Tag: Fox News

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At Large Opinion

Rush’s Leftovers

Rush Limbaugh (Photo: Gage Skidmore | Creativecommons. org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons)

I’m guessing you may have missed it: the second anniversary of Rush Limbaugh’s death on February 17th. There were no parades or anything. At least, none that I heard about. His death was little noted or remembered, except for a couple shots fired on Twitter. “Try to live your life so that ‘rot in hell’ isn’t trending at the mention of your death,” posted one. Good advice, says I.

Limbaugh was widely seen as the godfather of today’s vitriolic, hyperbolic, right-wing media subculture, the life force that spawned Fox News and its host of creepy hosts, plus OAN, the Daily Caller, Breitbart, and dozens of other “news” turdlets on the web and elsewhere.

Limbaugh spewed lies by the thousands over the course of his career, taking delight in coming up with terms such as “feminazi,” and was a clear inspiration for a certain former president. The homeless were “compassion fascists,” environmentalists were “tree-huggers.” He made fun of Michael J. Fox, imitating the tremors that were a symptom of the actor’s Parkinson’s disease (Sound familiar?). Limbaugh ran a segment called “AIDS updates,” mocking the deaths of gay men by playing Dionne Warwick’s recording of the song “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.” A lifelong smoker, he told his listeners that tobacco doesn’t kill people. He died of lung cancer two years ago as karma tap-danced on his grave.

Current parallel to El Rushbo? Maybe Tucker Carlson, the guy on Fox who thinks Russia is the victim in Ukraine, and says the January 6th riots were just a bunch of peaceful tourists visiting the Capitol? This guy looked through 40,000 hours of videotape and didn’t see any real violence, or at least chose not to put any on the air in his “documentary.” That’s like showing only the starry sky in a film about man landing on the moon, and saying the film proves it never happened.

When it comes to smoking, TC actually ramps it up a notch from Rushbo, declaring not only that smoking won’t kill you, but it’s actually good for you, it’s “all-American.” And he’s a ceaseless promoter of Putin and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, so much so that clips of his shows are featured nightly on Russian television. Most troubling, perhaps, is that he is a promoter of the “great replacement theory,” warning his viewers that “If we continue on this trajectory, eventually there’ll be no more native-born Americans,” i.e. white people. Cue immigrant-bashing from the next guest. It’s hardly worth mentioning that Tucker continues to push Donald Trump’s Big Lie on the 2020 election.

The question with these kinds of propagandists is always this: Do they believe their own lies or do they just expect the idiots who make them rich to do so? The money’s good either way, but maybe the slight moral edge, if there is one, goes to the propagandist who actually believes his own drivel. We’ll never know if Limbaugh bought the garbage he spewed into America’s airways every day. But given the revelations in the ongoing Dominion lawsuit against Fox News, it is quite provable that Carlson and his employer are lying all the way to the bank.

And it’s all because ol’ Rushbo discovered America’s dirty little secret: There is a dark, racist, proudly know-nothing subset of our citizenry that only wants to have its bigotry and anger reinforced. They are like addicts who want to hear sobriety is for losers, smokers who want to believe smoking makes them healthy, ignorant mouth-breathers who want to believe their skin tone makes them superior.

The whole ecosystem needs to perish, beginning with those organizations who reap millions of dollars knowingly spreading the venal lies that are ripping this country in half. The public airways, including cable TV, need to be brought back to the pre-Limbaugh days of the Fairness Doctrine, when some semblance of truth was required of news organizations, when “equal time” on an issue was mandatory. The current Wild West of “news,” with its blend of anger-tainment, disinformation, propaganda, and profit over truth, needs to die. Karma is waiting.

Categories
At Large Opinion

Free Speech?

Sean Hannity (Photo: The White House | Public Domain | Wikimedia Commons)

You’re likely to be hearing a lot more about the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan in the coming weeks.

This is the seminal case upon which our nation’s libel law has been adjudicated since 1964.

The case involved an appeal by the Times against L.B. Sullivan, a commissioner of the city of Montgomery, Alabama, who had sued the Times and “four individual petitioners, who are Negros and Alabama clergymen,” based on the claim that an ad taken out in the Times by the defendants made false accusations and that he was entitled to libel damages.

The Alabama Supreme Court had ruled in Sullivan’s favor. The U.S. Supreme Court, however, overruled the state’s decision on the grounds that “mere negligence or carelessness is not evidence of actual malice or malice in fact,” and determined that the First Amendment requires the plaintiff show that the defendant knew that a statement was false or was reckless in deciding to publish the information without investigating whether it was accurate.

