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BIRTHING FASCISM–AND TRUMP’S EVIL: PART FOUR (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on October 9, 2026 at 12:10 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.                          

Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.            

Despite Donald Trump’s overt racism, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020.   

A clear majority of young black voters described the economy as “not so good” or “poor,” compared with about half of older black voters.

Despite Trump’s demands for “mass deportations,” numerous Hispanics, when interviewed, said they didn’t feel threatened. They felt certain that Trump would deport “only the bad people.”

Young Latinos, particularly young Latino men, were more supportive to Trump than in 2020. Roughly half of young Latino men voted for Harris, compared with about six in 10 who went for Trump.

Majorities of black and Latino voters said the economy was in bad shape. They wanted a bigger paycheck. And they were willing to re-elect a man who despised them in hopes of getting it.

Case #13: Muslims—especially those living in Dearborn, Michigan—played a losing blackmail game with the Biden administration

On October 7, 2023, under the cover of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza, Hamas terrorists slaughtered an estimated 1,139 men, women and children in Israeli streets, houses, kibbutz communities and at a rave music festival.

About 250 others were kidnapped and taken into Gaza.

Israel responded by declaring a state of war—pounding Gaza with bombs, missiles. tanks and soldiers. 

Why Hamas and Israel reached this moment now — and what comes next | WBUR

Palestinians celebrating the attack on Israel

Terrorism-sympathizing Islamics—especially in Michigan—demanded that the Biden administration stop sending military equipment to Israel—and force Israelis to stop their military campaign to free the hostages. They threatened: “If you don’t do what we want, we won’t vote for Kamala Harris.”

Biden and Harris rejected their demands—and Islamics voted for Trump or didn’t vote at all.

The result: Harris lost—and was replaced with a Right-wing administration so pro-Israel that it made the Biden one seem pro-Palestinian by comparison. 

Case 14: Ignorance of and/or contempt for history. 

“Low information voters” is a euphemism for people dangerously ignorant of and indifferent to the issues affecting their lives.

After World War II ended in 1945, the United States proved a force for worldwide stability. Its “nuclear umbrella” prevented a Russian takeover of Europe and a Chinese takeover of Asia. 

But voters ignored Trump’s “bromance” with Communist dictators Vladimir Putin (Russia), Xi Jinping (China) and Kim Jong-Un (North Korea). They also ignored his proven disdain for the leaders of democratic nations—such as Canada and Great Britain. 

As a result, Canada and Mexico, America’s biggest trading partners, are now treated—by Trump—as enemies. Meanwhile, he cozies up to Putin against Ukraine’s legally-elected President, Vododmyr Zelensky.

 * * * * *

Countless historians have tried to answer the question: “Was the rise of Adolf Hitler—and the catastrophe he unleashed—inevitable?” 

Future historians will ask the same question about Donald Trump—and the almost certain disaster of a second Trump Presidency.

Competent historians will conclude that no one factor was responsible, but a combination of otherwise unrelated ones. Among these:

  • Republicans: Who feared that Trump’s Fascistic supporters would deprive them of political office if they didn’t abase themselves to a lifelong criminal and would-be dictator.
  • Republican judges: Who bent and/or broke the law to enable Trump to escape justice.
  • Justice Department prosecutors: Whose awe of the Presidency allowed Trump to slander and threaten federal prosecutors and judges.
  • Attorney General Merrick Garland: Whose cowardice prevented him from appointing Jack Smith Special Counsel until November 18, 2022—giving Trump time to delay justice and again win the Presidency.

Official portrait of United States Attorney General Merrick Garland

  • Democrats: Whose cowardice toward Trump encouraged Republicans to ever more extreme measures.
  • Blacks: Voted for a racist in hopes of a bigger paycheck.
  • Muslims: Refused to vote for Kamala Harris because Biden wouldn’t stop Israel’s military campaign to free Hamas-captured hostages.
  • Hispanics: Like the Jews in Hitler’s Germany, who couldn’t believe that Trump would carry out his threats to imprison and/or deport them.
  • The Biden administration: Which  refused to stem the tide of illegal aliens invading America—and thus enraged millions of law-abiding Americans into supporting Trump.
  • Toxic masculinity voters: Whose misogynistic attitudes toward women led them to reject a former local and state prosecutor for a 34-times convicted felon.
  • American voters: Whose hatred of Hispanic illegal aliens and inflationary grocery prices led them to ignore overwhelming evidence of Trump’s intent to overturn the democratic process and make himself absolute dictator.

In short: Those opposed to Trump’s evil  were too divided and shortsighted to combine against a common danger.

As John Adams, second President of the United States, observed:

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. It is in vain to say that democracy is less vain, less proud, less selfish, less ambitious, or less avaricious than aristocracy or monarchy. It is not true, and nowhere appears in history. Those passions are the same in all men, under all forms of simple government, and when unchecked, produce the same effects of fraud, violence and cruelty. 

BIRTHING FASCISM—AND TRUMP’S EVIL: PART THREE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Social commentary on October 8, 2026 at 12:56 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.                    

Case #9: Americans had become increasingly worried and angry about surging numbers of illegal aliens pouring into the country. But the Biden administration refused—until its closing months—to dramatically address this issue.     

A Vox story, dated July 12, 2024, warned:  “According to Gallup,  2024 is the first time since 2005 that most of the public have wanted less immigration, and this year marks the largest share of Americans feeling resistant to immigration since 58 percent said so in 2001….”  

Central American migrants seeking asylum reach US-Mexico border in Tijuana - ABC7 San Francisco

Illegal aliens climbing over the border fence in Brownsville, Texas

Six months later, on January 17, 2025, another Vox story offered: “What Democrats must learn from Biden’s disastrous immigration record.” 

It opened: “One of the main reasons Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election is the Biden administration’s record on immigration and the border — polls show it ranks up close with inflation among the top issues that drove swing voters to Trump….

