Conservative Blogger
Wednesday, June 15, 2016
Why Trump banned the Washington Post: Going nuclear over a bad headline?
Donald Trump launched his campaign one year ago, and has been running against the “dishonest” and “sleazy” media ever since.
Now he’s opened a new front by yanking the credentials of the Washington Post.
The tactic isn’t new: Trump has already barred Politico, the Des Moines Register, the Daily Beast and Buzzfeed, along with outlets that oppose him for ideological reasons, National Review and the Huffington Post. Sometimes it’s an offending story, sometimes an editorial.
In the Post’s case, it was a headline.
The fact that it was a bad headline doesn’t justify the ban. It was written by one person for the paper’s website. Trump has criticized other Post stories, but overall seems to have had cordial relations with the paper, and sat for a grilling with its editorial board, which has been harshly critical of him. Few reporters have talked to Trump as much as the Post’s Robert Costa.
Trump’s anger at the Post was on display after the paper questioned why some of his touted donations to veterans’ groups hadn’t been completed, and he called that news conference and teed off on the press.
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The Post dustup began the morning after the Orlando massacre, when Trump phoned into “Fox & Friends.” He said that President Obama “is not tough, not smart, or he's got something else in mind. And the something else in mind, you know, people can't believe it.”
That led to this Post headline: “Donald Trump Suggests President Obama Was Involved With Orlando Shooting.” About 90 minutes later, the paper softened it to: “Donald Trump Seems to Connect President Obama to Orlando Shooting.”
Except that he didn’t. Under the worst interpretation of Trump’s comments, he was insinuating that the president sympathized with terrorists. Indeed, the Post story was well within bounds, saying that Trump “seemed to repeatedly accuse President Obama on Monday of identifying with radicalized Muslims who have carried out terrorist attacks.” But the headline was not.
In announcing the ban, Trump said: “We no longer feel compelled to work with a publication which has put its need for ‘clicks’ above journalistic integrity. They have no journalistic integrity and write falsely about Mr. Trump.” He went on to take his usual shot, without offering evidence, that the paper’s owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, is using the Post as a political tool.
Marty Barton, the Post’s executive editor (and portrayed in the movie “Spotlight” as the crusading editor whose Boston Globe broke the church sexual abuse scandal), responded forcefully, calling the move “nothing less than a repudiation of a free and independent press. When coverage doesn’t correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished.” Baron said the Post, whose reporters are writing a book about The Donald, would continue to cover him “honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically and unflinchingly.”
It’s a common tactic for angry candidates to cut off interviews to offending news outlets, or feed scoops to their rivals. But revoking credentials gets the First Amendment movement up in arms.
Some folks have noted online that even at the height of Watergate, Richard Nixon didn’t attempt to revoke the paper’s credentials (which are awarded by the White House Correspondents Association). He did something worse, trying to get federal regulators to yank the company’s lucrative television license.
So what does Trump accomplish here? It’s not like the Post is going to stop covering him aggressively. The practical effect is that he makes it hard for the paper’s reporters to follow him around the country, and they have to try to walk into public events with the general crowd rather than being escorted into the press section. The Trump campaign has ejected a Politico scribe from reporting from the audience on at least one occasion.
What Trump does is send a message and score points with his base, which doesn’t like or trust the press. It is also something of a brushback pitch against other news outlets. The flip side is that he looks a bit thin-skinned.
The escalation comes as the media coverage of Trump turns more aggressive, more skeptical, and in some cases more tendentious.
A Washington Post news story offered a prime example on Monday:
“In a speech laden with falsehoods and exaggeration, Trump was antagonistic and pugnacious, in stark contrast with his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, who also spoke Monday about combating terrorism.”
The examples? Trump called the Orlando killer an “Afghan,” when he was born in Queens. He also said the U.S. is “not screening” refugees, who the paper says undergo a rigorous vetting process that can take up to two years.
And the Post said Trump “wrongly claimed that Clinton wanted to abolish the Second Amendment.” She does not, but does that fall into the category of embellished political rhetoric? Are the same standards applied to Clinton when she casts Trump’s positions in the worst possible light? Is his talk of temporarily banning Muslims capitalizing on a tragedy, while her talk of tougher gun control is reported as just plain common sense?
There are times when the media are unfair to Trump. There are also plenty of times when the media challenge Trump on the facts and he just doesn’t like it.
The Republican nominee, who has also called for looser libel laws, has every right to push back against what he views as unfair coverage. But this is a case where he overreacted to a terrible headline and gave the impression that he’s willing to block the press from doing its job.