In recent years, conservatives, including former President Donald Trump have railed against the Times v. Sullivan decision, claiming it grants media outlets permission to publish false narratives under the protection of the defendant having to prove evidence of malice or intention. Here’s Trump in 2016: “I want to open up our libel laws so when the New York Times and Washington Post write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money.”

In 2019, Justice Clarence Thomas further stirred the kettle, writing: “New York Times v. Sullivan and the court’s decisions extending it were policy-driven decisions masquerading as constitutional law.”

And just last week, not to be outdone by anyone in his ongoing choke-the-woke agenda, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis upped his attacks on the “leftist mainstream media,” saying he would push to loosen Florida’s libel laws: “I’d say these companies are probably the leading purveyors of disinformation in our entire society right now.”

Here’s some free advice for these folks: Be careful what you wish for. Libel reform cuts both ways, as Fox News is now finding out the hard way.

The voting machine company, Dominion, is suing Fox for $1.6 billion for promoting fabrications about it regarding the 2020 presidential election. The case will likely turn on the court’s interpretation of Times v. Sullivan and whether Fox knew its hosts’ promotion of lies by election-deniers such as Sidney Powell, Rudy Giuliani, and others were false.

Turns out, they did. Shocker, I know. In a court document released last week, Dominion claimed that “literally dozens of people with editorial responsibility — from the top of the organization to the producers of specific shows to the hosts themselves — acted with actual malice.” And the company had receipts, dozens of pages of them.

Here’s a sample email exchange between hosts Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham:

Carlson: “Sidney Powell is lying by the way. I caught her. It’s insane.”

Ingraham “Sidney is a complete nut. No one will work with her. Ditto with Rudy.”

There are dozens more examples of internal communications between Fox News hosts, including Trump acolyte Sean Hannity, disparaging the false claims against Dominion. Here are a few other samples of various hosts’ descriptors of their nightly guests: “Ludicrous.” “Off the rails.” “Fucking lunatics.” “Complete bullshit.”

Yet, the election-deniers were put on the air night after night and allowed to pump their duplicitous bilge without pushback. Most troubling for Fox is that the network’s knowing duplicity extended all the way to the top. Dominion’s filing includes records of Fox News chairman Rupert Murdoch calling the voter-fraud claims “really crazy stuff,” among other things.

But the “really crazy stuff” went on the air in prime time for weeks, duping millions of Fox News viewers into believing the “Big Lie” that Dominion’s machines had altered millions of votes and helped steal the 2020 election for Joe Biden.

“Fox knew,” the Dominion filing declares. “From the top down, Fox knew.”

Fox News responded: “The core of this case remains about freedom of the press and freedom of speech, which are fundamental rights afforded by the Constitution and protected by New York Times v. Sullivan.”

Good luck with that. And you might want to give ol’ Clarence a call.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Harold Ford Jr. Returning to the Airwaves for Fox News

Harold Ford Jr. (by Jackson Baker)

Former Memphis Congressman Harold Ford Jr. may or may not be out of politics (that remains to be seen), but Ford, who has logged considerable time in the past as an on-air commentator, will soon be back before the camera, on behalf of Fox News.

Fox CEO Suzanne Scott made the announcement this week that Ford, who some years back was a part-time commentator on her network, will be appearing “on all Fox News platforms” during both daytime and primetime programming.

After his first stint with Fox, Ford hooked up with MSNBC as a commentator and was a frequent guest on various NBC programs and on the syndicated show Imus in the Morning. 

The son of former Congressman Harold Ford Sr., Ford succeeded his father in Congress as representative of Tennessee’s 9th Congressional District (Memphis), serving from 1997 to 2007. Running as the Democratic nominee, Ford narrowly lost a U.S. Senate race to Republican Bob Corker in 2006.

He later moved to New York, where he worked for some years on Wall Street and briefly flirted with the idea of running for the Senate in that state. Most recently, he has worked as chairman of RxSaver, a healthcare company.

Ford has maintained connections with Memphis and has visited here with relative frequency over the years. In 2019 he was the featured speaker of the Rotary Halloran Speaker Series, cosponsored by the Rotary Club of Memphis and former Orpheum president Pat Halloran.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Ditto.

Rush Limbaugh and I had a lot in common.