“During Biden’s first three years in office, the number of arriving migrants skyrocketed, leading to a backlash as even blue states and cities complained they were overwhelmed. The peak came in December 2023, a month when officials reported about 250,000 encounters with migrants at the border, a record.” 

Then, starting early in 2024, and continuing throughout the year, border arrivals plummeted—by more than 80%.

The reasons:

  1. The Biden administration got the Mexican government to launch an extensive crackdown on migrants passing through its territory to the United States. 
  2. Biden decreed that new unauthorized migrants would be ineligible for asylum if too many people were coming to the border. Essentially, this meant shutting down the asylum process.

Unfortunately for Harris, the downturn in illegal immigration came too late.

Related image

Donald Trump

In times of economic uncertainty, hostility rises toward immigrants—especially those who are alien to a host country’s language and culture. This has proven true in Europe as well as the United States.

Case #10: Americans blamed President Biden for inflationary price increases—especially for groceries such as eggs. 

According to a December 20, 2024 article—“Why are groceries so expensive? What you need to know”—by the Center for Science in the Public Interest:

“Since January 2019, food prices have risen nearly 30 percent in the US, leaving many households struggling to afford groceries.”

Among the issues responsible for this:

  • COVID-19: Caused worldwide disruptions in supply chains.
  • Transportation costs and fuel prices: Fuel costs are directly tied to how much retailers charge for groceries and other goods.
  • Animal diseases, weather events, crop failures: When bird flu (H5N1) first struck the U.S. in 2022, eggs were priced at around $2 per dozen. They peaked at $4.82/dozen in January 2023, and in December 2024—following the infection of over 123 million chickens—prices fell to about $4.15/dozen.
  • Global conflict: In February, 2022, Russia invaded Ukraine, which exports wheat, corn and agricultural fertilizer, among other products. Russia has tried to strangle Ukraine’s exports by attacking the nation’s agricultural centers.

No President—including Biden and Trump—can control such events. Unfortunately, every Presidential candidate virtually promises to be Superman. And voters repeatedly fall victim to this absurdity.

So when elected Presidents fail to perform miracles, those voters turn on them—and turn them out of office.

Case #11: Americans don’t want a woman President.

American voters proved that in 2016 when former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton ran for President—and lost to Trump in the Electoral College by a count of 227 to 304. 

And Hillary had an advantage that Vice President Kamala Harris lacked: Hillary was white.

England has elected a female Prime Minister: Margaret Thatcher. And Mexico—notorious for the machismo of its men—has elected a woman President: Claudia Sheinbaum Pardo. But in the United States, electing a woman chief executive is unthinkable to most American men. 

According to Daniel Cassino, Professor of Government and Politics at Fairleigh Dickinson University, men who support Trump hold to a traditionally masculine identity.

“So, among that group, Trump is up over Harris by about 35 points. Huge gap, Among other men, the half of men who don’t put themselves at the extremes of masculinity, Harris is up by 20. In fact, Harris is also up by 20 among most groups of women. So, really the gap is not between men and women, it’s between this one group of traditional masculine men and everybody else.” 

Machismo played a major role in Trump’s popularity among Hispanics. Roughly six in 10 men described Trump as a strong leader, compared with 43% who said that in 2020. About half of Hispanic women said Trump was a strong leader, up from 37%. 

Case #12: Democrats expected to receive support from their traditional allies—such as blacks and Hispanics. But that didn’t happen.    

During the eight-year tenure of America’s first black President, Donald Trump attacked Barack Obama as a foreign-born citizen who was thus ineligible for that office. He also had a history of supporting—and being supported by—racist white groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers. 

Nevertheless, blacks deserted Vice President Kamala Harris in droves. About three in 10 back men under age 45 went for Trump, roughly double the share he got in 2020. 

BIRTHING FASCISM–AND TRUMP’S EVIL: PART TWO (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on October 7, 2026 at 12:11 am

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 Presidential election.      

Case #5: Even after Donald Trump left office, the Justice Department treated him with a deference not shown any other criminal defendant.

He was allowed, for example, to hurl insults and threats at Special Counsel Jack Smith and even Smith’s family.

One such post, published on Trump’s website, Truth Social, went: “Deranged Jack Smith, who is a sick puppet for A.G. Garland & Crooked Joe Biden, should be DEFUNDED & put out to rest. Republicans must get tough or the Dems will steal another Election. MAGA!” 

By “A.G. Garland” Trump meant Attorney General Merrick Garland. By “put out to rest,” he meant that his followers should assassinate Smith. 

Not even Mafia bosses like Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Albert “The Executioner” Anastasia dared issue such a threat.

Laura Rozen on Twitter: "Jack Smith bio from the Hague court https://t.co/5iOsfwMSAa https://t.co/wAG6RmQ7N4" / Twitter

Jack Smith

By contrast: Jimmy Hoffa was president of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters. But that didn’t prevent Robert F. Kennedy’s Justice Department from indicting him for jury tampering—and convicting him on March 4, 1964. He was sentenced to eight years in prison and a $10,000 fine. 

No one in the Kennedy Justice Department said: “He’s the elected president of the Teamsters Union—so we can’t touch him.” Yet that is precisely how the Biden Justice Department repeatedly acted—simply because, in 2016, he won a Presidential election.

Case #6: Throughout his struggles to stay out of prison, Trump was aided by the unrelenting support of the Republican party. 

Republicans loudly and repeatedly claimed that Donald Trump was the legitimate winner of the 2020 Presidential election—despite overwhelming evidence that he wasn’t.

They also claimed that, by appointing Special Counsel Jack Smith to investigate Trump, the Democrats had weaponized Federal law enforcement.

They also fully supported Trump’s demand for the release of those who attacked the Capitol Building on January 6, 2021.

