Re: Did the intern accost Acosta or did he accost her?
Today I looked in on this thread for the first time and noticed that Faith commented on my Message 2583 from the The Trump Presidency thread about CNN's Jim Acosta being barred from the White House. Here's a video that begins after Acosta has asked his first question:
The entire exchange is captured in this video, I've queued it up to begin at the right time:
Here's a complete transcript of the exchange between Trump and Acosta:
quote:Trump (first responding to previous reporter, then pointing at Jim Acosta): You heard my answer, go ahead.
Acosta: Thank you, Mr. President. I'd like to challenge you on one of the statements that you made in the tail end of the campaign, uh, in midterms...
Trump (interrupting): Here we go.
Acosta: ...that, well, if you don't mind, Mr. President, that this caravan was an invasion. As you know...
Trump (interrupting): I consider it to be an invasion.
Acosta: As you know, Mr. President, the caravan was not an invasion, it's a, it's a group of migrants moving up from Central America toward the border with the US, and...
Trump (talking over Acosta, sarcastically): Thank you for telling me that, I appreciate it.
Acosta: Why did you characterize it as such, uh, and...
Trump (interrupting): Because I consider it an invasion. You and I have a difference of opinion.
Acosta: But do you think that you demonized immigrants in this election...
Trump (talking over Acosta): Not at all, no, not at all. I want them to come into the country, but they have to come in legally. You know they have to come in, Jim, through a process. I want it to be a process, and I want people to come in, and we need the people.
Acosta: Your campaign...
Trump: Wait...
Acosta: Your campaign...
Trump: Wait, wait. You know why we need the people, don't you? Because we have hundreds of companies moving in. We need the people.
Acosta: Your campaign had an ad showing migrants climbing over walls and so on...
Trump (interrupting): Well, that's true.
Acosta: It for...
Trump (interrupting): They weren't actors.
Acosta: But it...
Trump (interrupting): They weren't actors.
Acosta: They're not going to be doing that...
Trump (interrupting): They weren't actors. No, it was true. Do you think they were actors? They weren't actors. They didn't come from Hollywood.
Acosta: Alright.
Trump: These were, these were people...this was an actual...you know, it happened a few days ago, and, uh,...
Acosta: They're hundreds of miles away, though. They're hundreds and hundreds of miles away.
Trump (interrupting): You know what?
Acosta: That's not an invasion.
Trump: Honestly, I think you should let me run the country, you run CNN,...
Acosta: Alright.
Trump: ...and if you did it well your ratings would be much better.
Acosta (intern begins approaching Acosta from his left): Let me ask...if...if I may ask you one more question...
Trump (interrupting): That's enough.
Acosta (intern leans into Acosta while he's speaking into the mic and makes first grab for it with right hand while Acosta leans away): Mr. President, if I may ask you one more question. Are you worried...
Trump (interrupting, more firmly): That's enough.
Acosta: Mr. President...
Trump (interrupting): That's enough.
Acosta (intern moves directly in front of and closer to Acosta while he's still talking into the mic and grabs for it with left hand): Can I ask one other...the other folks...
Acosta (intern sits down): Mr. President, I have one other question,...
Trump (interrupting, probably calling on NBC's Peter Alexander):
Acosta: ...if I may ask, on the Russia investigation, are you concerned that, that you may have indictments...
Trump (interrupting): I'm not concerned about anything with the Russia investigation because it's a hoax.
Acosta: Are you...
Trump: (interrupting): That's enough, put down the mic.
Acosta: Mr. President, are you worried about indictments coming down in this investigation? (lowers mic and allows intern to take it)
NBC's Peter Alexander (intern has handed mic to Alexander): Mr. President...
Trump (interrupting Alexander and addressing himself to Acosta): I'll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN.
Trump: (to Alexander) Go ahead.
Alexander: I, I think that's...
Trump (interrupting, directing his comments to Acosta again): You're a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible, and the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn't treat people that way.
Trump (to Alexander): Go ahead.
Alexander: In, in...
Trump (interrupting) Go ahead, Peter, go ahead.
Alexander: In Jim's defense, I've traveled with him and watched him. He's a diligent reporter who busts hit butt...
Trump (interrupting) Well, I'm not a big fan of yours, either.
Alexander: I understand.
Trump: To be honest with you.
Alexander: So let...so let me ask you a question if I can. You repeatedly said...
Trump (interrupting and turning to the seated Acosta, sarcastically): You are, you are the best. (Acosta stands and speaks, but since he has no mic we cannot hear what he says, though we can faintly hear his voice)
Alexander: Mr. President, you repeatedly over, over the course...
Trump (interrupting and turning to the standing Acosta): Just sit down, please.
Trump (to the speaking Acosta): When you, when you report fake news...no. When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people.
Trump: (to Alexander): Go ahead.
About this exchange you say:
Faith writes:
No, Percy, Trump was the one attacked by the journalists, his reaction was correct. Acosta was being an activist and not a journalist, he was not asking questions, he was accusing the President of the usual PC perfidies, he was forcing his own definitions on the situation but when Trump did the right thing and ended his indefensible behavior it's Trump who gets the criticism, not the disruptor. When will this reign of Leftist media tyranny end, when the whole nation has gone up in flames?
Acosta's eventual question, after many interruptions, was about Trump's characterization of the migrant caravan as an invasion. He also pointed out that the migrants shown in Trump's campaign ad pushing against a wall couldn't have been from the migrant caravan since it's still hundreds of miles away. This is the campaign ad that even Fox News stopped running.
Trump didn't just interrupt Acosta and Alexander but nearly all reporters. I think if Trump had stopped interrupting that he would have gotten much more clearly expressed questions.
