Trump-Russia Probe: Criminal Investigation...

[Cow Poke]

yep - that is kind of what boggles. For most of us older generation folks where 1984 was still in our future in junior high/high school, Orwell's book was required reading. Yet you'd think most of the folks here supporting Trump's every move had never read the thing (not that there are not similar parallels to be drawn with the left's speech controls). Maybe the entire country needs to take a day off and re-read Orwell's "1984". Far too many in politics, and far too much of the population - on both sides - seem ignorant of its warnings.

What the country needs is a good honest Holy Ghost Revival - I'm pretty sure you'll not get JimL to agree to that even a tad.

[seer]

On the whole, Trump is much worse than Obama in terms of undermining the critical institutions on which our government and way of life depend. The specific attack you reference WRT Obama may have been, as a single instance, as bad or possibly worse than any single instance attack by Trump, but the number of attacks, and the persistence of them is off the charts with Trump. And instead of raising the IRE of everyone - including his supporters - by stepping a bit out of bounds, Trump enjoys the full support of his base with every attack on the press - because his base for the most part is ignorant of the importance of the free press, and ignorant of the historical use of this sort of tactic to diminish the power of the press to hold government and governmental leaders accountable to the people that elect them.

Jim that is just daft! Even before the inauguration some in the press were calling for his impeachment (Vanity Fair and Washington Post). They are biased and untrustworthy. The main stream press is not "free" it is the media arm of the Democrat party and if you don't realize that you are blind to the facts.

[One Bad Pig]

Apparently, other than Trump himself, none of his supporters have read George Orwells "1984". "the party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears."

As always, JimL, your unintended irony is delicious. I've read the book; consequently, I'm more worried about the party which wants to expand government to control ever more aspects of our lives while censoring those who have different views.

[Cow Poke]

As always, JimL, your unintended irony is delicious. I've read the book; consequently, I'm more worried about the party which wants to expand government to control ever more aspects of our lives while censoring those who have different views.

You beat me to it.

[Zymologist]

As always, JimL, your unintended irony is delicious. I've read the book; consequently, I'm more worried about the party which wants to expand government to control ever more aspects of our lives while censoring those who have different views.

It's really weird watching leftists bemoan 1984 tactics.

[firstfloor]

As always, JimL, your unintended irony is delicious. I've read the book; consequently, I'm more worried about the party which wants to expand government to control ever more aspects of our lives while censoring those who have different views.

1984 was not about excessive government, but about the separation of government and the governed. Money in politics will do that.

[Cow Poke]

1984 was not about excessive government, but about the separation of government and the governed. Money in politics will do that.

For the sarcastically impaired the following is said in jest

No, it's not - it's about SEX!!!! Winston and Julia going at it ALL THE TIME!!!!!

[One Bad Pig]

1984 was not about excessive government, but about the separation of government and the governed. Money in politics will do that.

That's a fascinating take on the book. Mind sharing the recreational pharmaceutical you used to come up with it?

[mikewhitney]

On the whole, Trump is much worse than Obama in terms of undermining the critical institutions on which our government and way of life depend. The specific attack you reference WRT Obama may have been, as a single instance, as bad or possibly worse than any single instance attack by Trump, but the number of attacks, and the persistence of them is off the charts with Trump. And instead of raising the IRE of everyone - including his supporters - by stepping a bit out of bounds, Trump enjoys the full support of his base with every attack on the press - because his base for the most part is ignorant of the importance of the free press, and ignorant of the historical use of this sort of tactic to diminish the power of the press to hold government and governmental leaders accountable to the people that elect them.

The freedom of the press is not threatened one bit. The MSM is misrepresenting Trump and is promoting rebellion and treason -- no one is stopping them from doing all that. So the press has even abused their freedom while being unhindered.

It is a little sad that the MSM has appealed to your desired view of Trump so that you readily feed on the MSM-manufactured news.

[firstfloor]

That's a fascinating take on the book. Mind sharing the recreational pharmaceutical you used to come up with it?

Governments can only be corrupt when citizens fail in their duty to participate in the process. ‘Small’ government is one I can safely ignore - a very dangerous idea.

[rogue06]

1984 was not about excessive government, but about the separation of government and the governed. Money in politics will do that.

You haven't actually read the book yourself have you?

[Cow Poke]

You haven't actually read the book yourself have you?

Not even Cliff's notes.

[firstfloor]

Not even Cliff's notes.

The reason you have corrupt government is because you let folks like the oil industry and the gun lobby govern for you. They are Big Brother.

[Mountain Man]

On the whole, Trump is much worse than Obama in terms of undermining the critical institutions on which our government and way of life depend. The specific attack you reference WRT Obama may have been, as a single instance, as bad or possibly worse than any single instance attack by Trump, but the number of attacks, and the persistence of them is off the charts with Trump. And instead of raising the IRE of everyone - including his supporters - by stepping a bit out of bounds, Trump enjoys the full support of his base with every attack on the press - because his base for the most part is ignorant of the importance of the free press, and ignorant of the historical use of this sort of tactic to diminish the power of the press to hold government and governmental leaders accountable to the people that elect them.

