Cleveland Plain Dealer Editor Shows How To Cover Trump: Tell The Truth
from the if-only-others-would-follow dept
For the last eight years or so, one thing has become quite clear: the media has been effectively unable to deal with Donald Trump and Trumpism. He is unique to our political system. He has no shame, is willing to lie without concern, convince himself that his lies are true, and will stop at nothing to win, including fomenting violence and direct attempts to overturn an election.
Much of this was obvious from even when he ran in 2016, and the media had no idea how to deal with it. They assumed a “business as usual” stance. Journalism professor Jay Rosen has long called it out as “the view from nowhere” reporting. That’s when journalists report on what politicians are saying, not whether or not what they’re saying is true.
It demonstrates itself worst of all in the form of false equivalencies, which the modern GOP has embraced with gusto.
No matter what the evidence of what Donald Trump has actually done, Republicans will come up with a fake story of what they pretend are Democrats doing the same thing. Donald Trump fought the certification of the vote in 2020? Well, didn’t supporters of Hillary do the same thing in 2016? (No, the answer is no. A few random people talked about, and there was basically zero effort to follow through). Donald Trump was caught enriching himself, his family, and his businesses during his presidency with corrupt business deals? The GOP claims that Biden did the same with Hunter Biden and China. Except that didn’t happen, and the GOP’s main “witness,” a guy with ties to Russian intelligence, was arrested for making it all up.
The “view from nowhere” allows reporters to report on “what each side says” not what is the actual truth. It gives a false equivalence to wildly outrageous and nonsense claims, with claims that you might not always agree with, but are at least within the spectrum of normal democratic dialogue.
There are many reasons to not like Joe Biden’s policies. I think he’s wrong on almost everything I write about. His tech policy positions are mostly ludicrous. He strongly supports KOSA, a bill that will do real harm to kids online. His understanding of how the First Amendment works is mixed up. And going back to his time in the Senate and as VP, he was always a Hollywood-supporting copyright maximalist.
But, Donald Trump would be just as bad, if not worse, on all of those things, and he wants to overthrow US democracy and install himself as a dictator with unchecked power, and to punish anyone who disagrees with him. He wants to break the law with impunity, throw away basic democratic norms, and treat large segments of the population as less than human.
And all that kinda matters.
Chris Quinn, the editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has published a Letter from the Editor that tries to lay this out to readers of that paper, with the clear and absolutely accurate title: Our Trump reporting upsets some readers, but there aren’t two sides to facts. In it, Quinn points out that he had trouble writing the piece because he knows it’s going to upset fans of Donald Trump. But, it has to be called out:
This is a tough column to write, because I don’t want to demean or insult those who write me in good faith. I’ve started it a half dozen times since November but turned to other topics each time because this needle hard to thread. No matter how I present it, I’ll offend some thoughtful, decent people.
The north star here is truth. We tell the truth, even when it offends some of the people who pay us for information.
The truth is that Donald Trump undermined faith in our elections in his false bid to retain the presidency. He sparked an insurrection intended to overthrow our government and keep himself in power. No president in our history has done worse.
This is not subjective. We all saw it. Plenty of leaders today try to convince the masses we did not see what we saw, but our eyes don’t deceive. (If leaders began a yearslong campaign today to convince us that the Baltimore bridge did not collapse Tuesday morning, would you ever believe them?) Trust your eyes. Trump on Jan. 6 launched the most serious threat to our system of government since the Civil War. You know that. You saw it.
The facts involving Trump are crystal clear, and as news people, we cannot pretend otherwise, as unpopular as that might be with a segment of our readers. There aren’t two sides to facts. People who say the earth is flat don’t get space on our platforms. If that offends them, so be it.
There’s much more in the letter, but that’s the crux of it. It’s not partisan to point this out. It’s being factual. And, of course, some Trump supporters will whine about “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” but the only “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is the response from some of his fans to deny the reality of what they know has happened.
