Demand The Hatemonger's Resignation

The Birther crap. The Mexican drug-bringing criminal rapists slander. The “thousands and thousands” of 9/11 celebrating Muslims slander. The re-tweets of hateful anti-nonwhite, anti-Semitic ‘fake news’ falsehoods. The disparagement of military service persons who were captured. His attacks on Hispanic judges, Gold Star families and the Pope. His stupid, lying, vicious personal attacks on just about anyone who isn’t in his basket of deplorables. The incitement of violence at his rallies. His disgusting boast that he could get away with sexually molesting women because he was famous. The 22 women who alleged that he did exactly what he bragged about. His suggestion that gun rights people should take matters into their own hands because the election was rigged. His penchant for making outrageous, incendiary accusations without a shred of evidence. His stupefying ignorance and moronic comments. 

The sheer pace and volume of his blatantly false statements and repetition of right-wing fake news. His nauseating narcissism. His insulting treatment of our allies and praise of murderous dictators. His despicable reaction to the Charlottesville riots.
(He went on and on about the “very violent” anti-racist protesters while ignoring the heinous car attack by a neo-Nazi/white supremacist who brutally murdered a beautiful soul named Heather Heyer and injured 35 including 5 critically [these people were peacefully protesting the racist rally]).
He also failed to mention the brutal beat down — by several men with clubs —  of a solitary black man or any specific act of violence by any of the alt-righters — even though he was full of animated details of anti-racist attacks which he continued to bring up at his rallies)

His attacks on our institutions, our Constitution and the investigations and investigators of his probable wrongdoing. His tax related crimes. Campaign finance crimes. His anti-Christian treatment of refugees seeking asylum.
(The defender of ‘the family values party’ prying children and infants from their mother’s arms)
His fomenting of racial animus. His open and continued aid and comfort to white racists. His long, ongoing and relentless attacks on the press.
He calls them “Fake News” while almost never giving a single example of such “Fake News”. (The few examples I’ve heard him give were relatively trivial and offered no proof other than his say so.) He called them “The Enemy of the People” and described them in such a menacing tone that it made many of us think that one of his deranged supporters might one day attempt an act of extreme violence against them. He did the same thing with non-white people trying to immigrate into the country.

At a rally, he praised a Republicon congressman for body slamming a journalist. He then mimicked the violent act as the crowd of deplorables cheered and laughed in approval. Similarly, before a cheering, laughing crowd, he mocked the woman who alleged a sexual assault by the Justice nominee. He added injury to insult as he made a series of false statements attributed to her.
There seems to be nothing that this low life — and his basket of deplorables — love more than punching down on the weakest and most vulnerable and reveling in the cruelty of it. He has mocked and mimicked and blatantly lied about a physically disabled reporter. He has ordered troops to the border to confront a “caravan” of impoverished migrants walking the entire length of Mexico, seeking asylum, and conjured up an image of dangerous criminals eager to infiltrate your neighborhood in order to rape and murder you. He has given orders for the troops to use maximum (lethal) force against any rock throwers.
What a demagogic scumbag.  

The above, exhausting reminder of Trump’s insults, outrages and offenses are just the ones that came off the top of my head. I’m sure there are at least as many that I’ve forgotten. Like, for instance, his habit of sizing up very young girls then imagining himself “dating” them in a few years. Or the extremely disturbing way he has talked about his own daughter. Yuk. This pussy grabber is a moral degenerate of the first order. Oh, yeah, then there’s the numerous reports of people in his own administration calling him an “idiot,” “moron,” “dope,” “child-like” or “fucking moron,” proving that appearing like an imbecile in public isn’t just an act.

‘Idiot,’ ‘Dope,’ ‘Moron’: How Trump’s aides have insulted the boss - POLITICO

Woodward Book: Trump Staff Thinks Trump is an Idiot

Somewhere early along this timeline of disgusting acts, Trump came to the conclusion that “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”  

Even though he has progressively stooped to one new low after another, he has yet to “shoot somebody”. But now, after years of increasingly more vicious and relentless rhetoric, he has gotten other people to do it for him. We have the Capital Gazette newspaper shooting. The Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. And, although a gun wasn’t used, the recent mail bombing attempts.

Trump and his deplorables deny any connection whatsoever between these acts of violence and Trump’s daily doses of incendiary rhetoric, which he has been poisoning the country with for years. When confronted with the possibility of a connection, Trump did what he does best and most often: he falsely accused someone else of something he is precisely guilty of.
The son-of-a-bitch blamed the press. I wrote about this tactic — one of his favorites — in a blog post last year:

Fair and Balanced: Trump: "I Would Be A Total Unity President"

So, the press is to blame. How does this logic work? You see, as Trump tells the country on a near daily basis, the media is “fake news,” “absolute scum,” “disgusting,” “very dishonest,” and of course “the enemy of the people.” Listen to the montage in this video clip for some more choice words from the Hatemonger-in-Chief: 

CNN plays montage of Trump attacking media after he praised reporters | TheHill

You see, these “lying, disgusting people” make up “fake news” stories about him and this angers people. And what else is a Trump supporter supposed to do when he gets angry, other than commit acts of violence? Trump has used this logic before when he tried to defend his supporters’ violent behavior at his rallies during the campaign, only that time he blamed Obama.

Fair and Balanced: Trump Warns Of Riots If Not Nominated, Calls MoveOn "Thugs"

Interestingly, this logic actually works if you apply it to the 2017 Congressional baseball shooting. That’s when a Bernie Sanders supporter targeted Republicans at a baseball game and injured four people. Now, we all know that Bernie rails against the wealthy who don’t pay their “fair share of taxes”, but if you want to argue that that rhetoric is what triggered the gunman, then you’d only be damning Trump even more for his rhetoric because it’s much, much, much, much, much, much worse than Bernie’s (see the litany above).

And, indeed, it was Trump’s rhetoric that set this guy off. He wrote angry letters to newspapers and made angry calls to his Congressman complaining about Trump. And as the above partial litany of Trump’s offenses shows, any decent person would be outraged by them. But no decent person would resort to violence. Unfortunately, the shooter was not a decent person and he used violence to deal with his anger. By Trump's own logic, Trump is to blame. He's the one who incited the shooter’s violence.