We’re both Baby Boomers, both from a small town in Missouri, and both of us grew up in a Republican family. Rush dropped out of college and then moved to Pittsburgh to try to become a radio DJ. I dropped out of college to smoke pot and protest the Vietnam War. Then I moved to San Francisco and became a night watchman and a busker for tourists in Ghirardelli Square. 

Both of our career paths were a bit murky there for a while.

Rush bounced from station to station for a few years, eventually ending up in Kansas City. I bounced from job to job out West and in Columbia, Missouri, where I eventually finished my journalism degree and found semi-honest work in the business where I still ply my trade.

Rush began his climb to glory in the wake of the overturning of the FCC Fairness Doctrine in 1987, when broadcasters were no longer constrained by having to provide equal time for opposing views, or for anyone who was attacked on air.

After getting some attention in Kansas City for his “public affairs” show, Rushbo got hired by WABC in New York and he quickly gained national notoriety for such actions as celebrating the deaths of gay men from AIDS with show tunes, coining the phrase “Femi-Nazis” for women’s rights activists, calling Chelsea Clinton the “White House dog,” and regularly saying revoltingly racist things about African Americans (too many to list here), all under the guise of “conservatism.” It was a truly deplorable schtick before deplorable became a thing, and one that resonated, appallingly, with much of white America. Rush got very rich with it.

In 1996, the Telecommunications Act allowed broadcasting companies to own stations in many markets and spawned radio syndication. Rush quickly got even bigger (literally) and richer and became a major player in the Republican Party. A slew of conservative Rush-clones emerged: Michael Savage, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, and Mark Levin, to name a few. Stirring up anger and outrage at liberals, Democrats, Blacks, Muslims, and immigrants was, and is, their stock-in-trade. And it’s made them rich.

Then came Fox News, the ultimate benefactor of the abolishment of the Fairness Doctrine. (“Fair and Balanced” being the lie from which all others were spun.) Rupert Murdoch and Roger Ailes built a television empire on right-wing outrage, angry white male hosts, short-skirted blondes, and lies.

Now, with the internet, the genie is out of the bottle. If you want “fair and balanced,” it’s strictly DIY. Pick your news to suit your views. If you believe climate change and COVID-19 are hoaxes, that Donald Trump won the 2020 election, that Texas lost power because of a Green New Deal that hasn’t been passed, that QAnon is onto something, that Antifa spawned the January 6th insurrection, that President Biden’s dog isn’t “presidential,” that the Bidens’ marriage is a “charade” … there’s a whole news ecosystem built just for you. Likewise, if you take the opposing point of view on any or all of those issues.

But it all started with Rush Limbaugh. And now he’s dead of lung cancer, at 70, leaving three ex-wives and a widow and millions of fans to mourn his passing. Lots of Republicans want to honor what they perceive as Limbaugh’s glorious legacy. He’s being called a great American, a true patriot — lauded by GOP politicians all over America. In Florida, the governor wants to fly the flag at half-mast in Limbaugh’s honor. In Rush’s home state of Missouri, legislators are talking about establishing a state holiday in his name. A state holiday! His bust already resides in the state capitol building — kind of like Nathan Bedford Forrest’s up in Nashville.

But let’s speak the truth here: Rush Limbaugh was not a great American by any fair and balanced measure. In his radio persona, he was a divisive, hateful, homophobic, racist, misogynistic asshole. What he was like in private, I can’t say, but I doubt that he and I had much in common when Limbaugh departed this earthly vale — far from his Missouri roots. I do hope he found peace at the end. It’s more than he wished for others.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Come Into My Parler

CREDIT: Bryan C. Parker

Frank Murtaugh is managing editor of Memphis magazine, but he’s also been the primary sports columnist for the Flyer since 2001 or so. He writes a lot about University of Memphis sports and he does a terrific job. And it hasn’t always been easy. Frank’s seen some mighty lean years, especially in football, including the woeful Coach Larry Porter era.

Each week during the season, Frank writes a column called “Three Thoughts on Tiger Football.” Back in the Porter days, I used to tweet about Frank’s “Three Thoughts” column by saying “Frank Murtaugh thinks about Tiger football so you don’t have to.”

I write all this by way of saying we owe a similar debt to sfgate.com writer Bryan C. Parker, who did us all a solid by signing up for parler.com — so we don’t have to.