History of the Republican Party (United States) - Wikipedia

For example: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has depicted these coup supporters as persecuted martyrs.

On March 24, 2022, members of the Republicans’ House Oversight Committee toured a Washington, D.C. jail where some of these defendants were held.

“Their due process rights are being violated. And they have been mistreated and treated as political prisoners,” Greene told reporters after the tour.

Adolf Hitler similarly portrayed as martyrs the Nazis who tried to violently overthrow the government of Bavaria on November 9, 1923.

A March 2, 2020 Washington Monthly story concluded ominously:  “U.S. democracy wasn’t set up to deal with a president openly behaving like a James Bond villain while being protected by a political party behaving more like a mafia than a civic institution.” 

Case #7: While Congressional Republicans relentlessly investigated President Joe Biden and his family, Democrats refused to similarly investigate Trump’s family.

The United States House Oversight Committee opened its investigation into the Biden family on January 11, 2023. The investigation included the foreign business activities of Biden’s son, Hunter, and brother, James. 

By November 2023, the investigation had not found any evidence of wrongdoing by President Biden. 

Democrats, by contrast, never probed why Jared Kushner, Donald Trump’s son-in-law and  former White House adviser, received $2 billion from Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. The money came to Kushner’s private equity firm after Kushner left the White House in 2021. 

Jared Kushner

Salman has been implicated by U.S. Intelligence reports in the 2018 torture and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. When asked if he believed the reports, Kushner said: “Are we really still doing this?” 

Democrats also refused to investigate the Trump administration’s illegally seizing vitally-needed medical supplies in at least seven states during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) did not publicly report the thefts, despite the outlay of millions of dollars of taxpayer money. Nor did the administration explain how it decided which supplies to seize and where to reroute them.

The Federal Government did not inform states whose supplies it seized if they would receive the materials they ordered and paid for. 

Case #8: On July 13, 2024, Trump was allegedly wounded in his right ear by a gunman while speaking at an open-air Presidential campaign rally near Butler, Pennsylvania.

The would-be assassin, Thomas Matthew Crooks, fired eight rounds from an AR-15 style rifle from the roof of a nearby building. Trump dived for cover behind his lectern, as the shooter killed one audience member and critically injured two others. 

Crooks was shot and killed seconds later by the Secret Service’s Counter Sniper Team.

Had Trump not slightly turned his head at the moment Crooks fired, Republicans would have been forced to choose another nominee.

 In addition, Trump would not have been alive to win the 2024 Presidential election and openly threaten to imprison the Justice Department prosecutors who sought to hold him accountable for his litany of crimes.

The assassination attempt calls to mind that by Colonel Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg on July 20, 1944, to kill Adolf Hitler with a briefcase bomb. Had he succeeded, the war in Europe would no doubt have ended far earlier, with countless lives being saved.

BIRTHING FASCISM–AND TRUMP’S EVIL: PART ONE (OF FOUR)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Military, Politics, Social commentary on October 6, 2026 at 12:05 am

On January 20, 2025, for the second time, Donald J. Trump took the oath of office as the 47th President of the United States.       

Since then, he has aggressively committed a series of outrages against the country he claims to love, including: 

  • Granting clemency to more than 1,500 people convicted of offenses related to the January 6, 2021 United States Capitol attack.
  • Flooding Minneapolis and St. Paul, Minnesota, with 3,000 Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who terrorized (and in two cases murdered) both American citizens and illegal aliens
  • Signing executive orders reversing climate change initiatives and eliminating DEI programs.
  • Revoking an executive order on Artificial Intelligence safety signed by former President Joseph Biden, to establish safeguards for the rapidly advancing AI technology.
  • Threatening Greenland—an autonomous territory within the Kingdom of Denmark—with invasion unless it agreed to acquisition by the United States. Since Denmark is a member of NATO, such an invasion would pit the United States against its own alliance.

Greenland | History, Denmark, Trump, Population, Map, Flag, & Weather | Britannica

Greenland

  • Purging about a half-dozen executive assistant directors at the FBI. These were some of the bureau’s top managers overseeing criminal, national security and cyber investigations. Their “crime”: Investigating Trump’s inciting the January 6, 2021 coup attempt and illegally holding highly sensitive national security documents after leaving office.
  • Repeatedly threatening to make Canada—a United States ally for over 200 years—America’s “51st state” by military or economic force.
  • Firing the board members at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts and appointing himself as chairman—just as Joseph Stalin made himself arbiter of what was permissible for artists in the Soviet Union.
  • Ordering the Justice Department to indict his critics such as New York Attorney General Letitia James and former FBI Director James Comey.
  • Launching an unprovoked attack on Iran on February 28, he believes that in six weeks he can force its Islamic rulers to abandon their plans to develop nuclear weapons. Expecting victory in six weeks, after eight months he finds himself stymied by Iran’s closing the Strait of Hormuz.

Strait of Hormuz

  • Shutting down the Federal Government on October 1, when Democrats refused to agree to his gutting Medicaid, Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), causing 10-15 million Americans to lose health insurance coverage. 
  • Shutting off the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) for the poor to pressure Democrats to support his gutting of healthcare programs.

There were numerous instances where intervention by Federal legislators or law enforcement authorities could have utterly changed the outcome of the 2024 election—and prevented these outrages.

Case #1: On December 18, 2019, the Democratic-controlled House of Representatives adopted two articles of impeachment against Trump: abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. On February 5, 2020, the Republican-dominated Senate voted to acquit Trump on both articles of impeachment. 

Their motive: Fear that if they didn’t, they would be “primaried” by even more extreme, Trump-supported Right-wing candidates—and lose their positions and the accompanying power and perks.

Had Republicans agreed to convict him, he could not have run again for President. 

Case #2: On January 13, 2021, Trump was impeached for the second time for “incitement of insurrection”—inciting the January 6, 2021 attack on the United States Capitol.