Clinton defeats Sanders in DC primary; candidates discuss several topics in meeting
Presumptive presidential nominee Hillary Clinton defeated Sen. Bernie Sanders on Tuesday in the Washington, D.C., Democratic primary -- marking the end of the presidential primary season and bringing the two candidates together for a face-to-face meeting to discuss what’s next for the party in the general election.
The Associated Press said with 99 percent of the precincts reporting, Clinton has 74,566 votes, compared to 19,990 for Sanders.
Neither candidate spoke to reporters Tuesday night after their roughly 90-minute meeting in a Washington hotel.
However, the campaigns released separate, but nearly identical statements saying that Clinton and Sanders had a “positive discussion” about their primary race, unifying the party and their mutual desire to stop presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump from winning in November.
The campaigns also said the candidates discussed issues in which they share common goals, including increasing wages for working families, eliminating undisclosed money in politics and reducing the cost of college.
The meeting, which included the candidates' campaign managers, concluded with the sides agreeing to continue to work on a shared agenda that includes developing a platform for the upcoming Democratic National Convention, each campaign said.
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“After today, the voting is done, but our political revolution continues,” Sanders said in an email Tuesday to supporters.
Clinton clinched the nomination last week by getting the requisite 2,383 delegates -- a combination of superdelegates and pledged delegates awarded to her in 56 primary and caucus wins, including those in Puerto Rico and six U.S. territories.
Sanders has so far refused to end his campaign despite pressure to do so, suggesting he will keep trying to persuade Clinton superdelegates to instead vote for him at the Democratic convention in July, in a long-shot bid to take the nomination.
However, the Sanders campaign has occasionally suggested that the candidate could end his bid if Clinton, and the entire Democratic Party, embrace key parts of his agenda including better universal health care, a $15-an-hour minimum wage and free tuition at state colleges and universities.
Clinton said earlier Tuesday in an interview with Telemundo that she was very much "looking forward to having (Sanders') support in this campaign, because Donald Trump poses a serious threat to our nation."
Democratic National Committee Chairman Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz said after the D.C. primary, "Democrats are ready to unify and take on both Trump and the Republican Party that he represents. At our convention in July, we’re going to nominate a qualified, capable candidate who will build on the hard-won progress of the last seven years."
“I think the time is now. In fact, the time is overdue, for a fundamental transformation of the Democratic party,” Sanders, a self-described democratic socialist, said Tuesday on Capitol Hill. “We need a party which is prepared to stand up for the disappearing middle class.”
Before Tuesday, Clinton had 2,784 delegates, compared to 1,877 for Sanders.
On Sunday, Sanders told ABC News that the meeting with Clinton will be about “what kind of platform we have and … what kind of administration she will have.”
Sanders also told ABC that he wants Clinton to also specifically commit to a progressive tax system that makes big banks and corporations pay “their fair share of taxes.”
That Sanders, 74, even challenged the better-known and better-funded Clinton this far is a remarkable political feat.
The former first lady and secretary of state was expected to breeze through the primary. But Sanders, appearing to tap into voters’ frustrations with established candidates and money-driven politics, took the race until the second-to-last week of the Democratic primary season.
Along the way, Sanders won 21 primaries or caucuses, backed by legions of young voters and others excited by his promises of higher wages, free college and limiting the influence of “big money” in elections.
Sanders’ long-shot bid began with a key win in New Hampshire, an early primary that Clinton had won in her failed 2008 White House bid.
He showed his campaign was for real in March by managing seven straight victories, putting the Clinton campaign on its heels until late April, when Clinton won her home-state of New York.
Clinton nearly put the race out of reach with a series of early wins, including first-in-the-nation Iowa, and in delegate-rich states such as South Carolina, Georgia, Massachusetts, Texas and Virginia.
But Sanders scored a big comeback victory March 8 in Michigan that stopped Clinton’s decisive run across the South. However, he failed to sustain momentum, with Clinton winning the next seven state contests.
Obama unleashes on GOP critics over 'radical Islam' term
After years of brushing off criticism for avoiding the term “radical Islam,” President Obama fired a point-blank broadside Tuesday at his critics, calling the debate a “political distraction” that will do nothing to combat terrorism.
Speaking from the White House during what was expected to be an update for the public on the fight against the Islamic State, Obama lit into his critics and specifically presumptive GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump. Their criticism has mounted in the wake of the Orlando terror attack, which Obama declined to publicly link to radical Islam.
“Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. … There’s no magic to the phrase of radical Islam,” Obama countered Tuesday. “It’s a political talking point.”