What about the Capital Gazette newspaper shooting, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the recent mail bombing attempts? Who’s to blame? Trump says it’s the “enemy of the people”, the “fake news” media. Others say it’s the angry Democrat mob. It’s “low IQ” Maxine Waters.  “Lock her up” Hillary. The Antifa funding globalist George Soros. Eric “kick ‘em” Holder (they leave out this part: “I don’t mean we do anything inappropriate. We don’t do anything illegal”)                                             
It’s the shooters and the shooters alone. Anyone but Trump.

I say society’s to blame. Anyone who engages in attacks or criticisms that are unfair, untrue or hyperbolic deserves some of the blame because these promote responses that usually escalate the anger, exaggerations and falsehoods. We all do this.

But there is nothing wrong with strong, harsh criticism — as long as it’s honest, accurate, based on a fair assessment of the facts and commensurate with the offense. When warranted, harsh criticism is “a good thing not a bad thing.” (As Trump has said in regard to better relations with Russia [one of the few things I’m in agreement with Trump]).

Mischaracterization, demonization, misstating the facts, purposeful lying — this stuff is poison. It is uncivilized. Uncivilized behavior is destructive, dangerous and may lead to our doom. It is what people like Abraham Lincoln and Albert Einstein warned against.

“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” Lincoln

“We shall require a substantially new way of thinking if mankind is to survive.” Einstein

I said we all deserve some blame because we all engage in this uncivilized behavior. But some of us are worse than others. They deserve more of the blame. Others are much worse. They deserve much more of the blame. Others are much, much worse. They deserve even more of the blame.

I have a question. Is there someone you can think of that is much, much, much worse?  Is there someone who mischaracterizes, demonizes, misstates facts and lies purposely on a level that is much, much, much worse than anyone else? Someone who has a platform like no one else in the world and who commits these atrocious acts on a daily basis?

Answer: The Hatemonger-in-Chief. He deserves the most blame — by far — for the hate crimes mentioned in this post. He is toxic and he is tearing this country apart. If things get worse he could be leading us into a civil war. The most extreme of his supporters — heavily armed extremists — have been dreaming and talking about this moment for years.

Trump doesn’t just add more, by far, than any other person or persons to the toxic atmosphere in the country. He has specifically vilified the victims that were the targets in the three incidents mentioned above (the Capital Gazette newspaper shooting, the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and the recent mail bombing attempts [Trump doesn’t vilify Jews directly but I will explain his role in the synagogue shooting in my next post])

This is why there needs to be a demand that the Hatemonger-in-Chief resign. Trump knows how to harness anger and hatred better than anyone since Adolph Hitler (my opinion).

I am against hatred. It is a dangerous, toxic, uncivilized emotion. But anger, when justified, is something I believe should be harnessed to do good.

As we can see, Trump is getting away with his responsibility in these recent murders. He didn’t even miss a beat in continuing to attack the very same victims who were attacked!

Don’t let him get away with murder! If there is a demand for him to resign we can use it to motivate our side the way he uses “lock her up” or “build the wall” or “CNN sucks”. We should hold rallies where we recite his offenses and chant “Trump — resign! Trump — resign! Trump — resign!”

If I get a response to this post, I will start a petition demanding the resignation of the Hatemonger-in-Chief.

In my next post I will present the evidence to make the case that Trump is largely responsible for the recent atrocities. 

Trump Derangement Syndrome

The term “derangement syndrome” was first used by the late Charles Krauthammer in conjunction with President George W Bush’s name to describe an extremely hyperbolic and irrational negative reaction by many liberals to almost anything Bush said or did. For example, some of these liberals believed that Bush was so malevolent — and reckless (imagine the harm to him, his family and his party if he had been found out) — that he knowingly allowed the 9/11 terrorist attacks to occur because he and his corporate benefactors needed a pretext for going to war against Iraq.

(I remember seeing tears well up in Bush’s eyes after the attack — a stark contrast to the ghoulish Rudy Giuliani whom I never saw show any sorrow despite the carnage happening right in his own city)

The term was later applied to those who, as Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune put it, “advanced some combination of the ideas that Barack Obama was a Kenyan-born, Muslim Antichrist who was plotting to seize everyone’s guns, take over the state of Texas, impose Sharia and cancel elections.”

Now Trump and his supporters think it’s their turn to use this neologism against their detractors. Unfortunately for Trump and his basket of deplorables, this expression cannot be used with the same meaning as when used against the detractors of Bush and Obama. As described above, Derangement Syndrome is an “extremely hyperbolic and irrational negative reaction to almost anything” the object says or does. In the case of both Bush and Obama (thanks to the way we do politics in this country) the negative emotional feelings towards those presidents reached a level that was not justified by anything those presidents did (Bush’s Iraq war debacle and economic bankruptcy disaster notwithstanding — he’s still not Hitler).

People use exaggeration and demonization precisely to raise the object’s perceived offenses to a level that justifies their anger and/or hatred.

But Trump is a whole other story. In Trump’s case, his offenses are so obnoxious, so nasty, so stupid, so outrageous -- that hyperbole is unnecessary. His baseness and character are so lacking in moral principles that exaggeration becomes difficult. I mean, we have actually heard this guy on tape bragging about sexually molesting women and being able to get away with it. We also have heard him — on tape, twice! — size up young (in one case a ten year old, in another 14 year olds) girls and then tell them he’ll be dating them in ten years (the ten year old) or “a couple of years” (14 year olds).

Donald Trump has been making disturbing comments about young girls for years - Vox

He has mocked a disabled reporter by imitating him in the way a nasty 12 year old would mock a classmate. He did this right after he slandered the Muslim community of New Jersey by making the outrageously false accusation that “thousands and thousands” celebrated the attacks of 9/11. Trump was pathetically trying to mischaracterize the reporter’s response to questions about an article he wrote back then that Trump and his deplorables were using in a ridiculous attempt to “prove” Trump’s slander to be true.

Donald Trump Criticized for Mocking Disabled Reporter

Then we have Trump’s rowdy rallies.
The first time violence broke out at one of his rallies, he condoned it. He defended his supporters who punched and kicked a black protester because “what he did was disgusting”. The protester was shouting “Black lives matter.” The next day he retweeted outrageously false black on white murder statistics that he got from some white racist web site in an obvious effort to supply more racist justification for the beating.
The second time violence broke out, he encouraged it. “Part of the problem is no one wants to hurt each other anymore.” “I don’t know if I’ll do the fighting myself or if other people will.”
The next time he incited violence. “Knock the crap out of him, would you? I promise you I will pay your legal fees.” As violence became routine at his rallies he blamed MoveOn and George Soros.