The reason: To stop the counting of Electoral College votes, which he knew would prove that former Vice President Joseph Biden had won the 2020 Presidential election.

The evidence against him was overwhelming—including video of his inciting a mob of his followers to storm the Capitol Building.

But Republican Senators again acquitted Trump on February 13, 2021—choosing ambition over patriotism.

Had they done so, he could not have again been a candidate for President. 

Related image

Donald Trump

Case #3: Only on November 18, 2022—a year and a half after becoming Attorney General—did Merrick Garland appoint Jack Smith Independent Counsel to investigate Donald Trump’s role for: 

  1. Inciting the January 6 attack on Congress; and
  2. Illegally seizing and storing highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach Florida.

This gave Trump time to play his “deny and delay” game. Had he been prosecuted and convicted before the November 5 Presidential election, the results might well have been different.

Even hardcore supporters might have proved unwilling to vote for someone found guilty of inciting a riot or stealing highly classified documents.

Case #4: In June, 2023, Trump was indicted for illegally seizing and storing hundreds of highly classified government documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate.

Aileen Cannon, a Trump appointee as Federal Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida, presided over the case.

She repeatedly ruled in his favor and finally dismissed the case in July, 2024. claiming that Special Counsel Jack Smith’s appointment was unconstitutional. 

Aileen Cannon 

Southern District of Florida, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons 

Many legal experts, citing her handling of the civil case against Trump, called for her recusal from the case. Jack Smith could have requested her removal from the case but did not ask a Federal appeals court to do so.

MSNBC analyst Barbara McQuade told Newsweek that Smith likely refused to do so to “return public trust” to the Justice Department, which had been challenged in recent years.

Cannon’s kid-gloves treatment of Trump echoed that of the Right-wing judge who presided over Adolf Hitler’s trial in 1923 for trying to overthrow the government of Bavaria. 

FOX NEWS: UNFAIR AND UNBALANCED: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 24, 2026 at 12:10 am

Fox News has spent two years peddling “The Big Lie”—that President Donald J. Trump was cheated of electoral victory in 2020.              

But now the truth is coming to light. 

On the March 3 edition of The PBS Newshour, political commentators David Brooks and Jonathan Capehart explored the explosive revelations emerging from a lawsuit brought by Dominion Voting Systems against Fox News.

Host Amna Nawaz opened: 

And, at CPAC today, [Steve Bannon, former chief strategist for President Trump] went after Fox, saying they’re not pro-Trump enough.

But, just this week, we did see a huge admission in that—the latest filings and the defamation case brought by Dominion Voting Systems, that admission from Fox chairman Rupert Murdoch. He conceded under oath Fox hosts lied about the 2020 election, and he chose not to stop them. What are the implications of that?

Shields and Brooks on Trump's COVID-19 diagnosis and the debate | PBS NewsHour

David Brooks

New York Times Columnist David Brooks: Rupert Murdoch started a paper called The Australian a long time ago. He was a journalist, an actual journalist. And now he’s gotten to the point where you can lie on camera if—as long as your ratings are OK. 

Those people who lied didn’t lie over little things. They lied about the election results of a presidential election, kind of a major deal. And we now know—as we all suspected—they all knew what was happening.

And Murdoch is sitting there atop this organization sort of blithely pretending it’s not really his problem. And so he can say it, and he has power over the corporation today. He owns it. He could fire Tucker [Carlson]. He could fire all the people—all the people who were in on this and whose journalistic integrity has been exposed as zero.

And yet he’s still trying to blithely rise above it. And so it’s amazing that we have a major news organization that is inaccurate about a presidential election.

PBS NewsHour | Brooks and Capehart on voting and gun violence legislation | Season 2021 | PBS

Jonathan Capehart

Washington Post Associated Editor Jonathan Capehart: Oh, it’s huge. And it was confirmation of something that folks on the left and just folks paying attention kind of suspected: That Fox News, the “news” is in quotes, that they’re out there blatantly telling lies.

But then to see in black and white as part of this case that not only…they would say lies on television, but then, behind the scenes, they knew the truth.

And what that says to me is, Rupert Murdoch and his anchors, those people who are peddling in lies, they are insulated from the effect of the lies that they tell. When you see someone saying, “Oh, our ratings are going down, and that’s going to affect the stock price.” So there’s no concern….

Rupert Murdoch

Hudson Institute, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0&gt;, via Wikimedia Commons

So that means you’re more concerned about your bottom line than the corrosive impact on our democracy and political discourse in this country. That, to me, was what’s really disturbing.

And what’s even more disturbing is that Fox News isn’t even really covering this lawsuit, which means that their audience, who should know about what’s being said about them and about the programming for them, they will never—they might not ever know….that what they’re being told is just a big bunch of lies.

Amna Nawaz: I go back to the impact again, though, because their audience, which is in the millions, right……if you’re a loyal Fox watcher prone to distrust any other information source anyway, does any of this make an impact?

Jonathan Capehart: Well, that’s the point I was trying to make. We don’t even know if they will even know about this case, as a result. And even if they do find out, either they might not trust it, or maybe they just don’t care. I don’t know.

David Brooks: Well, they’re losing some viewers to the further right, the Bannons of the world. So they are — they are definitely losing viewers.

But my colleague David French made the core point about Fox. If you’re in red America or in rural America, Fox is not just a news organization. It’s your community center. It’s an organization that—that news organization that pays intense attention, that lots of good news stories about cops and soldiers.

A lot of things that happen in red America that don’t get much coverage in the coastal media get a lot of attention in Fox. And so the loyalty there is not only about politics, and it’s not only about news coverage. It’s just about where people see themselves reflected. 

* * * * *

A Twitter user recently asked: “Are critical thinkers being vastly outnumbered in the USA because secondary education is just so damn expensive? It’s no wonder Republican states are among the most poorly educated.”