Bryan C. Parker

Parler, as you probably know by now, is a social media platform aimed at “conservatives” who are disenchanted with Facebook and Twitter. Here’s what Parker wrote: “Beneath the thin guise of the app’s self-proclaimed emphasis on ‘free speech’ lies the ability to say not just a hypothetical ‘anything,’ but specifically to share racist slurs and violent threats toward political opponents. On Parler, Nazi imagery flourishes, death threats abound, and conspiracy theories reign.”

To sign up for Parler, you must provide a phone number and email address. The platform claims it will not “sell” your information, but it will doubtless be used for something. Parler is funded largely by the Robert Mercer family, which has made millions on data mining. The app also has ties to Cambridge Analytica, which provided extensive voter micro-data to the 2016 Trump campaign.

Once you’re in, Parker reports, you are given a suggested follow list of right-leaning media and political figures: Sean Hannity, Ted Cruz, Dinesh D’Souza, Ann Coulter, Devin Nunes, etc. Beyond that, you’re on your own. You can post, follow people, start conversation threads, the usual social media protocol.

It quickly becomes apparent, writes Parker, that hardly anybody on Parler thinks Joe Biden won the election. Profane diatribes, wild election conspiracy theories, QAnon revelations, and racial and homophobic slurs abound.

Free speech in the United States has famously been ruled not to extend to the right to yell “FIRE” in a crowded theater. Does it extend to the right to call for executions of political enemies, to promote anti-Semitism and racism, to proudly post the Nazi swastika? On Parler, yes, it does. This is the free speech that Parler says is being suppressed and banned on Twitter and Facebook.

Parler is the newest addition to the right-wing media silo. Fox is on the decline with the true Trumper/white supremacist/racist/AngryKaren tribe. OANN, NewsMax, The Right Scoop, and others are the primary “news” sources cited on Parler. If you haven’t checked out OANN, let me just say, it makes Fox News look like NPR.

I remember when the FCC had a “fairness doctrine” that required TV and radio stations holding broadcast licenses to devote some of their programming to controversial issues of public importance and to allow the airing of opposing views on those issues. This meant that programs on politics were required to include opposing opinions on the topic under discussion. The rule also mandated that broadcasters alert anyone subject to a personal attack in their programming and give them a chance to respond. The doctrine was revoked in 1987, and its elimination was widely credited with sparking the rise of conservative talk radio, including Rush Limbaugh.

Giving equal time to both sides seems like such a quaint concept now. You don’t need a license from the federal government to start a website, and so here we are, with an online world where anything goes: from cute kittens to porn to racism to the most depraved corners of the human psyche, where the entire longitude and latitude of humanity can find a home — and validation for just about anything.

What to do? Few of us, liberal or conservative, want the federal government to regulate online content. Imagine what Trump could have done with such a power! But surely there are ways we can monitor and clamp down on violent threats, terrorism, and human depravity. Violent words can lead to violent deeds, as we’ve so often discovered.

Categories
Opinion The Last Word

Truth in Broadcasting?

Nobody should have to live like this: to have to go about your daily business while in the back of your mind there’s a constant nagging concern that the psychotic sonofabitch who occupies the White House will do something else insane. As the mounting evidence of his criminal activities creeps closer to the president during the impeachment hearings, expect his conduct to grow even more aberrant, lashing out madly at everyone or anyone who dares criticize him.

The latest victim of a Trump tweet-trashing is Fox News correspondent Chris Wallace, who dismantled Representative Steve Scalise’s GOP talking points justifying Trump’s conduct toward the Ukrainian government on Fox News Sunday.

Chris Wallace interviews Louisiana Congressman Steve Scalise.

In response, Trump tweeted professorially, “Steve Scalise blew the nasty and obnoxious Chris Wallace (will never be his father, Mike!) away on Chris’ lowest rated (unless I’m on) morning show. This kind of dumb and unfair interview would never have happened in the Fox News Past.”

Well, Roger Ailes died and Shepard Smith quit, so maybe some of the reporters over at Big Brother Central are developing consciences. Trump can still count on folks like Fox & Friends and the other half-wits who spew propaganda and lies on behalf of this president, but two scholastic studies, one by the University of Maryland, the other by Fairleigh Dickinson University, have determined that people who watch only Fox News are less informed than all other news consumers — and are much more inclined to believe false information.

There is a federal law called the Truth in Advertising Act, which states that “all ads must be truthful, not misleading, and, when appropriate, backed by scientific evidence.” The Federal Trade Commission enforces the law, whether it’s an ad online, in the mail, or on billboards and buses. For punishment, a federal court can demand a desist order, freeze the assets of the offender, and get compensation for the victims.