About the intern, Acosta never moved from his spot. It was the intern who moved into Acosta's personal space. The interns' job was to carry mics from one reporter to the next. They were not enforcers. But this intern decided to make it her responsibility to move into Acosta's personal space and physically wrest the mic from his hand while he was still speaking and gesturing.
The opinion on the right is against Acosta as a rude brat,...
If you watch the entire question period of the press conference you'll see that it was Trump who was repeatedly aggressive, hostile and rude based on whether he liked the question. He seemed to have walked into the press conference determined to pick fights, and this is backed up by the fact that he called on both Jim Acosta and Peter Alexander early on, two reporters he's clashed with in the past.
...and I think it's interesting that while as far as I've seen all the liberal-leftist opinion is in defense of the brat,...
Jim Acosta and all the other reporters who were abused by Trump (such as PBS's Yamiche Alcindor, a black reporter whose question about Trump declaring himself a nationalist Trump called racist) were just doing their job. Some do it more aggressively than others. Do you remember Sam Donaldson back during the Reagan years?
...the right is all against him, some immediately suggesting that he should be permanently banned from the White House.
Well, he has been banned from the White House, so the point is moot.
Why the partisan divide on a kerfuffle in the press conference where the "journalist" should have been escorted away forthwith?
I think Trump was out of line when he criticized Jim Acosta personally and called CNN the enemy of the people, and that Acosta was out of line when he stood up to reply even though he had no mic. Acosta's words cannot be heard, but I was able to make out the phrase "pipe bombs," so Acosta was evidently asking a question about the recent mailing of pipe bombs, then he sat down again.
(NOBODY would have talked to Obama the say this guy talked to Trump, or some of the other "journalists" there either for that matter, and if anyone had he'd have been gone gone gone and nobody would have mentioned it again.)
In eight years in office Obama never called the press the enemy of the people or fake news or any other derogatory terms, and he was never rude to reporters. He never determinedly pursued a hostile relationship with the press. But Trump was antagonistic and rude in his first press conference after the 2016 election, and also in his first press conference in February of last year. He was even more so in this just the second press conference of his presidency where you'd have to call his behavior a meltdown.
There's even been a big flap about whether Acosta physically pushed the intern who tried to get the mike from him, people poring over slow- motion video to determine the question. That has become the reason for ousting him but it shouldn't be in my opinion, his rude behavior should have been reason enough.
With Acosta leaning away from the intern and with the intern reaching her hands into his personal space, there's no case for criticizing Acosta's treatment of the intern. She's not security. She's not the enforcer. Her job was to carry the mic from one reporter to the next. Wresting mics from the hands of reporters still asking their questions was not her job.
Funny huh? Trump is right, the media are hostile, they are partisan Leftists, they've abandoned all claim to objectivity and even civility. How long is this going to go on?
The Acosta portion of the transcript is above. Acosta said nothing that was hostile or partisan. The hostility, the continual interruptions, the personal attacks, they all come from Trump, and also the lies, which the press deals with as best they can. President Trump has made 6,420 false or misleading claims over 649 days.
--Percy
Edited by Percy, : Fix last link of message to be to more recent data.
Just for the record, I condemn protests against political figures and commentators at their homes, such as just happened at Tucker Carlson's house, or in public places, such as at the Little Red Hen restaurant with Sarah Sander's dining party some months back.
CNN and the Washington Post both condemned the protest at Tucker Carlson's house.
Re: Did the intern accost Acosta or did he accost her?
Well, this is ironical. In a prior message I mentioned Sam Donaldson:
Percy writes:
Jim Acosta and all the other reporters who were abused by Trump (such as PBS's Yamiche Alcindor, a black reporter whose question about Trump declaring himself a nationalist Trump called racist) were just doing their job. Some do it more aggressively than others. Do you remember Sam Donaldson back during the Reagan years?
Well, Donaldson is still alive and kicking at age 84. In an email to Jim Acosta he said:
quote:Keep it up, don't worry about the vicious attacks on you by anybody, and the threats and all of this. You're performing in the best appearance of a reporter, you're doing your job properly, and it's a badge of merit.
CNN says they have reached out to the White House concerning the Acosta suspension and have not yet heard back. Donaldson said he thought CNN had already sued and that there would be a court hearing this Tuesday, but he didn't say where he got this information, and no one else is reporting this, but some have commented about the possibility of CNN suing.
quote:We further conclude that notice, opportunity to rebut, and a written decision are required because the denial of a pass potentially infringes upon First Amendment guarantees. Such impairment of this interest cannot be permitted to occur in the absence of adequate procedural due process.
There seems to have been no due process. If CNN decides to take this to court then the Trump White House will be forced through a process that will only bring further unwanted attention to their press hostility, and if the court case that established the precedent is a reliable indicator, they will lose.
Another comment about the intern: most people, regardless of political affiliation, seem to see the arm contact between the intern and Acosta as incidental. And my own view is that the intern was wrong and inappropriately aggressive in trying to wrench a mic away from a reporter still trying to ask a question.
For someone throwing around the label fascist at people who push the edges of the law, this comment shows a spectacular lack of self-awareness, even for you.
Gosh, imagine that, it's the conservative's fault again although the whole thing of slinging around the term "fascist" is coming from the Left. That's what "Antifa" supposedly means, "Antifascist," so it is necessary to point out that THEY are the fascists, not the Right.
You're very confused. You're calling anti-fascists fascists. I assume everyone here is against most Antifa tactics, specifically property damage, physical violence, and harassment, and I think it is these tactics that are causing your confusion. A fascist isn't someone who employs these tactics, but rather someone who believes in an authoritarian nationalist right-wing style of government that can also include control of industry, suppression of criticism, and racism. Fascism is closer to the right-wing politics of Trump and yourself, and pretty far from the anti-right-wing politics of Antifa.
And I remember those poor crazy people right after Trump's election, earnestly claiming that he's a fascist,...