The answer is: No. 

You don’t have to accept propaganda.

You can question the official version of any story.

You can seek out multiple sources.

You don’t have to seek out only those sources that confirm your long-held prejudices.

And you don’t need a college education to do so.

If Right-wingers—who make up the audience for Fox News—are ignorant, it’s because they want to be ignorant.

FOX NEWS: UNFAIR AND UNBALANCED: PART TWO (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 23, 2026 at 12:13 am

Reputable news organizations believe they’re hurt when a reporter gets his facts wrong—or, worse, invents a story for sensationalistic attention. 

For Fox News Network, getting hurt means that some of its own reporters have told the truth. And, as a result, many of its viewers are turning to other Right-wing propaganda outlets.

In a series of email exchanges, Fox Network executives revealed they were not simply loyal to President Donald Trump but mortally afraid of him.

Star Host Tucker Carlson said that Trump was good at “destroying things. He’s the undisputed world champion of that. He could easily destroy us if we play it wrong.”

Nor was Carlson the only one. The fear started at the very top—with Fox CEO Rupert Murdoch: “Nobody wants Trump as an enemy. We all know that Trump has a big following. If he says, ‘Don’t watch Fox News, maybe some don’t.”

Up to January 26, 2021, Murdoch allowed Fox advertiser Mike “My Pillow” Lindell to appear on the Tucker Carlson Tonight Show to lie that Trump had been cheated of victory by massive voter fraud.

Questioned as to why he allowed it, Murdoch agreed with the statement, “It is not red or blue, it is green.” 

Rupert Murdoch 

In short: Lust for money, not ideology, motivated Fox’s slant on politics.

And, as with all Fox News commentary, truth played no role in the decision to air it.

With unapologetic hypocrisy, Fox stars Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham brutally mocked the lies being peddled by Trump—and their own network.

In a text to Ingraham, Carlson said that Sidney Powell, an attorney who was representing the Trump campaign, was “lying” and that he had “caught her” doing so.

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

Hannity said Giuliani was “acting like an insane person” and Ingraham described him as “an idiot.”

And Hannity said: “That whole narrative that Sidney was pushing, I did not believe it for one second.” 

Sean Hannity

How do we know all this? Certainly not because some outraged Fox whistleblower made these exchanges public.

It’s because Fox’s chief victim, Dominion Voting Systems, decided to strike back.

The Denver-based company produces and sells electronic voting hardware and software, including voting machines and tabulators, in Canada and the United States. 

Dominion, claimed Fox, had criminally enabled Democrats to steal the election for Joe Biden by programming its machines to throw out votes meant for Trump. 

Its reputation unfairly tarnished, its employees threatened with violence by Trump’s Fascistic supporters, Dominion filed a $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against Fox News in March, 2021.

Dominion charged Fox News with pushing false conspiracy theories about the company to win back dissatisfied viewers upset with its coverage of Trump’s defeat.

Libel lawsuits are typically centered around one falsehood. But Dominion cites a lengthy list of Fox hosts making false claims even though they were known to be untrue.

According to an almost 200–page document Dominion filed in the lawsuit:

“From the top down, Fox knew ‘the Dominion stuff’ was ‘total BS.’ Yet despite knowing the truth—or at minimum, recklessly disregarding that truth—Fox spread and endorsed these ‘outlandish voter fraud claims’ about Dominion even as it internally recognized the lies as ‘crazy,’ ‘absurd,’ and ‘shockingly reckless.’

“As a result of the false accusations broadcast by Fox into millions of American homes, Dominion has suffered unprecedented harm and its employees’ lives have been put in danger,” Dominion’s attorneys wrote in the lawsuit.  

Backing up its assertions: A treasury of emails, texts, testimony, and other private communications from Fox News personnel contradicting the network’s claims that Dominion’s voting machines had rigged the presidential election in Joe Biden’s favor. 

These had all been obtained through the discovery process.

While Fox was echoing Trump’s claims of “massive voter fraud,” its executives and commentators knew that he—and they themselves—were lying. 

In mid-November 2020, Carlson texted one of his producers that “there wasn’t enough fraud to change the outcome” of the election.

Later, Carlson said that Sidney Powell, one of Trump’s attorneys and a prominent accuser of election fraud, “is lying.”

Dana Perino, an anchor, called allegations of voter fraud against Dominion “total bs,” “insane,” and “nonsense.” 

Murdoch told an executive on November 6, 2020 that “if Trump becomes a sore loser we should watch Sean [Hannity] especially and others don’t sound the same.”

And on January 5, 2021, Murdoch wrote to Fox News CEO Suzanne Scott:

“It’s been suggested our prime time three [Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham] should independently or together say something like, ‘the election is over and Joe Biden won.’ It would “go a long way to stop the Trump myth that the election [was] stolen.” 

But Fox never aired such a statement.

Fox has repeatedly tried to get the case dismissed, but Superior Court Judge Eric Davis has refused to do so. A trial is slated to begin on April 17. 

There is a difference between journalism and Fascistic propaganda. And Fox News Network routinely provides examples of the latter. 

FOX NEWS: UNFAIR ND UNBALANCED: PART ONE (OF THREE)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on September 22, 2026 at 12:05 am

In the beginning was the audience. And the audience was filled with Fascistic hate and prejudice, and sought always to have its beliefs confirmed.                

And then came Fox News Network, which sought to capture that audience—and, with it, huge ratings and profits. 

At the center of both Fox and its audience stood Donald Trump—first as a Presidential candidate, then as President.

In him, Right-wingers found their ideal representative: He promised to destroy all those groups they hated.

Among these: Blacks, Asians, “uppity” women, Muslims, liberals, Hispanics, Democrats. 