As the voting time neared and thinking he would lose, he made unfounded claims of the election being rigged. As always, after making claims like this, he offered absolutely no proof or explanation. Against this backdrop he went before a crowd and raised the possibility that gun rights supporters could take matters into their own hands if Hillary got elected because, of course, she was going to abolish the right to bear arms. Trump suggested that the Secret Service protecting her should be disarmed to “see what happens to her”. Some of his supporters openly talked about violent rebellion and assassination if Trump didn’t win.

Trump’s supporters talk rebellion, assassination at his rallies - The Boston Globe

I could go on and on and on and on with literally “thousands and thousands” of such examples.
I’m just kidding. I'm using ‘Trumperbole’ (I think I just coined a new word. A neologism, like ‘derangement syndrome’) But I could easily say that there are a hundred such examples — and that would be an understatement.

So, the above five paragraphs illustrate my point perfectly. I just gave several examples of Trump’s disgraceful and disgusting behavior without using any hyperbole whatsoever. Even if you remove the three adjectives I used (outrageously, pathetically and ridiculous) the matter of fact description of Trump’s offenses are as damning — if not more so — than any hyperbolic screed I could conjure up.

As a matter of fact, the description I gave barely scratches the surface as to the depth and profoundness of Trump’s idiotic insults, his nasty mean spiritedness, his moronic commentary and his despicable lies. A full appreciation of this would require thoughtful contemplation and reflection — a cogency that would not be possible if one were deranged.

So let us engage in an exercise of just such an examination.
Take the example of Trump mocking the disabled reporter which I linked to above. The whole thing started with Trump promoting, as the Snopes article put it, an easily debunked “urban legend” about, as Trump put it, “thousands and thousands” of Muslims celebrating the attacks of 9/11. The “urban legend” is really an example of right-wing “fake news” -- of which there are many -- that Trump has promoted like it had his name on it. Yeah, that’s right, the guy who has become famous for accusing the media of fake news was promoting fake right-wing news. Most of the false things he says are fake news that he gets from the right wing media. I wrote about it in previous posts.

Fair and Balanced: Trump is the King of Fake News
Fair and Balanced: Trump On ISIS Founder: "I Really Like Him as a Person"

But this Muslim celebration news wasn’t just fake, it was a monstrous and harmful slander against the Muslim communities of New Jersey.

Rather than renouncing the false fake news claim, in the face of common sense (how could something like that, if true, not have become a major controversy that no one would have forgotten?) and the complete lack of evidence (of course no television footage was found of a single person celebrating, much less "thousands and thousands") and issuing a strong apology to New Jersey Muslims, Trump doubles down and attempts to use an interview of a reporter who wrote an article back in September ‘01 as proof that his “thousands and thousands” claim was true.

Trump quotes the article in a tweet and demands an apology because “many people tweeted that I am right!”

Trump's Revised 9/11 Claim - FactCheck.org

But the article doesn’t even come close to supporting Trump’s claim. It mentions unattributed and unverified allegations of “a number of people” celebrating on rooftops and says nothing about TV broadcasts of “thousands and thousands of people” celebrating, as Trump had claimed. Police investigated but filed no report. Now do you think that, on the very day those buildings came down and the days following, with the pile still smoldering and bodies being pulled out of the rubble, that the New York City police would have ignored those allegations if there was anything to them?

As if this pathetic attempt to claim proof wasn’t ridiculous enough, what he said about and did to the reporter, and his denial that he mocked his disability, makes you shake your head in disbelief and wonder how anyone can be such a yuuge asshole.*

Trump’s deplorables were working furiously, around the clock, to find any kind of evidence to support one of their favorite fake news stories and rescue their hero from looking like the stupid asshole that he is. So they found this article written by the disabled reporter, Serge Kovaleski. Like I said, it doesn’t even come within a moon orbit of supporting The Donald’s fake news story. But that’s not the way Trump and the deplorables want to see it. So Daring Don goes on the offense(ive).

Kovaleski, along with another reporter, went to the Jersey City building where the celebrations were purported to have happened. The other reporter, Kunkle, said he was never able to verify the report.  Kovaleski, who was interviewed about the article, said “I certainly don’t remember anyone saying that thousands or even hundreds of people were celebrating… that was not the case, as best as I can remember.” (Kovaleski was being way too cautious. He could have said “definitely”.)

​​​​​​​In what has to be the most pitiful display of dishonesty by a presidential candidate representing a major political party, Trump falsely accused the reporter of “trying to change his story” (as if the article was an exoneration rather than a damnation), then engaged in a shameful imitation of the reporter's disability. The reporter actually confirmed what he wrote in the article.

Normal and decent people were outraged by Trump’s despicable behavior and criticized him harshly. Trump responded by claiming that he was merely imitating a grovelling Kovaleski who was caught “trying to change his story”, and that he didn’t even know what Kovaleski looked like.
These were all obvious lies. Kovaleski was in no way “grovelling”, he didn’t change his story, his story contradicted Trump and there is plenty of evidence that Trump knew him well. (He had interviewed Trump on multiple occasions, including, in Trump's office. Kovaleski said they were on a first name basis.)

In any case, Trump’s own words before he mocked Kovaleski gave him away: “Written by a nice reporter...” How would he know? Sounds like he knows him, and “now the poor guy you gotta see this guy” (then he goes into his juvenile imitation.)
"Poor guy”? He's obviously referring to his disability. “You gotta see this guy”? Why would Trump say that if he hadn’t seen him, himself? Trump has obviously seen him and thinks his disability deserves to be mocked.

Hold on, because it actually gets worse. After the reporter makes some mild statements correcting Trump’s lies, Trump adds injury to insult: “...Kovaleski must think a lot of himself if he thinks I remember him from decades ago — if I ever met him at all, which I doubt I did” (coming from the man who claims to have one of the greatest memories of all time) “He should stop using his disability to grandstand and get back to reporting for a paper that is rapidly going down the tubes”

Jesus H Christ, what a shithead! What a fucking shithead!

By the way, the paper Trump was referring to (of course) -- the rapidly failing New York Times -- is still in business over three years later:
Trump Says the New York Times Is ‘Failing.’ Its Stock Is Soaring - Barron's )


You might be asking yourself, how can Trump possibly bullshit his way out of all the incontrovertible evidence proving his fake news story to be nothing but a pile of horseshit. How does he do it?
Well, you must remember the audience that he is playing to. His basket of deplorables. They will believe just about anything coming from the bullshit artist formerly known as citizen Trump.