There is no view from nowhere. There is no “both sides” to Quinn’s piece. There is simply “we need to tell the truth,” even if that upsets some people.
And that’s exactly the way to cover Trump. Journalists and editors need to call out the actual risks here. They need to call out the actual crimes he is accused of and how they are not, in anyway, equivalent to what Biden has done. They need to end the “view from nowhere” where reporters just write what politicians say, rather than whether or not it’s actually true.
And they need to put it all in context. One of the reasons why Trump gets away with all this is because he does it so publicly and so relentlessly that it’s impossible to put it into context. It’s impossible to see the big picture for what it is: his (and his fans’) desire for an authoritarian strongman state, where they get to punish their perceived enemies.
That’s not how democracy works. And, it behooves the media to finally start calling out Trump for what he is. Kudos to Quinn and the Cleveland Plain Dealer for doing so.
Hopefully, others in the media will follow. Let truth be the north star.
Filed Under: chris quinn, donald trump, journalism, reporting, view from nowhere
Companies: cleveland plain dealer
Comments on “Cleveland Plain Dealer Editor Shows How To Cover Trump: Tell The Truth”
According to someone I know closely, whom has a friend who is married to a law enforcement officer and are both big magats. They were there on January 6th and they were all just big groups of people sitting around singing Bible song(verses?) peacefully. And everything else is just a conspiracy.
Maybe not the exact quote, it’s been a while since they told me this. But it’s pretty much verbatim what they told me this friend of theirs claimed about being there on January 6th. /Shrug
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It’s a fine approach, but…
Telling the truth about Trump might win over some undecided voters, and it’ll definitely please the anti-Trump crowd, but it’ll only make Trump supporters (especially conservative evangelicals) double-down on the worship of their orange idol. In the words of Metallica: You know it’s sad but true.
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There’s nothing he could do to lose MAGAts, short of being a decent human being.
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He almost lost them when he said it was safe to get the covid shot.
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When he did the decent, humane thing (for god damn once) and actually informed them according to empirical evidence, yes. Precisely.
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He didn’t care about evidence or decency (never has); he only cared that he could claim credit.
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So what? Nothing we can say will shift them, so why pander to them? And if they pull that insurrection crap again, treat them with the same attitude police demonstrated with Savannah Graziano.
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You mean…
a) the deputy closest to her saying “passenger, exit the vehicle”, then telling her “walk to me”?
b) other deputies, too far away to hear deputy #1, seeing someone exit the vehicle and approach a deputy, shooting that person?
c) or deputy #1 shouting to the others, “Stop shooting, she’s OK, he’s still in the truck”?
I’m sorry, you’ll have to be more clear: Are you advocating for people who can recognize the innocent to try to get them to safety, or for people who have a flawed understanding of the situation to simply shoot people who “could be threats”?
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That’s an interesting spin on mag dumping.
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But sure. I’d be fine with a “flawed understanding” approach to the MAGA “situation.”
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Any time I’m reminded of the insurrection I’m utterly amazed all over again that it didn’t end with scores and scores of dead terrorists as it should have. Those MAGA fuckwits had better be thanking their damned god daily — and hard — for the fact all armed personnel at the Capitol demonstrated such restraint in the face of actual terrorism.
Re: How many fingers do you have to lose before you stop trying to pet a rabid dog?
If nothing is going to convince MAGAts to stop worshiping their Dear Leader, and pointing out his many flaws, lies and criminal acts is just going to make them cling to him tighter the least they deserve is for people to stop coddling them by pretending that they have anything more than a passing and frequently antagonistic relationship with reality.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is when you don’t believe Donald Trump is a time-traveling Demigod.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is when you acknowledge Donald Trump’s relationship with Jeffrey Epstein.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is when you notice Donald Trump using Hitler rhetoric verbatim.
“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is when you acknowledge objective reality.
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“Trump derangement syndrome” – is when you believe everything pundits say about Trump without checking the facts of the matter.
The facts are excruciatingly damning, but people with a profit motive are happy to embellish upon them to gain clicks.