Related image

Donald Trump

So when Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election—by 81,284,666 votes for former Vice President Joe Biden versus 74,224,319 for Trump-–the Right was devastated. And furious.

Unlike its defeats in past Presidential elections, this time the Right refused to accept the will of the electorate.

Trump had often “joked” about how wonderful it would be for the United States to have a “President-for-Life”—as was the case in China.

This time the Right intended to make that a reality.

Central to making that happen was the Fox News Network.

In 2022, for its seventh consecutive year, Fox News stood as the top-rated cable news network in the United States. Fox averaged 1.4 million total day viewers.

By contrast, 733,000 watched MSNBC and 568,000 watched CNN.

In prime time,  Fox came in first with an average of 2.3 million viewers in 2022.

MSNBC came in second with 1.2 million and CNN ranked third with an average of 730,000.

As for profits: Fox’s net income for the twelve months ending December 31, 2022 was $1.507B, a 4.94% increase year-over-year.

Fox News - Wikipedia

In 2015, Trump launched his campaign for President. His chances for success seemed impossible at the time—even to many mainstream Republicans.

But as he won victory after victory in Republican primaries, Fox News stuck with him. And stayed with him through the four years of his Presidency.

Fox was Trump’s favorite network. It gave him unstinting praise and sought to put a favorable spin on everything he did. As a result, Trump rarely gave interviews to CBS, NBC or ABC News.

In turn, Fox profited hugely as its audience—and advertisers—eagerly tuned in. 

So when Trump lost the 2020 Presidential election, he and Fox decided they must get him back into the Oval Office.

Trump did his best—or worst—by filing about 60 lawsuits to overturn the results of the election. But none of his attorneys could prove their claims that widespread fraud had robbed him of victory. The suits were dismissed by judges or withdrawn by Trump’s own attorneys.

Fox News couldn’t file fraudulent cases on Trump’s behalf. But it could poison the public mind by claiming—endlessly and falsely—that Trump had been cheated by massive voter fraud.

Fox didn’t even wait for the final results of the 2020 election to be called before it intervened on the side of what would soon be dubbed “The Big Lie.”

On Election Night, Chris Stirewalt, the political editor of Fox News Channel. was the first to project Biden’s victory in Arizona. This turned out to be right—and brought a furious attack upon Stirewalt.

Tucker: Biden and his donors don't want you to think about this - YouTube

Tucker Carlson

“We worked really hard to build what we have,” Fox host Tucker Carlson texted his producer, Alex Pfeiffer. “Those fuckers are destroying our credibility. It enrages me.”

For Carlson, credibility didn’t mean ensuring integrity in news reporting. It meant telling Fox’s Right-wing audience what it wanted to hear—whether the “news” was true or not. 

Carlson added that he had spoken with fellow primetime commentators Laura Ingraham and Sean Hannity minutes earlier and that they were “highly upset.”

In a January 26 Op-Ed for the Los Angeles Times, Stirewalt wrote: “Having been cosseted by self-validating coverage for so long, many Americans now consider any news that might suggest that they are in error or that their side has been defeated as an attack on them personally.

“The lie that Trump won the 2020 election wasn’t nearly as much aimed at the opposing party as it was at the news outlets that stated the obvious, incontrovertible fact.” 

Stirewalt was fired from Fox News in January, 2021.

Trump was furious about the Arizona call. After the election, he attacked Fox News and encouraged his followers to switch to Newsmax.

Which many of them did, costing Fox a big chunk of its audience.

For Fox, this was the ultimate catastrophe. The company began cracking down on its employees who had dared tell the truth on Election Night. 

One case involved White House correspondent Jacqui Heinrich. Her sin was fact-checking a Trump tweet accusing Dominion Voting Systems of election fraud.

Heinrich wrote that top election officials had determined “there is no evidence that any voting system deleted or lost votes, changed votes, or was in any way compromised.”

“Please get her fired,” Star host Tucker Carlson texted his fellow told host Sean Hannity: “Seriously….what the fuck? I’m actually shocked….It needs to stop immediately, like tonight. It’s measurably hurting the company. The stock price is down. Not a joke.” 

Hannity replied that he had already spoken to Suzanne Scott, the network’s chief executive. The next morning, Heinrich’s tweet had been deleted. 

WHY THE POOR VOTE REPUBLICAN: PART TWO (END)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 18, 2026 at 12:08 am

Republicans have long tried to prevent or eliminate programs that aid the poor and middle-class, including:   

  • Social Security (since it began in 1935)
  • Medicare
  • National health insurance
  • Food stamps
  • WIC (Women, Infants, Children).

So why are so many poor Americans now flocking to this party’s banner?

Two reasons: Racism and greed. There are historical parallels for both.

First, race:

In 1999, historian Victor Davis Hanson noted the huge gap in wealth between the aristocratic, slave-owning minority of the pre-Civil War South and the vast majority of poor white Southerners.

Victor Davis Hanson (@VDHanson) | Twitter

Victor Davis Hanson

“Before the war in the counties Sherman would later ruin, the top 10% of the landowners controlled 40% of the assessed wealth.”

In contrast, “more than half of those who were lucky enough to own any property at all still possessed less than 15% of the area’s valuation.”

So Hanson asked: “Why did the millions of poor whites of the Confederacy fight at all?”

He supplied the answer in his brilliant work on military history, The Soul of Battle: From Ancient Times to the Present Day, How Three Great Liberators Vanquished Tyranny.

One of those liberators was General William Tecumseh Sherman, who led 62,000 Union troops in a victorious “March to the Sea” through the Confederacy in 1864.

So why did so many poor Southern whites literally lay down their lives for the wealthy planter class, which despised them?

According to Hanson: “Behind the entire social fabric of the South lay slavery.

“If slavery eroded the economic position of the poor free citizens, if slavery encouraged a society of haves and have-nots…then it alone offered one promise to the free white man—poor, ignorant and dispirited—that he was at least not black and not a slave.”

