If you watch a Sinclair Broadcast Group owned local station you need to know just how right wing their reporting is. By Hal Brown, MSW

 

"Morning Joe" covered this today with clips of local Sinclair owned station anchors reading the exact same script about the Wall Street Journal article about President Biden's age and saying that his so-called cognitive deficits could possibly decide the election. They said the same words and then they cut to the same national reporter spouting anti-Biden lies.

Sincliair is the second-largest television station operator in the United States by number of stations (after Nexstar Media Group), owning or operating a total of 193 stations across the country in over 100 markets (covering 40% of American households), and is the largest owner of stations affiliated with  Fox, NBC, CBS, ABC, MyNetworkTV, and The CW.  (Wikipedia)

Here's an article about this with a six minute video of examples.

Excerpt:

Local television news broadcasters are airing suspiciously similar attacks on Joe Biden’s mental acuity and how it will affect the coming election—and it appears to be part of a coordinated effort. 

The Sinclair Broadcast Group owns or operates 185 local television stations across the country, and dozens of their stations aired a segment from national correspondent Matthew Galka citing a Wall Street Journal articlethat makes dubious attacks on Biden’s age and mental awareness. The stations that aired the segment introduced it using startlingly similar, if not identical language, the Popular Information and Public Notice newsletters reported.

You can watch the video here.

Here's a different video on the same subject.

This is from the Wikipedia entry on Sinclair:

A 2019 study in the American Political Science Review found that "stations bought by Sinclair reduce coverage of local politics, increase national coverage and move the ideological tone of coverage in a conservative direction relative to other stations operating in the same market". The company has been criticized by journalists and media analysts for requiring its stations to broadcast packaged video segments and its news anchors to read prepared scripts that contain pro-Trump editorial content, including warnings about purported "fake news" in mainstream media, while Trump has tweeted support for watching Sinclair over CNN and NBC

Read more about their political views and how they are integated into their local news coverage here. Note that Sinclair often mandates its stations to air specific reports, segments, programs and editorials, referred to as "must-runs".

When people tune in to watch Fox News they know what to expect. When they tune in to a local Sinclair owned station they may not know that they will be watching segments that are as biased as those on Fox News.

I live in the Portland, Oregon suburbs and KATU is the Sinclair station here. Many people I know who are very liberal watch it for local news and weather without knowing that it is a far-right propaganda outlet.

I live where there are two other local stations, KOIN and KGW. I don't click on KATU (upper left below). The other stations have websites where I can check out local news. The local newspaper The Oregonian also has a website, Oregon Live.

The company wields a lot of influence considering it is headquartered in a five story building in a Baltimore suburb.

By comparison NBC is housed at 30 Rock (below left)and Fox News is located in the News Corp Building.

You can read my blog in either of these places:

Stressline.org

HaBrown.org

Nixon and Kennedy were evenly matched intellectually in their first debate. Nixon lost because of how he looked on TV. Trump may lose because he "loses it" on TV. By Hal Brown, MSW

 

Read:

Team Biden bets an unfiltered Trump at the debate can shake up the race

GOP pollster Frank Luntz said the June 27 faceoff will be "the most important debate since JFK-Richard Nixon."

This is from the History.com article on the Kennedy-Nixon debates.

• ... Nixon bashed his knee on a car door while campaigning in North Carolina and developed an infection that landed him in the hospital; he emerged two weeks later frail, sallow and 20 pounds underweight.
• Nixon’s streak of bad luck continued. Stepping out of the car, he banged his bad knee and exacerbated his earlier injury. The vice president had recently suffered a bout of the flu and was still running a low fever; he had nonetheless spent a grueling day on the campaign trail and looked drained. Kennedy, meanwhile, had been holed up in a hotel with his aides for an entire weekend, fielding practice questions and resting up for the first of four “Great Debates.”
• Despite Nixon’s exhaustion and Kennedy’s preparedness, the Republican and Democrat were more or less evenly matched when it came to substance. Each held forth skillfully and presented remarkably similar agendas. Both emphasized national security, the threat of communism, the need to strengthen the U.S. military and the importance of building a brighter future for America. Indeed, after Kennedy’s opening statement, Nixon said, “I subscribe completely to the spirit that Senator Kennedy has expressed tonight.” And yet, while most radio listeners called the first debate a draw or pronounced Nixon the victor, the senator from Massachusetts won over the 70 million television viewers by a broad margin.