I think I’ve made my case that the term “derangement syndrome” cannot  be used with the same meaning as when used against the detractors of Bush and Obama. Hyperbole is unnecessary (and relatively close to impossible) when criticizing Trump -- and his behavior is so malign, that it is only rational to have a strong negative reaction to the things he says and does. It can actually be argued that reaction to his behavior has been understated.

However, there’s plenty of derangement associated with Trump. And it’s coming from his basket of deplorables. They are the ones who have exalted this “sad, embarrassing wreck of a man” (George Will) to cult hero status. They are completely blind to his gigantic flaws and will believe anything that comes out of his tiny, puckered little mouth.

In my next post I will make the case for the correct definition of Trump Derangement Syndrome as being a disorder afflicting Trump’s basket of deplorables.

* I have considered this question before. Back in 2011, during Trump’s Birther heyday, after careful thought, I nominated Trump as “Dickhole of the Decade”. Subsequent events have put Trump in the limelight and given him many more opportunities to show us just how much of a dickhole he is. I therefore, here and now nominate Donald J Trump as “Shithead of the Century.”
Fair and Balanced: Donald Trump: YUGE Asshole, YUGE

The Return of Starve The Beast Economics

Back in 2009, while browsing the New Arrivals section at my local library, I spotted a book by Bruce Bartlett with this sub-title: The Failure of Reaganomics and a New Way Forward.

Written by someone who was both a domestic policy adviser to Ronald Reagan and one of the originators of Reaganomics, I couldn’t resist the act of subverting the Free Market system by using the collective taxes of city, state and federal payees (of which I was one) to finance my ability to read this tome. So I took the book off the shelf, walked to the check-out line and whipped out my trusty Queens Library card. Ah, yes, one of the beautiful yet underappreciated aspects of socialism — the Public Library system.

In this book Bartlett defended the policies of supply-side economics during the 1980’s but argued that those policies are not a panacea for all times and economic conditions. He criticized, in particular, the way Republicans grossly exaggerated the benefits of tax cuts when they claimed, among other things, that reducing taxes actually increased revenue. He stated that no one involved in the making of Reaganomics made that claim. He went even further to make it clear that no one even claimed that the taxes would pay for themselves. Only some of the loss in revenue would be recouped by increased economic activity, according to Bartlett.

I don’t recall if he gave a precise number as to the percent of the loss that would be regained but from the reports that I’ve paid attention to, the most trustworthy seem to be around 30%. But even that number seems to be too generous, in my opinion, especially when you consider the spectacular failures in tax cutting experiments that occurred during George W Bush’s eight years or after Kansas Gov. Brownback’s cuts — one of the largest in Kansas’ history — which was based on model legislation published by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC).

I’ve gained a lot of respect for Bartlett as one of those not too rare Republicans/conservatives who do not resort to bullshit and will call it when his fellow R/c’s do. David Stockman, one of the other Reaganomics creators, has also echoed Bartlett’s charges of right-wing bullshit.

Speaking of right-wing bullshit, nothing can surpass radio blowhards such as Rush Limbag and Sean Hannity who made ridiculous claims by constantly telling their audiences that “the more you cut taxes, the more revenue you get” (Limbag) and “every time you cut taxes, you double revenue” (Hannity). Let me stress that I am not using hyperbole — these are the precise words that those dick heads used. I know for sure because I heard them say it a million times. OK, that’s hyperbole.

During Bush Jr’s administration, when the magic failed to appear after his Super-Duper Star Spangled supply-side tax cuts, even his own economists, such as Greg Mankiw and Alan Greenspan   were forced to admit that claims of tax cuts paying for themselves, much less increasing revenue, were just like Limbag, himself — a giant heaping load of horseshit. OK, they didn’t use those exact words, I’m  paraphrasing.

---

Bartlett also wrote at length about the strategy of “Starving the Beast.” He explained how a group of hard-core conservatives, who hated the idea of having their wealth taxed, hatched a plan to trick the country’s citizens into accepting drastic cuts in and the eventual elimination of all government programs that redistribute some of that phenomenal wealth (which concentrates at the very top) to those citizens who largely helped to create it but whose income had been leveraged down by the forces of the Free Market -- thus concentrating that wealth at the very top. (That’s my commentary, not his. Get ready for some more.)

As Bartlett explained, conservatives used to value balanced budgets and little debt. They would rather raise taxes than increase the deficit/debt. Then some scoundrels, like Grover Norquist, Dick Cheney and Stephen Moore realized that they couldn’t convince the majority of voters that the government programs that benefited them were actually an infringement on their liberty. So they concocted a pernicious plan that would do what honest politicking couldn’t. They decided to cut taxes every time they were in power while increasing spending on all the things they liked (the military, wars) or would help them politically (Medicare part D). The inevitable huge increase in the deficit/debt would then be used as the excuse to get rid of all the programs they hated.

This plot worked like a charm under the Reagan and Bush Jr administrations. These were the only post WWII administrations where the national debt rose as a percentage of GDP.*

These hard core hard-ons believed that the wealthy — and the wealthy alone — are responsible for the creation of wealth, and the rest of society has nothing to do with it. They say the wealthy are the job creators and the rest of us are only ungrateful beneficiaries of their benevolence. But, of course, jobs are created by society (which is all of us) because society creates the economy, which gives the wealthy the opportunities to acquire wealth. See? Society makes the opportunities and the wealthy takes the profits.

In order for a job to be “created” there must be someone ready, willing and able to perform it. The person who performs the job is just as responsible for creating it as the person who hired him/her.

But business owners don’t really create jobs. They consume labor. 

And it is not benevolence that motivates businesses to hire workers. It’s the profit motive. They need workers to do the work so they can make a profit. A more accurate description of the so-called “job creators” would be “job eliminators.”  Because jobs are an expense. They cost money. Which cuts into profits. That’s why most businesses would lay you off in a heartbeat if it could save them a dime. That’s why they ship jobs overseas and hire workers in dirt poor countries that don’t provide any protection for their workers. That’s why they are developing automation that can eventually eliminate all manual labor, thus increasing their profits greatly.

The wealthy would not have been in a position to do this if the rest of us didn’t create a stable society by policing our streets, raising and educating our children, providing a workforce, building and maintaining our infrastructure, creating and maintaining a Government and court system that protects the wealthy’s riches, defending our country against foreign enemies, and all of the other countless things that people do for the benefit of the wealthy (including many things that people don’t get paid for). These things are absolutely necessary in providing those opportunities for the wealthy to become rich.

