The Trump Presidency 13: The (James) Baker's Dozen

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Here's a little news that I think is a mix of old and new. Fox News likely gave Trump special help during his debates during his campaign. There's a lot more in that article, but... I'll only touch on a little.

Trump has made the debate a point of pride. He recently boasted to the Times that he’d won it despite being a novice, and despite the “crazy Megyn Kelly question.” Fox, however, may have given Trump a little help. A pair of Fox insiders and a source close to Trump believe that Ailes informed the Trump campaign about Kelly’s question. Two of those sources say that they know of the tipoff from a purported eyewitness. In addition, a former Trump campaign aide says that a Fox contact gave him advance notice of a different debate question, which asked the candidates whether they would support the Republican nominee, regardless of who won. The former aide says that the heads-up was passed on to Trump, who was the only candidate who said that he wouldn’t automatically support the Party’s nominee—a position that burnished his image as an outsider.
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Also, a Fox News editor killed reporting on Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels during the lead up to the elections, on the basis that Ailes and Murdoch wanted Trump to win... then demoted the reporter without explanation. The reporter sued and is now under an NDA.

Another thing to note from that article is... what looks like another blatant abuse of power or at least the attempt to do so.

The Justice Department, meanwhile, went to court in an effort to stop A. T. & T.’s acquisition of Time Warner, which owns CNN. Time Warner saw the deal as essential to its survival at a time when the media business is increasingly dominated by giant competitors such as Google and Facebook. Murdoch understood this impulse: in 2014, 21st Century Fox had tried, unsuccessfully, to buy Time Warner. For him, opposing his rivals’ deal was a matter of shrewd business. Trump also opposed the deal, but many people suspected that his objection was a matter of petty retaliation against CNN. Although Presidents have traditionally avoided expressing opinions about legal matters pending before the judicial branch, Trump has bluntly criticized the plan. The day after the Justice Department filed suit to stop it, he declared the proposed merger “not good for the country.” Trump also claimed that he was “not going to get involved,” and the Justice Department has repeatedly assured the public that he hasn’t done so.

However, in the late summer of 2017, a few months before the Justice Department filed suit, Trump ordered Gary Cohn, then the director of the National Economic Council, to pressure the Justice Department to intervene. According to a well-informed source, Trump called Cohn into the Oval Office along with John Kelly, who had just become the chief of staff, and said in exasperation to Kelly, “I’ve been telling Cohn to get this lawsuit filed and nothing’s happened! I’ve mentioned it fifty times. And nothing’s happened. I want to make sure it’s filed. I want that deal blocked!”

Cohn, a former president of Goldman Sachs, evidently understood that it would be highly improper for a President to use the Justice Department to undermine two of the most powerful companies in the country as punishment for unfavorable news coverage, and as a reward for a competing news organization that boosted him. According to the source, as Cohn walked out of the meeting he told Kelly, “Don’t you ******* dare call the Justice Department. We are not going to do business that way.”
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Aridas said:
Why would it be bizarre? This is Trump that we're talking about. He's made it perfectly clear that he treats different groups of people wildly differently.
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Ironically that's, at the end of the day, the biggest thing about Trump.

If you step back and try to look at the whole thing, and can manage to not gouge your own eyes out because you stared into the Lovecraftian abyss, you do start to notice that Trump is far more "Doing things that politicians have been doing but hiding it behind sly winking nods, double speak, euphemisms and the standard sheen of political BS" and just doing them, openly going "Yeah I'm doing it" and keep doing it when people go "Hey you're doing the thing" then doing anything totally new. Trump's biggest break from tradition is being 100% unapologetic about everything he does.

Once we deal with Trump and all the damage he's done, I do hope that we as a society look at political doublespeak with new eyes.
 
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Aridas said:
Here's a little news that I think is a mix of old and new. Fox News likely gave Trump special help during his debates during his campaign. There's a lot more in that article, but... I'll only touch on a little.



Also, a Fox News editor killed reporting on Trump's affair with Stormy Daniels during the lead up to the elections, on the basis that Ailes and Murdoch wanted Trump to win... then demoted the reporter without explanation. The reporter sued and is now under an NDA.

Another thing to note from that article is... what looks like another blatant abuse of power or at least the attempt to do so.
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I cannot think of any other POTUS who has had this type of fervently dedicated support, advocacy, and positive spin from a major broadcast network. It is established company policy and there is no longer a pretense of "fair and balanced." It also comes across in many of their newspaper outlets (Washington Examiner, NY Post, etc.) but politically-driven newspapers are not as novel.