For Trump to lose the debate he really doesn't have to "lose it" unless the "lose" that is meant is his true self. If he doesn't restrain his true self, the self we see at his rallies, in his interviews, and in his Truth Social Posts, and the self we saw in his NYC courthouse statements, he will lose. 

For him to win, or at least have pundits call the debate a tie with polls showing that the debate didn't change any votes, he has to demonstrate a command of the issues and express himself in an authoritative manner without appearing unhinged. If that word is used in the media to describe his debate performance he lost. 

If Trump really has early dementia (as experts and others have speculated - see Google search for Trump dementia) since the debate is in the evening he may be sundowning. If the much of the news coverage uses the word dementia with examples of showing signs of this disease Trump will have lost too.

Biden doesn't have to memorize responses to likely questions from moderators and to things Trump says. Although I expect he will practice he is capable of winging it. If anything he would do well to practice responding to Trump if he goes on an off the rails rant attacking him.

It's possible that Trump's narcissism will prevent him from having any debate preparation. He may view this as a waste of his time. It is better for Biden if Trump wings it because (as the MSNBC chyron says) the "unfiltered Trump will shake up the race." 

Back to the Kennedy Nixon debates from History.com:

Legacy of the Kennedy-Nixon Debates 

A month and a half later, Americans turned out to vote in record numbers. As predicted, it was a close election, with Kennedy winning the popular vote 49.7 percent to 49.5 percent. Polls revealed that more than half of all voters had been influenced by the Great Debates, while 6 percent claimed that the debates alone had decided their choice. 

Whether or not the debates cost Nixon the presidency, they were a major turning point in the 1960 race—and in the history of television. Televised debates have become a permanent feature of the American political landscape, helping to shape the outcomes of both primary and general elections. Along with distinguishing themselves from their opponents, candidates have the opportunity to showcase their oratory skills (or betray their inarticulateness), display their sense of humor (or reveal their lack thereof) and capitalize on their rivals’ gaffes (or seal their fate with a slip of the tongue). 

Two years after the Kennedy-Nixon debates, the man on the losing end acknowledged their importance—and his fatal misstep—in his 1962 memoir Six Crises: “I should have remembered that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’”

Trump doesn't have the personal insight to reflect on his own shortcomings the way Nixon did when he wrote “I should have remembered that ‘a picture is worth a thousand words.’” If Trump is trounced in the debate he won't be reflecting back that it was his arrogance and narcissism and that was the cause of this.

If narcissism and/or the inability to memorize answers to likely questions from moderators and attacks coming from Biden in a hinged (as opposed to unhinged) manner and a sensible rather than senile way he will lose the debate.

It may be difficult for headline writers not to title their articles as follows since the alliteration is so obvious:

Biden Trounces Trump

Read previous Stressline blogs here.

Blogs may be easier to read if you use my other website, HalBrown.org.

Does Trump really want to base his appeal on alleging that the testimony of this witness was prejudicially lurid? By Hal Brown, MSW

 

In a NY Times guest essay today, "I’m an Appellate Lawyer in Manhattan. If Trump Appeals His Conviction, He Faces Long Odds" attorney Robert L. Stavis writes:

To warrant reversal of a jury’s verdict on account of an error, the appellate court must find that an error of some kind led directly to the conviction. A technical error that does not rise to that level is called a “harmless error” and will not cause a reversal of a conviction.

