pm. 2 Comments :

The recent release of the redacted version of the report by special counsel Robert Mueller has resulted in a couple of the worst weeks to date for Donald Trump. And that’s despite the fact that much of the most damaging material is still undisclosed. He is being barraged by legal experts who affirm that the report contains ample evidence of crimes and obstruction of justice that warrant consideration of initiating impeachment hearings.

Fox News, Sean Hannity, White House

The public’s view of these matters leans decidedly toward a consensus that Trump is dishonest and likely guilty of criminal offenses. They may be related to the hundreds of contacts by him and his campaign with Russian operatives, or his suppression of documents and testimony that points to his guilt. But there is one notable constituency that is oblivious to the reality of Trump’s wrongdoing: Fox News viewers.

A new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll breaks out the opinions of voters by their cable news preferences. And the disparity between those who watch Fox News and those who watch other networks is profound:

These results reveal that Fox News viewers have totally bought into the propaganda that Trump and his fluffers in the right-wing press feverishly disseminate. They are the victims of deliberate lies that don’t remotely resemble reality. This is evident by the extreme differences among the Fox News viewers with their fellow citizens. If the pro-Trump numbers were just a little higher, that might indicate some measure of media bias. But when the numbers are so radically far apart, that can only be the result of cult-like indoctrination.

It simply is not normal for 69 percent of the viewers of one network to say they aren’t worried about Russian interference in the U.S. election, when less that 50 percent of the viewers of all other networks feel the same way. It’s extraordinary that 50 percent of Fox viewers falsely believe that the Mueller report cleared Trump, when everyone else believes that by less than 25 percent. And how can 61 percent of Fox News viewers say that Trump has been honest about Russia, when less than 30 percent of the rest of the nation says that?

These numbers, of course, are reflected in the overall approval of Trump as president. And once again, 73 percent of Fox News viewers are blindly adoring of Trump, while significant majorities of all other respondents vehemently disapprove. What this tells us is that the Fox News audience is living in an alternate world. They are hypnotically devoted to Trump regardless of what he says or does. They even obediently agree with him when he contradicts himself.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

And for that reason – along with many others – it is absurd for Democrats to consider gracing Fox News with their presence. It’s ludicrous to lend their credibility to a network that hasn’t earned it. And it makes no sense whatsoever to support a brazenly biased channel that exists – from its inception – to malign them, and whose viewers overwhelmingly despise them.

Fox News Boycotts Twitter, So No Reporting on Trump’s Hush Money, Election Results, and More

Posted by on November 10, 2018 at 11:40 am. 1 Comments :

Last week Tucker Carlson of Fox News was the victim of some unruly protesters who showed up at his home and shouted at his family. It was a particularly dumb exercise that succeeded only in frightening the household and giving Carlson ammunition to attack all progressives as hostile and lawless. Never mind that there was widespread criticism of the ill-conceived protest, even by many of the liberals Carlson most frequently attacked.

Fox News, Twitter

However the most absurd response to the protest is that of Carlson’s network, Fox News. They have decided to to refrain from using Twitter because they are upset with how the social media platform handled posts by SmashRacismDC, the group that reportedly was responsible for the action against Carlson. Fox told a Tribune Media reporter that they would remain tweetless until Twitter removed the posts and apologized. There is no indication of whether or not an apology was rendered, but Twitter suspended the account of SmashRacismDC and deleted the offending tweets two days ago. And yet, two days later, Fox News still has not tweeted anything.

This seems to be a curiously petty reaction to the situation. After all, Twitter was not responsible for the protests, and they did banish the party that was. Is Fox just holding out for the apology because their corporate ego has been bruised? Are they stomping off in a huff until Twitter sends them a Hallmark card? Who do they think they’re hurting?

One consequence of this boycott, intended or otherwise, is that Fox News isn’t reporting some important news events that have taken place in the last couple of days. There is vote counting going on in Florida, Georgia, and Arizona that will have a profound impact on the composition of the next Congress. And so far, the trends are favoring the Democratic candidates for senate and governor in all three. Is Fox News comfortable with not informing their Twitter followers of this news? Or is that their intention?