What I remember after the election is people expressing hope that Trump would become presidential. This didn't happen, and I think it would be more accurate to call Trump an autocrat.
...resistance" to a sitting President elected by the other half of the population.
All presidents are elected by less than half of the population. I think you meant to refer to "a sitting president elected by the other half of the voters." Trump was elected by less than half of voters, and although Clinton received more votes, she, too, received less than half of the votes.
Because of course if he's a Hitler...
Trump has done a great deal of damage to American institutions, like the Department of Justice, the FBI, the judiciary when they rule against him, and the integrity of elections that yield Democratic winners, and he believes people serving in his administration owe their loyalty to him rather than to the Constitution. We need someone to be president of all the United States, not just the Republicans.
...we can't let him say or do anything and his supporters are just dupes and Nazis whether we know it or not so hurting us is OK too.
Those of us who are not fans of Trump are definitely not fans of Antifa. In the same way,we would like to from those who *are* fans of Trump that they not support his attacks on American institutions and the Constitution. For example, just because someone believes we should build the wall doesn't mean they should also support everything else regarding immigration coming out of the Trump administration, such as family separation. It should be possible to support Trump without sacrificing your humanity.
This is insanity, this is the biggest insanity of all the insanities coming from the Left these days and it's the most dangerous one.
Calling something names is not an argument. It's just meaningless name calling. You haven't made any case for your views at all.
Trump is no fascist,...
If a fascist is someone who believes in an authoritarian nationalist right-wing style of government, then what part of the definition of fascism doesn't fit Trump?
...this is an evil accusation,...
The real question isn't whether the characterization is evil, but whether it is accurate.
...at best excused only by the possibility that people don't have a clue what a fascist really is.
It would seem that the one who doesn't know the definition of fascism is you.
And it makes for a smokescreen to cover the fac that they are the fascists these days.
Since no one arguing against you, and not Antifa either, is for an authoritarian nationalist right-wing style of government that can also include control of industry, suppression of criticism, and racism, I don't think any of them are fascists.
They are the brownshirts, they are the violent ones preying on innocent people...
These are tactics, not a political philosophy.
...in the service of their totalitarian ideology.
Except for you I think everyone here, and Antifa too, is against totalitarianism.
The devil did his work awfully well on this one and i don't know how to wake up his victims who are out to make victims of the rest of us.
I'm sure many who hate Trump would nevertheless condemn these violent actions, but the fact is it's not much and it's usually late.
You're making things up, e.g., the condemnations from CNN and the Washington Post appeared on their websites within a day. You're complaining just to complain. You're against Antifa tactics, and we're against Antifa tactics. What's the problem?
We all know that Trump is pushing nationalism, populism, xenophobia and a good dose of conspiracy theory to boot. That’s a lot more fascist than the demonstration outside Tucker Carlson’s house which seems to have been no more than a nuisance, unpleasant as it might have been.
Seems to me that the protest was a bit much, but far from the riot portray in the right wing press.
Nobody should ever get away with chanting threats outside anyone's home ever.
I agree.
This isn't just a "bit much" these people should be sitting in jail right now.
Shouldn't that depend upon whether the police had any reason to believe laws were broken?
I didn't say it was a riot, I didn't hear it was a riot, I heard it was loud chanting and loud banging on the door that scared Tucker's wife into hiding in the pantry thinking it was a home invasion. But ANY gathering outside someone's home should get the people arrested.
In order for police to conduct an arrest they must have some indication that laws were broken. Laws vary across jurisdictions, so it would depend upon whether gathering or protesting outside someone's home were illegal in Tucker Carlson's jurisdiction.
Here's the video of the protest but I can barely make out the words they are chanting. I can't find the better ones for some reason though I think they are out there somewhere.
This is true of a lot of your evidence: "I can't find it, but I think it's out there somewhere."
But I don't think where they vandalized the car and cracked the door is on any video.
There could be a couple reasons for that. One is that the video wasn't recorded at the right time. Another is that it didn't happen. But obviously at least some vandalism did occur because the Washington DC Metropolitan Police released this statement, which mentions "defacing private property":
quote:We welcome those who come here to exercise their First Amendment rights in a safe and peaceful manner; however, we prohibit them from breaking the law. Last night, a group of protestors broke the law by defacing private property at a Northwest, DC residence. MPD takes these violations seriously, and we will work to hold those accountable for their unlawful actions. There is currently an open criminal investigation regarding this matter.
Notice that they say that it's fine for people "to exercise their First Amendment rights in a safe and peaceful manner," but not to deface private property. If the protestors had only protested then they would not have broken any laws, but evidently property defacement occurred, and so arrests could happen. I'm sure we all believe that arresting people for crimes is a good thing. But I don't think vandalizing a car and cracking a door ever happened. That CNN article I linked to above describes the police report this way, and it doesn't mention these things that you claim:
quote:There was an anarchy symbol spray painted on the driveway. "There were also signs left on the vehicles parked in the driveway as well as a sign left on the front door of the home," according to the police report.
Some of the signs were seized as evidence. The police report describes the incident as a "suspected hate crime" and says the motivation was "anti-political."
Leaving signs on vehicles and doors isn't damaging, but depending upon what they said it could be a hate crime, which is a pretty serious offense. Spray painting the driveway *is* damaging, but I wonder if it wasn't really chalk, which is much more visible than spray paint on an asphalt driveway. Anyway, if it was spray painting then that's permanent and pretty serious, too.
Though you do go overboard on a couple things, I'm pretty much agreeing with you. Arrests should happen if there were hate crimes or property defacement. I am against Antifa tactics, I think due process and fact gathering should be performed, and I don't share your rush to judgment. And I'm guessing most other people here feel the same way.
Yeah I forgot all the Democrat racism is far enough in the past for you all to deny it.