He went on to give this example:

In Mr. Trump’s trial, perhaps the best example of harmless error occurred during the prosecutor’s direct examination of Stormy Daniels. The prosecutor elicited intimate details of the sexual encounter Ms. Daniels alleges she had with Mr. Trump and also her testimony that she felt physically threatened by the circumstances of their encounter. Mr. Trump’s defense counsel argued that by discussing the sexual details, which made Mr. Trump appear pathetic, and the statement that she felt intimidated, which made it appear as though the sex was not consensual, the prosecutor had greatly prejudiced Mr. Trump in the eyes of the jury. This was the subject of a mistrial motion, which Justice Juan Merchan denied.

If this supposedly prejudicial testimony is put to the judges on the appellate court, they would ask if the lurid portions of Ms. Daniels’s testimony caused the jury to convict Mr. Trump. The answer here is a clear no.

Since his conviction Donald Trump has persistently raged against Judge Merchan and D.A. Alvin Bragg. Absent from his attack list is the woman without whom there would have been no trial. A gag order prevents him from attacking witnesses though if he could I doubt he would win a social media battle with Daniels who tweeted “Real men respond to testimony by being sworn in and taking the stand in court. Oh...wait. Nevermind.” (Read article about this.)

This is from Politico: An angry Trump gathers allies to push against Stormy Daniels.

Excerpts:

• When Stormy Daniels testified in Donald Trump’s hush-money trial, the former president huffed in his seat. He shook his head at times. His anger was so visible and distracting that the judge asked his lawyers to tell him to cool off

• Trump’s two days in court were clearly frustrating and excruciating for the former president, who was visibly angry during her testimony, which included intimate details of their alleged sexual encounter — including the type of underwear the former president was wearing.

• “Her testimony makes [clear] what we already know about Trump — essentially that he’s a sleazy, narcissistic, cheater,” said Horn (a Lincoln Project so-founder), who said Daniels’ testimony was specific and detailed, lending her credibility. “Did she sound angry? Was she eager to see him held accountable? Yes, of course ... she speaks of experiences and fears that most women can relate to.”

I can't imagine that Trump wants to have Stormy's testimony which was decidedly unflattering to him to be part of his basis for an appeal. We know how much of his self-image is based on how he thinks he is God's gift to women: "I can grab them by the...." etc.

If he won his appeal based even in part on the testimony of Stormy Daniels it wouldn't be because she committed perjury and that there were untruthful elements in what she described, or that the encounter didn't happen, as he has claimed. It wouldn't be that the details were embellished to seem lurid. It would be because her testimony was prejudicially lurid and, as the Stavis essay says, made him appear pathetic.

There are psychological reasons Trump may aovid publicizing the Daniels description of what happened between them. He is highly invested in believing that he possesses extraordinary prowess with women. From his professional wrestling performances to the images he has on his electronic trading cards you can see how he wants people to see him as hyper-masculine. It had to sting to have an adult movie star undermine this image beginning with mocking him once she went public (see article about her book "Full Disclosure" from The Guardian) about the encounter and culminating in the NYC court where what she described was widely reported.

RawStory has a brief summary of the NY Times essay here.

If NATO goes to war with Russia and Trump is president Europe might not be as lucky as they were when FDR was president and the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, by Hal Brown, MSW

 

At campaign rally Trump said he wouldn’t come to the aid of NATO members if Russia attacked them, which was the whole point of the alliance in the first place. Trump said, “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want.” (From the CNN article below)

Click to read above article.

If you've been following the news on MSNBC as I have you've seen coverage of Presdent Biden's trip to Europe to commerate the aniversary of D Day. He spoke of the existential threat to democracy presented by Russia without alluding to Donald Trump. Is is a convention for American presidents not speak about their political rivalries at home when they are overseas. Ali Velshi said Biden made it clear that "Democracy is a fight for the ages and that fight doesn't end" without mentioning Trump's name.

History tells us when and particularly why the United States entered World War II (read article).