See The Misinformation-Outrage Cycle for a discussion about this sort of thing.
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“Trump Derangement Syndrome” is a thought-terminating cliche perpetuated by the far right.
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By and large, whenever someone makes a claim about Donald Trump that isn’t patently absurd on its face, the odds of that claim being true—or true enough that any mistake in wording or any slight exaggeration can be easily fact-checked and corrected—lean closer to “yes” than to “no”, especially once actual facts are involved.
Examples:
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TBH, I don’t worship Jesus either, but I do worship God.
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Who listens to pundits to find out that Trump is a horrible person? You just have to listen to Trump himself.
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That’s not how I’d spell ‘Trump’, FYI.
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I suspect I’m preaching to the choir here, but: The actual words used don’t matter much with these kinds of dishcloth-witted ‘accusations’, since the actual facts have no bearing on the whys and wherefores of what they’re doing.
It’s mostly about crafting (preferably short and catchy) labels and forcing them onto who- or whatever has them frothing that particular week. They know their target audiences, and they know they’re not looking for explanations or facts but for scapegoats, and for somewhere to direct an absolute fuckton of GOP-sanctioned and stoked anger and myriad lunacies that used to be ridiculed outright but are now mainstream politics.
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And violence.
Never forget Jan 6.
The MAGATs want to murder the rest of us.
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It’s possible more than zero MAGAs are non-necrophiliacs, and thus may only want to rape (and not kill) a select portion of the non-MAGA crowd.
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According to someone I know closely, whom has a friend who is married to a law enforcement officer and are both big magats. They were there on January 6th and they were all just big groups of people sitting around singing Bible song(verses?) peacefully. And everything else is just a conspiracy.
Maybe not the exact quote, it’s been a while since they told me this. But it’s pretty much verbatim what they told me this friend of theirs claimed about being there on January 6th. /Shrug
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And addendum to this, this close friend of mine when confronted with Trump’s clear rebellion says “it’s a slippery slope to start removing people from the ballot. So what actual insurrection did he actually do?”
Also though this same person when those two black men and that white lady protested in the state assembly last year about their spineless lack of actual action on the people and guns murdering their children that resulted in the expulsion of said two black men. “They basically committed an insurrection ”
This is a well adjusted adult that is and tries to be a good person and when you talk about reasonable rational things clearly has pro democratic views. But identifies as a libertarian and votes Republican. And believes and spreads the fud about climate change ,electric cars, evil socialism and how it’s supposedly “shameful” to be a white male these days in addition to how obviously Asians and Whites because of DEI admissions and hiring are losing access to jobs. And how it should just be based on “the merits”.
Their spouse works for the government and they both talk about bad freeloading people are but will gladly take every free handout they can get for financial aid for school for their kids or every huge frequent raise they can get at their government job. And gladly take free government money when the idiots in Congress cause them to be furloughed when the budget comes knocking.
The cognitive dissonance is just hard to understand.
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This is a well adjusted adult
Sorry to say but the rest of your two comments strongly suggest otherwise. Someone that divorced from reality does not ‘well adjusted’ make.
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I would suggest you learn some self-defense and start getting a stabproof vest with the ability to insert Class 4A ballistic armor at a bare minimum.
Those people are one step away (read: Trump getting reelevted) from murdering your ass on ideological grounds.
It might also be preferable to move as far away from them as humanly possible if your situation allows for it.
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‘Trump Derangement Syndrome’ is one of the biggest examples of ‘every accusation a confession’ in that arguably it does exist, but it’s exhibited by his cultists who believe everything he says and will ignore reality itself if it contradicts their beliefs and/or something he’s claimed.
The “bOtH sIdEs” contingent maintains a position borne of privilege and ignorance, when it’s not intentionally being used by rightoids to muddy the waters and elevate the Fascist party.
Do Democrats suck? Of course. Are they better than Darth Vader? Of course.
There’s no way to say “both sides are the same” in good faith.