The economy, and those opportunities that it provides, were built — in the largest part — from the blood, sweat and toil of labor.

Now, at a time of unprecedented wealth disparity and a humongous national debt — caused in most part by the policy of “Starve the Beast” economics under the Reagan and Bush Jr administrations, the only administrations when the debt ROSE as a percentage of GDP* — what is the Republiconservalibertarian prescription? Even more concentration of wealth at the top and even more debt by returning to the policies of Starve the Beast economics.

It turns out, it’s the wealthy Republiconservalibertarians who are the ungrateful beneficiaries of society’s benevolence. They will sink to any level, do anything, in order to avoid paying taxes, as Trump’s “greatest tax cuts in history” proves.
Now that phase one of Starve the Beast economics is in place, Trump and the Republicons will institute phase two: massive spending in Republicon favorites like the military.
Phase three, cuts in the programs that benefit everyone else, comes later when they turn their attention to how much the debt has increased.

*It also rose under Obama, but don’t forget, Bush’s supply-side tax cuts were still in effect. When Obama finally raised taxes on the  very top in 2013, job creation started to rise significantly — even though the Republiconservalibertarians called it a jobs killer.

The Left Should Form An Alliance With Moderate Muslims

After the terrorist attacks of 9/11, the vast majority of the country was crying for action against the perpetrators of that heinous crime. We invaded Afghanistan, overthrew the Taliban and hunted down Al-Qaeda. Very few Americans objected to this action. Then the Bush administration made the argument that the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein posed a threat to us and needed to be over-thrown by military force. Most Americans supported this action as well but some did oppose an invasion and even protested the impending war.

Unfortunately, the anger, pain and outrage over 9/11 was still too strong for the protests to have any affect on public opinion. Plus, there was a legitimate threat posed by violent, radical militants, motivated by their own anger and hatred, who were using religion to justify the murder of innocent people and to recruit others to join their cause.

Wait a minute. Did I just not call these violent radical militants “Islamo-fascist terrorists”? Oh my God, how will we ever defeat them?

I realized then, that progressives needed to do more than just oppose war. They needed to find a non-violent solution to the problem of Al-Qaeda. But other than ways to “contain” the terrorism, no really good ideas came from the left. We seemed content to just sit back and root for things to go badly in Iraq. I was really disheartened by this.

Fast forward to the present and the same situation exists. Fortunately, there have not been any attacks with mass casualties like 9/11 but these sporadic attacks by “lone wolf” actors who are seduced by the twisted ideology of terrorist groups like ISIS, is, obviously, extremely troubling on many levels. Besides the pain, suffering, loss of life, and the fear of future attacks, they give fuel to anti-Muslim hatred and support for Donald Trump’s call for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States”, a registry of Muslims in the U.S. and surveillance of Mosques.

In the absence of any positive response to this problem from the left, just scolding conservatives and others for being “Islamophobic” is as feeble as the anti-war protests of the Iraq war. It’s worse than feeble, it’s actually counterproductive. Also, like I said, “in the absence of any positive response to this problem from the left”, this political correctness leads to things like the neighbors of the San Bernardino shooters being accused of not reporting suspicious activity because they didn’t want to be accused of profiling Farook and his family. (This was actually what one of the neighbors considered a possibility for why the other neighbors didn’t report to the police. Trump, the King of Fake News, repeated the right-wing fake news claim that the neighbors saw “bombs all over the place” and still didn’t report it.)

I cringe when I hear that the Manhattan truck attacker was let in on a “diversity lottery visa.” Not that I don’t think that diversity is a good thing, I’m all for it, but in the absence of an effective strategy by the left to stop terrorism, this just makes us look really bad and gives the right ammunition to attack progressives and Muslims and the idea of “diversity.” (Apparently there is more to this visa than what the right is alleging.)

Diversity has become a vile and dirty word to the right, especially the Steve Bannon/ Breitbart/White Nationalist right. It is without a doubt the single issue that motivates them more than any other. Ann Coulter, Laura Ingraham and the other right-wing propagandists have flat out admitted that this is the most important issue for conservatives (anti-diversity). This issue obviously resonates with Trump and he has exploited it with his constant, repeated and outrageous falsehoods about the threat of non-whites.

To those with a liberal disposition, like myself, diversity is a beautiful thing. Love for our fellow man and woman is one of the few teachings of my Catholic upbringing that has remained as part of my spirit, my soul, my psyche. Who among us has not taken a sturdy dose of psychedelic drugs and felt the power and beauty of that emotion? The story of the evolution of mankind, out of Africa, we are all truly brothers and sisters — a brotherhood of man, a sisterhood of woman. These experiences taught me the meaning of these emotions and helped me to develop a theory of the motivations of human behavior. I call it The Cognitive-Theoretic Model of Human Nature. This theory explains why some of us tend towards conservative thinking while others towards liberal thinking. It explains the very essence of conservatism and liberalism. I believe it holds a key to resolving the conflicts of left and right.

What the hell was that last paragraph all about? I must have been having a flashback.

---

So, why hasn’t the left allied with liberal and moderate Muslims to develop a strategy to combat violent terrorism and anti-western hatred? The left is very aggressive about defending against anti-Muslim bias and hatred, which is good and important, but in the absence of any positive actions it allows the right to accuse us of protecting the terrorists. All the acts of kindness and humaneness are being used against us by the right-wingers to brand us as dupes who are allowing the slaughter of Americans.

One of the biggest problems we are facing is that the terrorists themselves are using our openness and humaneness against us, too. They are able to pose as law abiding people in order to commit their heinous acts of murder. If these acts of terror increase it will become even harder to argue against Trump’s crackdown on all Muslims.

We all know there are good decent Muslims who have spoken out against terrorism. The left should be supporting and promoting these people. Zuhdi Jasser is an American born Muslim and medical doctor who has served in the U.S. Navy. He is an outspoken critic of countries and organizations that promote the kind of hatred that fuels terrorism. He believes that America provides the best atmosphere for Muslims to practice their faith. He says that the U.S. needs to provide alternatives for Muslim youth and promote reformist groups.

He has engaged in interfaith activities, organized Jewish-Muslim dialogue groups and is an outspoken supporter of Israel. This guy is a hero. He is exactly the kind of person the left should be promoting. But because he is a conservative and criticizes certain Muslim groups — that deserve to be criticized — he is actually attacked by the left for promoting Islamophobia.