You don't quote what you're replying to, but this seems irrelevant to anything PaulK said, plus practically the whole country was racist at one time. PaulK said you accused Democrats of efforts to prevent blacks from voting in the recent election. Is that true? If so, why would you say something as ridiculous as that?
Sorry about that. But the rest of your accusations are just the usual unsubstantiated name-calling.
Nationalism and populism are not fascism, they are as he said based on a love of America and opposed to those who would trash every good virtuous thing that built this country. No, not racism, no not fascism, no not xenophobia. What a devilish brew of lies to misrepresent a movement by good solid virtuous peaceable fair minded Americans against leftist efforts to destroy the nation.
Trump has been saying at his rallies, "I am a nationalist," a facet of fascism.
Trump's appeal is greatest to those with the least education, which is a key facet of populism (anti-intellectualism). I don't believe that's a facet of fascism, though it was employed by the two most famous fascists in history, Hitler and Mussolini.
Trump provokes irrational fear of immigration by people from south of our border (xenophobia), and hyping imaginary threats is a facet of fascism.
Trump is an autocrat with little respect for democratic institutions or the rule of law, another facet of fascism.
Re: Did the intern accost Acosta or did he accost her?
Faith writes:
In eight years in office Obama never called the press the enemy of the people or fake news or any other derogatory terms, and he was never rude to reporters.
Cuz they were never rude to him,...
Obama never gave reporters any reason to be rude.
...the leftist press loved him and the right are polite and abide by the rules.
It's absurd to suggest that left-of-center press is rude and right-of center press is polite. There is no such homogeneity on either side of the political spectrum.
The common element is Trump. Reporters have to challenge his lies and misrepresentations in order to get at the truth.
If you watch the entire question period of the press conference you'll see that it was Trump who was repeatedly aggressive, hostile and rude based on whether he liked the question.
I did watch the whole thing, more than once already.
Wow, you must have lots of free time and a high tolerance for pain.
Trump was aggressively defending his positions against typical PC attacks on his character. Acosta was the aggressor as were some of the others in the group who asked questions that weren't questions but just opinions disguised as questions that attacked his character.
I agree that the questions often reflected the position of the questioner, but when challenging a lie or misrepresentation this is unavoidable. If Trump doesn't like the way questions call attention to his lies and misrepresentations and thereby his character, then he should stop lying and misrepresenting.
The "questions" were "aggressive, hostile and rude" insinuating and accusatory and he was responding appropriately.
Can you be specific?
He seemed to have walked into the press conference determined to pick fights, and this is backed up by the fact that he called on both Jim Acosta and Peter Alexander early on, two reporters he's clashed with in the past.
Well, perhaps he should never call on such people ever.
I've heard that Obama didn't call on Fox News as often as other news outlets, but if true I do not approve, and wouldn't approve of Trump doing this, either. Even Nixon called on Dan Rather.
But maybe he was trying to be fair since he gets accused so much, that would be a reasonable interpretation as opposed to yours.
I think it was pretty clear that, upset by the election results, he was trying to pick fights with the press, pretty easy given his overt hostility.
It didn't have to be this way, but Trump was unable to put the acrimony of the campaign behind him. The day after he won the presidency he held a press conference and squandered his opportunity to start afresh and rebuild his relationship with the press. He opened by saying he respected all news organizations except Buzzfeed, but then he added, "As far as CNN going out of their way to build it up... It’s a disgrace what took place. It’s a disgrace, and I think they ought to apologize to start." So Jim Acosta tried to ask a question, and Trump replied, "Not you. Your organization is terrible." When Acosta persisted in trying to ask a question Trump added, "Quiet. Don’t be rude. Don’t be rude. No, I’m not going to give you a question. I’m not going to give you a question. You are fake news."
So much for rebuilding a positive relationship with the press.
...and I think it's interesting that while as far as I've seen all the liberal-leftist opinion is in defense of the brat,...
Jim Acosta and all the other reporters who were abused by Trump (such as PBS's Yamiche Alcindor, a black reporter whose question Trump called racist when she asked about Trump declaring himself a nationalist) were just doing their jobs. Each has their own style and some are more aggressive than others.
...the PBS reporter WAS accusing him of racism in questioning his use of the term "nationalism."
She wasn't accusing him of racism. There would be little point in that since Trump's racism is well known and of long-standing, dating back to the 1970's and his attempts to keep blacks out of his buildings in New York City, and to 1989 and his full page ads in all four of the city's major newspapers calling for the death penalty for the four black and one Hispanic kids arrested in the Central Park jogger rape case (though innocent they spent between 6 and 13 years behind bars; the actual rapist was eventually found through DNA evidence).
This is Yamiche Alcindor's actual question:
quote:Hi, Mr. President. On the campaign trail you called yourself a nationalist. Some people saw that as emboldening white nationalists. Now people are also saying (Trump interrupts)...There are some people that say now the Republican party is seen as supporting white nationalists because of your rhetoric. What do you make of that?
This isn't an accusation of racism, though Trump's racism is a given. Ms. Alcindor is asking what Trump thinks about the possibility that his nationalist rhetoric is inciting white nationalists and leading some to believe that the Republican party supports them.
...he had explained it well enough on other occasions, yes he is a nationalist,...
Don't you think announcing that fact is encouraging to white nationalists, thereby worsening the racial problems in American?
...he is for American interests above all other interests.
How is it in America's interest to widen racial divides?
No he is not a racist...
There can be little doubt that Trump *is* a racist.
...and nationalism is not about racism.
For people who believe America is a white country, nationalism is synonymous with white nationalism. Hence the question whether Trump's nationalist rhetoric was emboldening to white nationalists.
He was in the right to call her out on her accusation.
