Our Democratic Foundation Detriments: Fox, Rigtwingers, Hannity-types, Et al

Hands down, the dumbest and most clueless on cable TV today 

THE MORNING PLUM – excellent article – super good from The Washington Post (with my emphasis added). From the article:

Let’s be clear on what’s happening in our politics right now.

President Trump and his media allies are currently creating a vast, multi-tentacled, largely-fictional alternate media reality that casts large swaths of our government as irredeemably corrupt — with the explicitly declared purpose of laying the rationale for Trump to pardon his close associates or shut down the Russia probe, should he deem either necessary.

We often hear that Trump and his allies are trying to “distract” from special counsel Robert Mueller’s intensifying investigation. That’s true, but this characterization inadequately casts this in terms ordinarily applied to conventional politics. Instead, Trump’s trafficking in this stuff should be seen as another sign of his fundamental unfitness to serve as president. Similar efforts by his media allies should be labeled as a deliberate effort to goad Trump into sliding into full-blown authoritarianism, and to provide the air cover for him if he does do so.

My Note: Absolutely the best two parts of this story, and in my view of the most major concern to the entire nation as a whole regardless of any political concerns that are in the article.

First Main Part: The AP reports that people who have spoken to Trump say that he has recently revisited the idea of trying to remove Mueller, now that Mueller appears to be digging into Trump’s finances. Meanwhile, CNN reports that former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon is privately urging Trump to try to get Republicans to defund Mueller’s probe.

Monday night (October 30), Sean Hannity delivered perhaps the most perfect expression yet of efforts to create the rationale for such moves. Hannity dismissed the news of major allegations against former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and the cooperation of adviser George Papadopoulos as big nothing burgers. He also hit all the high points of the new Trump/media campaign, points that Trump himself and the White House have made repeatedly in public statements. Those include reviving the made-up scandal that Hillary Clinton approved a deal for a Russian nuclear agency to gain access to U.S. uranium extraction rights in exchange for kickbacks, and the absurdly exaggerated claim that the Clinton campaign, having paid through various intermediaries for research that ultimately led to the “Steele Dossier,” actually colluded with Russia to interfere in the election. These have been extensively fact checked and debunked.

In an important new piece, Post fact checker Glenn Kessler blows another big hole in one of this campaign’s key story lines. Kessler notes that multiple Trump media allies are repeating the claim that Clinton gave away “20 percent” of our uranium capacity to Russia. And he shows that, for various technical reasons, this figure is itself absurdly inflated, and the description of this as a Clinton giveaway has no relation to reality.

But the real point of Hannity’s presentation came when he flatly accused Mueller of trying to “change the narrative to distract from the real Russia collusion and massive cover-ups.” 

Hannity added that Mueller “is clearly complicit in the Uranium One scandal.” This is a reference to the fact that Mueller headed the FBI when the uranium deal happened. Reports that the FBI was investigating a Russian energy official’s efforts to corrupt a U.S. company at the time have led to GOP questions about why the Obama administration green-lighted the deal anyway. But this is also absurd, as Kessler explains, since the deal went through an extensive multi-agency process and no evidence has been presented that this process improperly skirted any FBI probe.

Regardless, Hannity concluded: “We are at a real crisis point in America tonight.”

Trump tweeted in support of many of those Hannity allegations. And as Jonathan Chait details, other Trump media allies have explicitly cited these and other similar story-lines (Mueller’s investigators are Dem donors!) in support of the notion that Mueller should resign or that Trump should close down the Russia probe. 

Note: That Hannity video segment can be seen here, but be forewarned: Hannity in his usual fashion is nasty, mean-spirited, lying all through his rant, and in my view totally un-American (it is about 17-minutes). But since it’s on Fox, hell what else have we come accustomed to accept. Hannity illustrate what we see and hear all across GOP rightwing laa-laa land (Talk Radio, cable TV, and in print). 

Continue the Story at the Link Above:

Folks this whole carefully-controlled Trump whatever we choose to call is without a doubt destructive to our entire system and way of life. How to stop him and it only leaves one option – this all GOP-run Congress must fulfill their duties and stop or head off Trump and any/all of his cohorts (i.e., Bannon, Hannity-types, Fox naturally, or anyone else).

Lastly – this is very serious stuff.

Stay tuned and thanks for stopping by.