So we hardly see him anywhere other than Fox News. And despite the fact that the right does promote hostility against Muslims with fake news garbage that The King of Fake News, Donald J. Trump, repeats to the country — they also do talk about the need for Muslim leaders to reform Islam, for the Muslim American community to become more proactive in countering anti-American propaganda and to be more outspoken against violent acts of terrorism.

Why hasn’t the left been doing this!? Bill Maher is the only person on the left that I can think of who tries. Unfortunately, because of Bill’s anti-religiousness, he tends to favor critics of Islam such as Ayaan Hirsi Ali who make harsh wholesale condemnations of Islam and have been accused by the Southern Poverty Law Center of being an “anti-Muslim extremist”.

  

This is the problem: in an effort to combat anti-Muslim hostility/hatred, the left sees any  criticism of Islam as promoting that hostility. But as Maher points out, an ultra conservative interpretation of Islam is antithetical to liberal/progressive values. And Ms Ali’s criticisms of Islam are absolutely valid. But if we are going to change minds, which should be our goal, we are better off promoting people like Juhdi Jasser who is a devout Muslim and believes that Islam can reform itself and become a peaceful and tolerant religion.

I found a list of liberal and progressive movements within Islam on Wikipedia. 

en.wikipedia.org/... 

These groups should be promoted on every liberal talk show, or what’s left of them, every single day. MSNBC, Rachel Maddow, Thom Hartmann, etc.

Trump: "I Would Be A Total Unity President"

In a March 2016 interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Donald Trump did what he does best and most often: he falsely accused someone of something he, himself, is precisely guilty of. Here’s the quote:

“I’ve been saying for a long period of time that he’s [Obama] the most divisive president maybe that we’ve ever had.”

As if that wasn’t obnoxious enough, he then followed that gem with this galling masterpiece:

“I would be a total unity president.”

Examples of this kind of hypocrisy by Trump are legion — like when he, the King of Fake News, calls the mainstream media fake news. Or like when he called Hillary a nasty woman. Or like when he gave Ted Cruz the nickname “lying Ted.” (According to Politifact, Cruz was a distant second to Trump on percentage of claims rated Mostly False, False and Pants on Fire, 66% to 77%. Trump was the only candidate to reach double digits in Pants on Fire ratings -19%. Cruz was second in that department  at 7%).  www.politifact.com/...

A more recent example is Trump’s description of NFL players “taking a knee” during the National Anthem as being disrespectful to the flag, the military and the country.

That’s right, the most disrespectful son-of-a-bitch we’ve ever witnessed — a vile prick who has disrespected Mexican people, Muslims, blacks, women, the disabled, Gold Star families, the Pope, our generals, our intelligence agencies, our allies, Ted Cruz’s wife and father, a terminally ill John McCain and other fellow Republicans — has described players, who were humbly protesting the police shootings of unarmed black men by kneeling with their heads bowed, as being disrespectful to our country.

Trump’s supporters have chimed in, calling this act of humility disgraceful because, you see, it’s not about what the protesters say it is, it’s about what conservatives say it is. They say it’s about respect for the military, the first responders and the country.

What I find disgraceful is how Trump supporters can approve of, so enthusiastically, a man who denigrated the military service of John McCain because he was captured, brutalized and tortured for five and a half years as a POW in Vietnam. If John McCain is a loser for getting captured, then, by extension, aren’t all POW’s losers?

Now that’s what I call disrespecting the military. Trump also defended his respect for Vladimir Putin, despite allegations of extrajudicial killings, by saying we kill people, too, and then questioning the innocence of the very same country he falsely accused the players of disrespecting. He was actually right about that but can you imagine how those hypocritical right-wingers would have reacted had Obama said that?

I guess those POW losers weren’t smart enough to get heel spurs in their foot. Was it the left foot or the right? Trump can’t remember, even though he said he has the world’s greatest memory.

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Speaking of double standards, Bill Maher recently asked, on his show “Real Time”, how would Trump’s supporters react if Obama had said some of the very offensive things Trump said. He then brought an Obama impersonator on to repeat, verbatim, those things Trump has said. It was very effective.

I have imagined Obama saying some things that would be equivalent to things that Trump said, only with the context “reversed”, so to speak.

Remember when Trump opened his 2016 campaign with the “Mexican criminal drug-bringing rapist” slander? Well let us imagine the response of Trump supporters if Obama had said the following after he first announced his running for the 2008 Democratic nomination:
“When Republicans vote for politicians, they’re not sending their best. They’re not sending you. They’re not sending you. They’re sending people that have lots of hatred, and they’re bringing that hatred with them. They hate Mexicans. They hate Muslims. They’re racists. And some, I assume are good people.”

Now let us reflect on that for a moment. It is not hard to imagine the outrage those words would generate from the right-wing media. There would be an explosion of fury and anger that would make the reaction to Trump’s Mexican slander pale in comparison. The mainstream media would be reporting that story as a major scandal. Democrats and liberals would be shocked and appalled. It would be both the beginning and end of Obama’s campaign. I would expect death threats on Obama.

Now let’s try this one: remember Trump’s 9/11 Muslim celebration slander? Imagine if Obama had said this following the Charleston church massacre when 21 year old white supremacist Dylann Roof murdered nine Black people, hoping to ignite a race war:

“After Dylann Roof massacred those people in that Charleston church, thousands and thousands of people were cheering after that. Thousands of people were cheering.”

Then imagine Obama saying in a subsequent interview with George Stephanopoulos that he heard reports about this on TV despite Stephanopoulos saying that no such reports could be found.

“There were people that were cheering in the South, where you have a large White Christian population. They were cheering after that massacre. I know it might not be politically correct for you to talk about it, but there were people cheering about that after the news came out. And that tells you something. It was well covered at the time, George. Now, I know they don’t like to talk about it, but it was well covered at the time. There were people in the South that, after they heard the news, a large White Christian population, that were cheering after the news came out. Not good.”

Let’s try this one. Obama retweets outrageously false statistics that exaggerate the police killings of unarmed Black men by a factor of 5.4 times, which he got from some Black racist web site. Then, in a subsequent interview with Bill O’Reilly, after refusing to apologize or issue a correction, he justified his retweet by saying “All it was is a retweet. It wasn’t from me, and it did — it came out of a radio show and other places. Bill, I didn’t tweet, I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert” and then added that the sources were “very credible”.

Then, after O’Reilly scolded him for falling for and then repeating fake news, imagine Obama saying “Hey Bill, am I going to check every statistic?”