Anyone claiming to be unable to differentiate between Democrats and Republicans
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is lying.
But Hunter Biden’s laptop!
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But Hunter Biden’s penis!
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But her emails!
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Never should have happened. That server, whose configuration and protection security experts referred to as “amateur hour,” was a product of her ego.
As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton’s ego put national security at risk.
The GOP, and Trump, clearly put national security at heavier risk by virtue of being Russian assets. I don’t believe the coordinated gaslighting pretending that Hillary’s decisions were no big deal did anyone any favors though.
If it weren’t for Hillary’s ego, she wouldn’t have had the server. And the server was an objectively bad thing for her to have, for many reasons.
If it weren’t for Hillary’s ego, she would have campaigned in the rust belt, defended the blue wall, and handily won anyway.
As much as I loathe the GOP for its fascism, that still doesn’t give old Hil-dawg a pass for fucking things up with her ego.
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Who would’ve handled the pandemic better?
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The person whose ego kept her from being in a position to do so.
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Just about anybody. Look at how the other developed nations handled the pandemic (and as far as that goes, most of the undeveloped ones too). Sweden was the only developed nation to do anywhere near as badly — and they at least had an actual rationale for their response.
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Never mind — I misread the post I was responding to.
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Understand that it was the same thing done by those before (remember Bushs email server owned by the RNC?) and after(Kush er et Al).
So sure, it was ego, but it wasn’t any greater than anyone else’s son let’s stop pretending that what she did was extraordinary and acknowledge it was how things were done. Right or not.
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It was “how things were done” by people who broke protocol. If anything, that makes it more damning. She knew she wasn’t supposed to be doing that.
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Before Clinton, the only Secretary of State that used email was Powell….and he used a private email as well. He even told her about it.
It was 100% of all cases at that point.
Sure, it was wrong. But it was wrong in the same banal way for anyone but Clinton. It was a policy violation.
The real big problem with her email server wasn’t her behavior…it was that anyone sending her email with classified stuff was VERY much breaking the law. And they found 91 different people who did that.
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I always want to cry out when someone talks to me about hunter bidens laptop (which has happened unprompted multiple times, I live in a ruralish area)
“WHAT ABOUT GIULIANIS 5 PHONES”
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Funny enough, we also have some video that relates to Rudy’s dick.
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Odd, I didn’t know Rudy worked for Nixon…
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May I refer you to that scene in Bad Taste, where one of The Boys, of the Astro Investigation and Defense Service, says of the aliens, Lord Crumb and the others, “Jeez, they’re real dickheads!” Remember the Lord Crumb, of the intergalactic fast food chain Crumb’s Crunchy Delights, when talking about dickheads such as Guliani …
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I will be abstaining from voting because of the ten year long sadistic premeditated cold blooded organized crime spree that has been being committed against me in addition to the outright treasonous policies and hogh crimes of both parties. If hogh crimes and treason are good enough for you and your family that reflects very poorly on you.
Shame on you! Your family will suffer the consequences of it!
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Dumbfuck.
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Anonymous Cowardly Idiot!
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I don’t even know how to respond to this, because all you did was demonstrate that you’re actually a dumbfuck.
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Anonymous or not, they aren’t wrong.
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Who is that useless idiot still hacking my comments filling them with typos in order to discredit me and in order to reduce the imoact of my statemenrs? Imagine, if you defeat me, you will only have 8 billion people left to defeat, loser!
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Re: Re:
You’re stupid.
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You, Mussolini simp.
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The best thing Mussolini ever did was visit a gas station upside down.
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Re: Re:
andrea iravani
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All of the third party candidates are too swampy too, still concealing the systemic corruption. The lobbyists pile on them. I watched transformations occur in people before my very eyes. If you need millions of dollars to run for election, it is because of corruption.There is mass media in this day and age in addition to mass transportation.
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Dipshit.
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As trolls go, you’re a step up from certain others that we’ve entertained recently.