What accusation? Her question was about Trump's nationalist rhetoric. He didn't like the question, so Trump did what he always does under such circumstances, he lashes out with false accusations to cause a distraction.
He needs to call out all these leftist accusations whenever he can because they are all fake news bullets intended to kill his Presidency.
Trump is killing his own presidency, he doesn't need any help.
Acosta has no right to tell Trump he can't call the "caravan" an "invasion"...
The migrant caravan is perhaps an "invasion" in a metaphorical sense, but not in any real sense. But Trump is treating it like a real invasion, as is evident by his calling troops to the border. The migrants are still 1300 miles away (they seem to be heading toward Tijuana), so the troops will have to wait a long time. At 30 miles per day the migrants won't reach the border until after Christmas.
...and the whole point of this impertinent accusation is to call him a racist.
Again, Trump's racism is undeniable.
Just PC and more PC and it is character assassination and it's all the Left ever does.
This untruth is just more evidence that issuing accusations as a substitute for actual discussion is what you do.
There was no substance in his question.
Of course there was substance to his question. He asked why the president was calling a ragtag migrant caravan fleeing danger and poverty an invasion. The American public has a right to know if the president has any justification for this blatant mischaracterization. Apparently not, because Trump resorted to the same ploy he always uses, lashing out with false accusations to distract attention.
Is his military response appropriate etc etc., no,...
Well, you finally said something true.
...just in typical leftist fashion it's all about words they can make to mean racism or xenophobia or some other favorite mindless empty politically motivated incendiary character assassination.
Trump is right about few things, but he is right when he calls himself an open book. He does little to nothing to hide his racism, xenophobia, misogynism, etc.
Migrants crashing over a wall...
But the video doesn't show migrants crashing over a wall. It doesn't show them crashing over anything. It shows migrants pushing on a high fence, and it gives no indication where or when or in what context the video is from. Given the number of times the Trump administration has misleadingly used images and videos, what gives you any confidence that that video shows migrants at the US border?
...illustrate what this caravan threatens to do, it's not fake, it's not a lie.
Members of the caravan interviewed on the news say they plan to apply for asylum. Except for Trump's unsupported claims, what is there to indicate that they plan to illegally crash over walls.
Trump speaks for a lot of us when he says the press is the enemy of the people these days.
Is there anything Trump could say you wouldn't believe?
Sorry, they are. Everything that meets the public eye is leftist and it's leftist spin, I never see my opinion or that of Trump's supporters represented anywhere unless I specifically go looking for it,...
That's because most news outlets are not Trump echo chambers, nor are they supportive of racist, nationalist, xenophobic, misogynistic rhetoric.
...and there's even a lot of leftist accusation that they are going to censor what there is of it too.
The news media covers every word Trump says - what's this censorship nonsense you're talking about?
This makes the press, and much of the social media too, my enemy and the enemy of the American people.
Have you ever thought of applying for a job in the White House Office of Communication?
Acosta said nothing that was hostile or partisan.
Unfortunately I guess you really think that is true,...
I provided you a transcript. Quote Acosta being hostile or partisan.
That statement might as well come from a martian, or someone on LSD, it's so absurd I can hardly believe anyone could see it that way. But I know you do, I know many do. It's millions of you against millions of us but it's like two entirely different ... cultures? I don't know. I didn't know it was possible for there ever to be this degree of irreconcilable disagreement on such a scale.
Again, I provided you a transcript. Quote Acosta being hostile or partisan.
You're blind to the main thing that is going on these days that could become all-out fascist violence from the Left...
You are very confused. Fascism is right-wing. You are, again, confusing tactics and politics.
And it may make no difference anyway because everything he says or does or his supporters say or do is just swallowed up by the Leftist Worldview because it's angry and aggressively self-righteous, though against perfectly innocent people.
Few of the top people in the Trump administration are innocent. They're variously guilty of Russian collusion, obstruction of justice, hush money payments, possible concealment of financial malfeasance, violations of the emoluments clause, implementing family separations, damaging the environment and ignoring the human role in climate change, and abuse of office, to mention the more significant offenses.
Re: Did the intern accost Acosta or did he accost her?
Faith writes:
So Donaldson joins the liberal chorus, big deal.
The point of mentioning Sam Donaldson, and also Dan Rather, is that aggressive questioning by the White House press corps did not originate with Jim Acosta. Banning reporters for aggressive questioning *did* originate with Trump.
As I pointed out, ALL the conservative commentators see Acosta as at fault and the other side the reverse, although I think there were one or two who saw him as the one in the wrong.
This isn't a vote. I provided you videos and a transcript. If you can make a case that Acosta exhibited behavior so egregious that it warranted banning from the White House, go ahead.
So what else is new? I don't see any excuse on the liberal side myself. He had his two questions, he refused to yield the mike and sit down, he even got another one answered nevertheless.
You can't count. It might appear to you that Acosta asked more than two questions because Trump interrupted him a number of times and Acosta's first question was fragmented across the interruptions. Acosta asked only two questions and received very little in the way of answers. One question was about Trump's characterization of the migrant caravan as an invasion, the other about possible indictments resulting from the Mueller investigation. The transcript is in Message 90.
Trump behaved appropriately and even creditably in my opinion.
Well, then let me quote Trump words that were not appropriate or creditable:
quote:(sarcastically) Here we go. ... (sarcastically) Thank you for telling me that, I appreciate it. ... Honestly, I think you should let me run the country, you run CNN, and if you did it well your ratings would be much better. ... That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough. That's enough, put down the mic. ... I'll tell you what, CNN should be ashamed of itself having you working for them. You are a rude terrible person. You shouldn't be working for CNN. ... You're a very rude person. The way you treat Sarah Huckabee is horrible, and the way you treat other people are horrible. You shouldn't treat people that way. ... (sarcastically) You are, you are the best. ... Just sit down, please. When you, when you report fake news...no. When you report fake news, which CNN does a lot, you are the enemy of the people.