And the planter class and its allies in government easily fobbed off their poor white countrymen with cheap flattery. Said Georgia Governor Joseph Brown:

“Among us the poor white laborer is respected as an equal. His family is treated with kindness, consideration, and respect. He does not belong to the menial class. The negro is in no sense his equal. He belongs to the only true aristocracy, the race of white men.”

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Arlington House and plantation, former home of Robert E. Lee

Similarly, poor whites now flock to the Republican Party—which holds them in equal contempt—in large part to protest the 2008 election of the first black President of the United States.

According to a Pew Research Center study released on July 22, 2011: “Notably, the GOP gains have occurred only among white voters; a 2-point Republican edge among whites in 2008 (46% to 44%) has widened to a 13-point lead today (52% to 39%).”

Since the 1960s, Republicans have pursued a campaign policy of “divide and rule”—divide the nation along racial lines and reap the benefits at election time.

  • Republicans opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
  • Republicans opposed the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
  • Republicans, with Richard Nixon as their Presidential candidate in 1968 and 1972, pursued what they called a “Southern strategy”: Use “code language” to stoke fear and hatred of blacks among whites.
  • Republicans have falsely identified welfare programs exclusively with non-whites. (Of the six million Americans receiving food stamps, about 42% are white, 32% are black, and 22% are Latino–with the growth fastest among whites during the recession.)

Thus, in voting Republican, many of these poor whites believe they are “striking a blow for the white race.”

And they can do so in a more socially acceptable way than joining a certified hate group such as the American Nazi Party or Ku Klux Klan.  

Since 2015, openly racist groups such as the Klan and the American Nazi Party have flocked to the banner of Presidential candidate mogul Donald Trump. By enthusiastically courting their support, the real estate mogul has made it possible for Republican candidates to openly display their own racism.

Now greed:

In the hit play, 1776, on the creation and signing of the Declaration of Independence, there is a telling exchange between John Dickinson and John Hancock. It comes during the song, “Cool, Cool, Considerate Men.”

Dickinson, the delegate from Pennsylvania, urges Hancock, president of the Second Continental Congress, “to join us in our minuet.”

By “us” he means his fellow conservatives who fear losing their property and exalted status by supporting American independence from Great Britain.

John Dickinson

Hancock declines, saying: “Fortunately, there are not enough men of property in America to dictate policy.”

To which Dickinson replies:  “Perhaps not. But don’t forget that most men with nothing would rather protect the possibility of becoming rich than face the reality of being poor. And that is why they will follow us.”

Today,  poor whites generally identify with the CEOs of powerful corporations. They believe the Republican gospel that they can attain such wealth—if only the government will “get out of my way.”

They forget—or ignore–the truth that government, for all its imperfections, is sometimes all that stands between them and a wide range of predators.

In return, the CEOs despise them as the privileged have always despised their social and economic “inferiors.”

Unless the Democratic Party can find ways to directly address these bitter, Politically Incorrect truths, it will continue its decline into insignificance.

WHY THE POOR VOTE REPUBLICAN: PART ONE (OF TWO)

In Bureaucracy, Business, History, Medical, Politics, Social commentary on September 17, 2026 at 12:10 am

On July 22, 2011, ABC News carried the following story:     

The Pew Foundation, analyzing voter identification, found “the electorate’s partisan affiliations have shifted significantly” since Barack Obama won office in 2008.

The GOP had gained strength among white voters, most specifically “the young and poor.”

A seven-point Democratic advantage among whites under age 30 three years ago had turned into an 11-point GOP advantage. And a 15-point Democratic advantage among whites earning less than $30,000 annually had swung to a slim four-point Republican edge by 2011.

Pew Charitable Trusts - InfluenceWatch - InfluenceWatch

In addition:

  • The GOP gains had occurred only among white voters.
  • Republicans had made sizable gains among white voters since 2008. Fifty-two percent of white voters called themselves Republicans or leaned to the GOP, compared with 39% who affiliated with the Democratic Party or leaned Democratic.
  • Democrats had lost their edge among lower income white voters.
  • In 2008, Democrats had a 15 point lead among white voters with family incomes less than $30,000.  By 2011, Republicans had a four-point edge among this group.
  • The GOP’s lead among middle income white voters had grown since 2008, and Republicans held a substantial advantage with higher income white voters.
  • Republicans have made gains among whites with a high school education or less. The GOP’s advantage over Democrats had grown from one point in 2008 to 17 points in 2011 among less educated whites.
  • Republicans had made smaller gains among whites voters who had college degrees.

What is fascinating about these findings is this: The Republicans have, since 1980, pursued a policy of gutting programs aimed at helping the poor—while repeatedly creating tax-breaks for the wealthiest 1% of the population.

For Republicans, the patron saint of this “love-the-rich-screw-the-poor” ideology remains Ronald Reagan–two-time governor of California and twice-elected President of the United States (1981-1989)

Ronald Reagan, who taught Americans to worship the wealthy

Among those charting Reagan’s legacy as President was former CBS Correspondent David Shoenbrum.

In his bestselling autobiography, America Inside Out: At Home and Abroad from Roosevelt to Reagan, he noted:

  • On January 28, 1981, keeping a pledge to his financial backers in the oil industry, Reagan abolished Federal controls on the price of oil.
  • Within a week, Exxon, Texaco and Shell raised gasoline prices and prices of home heating oil.
  • Reagan saw it as his duty to put a floor under prices, not a ceiling above them.

America Inside Out: Schoenbrun, David: 9780070554733: Amazon.com: Books

  • Reagan believed that when government helped business it wasn’t interfering. Loaning money to bail out a financially incompetent Chrysler was “supporting the free enterprise system.”
  • But putting a high-profits tax on price-gouging corporations or filing anti-trust suits against them was “Communistic” and therefore intolerable.
  • Tax-breaks for wealthy businesses meant helping America become stronger.
  • But welfare for the poor or the victims of a predatory marketplace economy weakened America by sapping its morale.