World War II began in Europe on September 1, 1939 with the German invasion of Poland and the United Kingdom and France‘s declaration of war on Germany two days later on 3 September 1939. The United States remained neutral and didn’t enter the war until after the Dec. 7, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor.

Had the United States remained neutral for much longer I don’t think you have to be an historian to speculate about who the ultimate winners might have been.

FDR stayed out of the war because of pressure in Congress and the public rather than because he had a cozy relationship with Adolph Hitler.

..

Since his conviction Trump has relentlessly gone after everyone involved with his case except Stormy Daniels. There may be an underlying reason for this. By Hal Brown, MSW, Psychoanalyically oriented psychotherapist (Ret.)

 

Read Toad from Mario Kart article here.

Read Guardian article.

Since his conviction Donald Trump has presistently raged against Michael Cohen, Judge Merchan, and Alvin Bragg. Unless I missed it noticablly absent from his attack list is the woman without whom there would have been no trial. Of course this is Stormy Daniels who claims she had a sexual encounter with him while he says he never met her aside from the photo whiich he says he doesn't remember her from when it was taken.

I doesn't take a psychoanalyst to figure out why this is. He simply doesn't want to remind people of her terstimony, and what she said an article like the one above.

Trump's self-image is based in large measure (no pun intended) on being the macho man who is irresistible to women. "When you're a star..." etc. 

Even before he was president Trump considered himself to be a star, albeit the star of a lamebrained self-aggrandizing "reality" show. Being a star for him very much was associated with his perceived sexual prowress.

Stormy Daniels was a star in her own right. Her being an actor in numerous porn movies meant she had sex with numerous men. When she judged Trump's sexual techinque and apparatus as inferior it had to hit him hard... below the belt.

Read previous Stressline blogs.

For some reason a social media site wouldn't let me post this....

Video slowed down by Patriot Takes of Trump foaming at the mouth went viral with all kinds of speculation as to what it meant. By Hal Brown, MSW

 

Watch the video on X here. Watch a YouTube of the video here. You can read abiout it without viewing it though to better appreciate why this has gone viral you need to watch the video.

Here’s an article about this: ‘Rabid Don’: Eruption as Trump’s ‘foamy saliva’ video flagged as ‘sign of health issues’.

This was covered in Newswek: Donald Trump’s ‘Foamy Saliva’ in Campaign Video Raises Questions with the notation “that Newsweek has contacted a Trump spokesperson for comment via email, and this article will be updated if a response is received and in HUFFPOST in an article titled Trump Did A Weird Thing With His Mouth And You’ll Never Un-See It.

If you need proof this has gone viral here’s the Google search of Trump foam coming out of mouth. Below are just the first series of articles:

I don’t know who Patriot Takes is. From the X screen this would seem to be an individual and not a group since it says “what are they tweeting about me now?” Here’s a link to their X page.

Whoever they are has sharp eyes because the white foam in Trump’s mouth is only visible for a split second. I haven’t seen anyone point out the camel toe appearance of Trump’s neck (my arrow above) which is a reminder that Trump isn’t the physically buff macho man he wants everyone to think he is. Fact check: he’s not, especially when compared to President Biden:

You can read the replies to Patriot Takes ‘post here.

Here are some of them:

Someone who claims expertise posted “Retired microbiologist, not a doctor. A few possibilities based on his history are drug overdose, heart and lung issues, and pulmonary edema. It’s something they should take him for immediate medical attention.”

Of course their was at least one person who posted an image comparing Trump to a dog:

Here’s the result of a Google search for “what does foaming at the mouth mean?”

The Websters definition is simply “to produce froth from the mouth because of illness or excitement.” If the explanation is merely that it was the result of excitment it doesn’t really matter if since it’s possible Trump will get wind of the publicity this is getting and it won’t please him, to say the least.

If you didn’t watch the video: Watch the video here.