These words seem neither appropriate or creditable for an American president.
The guy was out of line, he told him to sit down and yield the mike, the guy refused which was a bullying reaction.
What was a bullying reaction was Trump ordering a reporter to sit down and not be allowed to ask his second question just because he didn't like the first one.
Oh gosh the Left is now suing Trump, well why not, they have no honesty or integrity when it comes to Trump, anything to attack the man, anything to drag things on with their smear campaign.
Two days ago when you wrote this, no one had sued Trump. You were making things up. Again. CNN didn't announce that they'd filed suit until today, see Message 2605.
The suit will be thrown out, it should be anyway but meanwhile they continue their obstructionist tactics. That's all they are.
quote:We further conclude that notice, opportunity to rebut, and a written decision are required because the denial of a pass potentially infringes upon First Amendment guarantees. Such impairment of this interest cannot be permitted to occur in the absence of adequate procedural due process.
The intern was following orders to pass the mike on to another person and I would agree she shouldn't have tried to grab it from him but she'd been told to pass it on and tried to do that. I don't think Acosta did anything more than just push her arm away however, I think that part is overblown.
Yes, of course it was overblown, but an alt-right website saw fit to doctor the video to try to create a controversy.
He was out of order in enough ways without that one.
I provided you the transcript. If Acosta behaved in a way that justifies removing his press credentials you have yet to show it. What we do have is yet another example of the behavior and actions of Trump, in this case contempt for a free press and their first amendment rights, that are behind the many calls for his impeachment.
You're just issuing and repeating accusations without making any sense or offering any evidence.
Your original point was that you object to Antifa tactics. We, too, object to Antifa tactics. We agree. What's the problem?
Faith writes:
yeah, I'm glad, but there have been lots of acts of violence that have gone unprotested by the liberal left since Trump took office.
You're again making an assertion with no evidence. What acts of violence is the "liberal left" condoning by their silence?
I'm glad for any little thing but it's little and it's late.
You're again making an assertion with no evidence. In the case of the sole example you mentioned, the Antifa protest, we agree with you, and both CNN and the Washington Post registered their condemnation within a day. And concerning the harassing of conservatives in public places, many op-ed pieces have appeared in the press saying that that is not the right approach. What more do you want?
And there are loud leftist voices justifying this stuff that are just getting to carry on.
You're again making an assertion with no evidence. Who in the press is justifying Antifa's violent actions or the harassment of public figures?
Oh why not. Everybody is upset with Trump according to the news reports everywhere. He's always being criticized for this or that, every single day in news reports everywhere. Just about every headline I see when I get online has somebody saying something against Trump. Gosh you'd think he hadn't a single supporter the way things are portrayed. fake news is what that is.
Except that it isn't fake news. It is merely news that Trump and Trump supporters don't like. As the article PaulK cited says (Growing criticism of Trump WW1 no-show), the British defense minister, Winston Churchill's grandson, former American diplomat Nicholas Burns, and Obama's deputy national security advisor Ben Rhodes, all criticized Trump for using rain as an excuse for not attending WWI commemoration services and the Paris Peace Forum. He was the only world leader who opted not to attend. The criticism actually happened and is true, and what's more seems well deserved.
Are you ever going to provide an example of actual fake news? I have one. It would be Fox News reporting that the migrant caravan is filled with armed and dangerous men from MS-13 and is carrying diseases like smallpox (wiped out nearly 40 years ago) and leprosy.
No, I am not confused, you are. The true fascists are the ones calling themselves anti-fascists as I said
I guess it kind of depends upon your goals. If it's to cast unsubstantiated allegations, then you're succeeding tremendously. But if it's to say things that are true then you are hopelessly confused. Fascism has a definition, and Antifa isn't fascist. Few would disagree if you only said that Antifa employs tactics not all that dissimilar from the Nazi brownshirts, but employment of similar tactics is not equivalent to having similar politics. If it were then the fact that during WWII both sides employed similarly equipped armies, navies and airforces would mean their politics must be similarly equivalent, but that's wouldn't be true, and in fact is glaringly false to anyone with a brain. I don't know why you persist in arguing against the blindingly obvious. Get a dictionary.
And I am far from the only one saying this.
This isn't a vote. When huge numbers of people are wrong about something, those huge numbers don't make them right. You're using the "50 million Frenchmen can't be wrong" fallacy again. In case you don't remember, that's more formally known as the argumentum ad populum fallacy.
I realize you have to make your way through a thicket of leftist spin to find right-wing commentary of the sort I've been listening to lately but most on my side of the fence agree that it's the Antifa brownshirts who are the fascists.
And what arguments do the right-wing commentators make that persuade you that anti-fascists are actually fascists?
They have the intolerance of those who disagree with them that characterizes fascists and the willingness to do harm to them, with the character assassination tactics that make "vermin" out of human beings and that sort of thing.
I think we can all agree that Antifa is intolerant, but they're not right-wing or nationalistic or autocratic. Antifa is actually a collection of far left-wing groups. Their embrace of violence as a tactic is unrelated to their varied politics.
The call to violence was made only too clear by that Antifa guy in the video I posted yesterday being interviewed by Tucker Carlson. If you represent anything they "think" is a threat to them, though you've merely expressed an opinion and are otherwise minding your own business, they can justfiy "defending" themselves against you, like by beating up someone wearing a MAGA hat, or people attending a right wing speaker on a campus, or scaring Tucker Carlson's wife and doing damage to his property.
I didn't watch the video, but to say again for the umpteenth time, I think I can safely say that most everyone here condemns Antifa tactics.
(And I do hope pictures of the damage to door and car will show up eventually).