But that’s not saying much.
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I like a you guys for allo the attention you give me.
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Italian fascists are a novel flavor of stupid and evil for us.
Your novelty will wear off, and then you’ll just go on the regular stupid and evil pile with the American rightoids.
But while you’re at least providing some novelty, I’ve gone ahead and attached my rendition of Benito Mussolini and Claretta Petacci at the gas station:
\ / \ /
| |
– – – –
O O
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Is he really? At least bratty Matty’s stupidity and ignorance is somewhat entertaining. Iravani’s text walls are just annoying.
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It’s just the novelty of an Italian fascist when compared to our standard American Idiot variety.
It’ll fade.
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I find nither to be entertaining OR interesting, and the Mussolini simp’s walls of text are more Timecube than anything, ie, insulting and lacking any evidence whatsoever.
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The guy’s initials are literally “AI”. I’m still not convinced that this knuckledragger isn’t a bot.
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I dread to think of the dataset it’s been trained on if that’s the case.
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More like… “a step sideways“?
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You really need to start taking your meds again.
That’s not really lying, then, because lying requires knowledge of falsity and an intent to deceive whomever is being lied to. This is, rather, a detachment from reality, which for the leader of a country is arguably worse.
I was gonna call it “delusion”, but Wikipedia says that’s “a false fixed belief that is not amenable to change in light of conflicting evidence.” And Trump’s beliefs don’t appear to be fixed; or maybe Trump’s words are indepedent of reality and beliefs. I don’t know if there’s a more appropriate term than “bullshitter” for this.
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My suspicion is that he’s a politician who does nothing but plays to the crowd. He simply tells people what they want to hear. Getting the crowd behind him is his thing.
It does not matter to him if his statements are “detached from reality”.
The problem, of course, is that we all have to deal with reality. Eventually, evidence of reality will have a negative, impact on people– supporters included.
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I have my doubts. At least, I sincerely hope Trump doesn’t gain voters by talking about grabbing people’s genitalia without permission.
As for con artistry… well, “artist” is certainly the wrong word, because Trump seems kind of bad at conning. People have done the math; all this real-estate stuff, strategic bankruptcies, and so on, returned less money than simply investing in an index fund would’ve returned—and the lawsuits aren’t even done.
Re: Re: Re: 'He wanted something and he TOOK it, that's a Real Man(tm) there!'
I have my doubts. At least, I sincerely hope Trump doesn’t gain voters by talking about grabbing people’s genitalia without permission.
Oh my sweet summer child… it very much does and that’s because there are a higher-than-zero number of men out there who will hear that and be impressed by the level of ‘confidence’ and ‘manliness’ they think it takes to act like that.
As for the female section of his supporters… yeah, I don’t even want to imagine what sort of women could hear that and still want to be within a football field’s distance of him, even though clearly they do exist.
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Or maybe he’s just a greedy con artist.
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Yeah, it is possible that he’s really good at this craft. Those court cases regarding his business dealings does suggest that.
Although I can’t say if that’s his ultimate goal/objective/endpoint.
But you’d think he would of used his position in his first term to setup sources of income that can withstand the large fines he has incurred.
Also a con artist would realize that retaining confidential documents would interfere with his activities.
That reminds me, I never did watch “A Face in the Crowd(1957)” completely. I’ve only seen that “Engineered Public Confession” speech.
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It’s possible, but the sub-par investment returns don’t support that theory. Nevermind all the work it took to underperform the market.
And all of this is moot until the guy with 70+ felonies, including literal insurrection, has a chance to run for fucking POTUS AGAIN.
Then, assuming he loses, he might get a fine.
The justice system in the US needs to be set on fucking fire.
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This is not a new state of affairs. The 13th Amendment outlawed slavery except as punishment for crime. The next day, the legal systems throughout the country began retooling to get as many legal slaves back into circulation as possible.
We have never had a justice system. We have always had a legal system. It’s better now than it’s ever been. That doesn’t mean it’s good. It just means it used to be even worse.