Furthermore, there was a bombshell story by the Wall Street Journal that reveals hard evidence that Donald Trump not only knew, but led the efforts to pay hush money to women with whom he had sexual affairs, including Stormy Daniels and Summer Zervos. He has previously denied (i.e. lied about) these allegations. That makes this a convenient time for Fox to go dark online so as not to further spread these revelations. Surely Fox News doesn’t want their audience to be exposed to such damning truths, even if it’s coming from a newspaper that is part of their corporate family.

Along with these stories are others concerning the firing of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and the resulting controversy over Trump’s apparent attempts to obstruct justice by hindering the investigation of special counsel Robert Mueller. And Trump’s designated “Acting” Attorney General, Matt Whitaker, is facing stiff criticism for his prejudice with regard to Mueller, and his sordid past that includes a connection to a company that engaged in rampant fraud. This is another story Fox would likely want to suppress.

Now Trump is in Paris meeting with foreign leaders with whom he has been feuding. There are devastating fires in California that Trump falsely blamed on “forest mismanagement,” rather than climate change. The recent mass shooting in Thousand Oaks exacerbates the debate on efforts to legislate gun safety reforms. And Trump’s war with media takes a nasty turn as he singles out African-American women for abuse.

All of these are stories that are getting significant play in the press, and on Twitter, but for which Fox News is muzzling itself over a specious complaint about a Twitter problem that is already resolved. And all of these are stories that reflect poorly on Donald Trump, for whom Fox News operates as the State TV mouthpiece. Is it really just a coincidence?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

UPDATE: It’s day three of the Fox News Twitter boycott. There is a report that a memo was sent to the entire Fox digital team to refrain from tweeting Fox content on either Fox or personal accounts. But for some reason, Fox and Friends seems to be exempt from this network-wide Twitter boycott.

White House Shills Flagrantly Lie About Trump Hobbling the FBI Probe of Kavanaugh

Posted by on September 30, 2018 at 12:42 pm. 1 Comments :

It’s another Pleasant Valley Sunday at the White House as Donald Trump dispatches his surrogates to the Sunday morning news programs to assure America’s Deplorables that everything is fine despite the political fires raging all around them.

Donald Trump

The topic of the day is undoubtedly the pending confirmation of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court. His recent testimony regarding allegations of sexual assault against Dr. Christine Blasey Ford did nothing to exonerate him. But he did reveal himself to be a hot headed, ultra-partisan who traffics in preposterous conspiracy theories and has no aversion to lying about himself or others.

As a result of that hearing, rogue Republican Sen. Jeff Flake concluded that he could not vote to confirm Kavanaugh unless there was an FBI investigation into the charges. So Trump was reluctantly forced to comply and instructed the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh’s background check. Unfortunately, our relentlessly deceitful president sought to game the system by putting harsh restrictions on what the FBI could look into. After this underhanded tactic was exposed, Trump whined on Twitter that it wasn’t true. He accused NBC News of having “incorrectly reported” the story, even though it was also reported by the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.

On the Sunday Circus of news shows, Trump’s surrogates are now making the rounds to reinforce his false claims. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Fox News that “The White House is not micromanaging this process,” and that “the Senate is dictating the terms.” And Senior White House Counselor Kellyanne Conway had this exchange with Jake Tapper of CNN:

Conway: The White House is not getting involved in the FBI investigation in that way. The president very much respects the independence of the FBI and feels, as he said last night, that they should be looking at anything they feel is credible within this limited scope.
Tapper: What does that mean, ‘within this limited scope’?
Conway: That’s up to the FBI. In other words, I’m not involved in those specific conversations.

Of course none of those protestations were true. NBC’s follow up reporting on the matter reiterated that:

“The FBI has received no new instructions from the White House about how to proceed with its weeklong investigation of sexual misconduct allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, a senior U.S. official and another source familiar with the matter tell NBC News.

