Too Crazy for FOX

[Vashta Nerada]

When something is so bat$hit dystopian that even FOX News Network is appalled, it deserves its own thread.

Lets start off with the latest ISIS video:


http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/4/10/15246456/lake-county-florida-sheriff-police-video-drugs

[patric]

We dont have a "If Trump can do it so can I" topic so this will have to do.

Fox News team witnesses GOP House candidate 'body slam' reporter
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/24/greg-gianforte-fox-news-team-witnesses-gop-house-candidate-body-slam-reporter.amp.html

[guido911]

We dont have a "If Trump can do it so can I" topic so this will have to do.

Fox News team witnesses GOP House candidate 'body slam' reporter
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/24/greg-gianforte-fox-news-team-witnesses-gop-house-candidate-body-slam-reporter.amp.html

And he still won the election...

[erfalf]

And he still won the election...

And the line of questioning will be "how crazy are these people that voted for him" as opposed to what it should be, what about the other guy so turned off people that they still refused to vote for him. Self reflection is a thing.

[Tulsa Zephyr]

Actually over a quarter of a million voters had cast their ballot before the incident.

[rebound]

And of course the rampant "Democrats are evil" brainwashing...

[guido911]

Actually over a quarter of a million voters had cast their ballot before the incident.

Those voters that went for Gianforte early of course all would have voted differently and the outcome would be different had they just voted in person on Election Day.

This whole incident got so overblown by the media, because certainly they are always a victim of mean ol Trump and the GOP, that it became a joke to me.

[patric]

This whole incident got so overblown by the media, because certainly they are always a victim of mean ol Trump and the GOP, that it became a joke to me.

Trump's not so good on history, but this financial reporter thinks history is what we should be paying attention to right now:


What we are witnessing today is exactly how it has happened historically. It goes in steps. Countries do not leap from civilization to barbarism in a single bound. You do not wake up one morning to discover mobs burning books in the streets. The decline happens by degrees. Each step enables the next.

And what is being normalized here now is not normal.

The voters of Montana have just rewarded Greg Gianforte for beating up a reporter by electing him to Congress as their representative. Many on the right are crowing. Gianforte was reportedly swamped with extra donations following the attack. Republican congressman Duncan Hunter of California said the attack was merely "inappropriate" — unless, he added, the reporter "deserved it." The president has celebrated the result. Popular right-wing radio host Laura Ingraham actually mocked the reporter and suggested he should have fought back against Gianforte and his aides. (One can only imagine what she would have said if he actually had done so.) She was not alone.

None of these people are being subject to moral sanction by the market or their supporters so far as anyone can tell. Gianforte has only been cited legally for a misdemeanor by the local sheriff, who was a campaign contributor. The smart money says he will get away with it, and take up his lucrative sinecure in Washington.

And as every conservative knows, human beings respond to incentives. If this sort of action is rewarded and not punished, it will happen more often.

The reporter in question, the Guardian's Ben Jacobs, was doing exactly — not roughly, but exactly — what people like Thomas Jefferson were thinking about when they included the First Amendment in the Constitution. He was trying to ask the Republican congressional candidate for his view on the new health-care bill, which according to the Congressional Budget Office will cost 23 million people their health insurance. There is, literally, no more legitimate function of a reporter in our democracy than asking a congressional candidate for his position on a new law just before an election.

Yet there is no longer even a consensus in defense of this.

What I personally find most depressing is the tribalism. People on the right are defending Gianforte because he's on their "team" and Jacobs is on the "other" team. Their reaction would have been exactly the opposite if it had been the other way around. If you want to see how commonplace this is, check out social media — or, indeed, the likely comments below this article.

But such thinking is the logic of soccer hooligans. It should have no place, zero, in public debate. To witness people in public life incorporating this into their reasoning and behavior is more than ominous.

How do you get here? First you lay the groundwork with a long-term, cynical marketing campaign against the "mainstream" press. Then a presidential candidate urges his supporters to "knock the crap" out of protestors.

Then he gets his supporters so mad at the press that a reporter needs to be escorted from a rally by the Secret Service for her own protection.

Then the candidate jokes about whether he would ever kill reporters. Then he calls them the "enemy of the people." Then one of his colleagues physically attacks one of them.

And at each stage along the process, some people cheer him, others defend him, and others shrug it off. Each unsanctioned outrage enables the next. Sixty-two million people voted for Trump. The Republican Party and the people of Montana have now legitimized violence. The next step in the sequence is obvious.

When you travel abroad these days, it's like a cloud lifts. Stepping outside Trumpland, even for a few days, reminds you of what life is like in the normal world. You and your family should have that option as a matter of right.

The point about a stable country is that it has the rule of law, and the point about the rule of law is that, above all, it is impartial. This is why the traditional figure of justice is blindfolded. Assault is assault. There aren't "teams" or sides.

Partisan justice is not a feature of a civil society. It is a feature of a civil war.   http://www.marketwatch.com/story/its-time-to-plan-an-escape-route-for-you-and-your-money-from-trumpland-2017-05-26

[BKDotCom]

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[erfalf]

patric, that is an excellent assessment of how we got to a point in civilization where reporters think they are owed anything they want.  

Look I ain't saying Gianforte didn't do something incredibly stupid. But his stupid behavior doesn't excuse stupid behavior exhibited all the time by pushy reporters that in my opinion cross a lot of lines, all because "it is their right". I'm about sick of people granting themselves rights.

[Townsend]

patric, that is an excellent assessment of how we got to a point in civilization where reporters think they are owed anything they want.  

Look I ain't saying Gianforte didn't do something incredibly stupid. But his stupid behavior doesn't excuse stupid behavior exhibited all the time by pushy reporters that in my opinion cross a lot of lines, all because "it is their right". I'm about sick of people granting themselves rights.

Yes, Trump said that the reporters are the enemy...and non Euro-whites...and non-protestants...and scientists...

[Townsend]

Oh...and non-rich people or proper medical care.

Pretty soon dentistry will be deemed as anti-Trump.

Many with all their teeth will be threatened by some crazy racist woman in the Walmarts.




Now the world knows what she wipes her Trump with.

[erfalf]

Yes, Trump said that the reporters are the enemy

If they play the part...

Just saying, the press hasn't exactly been impartial lately. And with all that crow they had to eat last November, I'd be bitter too.

[Townsend]

If they play the part...

It's a true shame when that's written with sincerity.

[erfalf]

It's a true shame when that's written with sincerity.

It is a shame that the press has taken such an (selectively) adversarial stance. I completely agree with you.