Friday Trump (#notmypresident) escalated his attack on the free press to new levels. After first excoriating what he called “fake news” at CPAC and then later on Twitter, the White House then barred reporters from certain news organizations (The NYT, BuzzFeed News, CNN, The Los Angeles Times, Politico, BBC, and HuffPost) from a press briefing. Conservative-leaning organizations such as Fox News, The Washington Times, The One America News and the mainstream outlets ABC, NBC, CBS were allowed, as was that purveyor of racism, homophobia, and general bigotry, Breitbart News. The Washington Post chose not to send a reporter. I’m sure their reporter, too, would have been barred. This action contradicts what Trump’s press secretary claimed in December. Trump has said that he doesn’t mind criticism, yet this shows with glaring clarity that he cannot stand to told again and again that he and his administration are having problems. He is attempting to use the power of of the White House and the Presidency to stifle dissent: directly by shutting the press out and indirectly by making people distrust the press. He asks that we trust HIM, the prince of lies! If you’ve been fact-checking, you know that Trump cannot make a speech or indeed have a simple conversation without uttering lies. (I’m not going to make nice and use pretty language. He flat-out lies.) He makes claims such as “The administration is running like a fine-tuned machine” and “We’ve spent 6 trillion dollars in the Middle East.” Does he not know or care that not just reporters but ordinary citizens (like me) are, one, watching the chaotic mess that is his administration and, two, fact-checking what he says? Oh, wait, I forgot…this is the administration that deals in “alternative facts” with an “alt-right” chief strategist at the White House and a favored “alt-right” news outlet. This is NOT normal behavior, even for a paranoid president! Nixon didn’t do this, and he had his truly bizarre moments. Clinton didn’t do this, even during the whole Monica Lewinsky thing. But Trump is barely into his Presidency and already he has designated the press “an enemy of the people”. Not of HIM, mind you. We, the citizens of the the United States, are now supposed to be on our guard against not ISIS but the NYT, the Washington Post, Politico, and other liberal media. I don’t know about you, but my fears are directed towards the White House and its current occupants, as well as his Republican minions. To use that famous quote from The Fly, “Be afraid. Be very, very afraid.”
Tag: Breitbart
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Stranger In A Strange Land
I can’t believe I’m writing this. I still can’t form the words “President Trump” in my head. The country that I thought I knew-the one that embraced equality, rejected sexism and racism, and believed in welcoming those in need, regardless of their religion or ethnicity or country of origin-has turned out to be a illusion. The darker fear-driven vision that powered Trump instead proved to be more accurate…the angry largely white voters that feel their privilege and place are diappearing won the day. Friends from abroad have been emailing me and messaging to ask if I’m okay and offer condolences. One, who lives in a country with a fiercely nationalistic right-wing leader, offered the advice that I should now begin to be as invisible as possible. I replied that I’m temped to get married while it still legal. Sigh. Go BACK in the closet at age 55? I don’t think so. Even though Trump has bragged that he is a great friend of “the gays,” he has also said in different interviews that he plans to do away with marriage equality and Mike Pence’s views on LGBTQ issues are well known. Trump does not respect WOMEN, so I highly doubt he would respect trans folk or even recognize the very existence of those who are non-binary, unlike President Obama (I miss him already, sigh). He has taken great pains to align himself firmly with the Christian right and Evangelicals, even to the point of having a religious advisory coucil composed of mostly Evangelical Christians. His advisor Roger Stone is formerly of the Breitbart website (I refuse to call it a news site b/c it offers alt-right conspiracy theories, rants, anti-LGBTQ talks, and religiously and sometimes racially bigoted nonsense). Roger Ailes left Fox “News” because of a sexual harassment scandal. Mike Pence, his VP, has claimed that evolution is just a theory and passed restrictive “religious liberty” laws in his home state. So the company he keeps does not inspire reassurance that life is going to be good for the foreseeable future of anyone like me: queer, trans, non-binary, atheist, leftist, and damnably activist. Oh, yes, and Jewish. Don’t think I don’t remember that tweet he put out…and his non-disavowal of all the alt-right white supremacist groups that have come out in support of him. No, I’m NOT going back in the closet. I’m here to carry on the fight!
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Stranger In A Strange Land
I can’t believe I’m writing this. I still can’t form the words “President Trump” in my head. The country that I thought I knew-the one that embraced equality, rejected sexism and racism, and believed in welcoming those in need, regardless of their religion or ethnicity or country of origin-has turned out to be a illusion. The darker fear-driven vision that powered Trump instead proved to be more accurate…the angry largely white voters that feel their privilege and place are diappearing won the day. Friends from abroad have been emailing me and messaging to ask if I’m okay and offer condolences. One, who lives in a country with a fiercely nationalistic right-wing leader, offered the advice that I should now begin to be as invisible as possible. I replied that I’m temped to get married while it still legal. Sigh. Go BACK in the closet at age 55? I don’t think so. Even though Trump has bragged that he is a great friend of “the gays,” he has also said in different interviews that he plans to do away with marriage equality and Mike Pence’s views on LGBTQ issues are well known. Trump does not respect WOMEN, so I highly doubt he would respect trans folk or even recognize the very existence of those who are non-binary, unlike President Obama (I miss him already, sigh). He has taken great pains to align himself firmly with the Christian right and Evangelicals, even to the point of having a religious advisory coucil composed of mostly Evangelical Christians. His advisor Roger Stone is formerly of the Breitbart website (I refuse to call it a news site b/c it offers alt-right conspiracy theories, rants, anti-LGBTQ talks, and religiously and sometimes racially bigoted nonsense). Roger Ailes left Fox “News” because of a sexual harassment scandal. Mike Pence, his VP, has claimed that evolution is just a theory and passed restrictive “religious liberty” laws in his home state. So the company he keeps does not inspire reassurance that life is going to be good for the foreseeable future of anyone like me: queer, trans, non-binary, atheist, leftist, and damnably activist. Oh, yes, and Jewish. Don’t think I don’t remember that tweet he put out…and his non-disavowal of all the alt-right white supremacist groups that have come out in support of him. No, I’m NOT going back in the closet. I’m here to carry on the fight!