Why can’t we have a Truth in Broadcasting law as well, to halt the torrent of lies that create the dual realities in which we live? Basically, people who follow politics fall into two major categories: those who watch and read the news from a variety of sources, and those who watch Fox News. If you’re reading this, you most likely fit in the former category.

During the Nixon nightmare, the president railed against the media, charging the media with all manner of lies and slander, right up until the time it was proven that Nixon was the liar and the journalists had it right. Anyone who saw All the President’s Men knows that there are rules that professional journalists must follow to protect their paper’s integrity and abide by the First Amendment. If there were a Truth in Broadcasting law, Fox News would either have to change its name, like World Wrestling Entertainment, or conform to the principles that govern legitimate news organizations.

Any real journalist worth his salt would love to work for The New York Times or the Washington Post. Since those papers have been proven right many times before, I’d believe them before I would the inane tweets coming from the carbuncle on the posterior of humanity.

While the impeachment hearings into Trump’s phone calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky make for great television, there’s an undercurrent of questionable behavior that’s much worse than trying to dirty up the Bidens. The Trump gang’s conspiracy theories about Joe Biden and his son, Hunter, are based on allegations already debunked by State Department officials. Far more ominous is this continual stream of information concerning Ukraine’s natural gas industry. The firing of Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch was less about opening investigations on Biden and Clinton and more about clearing the way for Trump’s allies to set up business deals with Naftogaz, the Ukrainian state-owned oil company. Trump initially tried to blame his disastrous call to Zelensky on Rick Perry, the secretary of the Energy Department he once vowed to dismantle. Trump claimed, “The only reason I made the call was because Rick asked me to. Something about a liquefied natural gas plant.”

This is where Lev, Igor, and Rudy Giuliani enter the plot. Igor Fruman and Lev Parnas were at the center of efforts to turn their ties to Trump into revenue-producing gas sales. The two were also instrumental in disseminating rumors about the Biden family and also behind the push to remove Ambassador Yovanovitch. The Associated Press reported, “This circle of businessmen and Republican donors touted connections to Giuliani and Trump while trying to install new management at the top of Ukraine’s massive state gas company. Their plan was to then steer lucrative contracts to companies controlled by Trump allies.”

Perry urged Zelensky to fire the Naftogaz advisory board and came up with a list of suggested replacements approved by the president. Perry only recently announced his resignation, and Parnas hinted he may testify before the House Judiciary Committee.

There’s another federal law called the RICO statute (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act), which says the leaders of a criminal syndicate can be tried for any crimes they order. This makes asking a foreign leader to smear a political rival pale in comparison. It’s all about the gas. If the Judiciary decides to look into this, you can say goodbye to the GOP $1 million donor, Ambassador Gordon Sondland, and goodbye to Perry, Giuliani, Lev, Igor, Bill Barr, Mick Mulvaney, Don Jr., Mike Pompeo, and Donald J. Trump. The revolution will be televised.

Randy Haspel writes the “Recycled Hippies” blog.

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

The Wall

CREDIT: Reuters | Lucy Nicholson

A report released this week by the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency revealed that in the two-and-a-half years since President Donald Trump came into office, 51 miles of border wall have been built — all of it erected to replace barriers already in place.

You may remember Trump’s signature campaign promise was to build a big, beautiful wall that would run the length of the U.S.-Mexico border, and that Mexico would “pay for it.” Not so much, it turns out. The border wall, like so many things the president talks about, exists only in his mind — and in the minds of those who take his words at face value. But the sad truth is, Trump has managed to build a wall. It’s big, but it’s not beautiful — and we’re paying for it.

Trump has built a wall between those who think that separating refugee children from their families and putting them in cages along the border is an acceptable solution to our immigration problem and those who believe that policy is cruel, inhumane, and unworthy of who we are as Americans.

Trump has built a wall between those who believe in the science of climate change and those who believe our rapidly warming planet is just a natural occurrence and we can’t do anything about it.

Reuters | Lucy Nicholson

U.S.-Mexico border fencing in Santa Teresa, New Mexico

Trump has built a wall between those who think Americans should celebrate our country’s diversity and those who think people whose ancestors are from countries that aren’t white should “go back where they came from” if they criticize the president.

Trump has built a wall between those who believe we should work with and respect our traditional democratic allies and those who believe, like Trump, that those alliances are worthless and that murderous dictators such as Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un should be fawned over and coddled and emulated.