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If you want Justice, get money to pay for it. That the “American Dream”, be successful and got power, and too bad for you if you’re not born rich.
The rest may be part of the US History, or forgotten forever.
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Kindly remember Blackstone’s Ratio and the sheer amount of effort required to convict. The government does not have an oracle to simply proclaim “the truth”. The government only gets one chance (well, per sovereign) to convict, and must have all its arguments mustered before trial.
This requires time.
And sometimes, the government finds that it simply doesn’t have enough facts on hand to prove (without doubt) guilt. When this happens, the government decides not to throw more of your money into the fireplace.
It truly depends on which charges he is found guilty of. Some of them involve real jail time. You know, “1 year or more prison time” (often) being the definition of a felony and all…
I submit that – given that attitude to the justice system – anything you would replace it with would be worse for everyone. (And replacing it with “nothing” would be worst of all.) How do you propose limiting governmental corruption, both on the prosecution side and in the “indulgences” side?
2020 Conservatives: Facts don’t care about your feelings.
2024 Conservatives: Stop sharing facts that hurt my feelings.
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A more accurate take, at least from where I sit…
Conservatives in my lifetime: My feelings don’t care about your facts!
The Plain Dealer lives up to its name.
Thanks for Sharing Mike!
The Cleveland PD just gained a subscriber.
The worst of it has to be Drumpf’s sycophantic followers who thrive off incivility and lies. What vile and ignorant fucks they all are. No critical thinking skills, no logic understanding and no civics knowledge. They can’t think, engage or understand the world around them. THEY are the problem. Without them, Drumpf doesn’t exist.
The Republican Party told you to reject the evidence of your eyes and ears. It was their final, most essential command.”
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Politicians ought to be of the most imoeccable character, but they would never get elected in this country in this:day and age if they were because there are over sixty million people involved in powerful special interest groups that lobby the government for permission to perpetrate high crimes, treason, terrorism, organized crime, and crimes against humanity against American citizens and others, o it is a totally hopeless situation.
To many games.
Its a grade school Kids fight.
A Dumb smart kid, debating a Smart kid.
Throw random Comments into the argument, confuse the smart kid TRYING to disprove the random, and FORGETS the main debate.
Nothing is getting done. Its like the person in retail, walking the floor. Doing ANYTHING to look busy, so the boss dont find OTHER things for him to do.
And as will School kids we need to GRADE these folks, YEARLY.
WE need to CLEAN things up. And it starts with THEIR WAGES and benefits.
They WANT to save money? EASY.
They are required to work 2 times per year, Off during harvest and seeding. Almost 6 months OFF WORK.
What part timer worker gets BENEFITS?
WE need a TIME AND ATTENDANCE SYSTEM. CLOCK THEM IN AND OUT. MISS A DAY AND GET DOCKED.
Do understand. Those WHO elected them FROM THE STATE do control them, AND the Purse strings.
And if your State isnt Pushing things, FIRE THEM ALSO, you dont need to wait for elections. PETITIONS, and send a NOTE to everyone on the net to send to his EMAIL, to tell him to QUIT.
'Reality can get bent, I've got my 'alternative facts' here to comfort me.'
If demonstrable, verifiable, recorded reality offends your sensibilities that says more about your state of mind(and/or political party as the case may be) than it does reality, which makes the fact that one of the main US political parties has enshrouded themselves in an emotional support reality where facts don’t matter and anything that might contradict their enshrined beliefs are nothing more than ‘fake news’ all sorts of horrifying.
Wow i never thought the PD would get better, but here we are. At least one editor’s column, anyway.
Re: OMG
The AI of AC is talking to itself..
Run for it.
Soon we wont need a Democratic Forum.
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Assassinate him already
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Wow, typical TD reader calls for unlawful killing of former President.
Typical Tuesday for this neo-Marxist cesspool!
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“typical TD reader”
Hmmm .. an anonymous user with temporary name of Bobait Log, which to my knowledge has not been seen here previously, has now been declared to be The Typical User here.