Trump and Capitol Hill Republicans swiftly pushed back on the president's remarks.
Trump said Obama "claims to know our enemy, and yet he continues to prioritize our enemy over our allies, and for that matter, the American people."
He also said: "When I am president, it will always be America first."
Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb., said earlier: “With all due respect Mr. President, you’re wrong. ... Telling the truth about violent Islam is a prerequisite to a strategy -- a strategy you admitted you don’t have. It is the commander-in-chief’s duty to actually identify our enemies and to help the American people understand the challenge of violent Islam.”
Obama, though, went on to warn of a slippery slope in this debate, citing Trump’s call for a temporary ban on Muslim immigration – a proposal many in Trump’s party do not support, including House Speaker Paul Ryan.
“We don’t have religious tests here,” Obama said, without attacking Trump by name. But answering one of Trump’s most frequent accusations, the president said his reluctance to use the phrase “radical Islam” has “nothing to do with political correctness and everything to do with actually defeating extremism.”
He said groups like ISIS “want to claim that they are the true leaders of over a billion Muslims … who reject their crazy notions,” and a move to single out Muslims in America “betrays the very values America stands for.”
A day earlier, during a speech in New Hampshire, Trump had doubled down on his call for a Muslim immigration ban.
“It we don’t get tough, and we don’t get smart -- and fast -- we’re not going to have a country anymore. There will be nothing left,” Trump said.
Ryan, however, said Tuesday he does not support that proposal. "I do not think a Muslim ban is in our country's interest," Ryan said. "I do not think it is reflective of our principles, not just as a party but as a country."
Before tackling the “radical Islam” debate, Obama was speaking at the White House Tuesday to deliver a status report to the public on the fight against the Islamic State, after meeting with his National Security Council.
He claimed that campaign is making gains and ISIS is “on defense.”
A day earlier, presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton also claimed ISIS is losing ground in Iraq and Syria -- but addressed other concerns about the group’s reach.
“As ISIS loses actual ground in Iraq and Syria, it will seek to stage more attacks and gain stronger footholds wherever it can, from Afghanistan, to Libya, to Europe,” Clinton said. “The threat is metastasizing.”
Further, Clinton referred openly in a TV interview to the threat from “radical Islamism.”
Obama, though, joined Clinton Tuesday in pushing for gun control measures to thwart terror attacks including renewing the assault-weapons ban.
“Make it harder for terrorists to use these weapons to kill us,” Obama said.
On that point, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said, “We should not make it harder for law-abiding Americans to defend themselves when radical Islamic terrorists are successfully launching attacks on U.S. soil.”
John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. under the George W. Bush administration, said Tuesday that Obama's remarks were like a “lecture” and urged Clinton to break with the president on the terminology issue.
“It shows the president to be a small man,” Bolton told Fox News.
Dems renew push for gun control measures, aim for terror watch list
That's the only answer the Dems always come up with, take away the guns.
Congressional Democrats are renewing their push for gun control measures in the wake of the Orlando terror massacre, arguing the best way to prevent suspected terrorists from carrying out acts of violence is to legally limit their access to firearms.
Republicans have their own proposals for confronting the terror threat, and warn that certain gun control measures could make Americans less safe. House Speaker Paul Ryan on Tuesday touted proposals to improve refugee screening and other measures to deal with homegrown terrorism.
But while some Democrat-backed gun proposals have little chance of passing -- like a reinstated assault-weapons ban, a move President Obama endorsed Tuesday -- others could gain traction in Congress.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., and Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., specifically are pushing a proposal to the top of the Democratic agenda that would bar suspected terrorists from purchasing guns and explosives.
The bill would allow federal authorities to block gun sales to anyone on a government watch list or whom federal officials believe might use the gun in a terror attack.
“If the FBI believes there is a reasonable chance someone is going to use a gun in a terrorist attack, it should be able to make that determination and block the sale,” Schumer said. “If it had that belief about the shooter in Orlando, it should have had the authority to act. But it couldn’t, so we will never know what could have been.”
It’s unclear whether such measures would have prevented the Orlando massacre. The shooter, according to the FBI, was on a watch-list between May 2013 and March 2014 – but apparently just bought two guns, legally, in the week before the attack.
Tuesday, June 14, 2016
Democrats heckle Ryan on House floor day after Orlando nightclub massacre
A day after a mass shooting in Orlando, Democratic lawmakers erupted on the House floor with loud criticism of House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., and other Republican leaders for leaving the nation's gun laws untouched.