Trump has built a wall between those who think cheating on your wife with porn stars and other women and paying them to keep quiet about it doesn’t conflict with Christian “family values” and those who think such behavior is despicable.

Trump has built a wall between those who believe the Mueller Report’s findings that Russia interfered with the 2016 election and that the president obstructed justice 10 times and those who think the report simply said “no collusion.” That wall also divides those who think our intelligence agencies serve to protect America and those who think those agencies are part of a “deep state” conspiracy to bring down a president who is innocent of any nefarious activity.

Trump has built a wall between those who think the U.S. Department of Justice should be an independent agency serving the American people and those who think it should exist only to protect the interests of the president.

Trump has even managed to build a wall within the Republican Party — between those who think the president doesn’t reflect the party’s values and those who think he is the party. (He’s also built a wall between Lindsey Graham circa 2016 and Lindsey Graham today, but I digress.)

Trump has built a wall between those who think Fox News is a purveyor of misinformation and a blatant propaganda outlet for the president and those who believe the network is “fair and balanced.”

Trump has built a wall between longtime friends, between brothers and sisters, between parents and their children and grandchildren, between blacks and whites and browns, between gay and straight, between women and men — a wall of anger, distrust, and wounds that won’t easily heal.

Trump has built a wall between his lies and the truth, between those who believe him and those who don’t.

Some day, historians will write about all this — the time when America was riven in two by a man who came into the presidency sowing anger and resentment and divisiveness, who disparaged and ridiculed former presidents, war heroes, political opponents, members of Congress, the disabled — a man who told lie after lie, day after day, tweet after tweet, and built a cult-like “base” of followers who bought into every damn word.

Yes, someday, God willing, this will all be in American history books. And your descendants may rightly wonder as they read this odd and terrifying chapter: Which side of the wall were you on?

Categories
Letter From The Editor Opinion

Trump’s Lost Weekend

CREDIT: Eva Rinaldi

Imagine being the head of Fox News and realizing every day when you wake up that you, Rupert Murdoch, are the most powerful man on earth, that you set the agenda for the world’s greatest super-power — the United States of America. Oh sure, President Trump is the titular head of the country, but it’s patently obvious that Fox News is where Trump gets his policy ideas. And it’s Fox News that literally shapes his world-view.

Trump often seemingly watches Fox News from morning to night, live-tweeting statements made by its hosts and guests within minutes of their being broadcast. Last weekend, the president went on a 50-tweet bender — 20 tweets on Saturday; 30 on Sunday — much of it directly lifted from Fox talking heads in real time.

Eva Rinaldi

Rupert Murdoch

He began his Saturday by tweeting clips of Lou “Natic” Dobbs, who called Trump’s veto of Congress’ vote to stop his “national emergency” declaration “stirring.” He then tweeted Fox News hosts’ statements bashing his own Justice Department; he ranted about Hillary Clinton; he tweeted about a Fox story on a Massachusetts sheriff who praised him.

Then he got into some mild criticism of his media mind-melders, going after Fox for canning “Judge” Jeanine Pirro, Trump’s wacko late-night cheerleader. “Bring back @JudgeJeaninePirro,” the president demanded, adding, “The Radical Left Democrats, working closely with their beloved partner, the Fake News Media, is using every trick in the book to SILENCE a majority of our Country.”

Quite a morning. But Trump was just warming up. Former Watergate prosecutor Ken Starr appeared on Fox and claimed that the late Senator John McCain had a “dark stain” on his career because he released the Steele Dossier to U.S. intelligence services. On cue, minutes later, Trump tweeted that “dark stain” quote, adding that “last in his class” McCain had “far worse stains.”

Nevermind that McCain wasn’t last in his class or that, after being given such a document, turning it over to intelligence services was the right thing to do — or that he was a wounded combat pilot and war hero who died of cancer six months ago. Nevermind decency, common sense, graciousness, or any semblance of mature adult behavior. We’re way past any of that with this president.

Trump finished his Saturday by threatening to sic the FCC on Saturday Night Live for making fun of him. It’s unclear if the president knew it was a rerun.

Sunday, it was more of the same — raw, unhinged id. The president rage-tweeted about the Democrats trying to steal the 2016 election “at the ballot box.” Then he spouted some more Hillary bashing, and ranted some more about the FAKE NEWS MEDIA. He ended the day in a frenzy, retweeting 15 supportive tweets from sources that included a Pizzagate conspiracy theorist, a QAnon cult believer, and a guy who claimed the New Zealand mosque massacre was a false-flag operation to limit gun rights.

