Originally Posted By: JM Hanes
I appreciate your reply, but it strikes me as pretty weak anti-constitutional tea.

Originally Posted By: artie505
As evidenced by his constant attempts to suppress the media with his "false news" rhetoric, and more to the point, his openly expressed desire to make it illegal for the media to criticize him, Trump has shown contempt for for the First Amendment guaranteed freedoms of speech and the press.

Considering the fact that the mainstream media has spent more than 2 years pimping Russian Collusion gossip and lies 24 hours a day, I'd say the President is justified in condemning fake news. Even if you still believe Trump was assisted by the Russians, I have to wonder where you were when Obama was issuing subpoenas for AP reporters' phone records, and dusting off the Espionage Act to go after journalists, surveilling James Rosen's computer, and pursuing James Risen for years. According to whistle-blower-in-chief Risen himself:

Quote:
“If Donald J. Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the F.B.I. to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama.”

Trump may have briefly rescinded Jim Acosta's White House credentials, but that's not oppression, that's a President's privilege. He certainly makes himself available to the press often enough. On the flip side, we still aren't entirely sure who masterminded the spying on Candidate Trump, but that operation beats Watergate by several orders of magnitude.

The President may not respect the press, but that's not a first amendment infraction. It's not like the press shows any respect for the President. As far as I know, all his detractors are still out there going strong, from congratulating each other on Pulitzer Prizes for stories since proven without basis in fact, to giving each other awards for bravery and integrity. What I'm not seeing is any chilling effect. If anything i'd have said the 1st amendment is under assault from the left, when you look at the hysterics that greet even fairly mainstream conservative speakers on college campuses, and the demands that they not be allowed to speak.

Originally Posted By: artie505
And his constant attacks on the Judiciary demonstrate contempt for the separation of powers so wisely imposed by the Constitution.

Representative of Trump's constituency, I've seen right-to-life literature that complained about "nine people who weren't even elected to their positions," i.e. the Supreme Court Justices, and by extension, the Constitutional wisdom of not filling positions on the Court based on the results of popularity contests which would inevitably revolve around the expression of opinions about cases future Justices may have to hear.

I'm afraid I'm not entirely sure what you're getting at here, something about electing instead of appointing the Supremes? The only issue I'm aware of that I would call "representative" of Trump's constituency would be consensus on the importance of his promise to appoint conservative, if not originalist, Justices to the Court, as vacancies allowed. The current talk among Democrats of packing the Supreme Court with additional Justices is a far more radical offense than anything I've heard from the right. I must admit the having District Court judges taking it upon themselves to issue nationwide injunctions from the bench is habit we should not want to encourage because it ultimately wreaks nationwide legal havoc, especially when other judges in other states issue oppositie rulings. Conservatives call that legislating from the bench and are admittedly agin' it. There's nothing anti-constitutional about expressing such differences in judicial philosophies, however. Trump has complained about judges, but he has not been refusing to obey court orders.

Just as an addendum, on the treatment of others, I hope folks who have followed the "children in cages" stories from the border are aware that that practice originated under the previous administration. It was not something newly instituted by the current one. I believe they are working on ways to keep families together.

We're not focusing on this or that specific, and neither the actions of previous administrations nor executive privileges belong in the discussion. (Quite frankly, I'd think very little of any President who didn't test the limits of hir authority in an attempt to get what se thought was best for America...regardless of what I thought of it. Such an individual would be a weak, unfit leader.)

Trump has expressed a desire to silence criticism, which is step two in the dictator's handbook...a shot across the bow of the Constitution.

And because the Constitution won't allow him to silence those segments of the media that he doesn't like he's attempting to circumvent it and minimize our First Amendment guaranteed freedoms of speech and of the press by incessantly demonizing their proponents...a lesser shot, but a shot nonetheless.

I'm no pollyanna. I understand editorial policies and priorities and slanting news, and I support Tump's right to object and fight back, but NOT in the manner in which he's doing it.

Do you seriously believe that everything published about Trump in the Washington Post is false while everything that comes across Fox News is fact?

Originally Posted By: JM Hanes

The President who said,"The buck stops here," is also the President who wrote to Washington Post critic, Paul Hume:
Quote:
"I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an 'eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay.' It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry.".

Then there's his letter to Dean Acheson:
[quote]In the salty letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Post, Truman rails against newspaper writers and columnists, calling them “more dangerous” than street walkers.

“Presidents and the members of their Cabinets and their staff members have been slandered and misrepresented since George Washington,” Truman wrote in the hand-written diatribe. “When the press is friendly to an administration the opposition has been lied about and treated to the excrescence [sic] of paid prostitutes of the mind.”

And do you also seriously believe that HST's PRIVATE correspondence rises to the level of Trump's attacking the opposition media using every mic that's held in front of his mouth as a weapon?

A father's irate response to a critic who panned his daughter... C'mon!

And in a different vein, I respect people's right to object to unfavorable Supreme Court decisions, and I respect their right to object to the makeup of the Court that handed down those decisions, but when they take issue with the wisdom that resulted in the makeup of that Court, it's another shot across the bow of the Constitution.

It's not as obvious as Trump's attacks, but it's nonetheless indicative of an underlying, very dangerous to America rejection of one of the principles on which America was founded.

The new Great Equalizer is the SEND button.

In Memory of Harv: Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. ~Voltaire