“In short, welfare for the rich is good for America. But welfare for the poor is bad for America, even for the poor themselves, for it encourages them to be shiftless and lazy.

“Somehow, loans to the inefficient management of American corporations would not similarly encourage them in their inefficient methods,” wrote Shoenbrun.

Republicans have sought to dismantle Social Security ever since that program began in 1935. And Republicans have furiously opposed other programs aiding the poor and middle-class—such as Medicare, food stamps and WIC (Women, Infants, Children).

In short, this is not a political party with a history of rushing to the defense of those most in need.

So the question remains: Why are so many poor Americans flocking to its banner?

The answer lies in the history of the American South—and slavery.

FAILING AT IRAN, NOW HE WANTS CANADA: PART THREE (END)

In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Politics, Social commentary on September 16, 2026 at 12:26 am

On January 20, 2026, in a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney called for greater cooperation among the world’s middle-sized nations.      

The reason: To protect themselves from great powers using tariffs to extort control over them.

An example of this: Ottawa and Beijing now have a limited tariff agreement that swaps reduced Chinese duties on Canadian canola seeds for lower Canadian tariffs on a capped volume of Chinese electric vehicles.

On January 26, Canada announced a plan to significantly expand trade with non‑U.S. countries, strengthen internal Canadian trade, and increase domestic investment by up to one trillion dollars over the next five years.

A map of Canada showing its 10 provinces and 3 territories

Canadian provinces and territories

On February 20, 2026, the United States Supreme Court ruled against emergency tariffs imposed under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act.

This had been the basis—and excuse—for Trump’s slapping tariffs on more than 180 countries. 

Ignoring the Supreme Court ruling Trump imposed a short term 10% global tariff. 

On July 1, after a virtual meeting with U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts, Greer announced that the U.S. would not extend the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement (CUSMA). 

Its goals had been to boost economic growth, reduce trade barriers, and secure preferential market access across North America.

On July 17, in a Truth Social post, Trump threatened to put new tariffs on Canada after hundreds of wildfires left much of the northern U.S. covered by smoke.

He could have offered to send American firefighters and firefighting equipment to Canada. But acting in a humane way has never been a part of Trump’s character. 

On July 20, Trump alleged that Canada discriminated against American companies supplying alcohol, dairy and cars. He signed three proclamations under the 1930 Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act, imposing 50% tariffs on Canadian dairy, alcohol, cars and other products.

On August 22,  Trump’s 50% tariffs took effect on about $20 billion worth of Canadian goods—dairy products, alcoholic beverages, cement and hockey equipment. 

Trade negotiations had collapsed shortly before a midnight deadline the previous night. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said that “last-minute changes in the U.S. proposed terms” had caused the collapse.

Mark Carney - Wikiquote

Mark Carney

“….The general attitude….is that the core Canadian industries either would be subsidiaries effectively of the United States industries or would put in place terms where those industries would be, gradually wound down in Canada and we’re not going to of course….accept those terms.”

And he warned that Canada would match the tariffs “dollar for dollar” starting on September 8.

After Canada suspended trade talks on August 21, Trump signed an executive order “changing” the name of Lake Ontario, which borders New York and Canada’s Ontario province, to Lake America.

Google and Apple, cravenly seeking to win Trump’s favor, immediately displayed maps offering the Trumpian version of geography.

“When the Americans stop doing memes, stop throwing shade, stop trying to be tough and start being serious about having those discussions, we can have those discussions,” said Carney at a press conference.

There is no American precedent for such extortionate behavior—but there is a German one. That of Nazi Germany from t938 to 1939 under Adolf Hitler—first against Austria, then Czechoslovakia, and finally Poland.

It was his aggression against Poland that ignited World War II.

Opinion | Yes, it's okay to compare Trump to Hitler. Don't let me stop you. - The Washington Post

But Trump can be beaten—if his enemies are willing to go all the way.

Democratic nations like Canada and Mexico dare not attack the United States militarily. America’s military is so powerful the country is threatened only by China and Russia.

But they can target with ruthless tariffs those Red states whose Fascistic voting blocs fanatically support Trump—and the House and Senate members who support him.

They can:

  • Deprive Red state populations of the fruits, vegetables, meats, cars, computers, oil, gas—and especially beer and alcohol—they take for granted. 
  • Refuse to stock goods from Red states in their stores.
  • Appeal to the patriotism of Canadians and Mexicans to maintain the boycott despite the suffering this will impose on their own countries. 

Canada, in particular, has a deadly weapon it can unleash at any time:

Provincial authorities and grid operators (such as Ontario’s Independent Electricity System Operator) can reduce or halt power flowing through cross-border transmission lines to states like New York, Michigan and Minnesota.

The U.S. imports electricity from Canada because it is cheaper than generating more supply domestically. Losing Canadian electricity would force affected states to rely on rapacious energy companies, driving up electricity costs for consumers.

This, in turn, would trigger voters’ anger against Trump-supporting Republican candidates for the House and Senate.

Americans are used to seeking simple, painless solutions to major problems. Thus, in 2024, Trump won 77 million votes by promising to drastically reduce the price of eggs.

Instead, he gave voters an unprovoked and endless war on Iran. This has created a worldwide spiral in oil prices—and fueled inflation in the United States and other nations.

As prices soar for food, energy and housing, Trump focuses on vanity projects like a 90,000 square-foot White House ballroom and a towering “Victory Arch” overlooking Arlington Cemetery. 

When Red states are forced to suffer staggering losses for months on end, they will elect anti-Fascist Senators and Representatives to nullify the evils of Trump’s administration.