This is not normal. These are the ravings of a mentally unstable man. If your grandfather spent his weekend doing what the president of the United States just did, you’d get him help. Or maybe try to move him into assisted living.

The leader of the free world, who has a country to run, after all, spent all his waking hours for two days watching television and tweeting about it. The mind boggles. How does it happen? Is he all alone in his room? Does no one think to go in and interrupt him or divert him or tell him he’s being foolish? Where’s his wife? His daughter? His chief of staff? The president of the United States is bouncing off walls, locked in a television trance, spewing nonsense and conspiracy theories like a crazy man, and nobody does anything about it? In his last days as president, a drunken Richard Nixon went around the White House talking to presidential portraits. That was bad. This is next-level stuff.

Unfortunately, it looks like we are stuck with this madness for the foreseeable future. The president’s cabinet is filled with unqualified hacks, lobbyists, and grifters. The vice president is a mewling sycophant. Republican leaders seem committed to remaining inalterably linked to the president, no matter how loony he gets. His base has become a cult, supporting their hero no matter what he does or says.

At this point, our only hope for getting out of this appears to be Robert Mueller. Or maybe Rupert Murdoch.

Categories
Opinion Viewpoint

Trump’s Race Problem: Black Republicans with Nowhere to Go

Trump supporters are rare among black people. President Trump won just eight percent of the black vote in 2016. His family business’ sordid history of housing discrimination and his racially insensitive comments — “look at my African American over here” — leave black Trump supporters open to mockery and charges of self-hate.

Juan Williams

A few black people thought they had a winning strategy for dealing with Trump. In exchange for access to his presidential power, they’d ignore warning signs and jump on his bandwagon. How did that work out for you, Omarosa? Trump reacted to her critical book by calling her a “dog” and a “crazed, crying low-life.”

Kanye West similarly went to the White House in a red “Make America Great Again” hat before realizing he was being “used” by Trump backers to, as he later said, “spread messages I don’t believe in.”

All that was bad enough. Now it is getting worse for the black conservatives trying to find a place in the party of Trump. Exhibit A is how Trump went out of his way to trash the first black Republican congresswoman, Utah’s Mia Love, after she lost a hard-fought reelection battle last month. “Mia Love gave me no love. And she lost,” Trump sneered. “Too bad. Sorry about that, Mia.” After Trump insulted her, Love told supporters: “This election … shines a spotlight on the problems Washington politicians have with minorities and black Americans.”

This is not a race problem afflicting all Republicans or all Washington politicians. It is more accurately labeled a “Trump politician race problem.” It is Trump who emboldened racists by saying that a march of white supremacists — and the people who protested against them — featured “fine people on both sides.”  

Trying to make sense of Trump’s bad record on dealing with people who are not white, Love argued: “It’s transactional. It’s not personal.” Wrong, congresswoman. It is personal.

His family business was sued in the 1970s for refusing to rent apartments to black people. He never apologized for wrongly blaming five black and Latino teenagers for a brutal attack on a woman in New York’s Central Park.

As Colin Powell, a black Republican, once wrote, Trump is a “national disgrace.” As Condoleezza Rice, another black Republican, said, she is “uncomfortable [with] what I see and hear” from Trump.

Next year, the 116th Congress will be the most racially diverse in history due to a record number of black and Latino Democrats. There will be just two black Republicans, Representative Will Hurd of Texas and Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina.

Scott is performing a high wire act in dealing with Trump. He recently opposed Trump’s nomination of Thomas Farr to a federal judgeship. Farr has a long history of defending racially discriminatory legislation. “We are not doing a very good job of avoiding the obvious potholes on race in America and we ought to be more sensitive when it comes to those issues,” Scott said.

Scott similarly broke with his party earlier this year to oppose Ryan Bounds, another Trump judicial nominee with a troubling history on race.

Scott also flies away from Trump by championing economic development for black America. While Trump is cutting the Minority Business Development Agency and neighborhood block grants, Scott is crisscrossing the country on a national “Opportunity Tour,” pushing conservative ideas for boosting economic development in minority neighborhoods. Scott insisted on a provision in last year’s Trump tax cut law that creates “opportunity zones,” making economically disadvantaged areas eligible for new federal tax breaks.