Faith, what is wrong with you? There was nothing about door or car damage in the police report. You're making the same unsubstantiated allegations over and over again. It's as if (hard to believe, I know) that what you believe is more important to you than what the facts say. Is it that you just like to argue, and that if you said things that were true then no one would argue with you, so you instead make sure you say things that are false just so you'll be sure you have people to argue with?
I assume everyone here is against most Antifa tactics, specifically property damage, physical violence, and harassment, and I think it is these tactics that are causing your confusion. A fascist isn't someone who employs these tactics, but rather someone who believes in an authoritarian nationalist right-wing style of government that can also include control of industry, suppression of criticism, and racism.
Yes it is the violence, but it is also the totalitarian intolerant mindset.
Well that's just crazy. There's nothing totalitarian about Antifa. There's nothing particularly democratic about them, either. If they have a political philosophy it's a range from far left-wing to anarchy.
See my signature. Reagan called it years ago. If fascism ever comes to America it will be on the liberal side.
Your signature misquotes Reagan. What he actually said was, "You know, someone profoundly once said many years ago that if fascism ever comes to America that it will come in the name of liberalism." No such statement as Reagan claims has ever been found. It's widely suspected that Reagan was misquoting a maxim (often misattributed to Sinclair Lewis): "When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross." If you want to know more about attempts to track down where that latter quote came from then check out the Snopes article, but it won't get you any closer to finding where Reagan's quote came from. If you want to see Reagan actually saying what I just told you he said then watch this very, very short video:
You seem to be making a career of being wrong, even about simple, obvious and easily looked up things. If there's something that can be got wrong, you'll do it.
I liked Reagan, still like him, voted for him twice, but I don't have any illusions about him. He liked telling a good story. He never let accuracy get in the way, but accuracy was never his strong point anyway.
Fiscally conservative and socially liberal, politically I'm an independent. Except for Jimmy Carter, who I thought a wonderful human being but a terrible president, I've been pretty much fine with every president, even Nixon except for the Watergate part. It does feel a bit strange to me to be so strongly against a particular president, but I'm deeply offended by Trump's lying and misrepresentations, by his crude and vulgar style, by his frequent attacks on anything he doesn't like, and by his deep partisanship that makes him really only president of the Republican part of the country.
This insistence on the right wing orientation is a big smokescreen that can only mislead people. Suppression of criticism is certainly on the Left these days, even with violence, it is not on the Right, and racism is on the Left too, as Tucker Carlson keeps pointing out, it is NOT on the Right. The Left just keeps calling people on the Right racists with NO justification WHATEVER. WAKE UP.
There's plenty of evidence of Republican racism, especially at the top ("very fine people on both sides"), and you have a very short memory. We're still counting votes in Florida and Georgia where we witnessed determined Republican-led voter suppression efforts to disenfranchise blacks.
Fascism is closer to the right-wing politics of Trump and yourself, and pretty far from the anti-right-wing politics of Antifa.
As I say above you are badly misled. Badly. The reverse is true.
Why are your allegations always unsubstantiated and uninformed? "Right-wing" is part of the very definition of fascism.
Trump has done a great deal of damage to American institutions, like the Department of Justice, the FBI, the judiciary when they rule against him, and the integrity of elections that yield Democratic winners, and he believes people serving in his administration owe their loyalty to him rather than to the Constitution. We need someone to be president of all the United States, not just the Republicans.
The Left won't let him.
You're claiming the left is forcing Trump to be president of only the Republicans? How does this even make sense?
If a fascist is someone who believes in an authoritarian nationalist right-wing style of government, then what part of the definition of fascism doesn't fit Trump?
Right wing is maybe the only part that does fit, maybe. He is not an authoritarian,...
Trump is most certainly authoritarian. He's threatened and intimidated the media, criticized judges who ruled against him, attacked the Department of Justice and the FBI, attempted to rule by executive order, attacked allies, lied interminably, locked up children of immigrants, and obstructed justice, that I can think of at the moment.
...but the Left is.
The left has been largely out of power at both the state and federal level. Even if they wanted to act in an authoritarian manner, they've had no opportunity. You're being absurd.
It's the Left that is willing to steal votes because they don't care about democracy they just want to run the show.
Another unsubstantiated allegation.
We are getting news as a leftist blitz that shuts out right wing views and is even threatening to erase them from the Internet, which has already happened though it's hard to prove.
Allegations with no evidence are often hard to prove.
This is the media doing this, and they have as much power as the President or more when it comes to controlling information,...
Mostly the media just points their cameras at the president and lets him talk.
...which is really propaganda.
If you're calling it propaganda when the media broadcasts what the president says, then I agree with you.
Those on the Left are totalitarians.
You said this already. It's still an absurd unsubstantiated allegation.
No, not ALL, and I'm sure there are many who don't know this is the main thrust of the Left...
If anyone doesn't know left from right, it's you.
...but it is and they are tacitly supporting it.
"It" meaning what? I assume you're not going to tell us, just allege "it".
I know you don't see this and you think we are just inventing conspiracies that don't exist, but spend some time on my side of this for a change.
You haven't provided an ounce of evidence for anything you say. You posts are just wall-to-wall name-calling. It's not possible to consider your point of view because you never provide any support for it. The only thing that comes across clearly is your reality-free bias.
And you are refusing to understand what he means by "nationalist" just as so many others are.
And you are refusing to see how his declarations of nationalism are emboldening to white nationalists.
He means he wants to support American interests.
More completely, he wants to support American interests at the expense of the rest of the world by claiming perpetual victimhood for America, in the same way he keeps claiming victimhood for himself.
It's a way of saying he's an anti-globalist.
Yes, we know. Unfortunately for Trump, we all live on the same globe. He sees the world as a zero-sum game, where for one country to win another country must lose. He doesn't understand that win-win is possible.