Amazing leap ya got there.
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That’s… not the point. The point is the mischaracterization of calls for the killing of others as typical of Techdirt commenters. Would expect a regular to miss that one, though.
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You literally posted that yourself lol
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Enjoy your visit from the Secret Service.
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lol. Seething tech blogger praises failing outlet of regime-narrative stenographers 😚👌
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Hamberder
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You just hate them because they tell it like it is.
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LOL. Obvious MAGAt is obvious.
I’ve heard it said “truth has a liberal bias”, but that is not true at all.
Conservatives simply have an anti-truth bias
Re: best part
Is with all the Bull, flying around you would think we Might get a good meal out of it.
Nope.
Im waiting for a 3rd party referee.
And BETTER rules.
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Actually, you don’t get meat from bulls, you get it from steers.
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Obviously, you can’t handle the truth. This is a preaching to the quire only site and all dissent will be fkagged which you have repeatedly done to me. Pethetic!
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my most recent comment was even prohibitted from being posted! Did not even make it to flagge this time!
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Opposing Ukraine spending, NATO, and the NDAA is evidently prohibitted on this site.
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Whatever gender you thought you were born with, you are wrong.
The futanari are coming for you.
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You’re stupid.
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Re: Re: Re: Simple is
As Simple does.
Stick to Subject.
Hiding your comment is from ENOUGH people askign for it.
Kicking a post BEFORE its posted, means something was said, that Should not be said.
OR
To many posts between when you started and ended your post.
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Strong in this one the projection is, hmmm.
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“But, Donald Trump would be just as bad, if not worse, on all of those things, and he wants to overthrow US democracy and install himself as a dictator with unchecked power, and to punish anyone who disagrees with him. He wants to break the law with impunity, throw away basic democratic norms, and treat large segments of the population as less than human.”
Your fear mongering is getting extremely silly
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Not really?
Trump has publicly declared those things. He’s made them his election promises.
It’s not fearmongering if Trump’s getting quote verbatim on these topics.
Re: Re: Schrodinger's campaign statements/promises
Those who have put themselves in the unenviable position of having to defend Trump seem to frequently be forced to argue that reality isn’t real and that what he says shouldn’t be taken at face value when it makes him look bad but should be taken at face value when it does, with the potential for the exact same statement to switch between the two depending on circumstances at the time.
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It isn’t fearmongering if…
…among other things that Trump, the GOP, and their conservative brethren have said and done since Donald Trump lost the 2020 election.
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Nah, it’s fact.
Plus, at least one of the insurrectionist demographic here has expressed similar sentiments to me once.
Thoughtful and decent
No you won’t. It is not possible to be both thoughtful and decent, and support Trump.
If Trump does succeed in making himself President for Life, we can all thank whoever or whatever that he hasn’t got much life remaining.
Well, of course not. Benedict Arnold never got to be President.
If Trump wins reelection the Dems can only blame themselves. They failed to run a reasonable candidate. Biden has accomplished practically nothing of historical value in his time in office.
Trump is a direct threat. Not to this country, but to the rest of the world. In 2016, and in 2020, the idea of a strong America with a reactionary president kept the world in balance.
Biden has blown that.
The idea of him being that way now, with an out of control world, wars raging on two continents and soft wars on 3 more?
For the first time, the comparison of Trump to Hitler has some truth. People ignore that Poland started World War II. When it closed its borders and refused to take Polish nationals who were illegally in Germany.
We face that now with Trump. Rounding up the criminals who overstayed or have no visa. Sending them back. And watching them get stuck. Going nowhere.
The idea that the cartels could lead to an armed crossing of U.S. forces in retaliation. Trump would fire missiles the first time China sprayed water at an American vessel. He’d flatten whole countries over terrorists disrupting shipping.
The draw to his isolationist stance is gone. We’re too far past isolation now. GED be great for America. But he’s destroy the world.