This near constant drumbeat of fervent backing of Trump by Fox News appears throughout most of their programming and is unprecedented as far as I know. It particularly comes across on the web in their banner headlines, which often use highly spun and politicized quotes ("Trump pawns Demos with Brilliant State of Union Address" - Pence) to make an opinion appear to be a statement of fact.

What a treat for a president! The issue is only who is at which end of the leash.

Money really does buy power.
 
Giordano said:
I cannot think of any other POTUS who has had this type of fervently dedicated support, advocacy, and positive spin from a major broadcast network. It is established company policy and there is no longer a pretense of "fair and balanced." It also comes across in many of their newspaper outlets (Washington Examiner, NY Post, etc.) but politically-driven newspapers are not as novel.

This near constant drumbeat of fervent backing of Trump by Fox News appears throughout most of their programming and is unprecedented as far as I know. It particularly comes across on the web in their banner headlines, which often use highly spun and politicized quotes ("Trump pawns Demos with Brilliant State of Union Address" - Pence) to make an opinion appear to be a statement of fact.

What a treat for a president! The issue is only who is at which end of the leash.

Money really does buy power.
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Is the highlighted a real quote? I couldn't find anything, even if I change "pawns" to "pwns".
 
phiwum said:
Is the highlighted a real quote? I couldn't find anything, even if I change "pawns" to "pwns".
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Sorry I was lazy and made that particular one up. I am willing to defend it however by finding an at least equal partisan quote if you want to make me work for my living.

[edited to add]: OK, here is the very first headline of all news banners right now on my Google News splashdown page:

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/re...-reality-after-massive-trump-document-request

Given I tend to avoid clicking on Fox news sites I presume these types of headings are representative of Fox News as a whole (and the preferences of people who do click on them).
 
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What the hell was with the CPAC speech? Did he do a few lines of blow off Huckabee-Sander's back before he went out there? I think that flag now needs to join the #metoo movement. He defiled that banner. I hope it's the kind that can go in the wash.
 
Trump Retweeted

The White House
‏Verified account
@WhiteHouse
President Trump's message to those affected by the tornadoes in the Gulf states: "We grieve by your side and we pledge our unwavering support to help you rebuild from the very depths of this horrible tragedy."
 
Trump Retweeted
Ryan Cale
‏@rcale1776

Jon Stewart “Listen up everybody, the Trump Justice Dept is doing an excellent job administrating the 911 compensation act” This is why we voted for an outsider... Trump gets it done! #MAGA #TheFive #MondayMotivation #MondayThoughts
 
Regnad Kcin said:
Jon Stewart? Surely not THE Jon Stewart?!
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Yep, easily verified.

Here's what I think: Stewart really is giving credit if it's due.

Or, he's playing the 'praise Trump to get stuff' or both: NY Daily News: Jon Stewart sticks by praise for Trump administration's handling of 9/11 fund
Now Stewart would like to see just a little more out of the Tweeter-in-Chief — he wants the President’s support for a bill that will renew and add new money to the 9/11 fund, which is running low on cash.

The biggest obstacle the new bill faces is the GOP-controlled Senate, where only three Republicans have backed the bill so far. Trump could sway enough of his party to guarantee the bill passes sooner rather than later, before payments start getting cut.
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Getting compensation for 911 responders has been frustrating and a key issue for Stewart. I can see this praise.
 
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Craig4 said:
What the hell was with the CPAC speech? Did he do a few lines of blow off Huckabee-Sander's back before he went out there? I think that flag now needs to join the #metoo movement. He defiled that banner. I hope it's the kind that can go in the wash.
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Yeah, there's "hugging", and then there's "molestation".
 
PhantomWolf said:
Stacko said:
Even by Trump standards that speech was unhinged. It'll be what six month until Fox gives him the 11-5 timeblock on Sunday for Aló Presidente?
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Since when was Socialism about the power of the ruling class? Isn't it by its very definition about the power and rule of the working class?

It's been said before, but time to say it again. Trump is an idiot, and so are those that follow him blindly.
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The term "socialism", when used by the GOP, has nothing to do with any actual meaning of the word.

It is nothing more, or less, than a content-free pejorative used to take advantage of the fears which have been rooted deep in our cultural DNA for a century by pols using FUD as their primary vote-getting tool.
 
quadraginta said:
The term "socialism", when used by the GOP, has nothing to do with any actual meaning of the word.

It is nothing more, or less, than a content-free pejorative used to take advantage of the fears which have been rooted deep in our cultural DNA for a century by pols using FUD as their primary vote-getting tool.
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If they don't like the look of a particular car model, it's a "socialist car". If they don't like the filling in a sandwich they buy, it's a "socialist sandwich". So if they don't like the colour of someone's skin or their religion or their cultural background, they get labelled "socialists". All the GOP understands that.
 
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