He's our President after all so he considers himself to be working for American citizens.
Gee, I thought Obama was cooperating with our allies, as opposed to Trump who seems determined to alienate them and abdicate America's position of world leadership. Which enemies did you see Obama working for, and what is your evidence?
...he was not a nationalist...
Agreed, Obama was not a nationalist.
...and did not care one bit for Americans,...
Yet another absurd unsubstantiated allegation.
...that's why Trump won.
Trump ran against Hillary Clinton, not Barack Obama.
A nationalist as Trump embodies it wants to enforce our immigration laws,...
Since Obama deported more illegal immigrants than his Republican predecessor, I think it can safely be said that he enforced our immigration laws. One doesn't have to be a nationalist to believe in the rule of law. Trump just uses immigrants as a bogeyman issue to rile up his base.
...wants to protect our jobs,...
One doesn't have to be a nationalist to want to protect American jobs. But one does have to understand that free trade, a key conservative principle, is central to global prosperity, and America is part of the globe.
...wants to protect our borders,...
One doesn't have to be a nationalist to be in favor of secure borders.
...wants to protect our culture which is a melting pot of people from all over the world who want to be Americans with our constitutional mindset,...
Given that much of the rest of the world has parliamentary forms of government, it isn't likely that immigrants, no matter their origin, would arrive with "our constitutional mindset." You're being ridiculous again.
...which they don't have and won't have as long as you don't require them to come in legally and assimilate.
Everyone's in favor of legal immigration. What many are opposed to is government imposed cruelty in the name of immigration enforcement.
He cares about Americans and American culture.
What Trump seems to care about is himself, and to that end he solicits support from those who share his autocratic xenophobic nationalistic racist views.
Hitler wanted to conquer the whole world under his version of nationalism, but that has nothing to do with Trump's use of the term.
Agreed that Trump doesn't want to conquer the world, but like Hitler he's using his advocacy of nationalism to pursue his own country's interests at the expense of the rest of the world.
And some people put the word "white" in front of "nationalist" to distort the idea further.
The recently expressed concern is that white nationalists will see use of the term as emboldening. Another concern is that it makes the rest of the world believe that America will pursue its own interests at their expense.
Trump is no racist.
Yeah, sure, he's very fine people, but the white nationalists seem to think he's a racist. Are you sure they're wrong? Why?
He meant what he said about welcoming LEGAL immigrants because we need them.
Well, in that case there's a whole caravan of thousands of migrants on its way to our borders prepared to legally apply for political asylum in order to escape death and destitution. Let's see Trump live up to what he says by letting them in, helping them get settled, and letting them get to work.
Political Correctness that calls him a racist and a fascist and a xenophobe is all LIES. WAKE UP.
I agree Trump's not a fascist. My argument has been that if one is going to throw the term fascist around regarding Antifa that it is important to note that Trump possesses more fascist qualities than Antifa.
The rest is just more unsubstantiated claims. The evidence says that Trump is a racist. I gave you some of that evidence, such as Trump's efforts to exclude blacks from his buildings in the 1970's, and his advocacy of the death penalty for the blacks and Hispanics of the Central Park rape case in the 1980's, and his reference to the racists in Charlottesville as "very fine people" just last year.
And Trump's also a xenophobe. Besides Putin, the Saudi Arabian prince and Kim Jong Un, name a foreigner Trump likes?
Here's an example of censorship of the right from the left. Facebook deems the commentary of the duo Diamond and Silk to be "unsafe" because they are pro-Trump.
Diamond and Silk's claims of censorship by Facebook have been debunked:
quote:Goodlatte was suggesting that freedom was under dire threat because Lynnette Hardaway and Rochelle Richardson, two pro-Trump social media personalities most commonly known as "Diamond & Silk," claimed they had been censored by Facebook. They had not been censored. Hardaway and Richardson's claims had been thoroughly debunked.
quote: The two pro-Trump personalities allege that a number of social media platforms, including Facebook, censored their content using algorithms to prevent it from showing up on users' feeds. They have provided no evidence for they claim, which Facebook and other companies deny.
In addition, the two were found to have erroneously claimed that Facebook did not contact them over their concerns, despite an investigation showing that Facebook reps attempted to reach out to the two over email.
My problem is that I simply do not trust anything you lefties say.
We know. But you've never been able to provide a factual basis for that distrust, and most of what you claim is either unsubstantiated or absurd.
I am not going to follow up on all of your allegations because I know at least half of them are bogus politically motivated distractions.
If you *know* that half of what we say is bogus, which implies that there is a factual basis for this belief, then why do you so rarely provide any facts.
If sometimes you're right, fine, but I so hate the Left's tactics and basic attitude I really almost don't care.
This implies an emotional rather than factual basis for what you believe.
It's nothing but finger-pointing and hatemongering and character assassination from your side,...
If you don't like the criticism of Trump, try supporting a politician who tells the truth, treats others with respect, heeds the rule of law, esteems and strengthens American institutions, cooperates with allies, holds dictators at a distance, and treats illegal immigrants humanely.
...it's going to destroy the country and that's what I care about.
I think that if all the worst instincts of Trump's nature could be eliminated then the country would be much the better for it.
I guess I'm going to have to give up on the country, it's going to hell faster than anyone could possibly hope to stem the tide, barring a miracle.
Have you told Trump the country's going to hell? You really should, because he's under the impression he's insuring the strong economy will continue and that we're going to win so much that we'll get sick of it. He's not worried about the left at all. In fact, he's even further encouraged by last week's stunning Republican victories at all levels of government, as could be told by his cool and relaxed demeanor at the next day's press conference.
I'm sick of everything all of you have to say about absolutely everything.
I think you might be too emotionally invested in your political positions, and too frustrated by your inability to offer them any factual support.
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