After all, it’s only fake news if it’s unflattering to Donald Trump.

I would like Trump supporters to put that in their pipe and smoke it.

How The Divider-in-Chief Uses Racist Fake News

One of the most often used right-wing attacks against President Obama during his eight years in office was that he was so “divisive”. According to them, he was really bad on this. He divided people according to their racial and ethnic identity and then set them against each other. His rhetoric was so one-sided and inflammatory that they blamed him for the shooting of police officers. “He had blood on his hands.”

The right, using rhetoric that was very one-sided and extremely inflammatory, painted that picture of Obama. See the irony there? The talking heads on the radio, internet and Fox News kept a constant drumbeat going, ever since Obama appeared on the national stage, promoting this propaganda. There’s a lot more irony in the tale I’m about to tell. But the word “irony” implies something contrary to what one would expect, and if you know anything about the right-wingers I’m taking about, this is exactly what one would expect. “Hypocrisy” is a more fitting word.

You see, these are the same right-wingers who love Donald Trump. And what do they love most about The Donald? His very one-sided and extremely inflammatory rhetoric, of course. What makes this hypocrisy particularly disgusting is the nature of Trump's rhetoric when you compare it to Obama's.

If you examine the words used by Obama at the times he was accused of “divisive and inflammatory rhetoric” you will find them to be careful, measured, reasonable, restrained and invariably balanced with both points of view. That the right-wingers can take these words and twist them so grotesquely is tantamount to a disgusting lie. They have done this not only on issues of race but on many other matters. Like when he goes to other countries and apologizes for America — he never apologized. Or when he said to business owners “you didn’t build that” (their businesses) — he said the exact opposite, three times in that "conversation."

Here’s an example of when Fox News had a Cleveland Detective on the air so he could accuse Obama of being responsible for the awful Baton Rouge shootings of police officers last year (three killed, three injured). “It’s reprehensible. And the President of the United States has blood on his hands that will not be able to come washed off.” He was referring to statements made by Obama, previous to the Baton Rouge shootings, about the senseless shooting of Philando Castile by a police officer during a traffic stop. This Cleveland cop was not alone. The entire right-wing hate machine was accusing Obama. What did the race baiting Obama say about the officer who fired seven gunshots at Mr Castile after Castile told him he was carrying a firearm? Did Obama rant and rave, Trump-like? Did he  angrily accuse the cop of being a racist murderer?

Nah. Obama was his usual calm measured self:

"When incidents like this occur, there’s a big chunk of our citizenry that feels as if, because of the color of their skin, they are not being treated the same, and that hurts, and that should trouble all of us,” Obama said in a statement the following day. “This is not just a black issue, not just a Hispanic issue. This is an American issue that we all should care about.”

So if this is the standard right-wingers use to measure inciteful speech, what are we to make of Trump’s language? The difference between Trump and Obama in content, tone and intent is like night and day. Or black and white, if you prefer. (Interestingly, that’s obviously the difference racist type conservatives see. Obama is inciting hatred because he’s black. Trump’s just telling the truth because he’s white)

Just check out any of Obama’s statements on these matters and you’ll see they are always reasonable and almost always factual. He never made a really bad misstatement that I know of. His tone is always calm and non-accusatory. And most importantly, his intent was not to anger people but to calm them by acknowledging the feelings on both sides of the issue.                                                                                             
Trump is the exact opposite. Trump has become infamous for his outlandish statements. His reasoning is batty. And how can we even begin to describe the sheer volume of his proven to be false statements. He is the single greatest promoter of Fake News. Ever.

And, most importantly, his intent is precisely to anger people — so he can manipulate them. And what is his favorite way to get people angry? Scapegoating non-white people using loathsome, outrageous falsehoods. He divides people according to their racial, ethnic and religious identity and sets them against each other. He’s the Divider-in-Chief.

The fake stories he uses (which he gets from the right-wing/alt-right/white-racist media) to slander non-whites aren’t just false. They are monumentally false.

He started this last campaign by repeating the right-wing fake news story that Mexico deliberately sends it’s worst criminals into our country. Politifact (as well as other fact-checkers) did a well researched fact-check and rated the claim “Pants on Fire.”

He said, in effect, that most, if not all, Mexican undocumented immigrants are drug bringing criminal rapists. The New York Times and many other news organizations cited statistics from various organizations like the Migration Policy Institute that show only 2.7% of undocumented immigrants have been convicted of a felony compared with 6% of the overall population.

Despite these facts, Trump not only wants you to believe his fake news story about criminal Mexicans, he wants you to think that they are after you white people. He has paraded out crime victims of illegal immigrants who are almost all white. But it is a well known fact that the vast majority of crimes committed by all racial/ethnic groups are committed against those same groups because most crime victims know their attacker. As Politifact stated, “these trends have been observed for decades.”

You’d think that Trump, an avid news watcher, would know this. But then he saw a fake news site that reported outrageously false Black on White murder statistics which exaggerated the percentage of Black killers by a factor of 5.4 times. The site was traced to some neo-Nazi scumbag who wrote “Should have listened to the Austrian chap with the little mustache.” Like all the other times Trump came across a right-wing/alt-right/racist-right fake news story, he bought it hook, line and sinker then promoted it like it had his name on it.

Interestingly, he re-tweeted this gem the day after a black activist was kicked and punched by supporters at a Trump rally in Alabama. Trump said “maybe he should have been roughed up, because it was absolutely disgusting what he was doing.” (The man was shouting “Black lives matter.”) So it looks like Trump was looking for stronger justification for the assault... see what these black thugs are like? They all want to kill you!

Then we have the infamous fake story that “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey celebrated the 9/11 attack as the world Trade Center came down. Again, a falsehood of monumental proportions that had been going around the right-wing/alt-right/racist-right fake news media for years. Trump was called out on it immediately because of its obvious falsity. But the right-wing/alt-right/racist-right media came to Trump’s defense with “proof” that this was true. They found several reports of uncorroborated allegations of small groups of people celebrating. Police investigators took no action. Trump supporters called the radio stations swearing they saw small groups of Muslims celebrating, too. See? Trump was right! The only thing is, even if we accept these unverified allegations, Trump and his supporters are still short by a factor of “thousands and thousands.”