But here again, up pops the problem of being a black conservative when all Republican politics is defined by loyalty to Trump. While he got a provision into the Trump tax bill as the price for his vote, Scott still ended up supporting a Trump tax cut that in the short run benefits the richest one percent of Americans. That historic scam is exploding the deficit to pay for tax breaks for corporations and the rich. That means less federal dollars to help poor neighborhoods in need of revitalization.  

I am rooting for Scott and other principled black conservatives to reclaim the mantle of the party of Lincoln. There is a lot to lose if black conservative approaches to racial progress are sunk due to Trump loyalty tests.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.

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Opinion Viewpoint

Swing Time for the GOP in Upcoming Mid-terms

So far, 24 Republicans have announced their retirements from Congress this cycle. This number is the highest of any congressional cycle since 1973.

What was happening in 1973?

The Watergate scandal. It exposed the lies and cover-ups of Republican President Richard Nixon and forced his resignation. In the 1974 midterm elections, 49 Democrats took House seats away from the Republicans, giving them more than a 2-1 majority in the lower chamber. Democrats also gained four Senate seats, bringing them up to a total of 60 seats.

Democrats are praying for history to repeat itself with President Trump in the Nixon role.

Incredibly, Republicans seem to agree that 2018 will be a lot like 1974. In addition to all the other retirements by House Republicans, there is now talk of Speaker Paul Ryan possibly quitting, too. Ryan’s spokesman has denied he is considering resigning. But Nevada Congressman Mark Amodei, a very vulnerable Republican in the coming midterms, is on the record telling reporters that is what he is hearing from party colleagues.

Talk of Ryan’s departure is significant because lesser-known House Republicans have no reason to think they will survive if Ryan isn’t inclined to try to hold on. Take a moderate Republican congressman like Pennsylvania’s Ryan Costello. He told MSNBC he is not running for reelection because Trump is making it impossible for House Republicans to do their jobs:”It’s very difficult for me to get [any] message out because we’re talking about Stormy Daniels or it was [fired FBI deputy director Andrew] McCabe. Before that, it was [fired secretary of State] Rex Tillerson and where he heard the news that he was fired, and just one thing after another.”

Then there is Trump’s budget deal. It explodes the deficit he pledged to reduce. Also, there is still no funding for any wall on the Mexican border. And don’t forget, Trump’s flip-flop on his promise to push for stronger background checks for gun purchases and to stop the sale of guns to people under 21.

Oh, and keep in mind that Trump’s approval ratings are historically low for a president who has only been in the White House a little more than a year. Such bad numbers are usually reliable signs that the president’s party is in trouble in the midterms.

And who can ignore the resignation of Trump’s chief personal lawyer in the Russia probe, John Dowd? He announced he was resigning just before The New York Times reported he discussed presidential pardons with lawyers for Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort — potentially proof of a conspiracy to obstruct justice. That led George Conway, another top Republican legal mind and the husband of Trump aide Kellyanne Conway, to tweet: “This is flabbergasting.”

Trump’s White House counsel Don McGahn has had to obtain his own high-priced D.C. lawyer to defend him in the Russia probe. This is the dark reality facing congressional Republicans with the midterms now seven months away. The heart of their peril is fear of energized Democrats producing a big turnout. That fits with the big turnout for recent student-led marches for gun control.

The Democrats will be marching out to punish Trump, but it is Congressional Republicans who will get trampled. And what about swing voters?

GOP losses in a special House race in Pennsylvania and the governor’s race in Virginia show support falling for GOP candidates among independent voters and suburban Republican women. Republicans as well as Democrats see no end of talk about extramarital affairs, hush money, and the tightening noose of the Mueller probe.

It is no secret that top Republican lawyer Ted Olson and other experienced DC legal powerbrokers have declined requests to represent Trump. Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal pit bull lawyer, is radioactive over his role in the Stormy Daniels affair and may face legal exposure of his own.

Cohen paid Daniels $130,000 in the closing stretch of the 2016 election campaign — money Daniels says was meant to keep her quiet about an affair with Trump. The Stormy Daniels lawsuit is a game-changer because Trump could be forced to give her lawyers a deposition about his sexual past — something that has the potential to set off more scandals.
The 2018 elections will be a referendum on Donald Trump. This is not about the Trump presidency but the man himself. Without Hillary Clinton to demonize, Trump now faces one opponent he can’t beat: Himself.

Juan Williams is an author, and a political analyst for Fox News Channel.