The disruption came after Rep. Jim Clyburn, D-SC, attempted to ask Ryan on the floor when bills curbing gun use would be considered after the House paused for 16 seconds to honor those killed in the terror attack. Clyburn was going to note that Friday is the one-year anniversary of the Charleston, S.C. mass shooting.
Before Clyburn could finish, Ryan ruled his question out of order and directed the House to move to the next vote.
Some protested by leaving the House floor during a moment of silence honoring the victims, while other Democrats yelled "Where's the bill?" and "No leadership!"
After the disruption, House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi told reporters Democrats have "had enough" of moments of silence after mass shootings when Congress does not act to tighten gun laws.
A handful of Democrats left the House floor during the moment of silence, including Connecticut Rep. Jim Himes. Himes said earlier Monday in an interview that he's done with the moments of silence typically held on the House floor after mass shootings, calling them "obnoxious expressions of smug incompetence." His district is close to Newtown, where a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six adults at an elementary school in 2012.
Leaving the House chamber, Ryan, R-Wis., declined to comment on the exchange. Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong tweeted that Democrats were politicizing the moment of silence, and called that "disheartening."
Hines is not the first Democrat to complain about the ritual. When a moment was held to honor victims of a deadly shooting rampage in San Bernardino, California, in December, several Democrats criticized it.
"We need to stand up, speak up, and take actions rather than another moment of silence," said Rep. Robin Kelly, D-Ill., in a House floor speech at the time. "It is deafening, and it is killing us."
The Islamic radicals want to kill all of us -- gay, straight, Christian and Jew
 |
| America's at war with enemy Obama won't acknowledge |
That is the war cry of the modern-day jihadist.
The Islamic Radicals want to exterminate all of us -- Gay and straight, Christian and Jew.
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“They target each and every one of us,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) wrote in a powerful call to action. “Their objective, which they broadcast worldwide, is to murder or forcibly convert every single American.”
And as we saw in Orlando, Florida -- this enemy shows no mercy.
The death toll is staggering – 49 dead, dozens wounded – mostly young people enjoying a night of dancing and music at a popular gay nightclub.
More bodies piled on the altar of political correctness. I say enough!
“What we need is for every American – Democrat and Republican – to come together, abandon political correctness, and unite in defeating radical Islamic terrorism,” Cruz wrote.
But America is at war with an enemy our president refuses to acknowledge.
President Obama went on national television and told us he has no "definitive judgment" on the motive of the Orlando jihadist.
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So let’s review the facts. The gunman had reportedly pledged allegiance to ISIS in a 911 telephone call. He reportedly referenced the Boston bombers in that conversation. And he reportedly and screamed “Allahu Akbar” -- as he massacred innocent Americans.
And still the president seemed baffled over the jihadist’s motivations..
It was similar to his behavior in the aftermath of Chattanooga and San Bernardino and Boston and Fort Hood.
“We need a commander-in-chief who will speak the truth, and who will unleash the full force and fury of the American military to utterly destroy ISIS and its affiliates,” said Cruz. “We need to pass the Expatriate Terrorist Act, so that known ISIS terrorists cannot use U.S. passports to return to America and wage jihad. We need a President who is serious – who will identify the enemy by name and do everything necessary to defeat it.”
But the White House does not seem all that serious about naming the enemy or admitting that Radical Islam inspired the carnage.
And that brings me to something that happened during the first post-shooting press conference.
They invited a Muslim religious leader to speak.
They did not invite a Christian minister. They did not invite a Jewish rabbi. But by golly – they made sure to invite the senior Imam for the Islamic Society of Central Florida.
Now, why would they do that? Why invite the local imam if the shooting had nothing to do with radical Islam?
Instead of denouncing radical Islam he told us not to rush to judgment. Instead of affirming and announcing solidarity with the LGBT community, he told us not to sensationalize the massacre.
Instead of urging Muslims to wage war on the Islamists, he advanced the Mainstream Media’s narrative about getting our guns.
With all due respect -- Americans did not need a lecture from the Senior Imam of the Islamic Society of Central Florida -- especially after an Islamist had just slaughtered Americans on American soil.
But amid the carnage and devastation came acts of bravery and compassion.
Police officers and first responders ran into harm's way to save lives. Hundreds of citizens lined up to give blood. Churches hosted vigils and prayer services.
What happened in Orlando is not about the political community or the religious community or the LGBT community. It's about the American community -- our community.
And not even a jihadist can destroy that.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. His latest book is "God Less America: Real Stories From the Front Lines of the Attack on Traditional Values." Follow Todd on Twitter@ToddStarnes and find him on Facebook.
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