How many is “thousands and thousands” anyway? I’ve asked several people their opinion because even Trump’s critics were low balling that number. Politifact generously assumed that Trump meant only two thousand. They printed this graph to illustrate how that number compared with the most credible report they could find — eight men celebrating on a rooftop:

But Trump said “Thousands AND thousands”. Other people suggested that number should be ten thousand or twenty thousand or fifty thousand or even more. Well I heard Trump himself tell us how many “thousand and thousands” are. Remember when he was complaining that the International climate agreement required participating countries to contribute a total of 100 billion dollars? He later referred to that number (100 billion) as “billions and billions and billions.” So, simple arithmetic says he meant 66 thousand Muslims celebrated. And he saw it on TV.

I read a Breitbart article that defended Trump. The writer was attacking the Washington Post fact checker for giving Trump four Pinocchios for that whopper. You see, a Washington Post article from back then was found about allegations of a “tailgate style party” on an apartment rooftop which the fact checker failed to mention. So, sure Trump had “exaggerated” but that fact checker was a liar! The Breitbart writer then engaged in some interesting logic that unintentionally exposed the true nature of Trump’s monstrous lie. He said, yeah, so Trump exaggerated somewhat but those “dozens” of celebrators represented many more Muslims who felt just like them but didn’t actually come out to celebrate.

He had no real proof of even “dozens” of celebrators and even less proof that an exponential number of Muslims felt the same way. But if Trump wants his supporters to believe that the actual number was indeed “thousands and thousands” as he continued to insist even in the face of common sense and the lack of evidence, what does he want them to think about the Muslim American population in general? By your own logic, Mr Breitbart writer, Trump wants them to think that practically all the Muslims in this country want all of us non Muslims to die. That would justify the ban, the registry of Muslims and the crackdown on mosques he wants.

If you google “Obama most divisive President in history” you will find 388,000 results with countless Republicans and conservatives offering this opinion. According to them, race is the issue Obama is most divisive on. By their own measure, do you think Trump has Obama beat? Do you think they would admit it? Should we be referring to Trump as The Divider-in-Chief from now on?

Trump is the all time master of divisiveness (since the Civil War. He just might be leading us into another one). Do you know who has been doing a pretty good job of dividing people by race for years, now? Republicans and conservatives. Think of a typical Republican rally. Looks like they did a pretty good job of dividing out the non-whites from the whites, doesn't it? But Trump has now made the Republican tent bigger. He's invited the KKK, the Neo-Nazis and the Alt-Right in and made them feel joyful and welcome.

How Trump Gets Away With Calling The Media Fake News

Of all the countless disturbing aspects of Donald Trump’s personality, the one that bothers me — and I suspect, many people — the most is his compulsive, pathological obsession with saying things that are blatantly false. The sheer pace and volume of these falsehoods is staggering. That Trump can say/tweet these things so openly and unashamedly, time after time after time, makes it hard to conclude that this guy is not mentally disturbed.

Then, adding insult to injury, for him to accuse the media of being “fake news” for reporting on these falsehoods is a height of hypocrisy that is only surpassed by its unmitigated obnoxiousness. I think it’s safe to say that we have never before witnessed anything close to this in the political history of our country.

What I find just as disturbing is the media’s pathetic inability to nail this fucking jerk for his astounding hypocrisy. Do you remember that incredible February 16th press conference when he spent 77 minutes lambasting the press and boasting about himself? (falsely, of course) That was sickening. To hear him go on and on about the “dishonest media”, standing at the podium pointing his finger and thundering “you are fake news” made me wish that the CNN reporter would go up to him and punch him in the face.

But as a progressive, nonviolence is one of the tenets I hold most dear. It is a principle I believe in as fervently as conservatives believe in cutting taxes for the rich. So, while his loutish behavior provoked an uncharacteristic response from me, a much more satisfying action by the CNN reporter would have been to nail Trump on his hypocrisy.

  

And NBC reporter Peter Alexander came close to doing that. After Trump falsely claimed that his electoral win was the biggest since Reagan, Alexander corrected him then asked, “Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you’re providing information that’s fake?”

That was a great question and it actually did nail Trump to the wall. Unfortunately, just like jello, Trump was able to slither his way off the wall. The reporter had the opportunity to drag Trump over the coals on that — which is exactly what Trump deserved —  but he left him off the hook.

Trump managed to deflect the impact of the question by answering “I don’t know. I was given that information.” Then he threw a distraction at the reporter by saying, then asking “We won by a very, very big margin… do you agree with that?” The reporter shrugs “you’re the President” then sits down! This was more a case of the reporter’s ineptness rather than Trump’s cleverness. I gave a detailed report on this interaction in a previous post: liberalbabyboomer.blogspot.com/…

You could tell Trump knew he was nailed but then when the reporter — instead of a follow up question — answers Trump’s question with “you’re the President”, he allowed Trump to say “OK thank you. That’s a good answer.” In his mind and the mind of his supporters he had nullified the question with a perfectly reasonable excuse. Trump did indeed nullify the question but his “excuse” was complete nonsense.

Why do I say Trump nullified the question? Because that interaction should have been the main takeaway from the press conference. But it was just a side bar in the subsequent reporting.
I mean, here is the Asshole-in Chief -- The King of Fake News -- pointing and thundering for 77 minutes about the “Fake News Media” and their dirty low down dishonest reporting and then he blurts out a blatant falsehood that he had already made and been corrected on in the past! He also made about a half dozen other incorrect statements in this presser.

I checked the right-wing media later and they completely ignored this interaction. I didn’t hear a single talk show host try to address it. Didn’t hear it brought up on Fox News. 

On the contrary, the right wingers were jubilant after this. I heard Ann Coulter gush and giggle like a schoolgirl. “It was magnificent!” “I was in heaven.” As far as the right-wingers were concerned, Trump gave the biased liberal press the shellacking they deserved. This was the moment when the right-wing media started to use the phrase “Fake News” every single time they referred to the “media” (excluding themselves, of course).

If only the reporter had responded, after Trump used the excuse “I was given that information”:

“The information you were given was fake, Mr President. You then gave Americans fake information.” It would not have been impertinent for the reporter to then state the obvious: “You have a very long history of reporting fake news as real news. You obviously can’t tell the difference between fake news and real news.”… and then repeat his question “Why should Americans trust you when you accuse the information they receive as being fake when you’re providing information that’s fake?”

Wouldn’t it have been “magnificent” if the reporter had followed up his question like that?
I know I  would have been “in heaven” if he had. Wouldn't it have been marvelous to hear Trump try to answer that question again? Do you think the right-wing media would have been so jubilant?

In my next post I will examine time magazine’s pathetic attempt to hold Trump accountable in their March cover story “Is Truth Dead?”