You are astonishingly uninformed.

When it comes to being anti-media, Trump only talks a big game. And, boy, does he talk. Obama, on the other hand, is a man of action. As president, he did much more than complain about Fox News. His administration spent eight long years curbing the press freedoms of journalists of every stripe. Obama was a pro at this.

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/o...zing-newsrooms

The good news is the United States has improved its World Press Freedom Index by 8 points from its 2015 low-point mark of 49th. The bad news is America was ranked 20th when Obama took office.

According to the RWB, the 2016 ranking improvement is relative and hides broader negative trends. Most troubling is “the current administration’s obsessive control of information, which manifests itself through the war on whistleblowers and journalists’ sources, as well as the lack of government transparency.”

Who can forget New York Times reporter James Risen, who was subpoenaed twice in the 2010 indictment of Jeffrey Sterling under the Espionage Act of 1917. Refusing to reveal his sources, Risen was subjected to a seven-year nightmare of subpoenas, responses, appeals (one rejected by the Supreme Court), and threats of imprisonment—until it was decided he would not be forced to testify after all.

A judge in the case wrote, “The majority exalts the interests of the government while unduly trampling those of the press, and in doing so, severely impinges on the press and the free flow of information in our society.”

CNN’s Jake Tapper was more emphatic: “The Obama administration has used the Espionage Act to go after whistleblowers who leaked to journalists . . . more than all previous administrations combined”—seven times.

No less chilling was the 2013 Associated Press announcement that over a two-month period the Justice Department had seized phone records, without notice, of 20 telephone lines to AP offices and journalists (including cell phones and home phones) affecting more than 100 reporters—a transgression AP president Gary Pruitt deemed “a massive and unprecedented intrusion” for which there was no justification.

Incredibly, a week following the AP probe, the DOJ ratcheted things up even further when it named Fox News journalist James Rosen a criminal co-conspirator in a leak case involving North Korea’s intention to conduct a nuclear test in response to impending U.N. sanctions. Federal investigators seized Rosen’s email logs, tracked his State Department visits and movements through his security badge, and even targeted the phone records of his parents on Staten Island.

https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-bl...-and-hostility

in fairness to Trump, his administration has not escalated the conflict with the press to a new level. It has not yet come close to doing what President Obama's administration did in making the act of reporting itself criminal behavior in a case that started in 2009 under the Espionage Act of 1917.

At the heart of the case is James Rosen, chief Washington correspondent for Fox News, publishing information about North Korea that he received from a State Department employee.

In obtaining a subpoena to access Rosen's phone and computer records, the Justice Department labeled him "an aider, abettor and/or co-conspirator." It also described him as a flight risk.

Branding a reporter that way in court documents had never been done by the government. Since the case was widely reported, I am surprised an act that really was unprecedented was overlooked by so many pundits in making their worst-ever analyses.

Or, how about the Obama administration excluding Fox News from a round of interviews in 2009 with Kenneth Feinberg, then a Treasury Department official?

At the time, Feinberg was the administration official responsible for deciding the highly controversial issue of compensation for executives of companies being bailed out by the federal government after the economy nearly crashed. Access to him was a very big deal.

Emails later obtained by Judicial Watch about the matter included this one from Obama press secretary Josh Earnest to a Treasury Department spokesperson, saying, "We've demonstrated our willingness and ability to exclude Fox News from significant interviews…"

The Treasury Department exclusion was part of a larger war that the Obama administration declared on Fox in October 2009 when Stephanie Cutter, White House communications director, went on CNN to denounce Fox as a "wing of the Republican Party" and say that the White House was going to stop treating them as a "news network." Administration heavy hitters David Axelrod, Valerie Jarrett and Rahm Emanuel reinforced the message on other cable and network talk shows in subsequent days.

[...]

...check out what Obama's administration did to James Risen, an investigative reporter at The New York Times.

The Obama Justice Department spent seven years in court trying to force Risen to reveal his sources in its criminal investigation of a leak. Team Obama took the case all the way to the Supreme Court.

Seven years with the threat of jail hanging over your head seems a lot worse than being excluded from an informal briefing with the press secretary on a Friday afternoon — especially when the content of that briefing would be available from pool reporters. But I lost count of all the cable heads saying in their best ominous voices last weekend how "chilling" Trump's action was.

https://www.baltimoresun.com/opinion...304-story.html

I'm tired of quoting. Read these for yourself:

https://www.longislandpress.com/2017...histleblowers/

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/30/o...ank-obama.html

[Cow Poke]

The reason you have corrupt government is because you let folks like the oil industry and the gun lobby govern for you. They are Big Brother.

You have 3 more chances, then you must forfeit.