Hey America, do you want to elect Bloodthirsty Bannon to be the real second in command? By Hal Brown, MSW

 

If there’s a postion for Lord High Excecutioner and Trump wins Bannon would be selected. Stephen Miller would be his assistant in charge of removing severed heads and putting them on spikes.

Today’s blog was inspired by this article and others:

Here’s the article about Bannon’s plans from The New York Times (subscrpition):

Excerpt:

“Is every House committee controlled by Republicans using its subpoena power in every way it needs to right now?” he demanded. “Is every Republican D.A. starting every investigation they need to right now?”

“Every facet of Republican Party politics and power has to be used right now to go toe-to-toe with Marxism and beat these Communists,” Mr. Miller said, using the catchall slurs Trump allies routinely use against Democrats.

This is the article which quotes him as follows:

“There are dozens of ambitious backbencher state attorneys general and district attorneys who need to ‘seize the day’ and own this moment in history,” Mr. Bannon wrote.

This is a good plan for these state AGs. Doing what he suggests will garner them a lot of publicity and if Trump wins serve them well if they aspire to higher office.

This is from Axios:

Bannon told us Bragg could be targeted using the 14th Amendment (equal protection) and Fourth Amendment (outlawing unreasonable searches and seizures by the government) “plus scores of other” laws. Bannon told us he wants “investigations to include [Democrats’] media allies.”

Axios points out that it isn’t just Bannon who wants to prosecute and potential jail Trump’s opponents. This is from their article:

What’s next: Even before the election, House Republicans want to go after Bragg.

• House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Monday told Fox News Digital he’s preparing an appropriations package that would “defund the lawfare (sic) activities” of state and federal prosecutors leading “politically sensitive investigations,” including Bragg, special counsel Jack Smith and Fulton County (Ga.) District Attorney Fani Willis.
• Jordan called last week for Bragg and one of his courtroom prosecutors, Matthew Colangelo, to testify June 13 before Jordan’s Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government. The topic: “the unprecedented political prosecution of President Trump.”

Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) said this weekend on “Fox News Sunday” that the hearing’s purpose “is to investigate what these prosecutors are doing at the state and federal level to use … political retribution in the court system to go after political opponents, federal officials like Donald Trump.”

• “And we’re going to look at Special Counsel Jack Smith,” Johnson added, referring to the Justice Department official leading two federal probes of Trump. “We have the funding streams. We have mechanisms to try to get control of that.”

Of course Trump himself is making no secret of wanting to exact revenge in the form of legal action against his enemies:

American voters must realize that there is probably nobody Donald Trump trusts more than Steve Bannon. They are kindred spirits in the malevolent psychopathy permeating their very essense. 

If Trump is reelected I expect Bannon will have the most influence on Trump whether or not he is on the White House staff as an advisor or has a position like Chief of Staff. He will replace Jared Kushner who Vox considered Trump’s most trusted advisor in 2020 (article). Even if he and Ivanka wanted to stay involved in Trump’s inner circle neither he nor his wife have the  Caligula level blood lust Bannon has.

If Bannon miraculously morhped into a young buxom babe I have no doubt he’d dump Melania and marry him. 

Stephen Miller is a runner-up to be Trump’s real number two. Bannon wins because he’s not only just as evil but because he’s better known in MAGA world. If this was a beauty contest Bannon would get the crown and Miller would get the Miss Non-congeniality prize.

Below: The hairless and the hairy….

Update: Bannon said that he’d want Donald Trump, Jr. to be the Attorney General if Trump is elected despite the fact that he doesn’t have a law degree. Article. He said he has common sense so he doesn’t need to be a lawyer. I’m surprised he said this. I’d think he’d want the kindred psychopath Stephen Miller in this position.

Addendum: Bannon was sentenced to four months in prison because was convicted in 2022 of contempt of Congress for refusing to provide testimony or documents to the committee probing the 6 January Capitol riot. His appeal failed so he could be headed to prison and have to serve time before Trump, if he’s elected, can pardon him. Read article.

Below: Featured image.