“According to the sources, the president’s Saturday night tweet saying he wants the FBI to interview whoever agents deem appropriate has not changed the limits imposed by the White House counsel’s office on the FBI investigation — including a specific witness list that does not include Julie Swetnick, who has accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct in high school.”

And furthermore…

“A White House official made clear that the White House is the client in this process. This is not an FBI criminal investigation — it is a background investigation in which the FBI is acting on behalf of the White House. Procedurally, the White House does not allow the FBI to investigate as it sees fit, the official acknowledged; the White House sets the parameters.”

The conservative, Rupert Murdoch owned Wall Street Journal affirmed NBC’s reporting that:

“it was unlikely that the shape of the investigation would change without official communication from the White House that it wanted the bureau to interview other people beyond the list already provided.”

So that’s confirmation that the White House is calling the shots and that they did provide a list of approved witnesses. Clearly Trump is determined to insure that whatever investigation is conducted will not be thorough or impartial. He’s deliberately stacking the deck against Dr. Ford to protect his tainted nominee. That raises the question of whether this process will satisfy Sen. Flake who initiated it. If it doesn’t, he may vote against confirming Kavanaugh, which could sink the nomination.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

There is also the possibility that the FBI will consider itself empowered to explore any matter that is raised during their investigation, which could include the other witnesses as well as Kavanaugh’s truthfulness during his congressional testimony. There’s abundant evidence that Kavanaugh did perjure himself. So there are significant speed bumps on the road to Kavanaugh’s seat on the Supreme Court. And with any luck this nomination will crash and burn.

Fox News Reports Poll Showing Democrats are ‘Out of Step’, But Guess What They Left Out

Posted by on July 29, 2018 at 11:03 am. 3 Comments :

The deliberate deceit and hostility of Fox News is escalating as Donald Trump gets closer to being tossed into the dustbin of history. With special counsel Robert Mueller progressing toward the inevitable report of Trump’s criminality, and former insiders like Michael Cohen preparing to truth bomb the President, the weasels at Fox News are just getting more desperate in the most obvious and embarrassing ways.

Fox News Lies

On Saturday’s episode of the Greg Gutfeld show, the eponymous host (who thinks he’s a comedian) introduced the program with the “shocking” results of an NBC/Wall Street Journal poll. [Note: Fox and Friends misused the same poll] Among other things it revealed that a majority of respondents (56% to 33%) said that Democrats are “out of step with most Americans’ thinking” That’s a pretty lousy number that indicates some trouble for the party. Although it doesn’t reflect the manner in which Democrats are disconnecting. While Fox News and the GOP want you to think it’s a condemnation of the Party’s embrace of lefties like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, it could be just as easily that they think the Party isn’t embracing them tightly enough.

But what really makes this Fox News segment ludicrous is that they left out another significant result from the poll. Republicans were also deemed to be out of touch, and by a slightly larger margin (57% to 33%). For some reason that statistic was never mentioned on Fox News. Go figure.

In addition to this dissemination of blatantly distorted news, Fox also failed to mention everything else in the poll that revealed how badly the Trump administration is at odds with the American people. For instance:

  • They believe Trump’s tariffs will hurt, not help the economy (46-25)
  • Mueller’s investigation of Trump’s collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice should continue (46-38)
  • Trump is too friendly with Vladimir Putin (46-39)
  • Russia is an adversary, not an ally (72-16)
  • Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election (65-26)
  • The interference by the Russians affected the outcome of the election (41-18)

Since Fox News went to the trouble of citing this poll, they ought to have reported the results more completely. And particularly with regard to the question of how badly Americans think the Republican Party is out of touch. But then again, Fox has never been known to responsibly cover the news, so why should they start now?

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

With the midterm elections coming up you can count on Fox to lie profusely about the issues and to smother Trump with accolades. Trump has promised to campaign on behalf of GOP candidates “six to seven days a week when we’re sixty days out.” So he’s effectively abdicating his presidency. And Fox News will devotedly air every single one of Trump’s boring, mindlessly repetitive rally speeches in their entirety. Which is certain to increase the incidence of cognitive infirmity among his glassy-eyed Deplorables.

Trump Coverage at Fox News and WSJ is ‘Embarrassing,’ ‘Bats**t Crazy’ Say Staffers

Posted by on November 2, 2017 at 3:25 pm. 1 Comments :

Earlier this week employees at Fox News revealed some serious concerns they have about the network they work for. Turns out even they are embarrassed by the blatantly biased, pro-Donald Trump “reporting” the network does. Speaking anonymously to CNN they were quoted as saying things like “I’m watching now and screaming. I want to quit.” And that “Fox feels like an extension of the Trump White House.”

Rupert Murdoch Donald Trump

Those of us outside of Fox News noticed long ago that it is a network devoted to right-wing propaganda. And more recently it has fallen into the abyss of Trump worship. Hacks like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson defend every dishonest, ignorant, and hateful thing he says and does. The “Curvy Couch” potatoes of Fox and Friends spend four hours every morning polishing Trump’s – let’s say apples.

Now a new report from Vanity Fair shows that a similar internal revolt is in progress at the Wall Street Journal. Author Joe Pompeo interviewed current and former Journal editors and reporters who were highly critical of the paper’s staunchly pro-Trump editorial slant. Pompeo got Journal staffers to confess that:

  • “The editorial page has been doing crazy shit for a long time.”
  • “It does feel like this is a different level of crazy.”
  • “It’s like living through the Vince Foster years.”
  • “It’s frustrating to have to contend with this.”
  • “I don’t know a single WSJ alum who’s not agog at where that edit page is heading.”
  • “We could disprove half the stuff [the opinion writers] are saying if they just read our own reporting. It’s like living in some alternate universe.”

Pompeo also notes that the Journal has suffered a rash of resignations recently. Many of their top reporters left to join the competition at the Washington Post, the New York Times, etc. There is speculation that those remaining are reconsidering their own prospects for the future at the Journal.

Much of the consternation has been triggered by the Journal’s recent editorials concerning Trump’s unsavory connections to Russia. In particular, some columns have been hypercritical of special counsel Robert Mueller. Pompeo summarizes the seemingly coordinated attacks saying that:

“In recent days, of course, the opinion coverage has produced controversial commentary on Robert Mueller’s Trump-Russia investigation, often flying in the face of the Journal’s own news reporting. On October 23, political scientist Peter Berkowitz proclaimed that the probe into possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign ‘threaten[s] the rule of law.’ Days later, an October 29 piece by two attorneys from the Reagan and George H.W. Bush administrations called on President Donald Trump to ‘immediately [issue] a blanket presidential pardon to anyone involved in supposed collusion.'” […]

“[One] editorial referred to Fusion [GPS] as ‘sleazy operators’; it didn’t mention that the guys who run Fusion were previously Wall Street Journal reporters. Former high-ranking Journal editor Bill Grueskin spoke for many when he tweeted, ‘WSJ edit page has gone full bats–t.'”

So now, in the same week, stories have emerged that feature employees of Fox News and the Wall Street Journal as being ashamed of those affiliations. It cannot be ignored that both of these entities are owned by ultra-rightist media baron Rupert Murdoch. Murdoch also happens to be a close friend and advisor to Trump. They are said to be talking to each other “almost every day.” Both have much to gain from the relationship. Trump obviously benefits from the fawning attention he gets from Fox News. And Murdoch is angling for government regulatory reforms that will advance his business interests.

How Fox News Deceives and Controls Their Flock:
Fox Nation vs. Reality: The Fox News Cult of Ignorance.
Available now at Amazon.

However, the troops at both organizations appear to be in the throes of revolt. Apparently there is still some measure, however minuscule, of integrity lurking in the dank halls of Rupert’s Realm. And the expressions of disgust are beginning to seep out into the open. It was put into stark terms by former Journal writer Kara Swisher, now with Recode. She empathized with the poor clods still under Murdoch’s sway saying “I feel sorry for every decent reporter at the WSJ for this claptrap from Rupert Murdoch’s ever desiccated soul.”