US Politics: Mueller....Mueller....Mueller...

[ljkeane]

3 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

My point was there are different ways to position to the story to get maximum impact. Was this a guy who randomly attacks the press because he believes he's above it and that a free press should be banned, or was it a guy who broke after constant harassment from press allegations by certain publications. Its a mix of both, and different people will see it from different perspectives.

Asking entirely appropriate questions of political candidates is not 'constant harassment', it's the press doing exactly what they're supposed to be doing. I really don't know what point you're trying to make here but it's fairly bizarre.

[LongRider]

This story is about a candidate who hit a reporter and then lied about it, even though there were witnesses.  So he's an aggressive violent liar not worth defending.  None of  your story positioning examples show that.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

Jacobs and the Guardian have been after him over connections to Russia and have been for a while, which may or may not have any substance to it at all. He clearly feels harassed as you can hear in the audio.

[Kalbear]

1 minute ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Jacobs and the Guardian have been after him over connections to Russia and have been for a while, which may or may not have any substance to it at all. He clearly feels harassed as you can hear in the audio.

Except the reporter asked about his feelings on the CBO score. And from the audio it is clear he didn't know who Jacobs was. 

[Mexal]

14 hours ago, Kalbear said:

So this seems kind of like a big deal. But honestly, I don't know if it is or not. 

 

It doesn't look good at all.

1. Kushner wanted to bypass American Intelligence and use Russian spy channels. That's espionage. What could they possibly be talking about that he wanted to use Russian channels to talk with Putin?

2. Kushner lied about this meeting and the two other previous contacts he had with Kislyak.

3. Kushner met secretly with the head of a sanctioned bank who was just implicated when one of their top guys was found guilty of espionage. I think in the Reuters article on this, there was mention of Kislyak talking about financing friends of Trump.

4. There is the possibility that he was organizing the meeting between Eric Prince and a representative of Putin that took place on Jan 11th. That doesn't look good.

5. The stated explanation by the WH is that they were setting up a back channel to discuss Syria which makes zero sense. Why wouldn't you want your military, state department, intelligence services to know about these conversations if the idea is cooperation in Syria?

At the very least, he lied on his SF86 form multiple times and that should get his clearance stripped and possibly put him in jail. That's a serious crime.

[MerenthaClone]

37 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

My point was there are different ways to position to the story to get maximum impact. Was this a guy who randomly attacks the press because he believes he's above it and that a free press should be banned, or was it a guy who broke after constant harassment from press allegations by certain publications. Its a mix of both, and different people will see it from different perspectives.

"Waaaaaah, I'm running for office and I don't like having any elements of my actions questioned waaaaaaaah".  Precious little Gianforte just []ihad[/i] to attack the reporter because Gianforte's questionable actions got him investigated and then the same reporter later asked him a topical and relevant political question in an appropriate setting.

Y'all do know there's actual audio and it in no way supports your weird fevered attempts to portray Jacobs as some guy who keeps "harassing" the politician, right?  It portrays a guy who has fucking absurd anger issues and doesn't recognize Jacobs, so whatever shit you're trying to imply with that link doesn't actually fly.  

 

e:  Shit, he "feels harassed" and that gives him an excuse to attack the press?  Fuck me, I guess the KKK are all right lynching folks because they "felt harassed" by the mere presence of invidious melanin.  Poor fragile souls.  

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

46 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

My point was there are different ways to position to the story to get maximum impact. Was this a guy who randomly attacks the press because he believes he's above it and that a free press should be banned, or was it a guy who broke after constant harassment from press allegations by certain publications. Its a mix of both, and different people will see it from different perspectives.

Investigative reporting about an American Politician's ties to foriegn governments and direct pertinent questions now constitute "constant harassment" (your words)?

Come on, there is no way to justify Gianforte's actions and the fact that people are laughing about it or dismissing it as much adue abou nothing are quite disturbing in my view.

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

39 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Jacobs and the Guardian have been after him over connections to Russia and have been for a while, which may or may not have any substance to it at all. He clearly feels harassed as you can hear in the audio.

So?  His "feelings of harassment" do not justify him attacking Jacobs.

[Fragile Bird]

1 hour ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Jacobs and the Guardian have been after him over connections to Russia and have been for a while, which may or may not have any substance to it at all. He clearly feels harassed as you can hear in the audio.

And if you listened to the exchange so carefully you also know that Gianforte brushed off the question about the CBO report and Jacobs starts saying 'it will be too late then...'. Like, 'do I really have to explain the election is tomorrow and I need an answer now because the election is tomorrow?' That's when Gianforte attacks him, because 'fuck you Jacobs no I don't want to respond to a question about 23 million people losing their health insurance.'

There is no justification for responding to a reasonable question asked politely (no, not aggressively as claimed) by knocking that person down.

And as for the idiot in Texas, the obvious answer to suggesting reporters be shot for asking questions you don't like is that the reverse should be true as well. Suggesting governors who don't give answers you like be shot is a perfectly reasonable response.

[Channel4s-JonSnow]

lets be clear I'm not justifying violence. But the press are framing this in the most hysterical fashion, a man trying to shut down the free press!! Waaaah! We're living in communist Russia !!

Except it might just be someone who lost his cool at an invasive press. 

[Zorral]

2 hours ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

I'm giving you evidence that their incident wasn't the first interaction between them. I'm not justifying his actions either.  Maybe you wanna take a chill pill.

You are skating ice that is breaking beneath your blades, my boy.

The reporter had done, and was doing his job, and, by the way, serving our nation's right to know by reporting Gianforte's ties to Russia, which has been already proven to have interfered with the election campaign.

Gianforte doesn't want the facts to be told to the public about what he further plans for health care -- which you know does affect everyone in this nation who isn't part of the 1%, of whom it now looks strongly he's a minion. So he body slams the reporter.

Following in Texas the governor-minion for the ruling corporate 1% fascists think its cool to shoot the investigators looking intothose who are aiding and abetting a foreign power to pervert and corrupt our economic and political systems for its own gain.

It looks more and more that the trumpolini coalition has gotten rapidly along the road to privatize at rock bottom price sales to the international congloms all our 'public' services from public lands, education, justice to health care to manufacturing to you name it -- just as Putin did to the oligarch thugs in Russia.  See where that's gotten the rest of the country. This must be shouted from the highest mountain tops and deepest river valleys, all day every day.  Even the 38% rock solid supporters of the putinesquetrumpolas need to be educated into what is going on all around them, over them and under them every minute of the day and night.

We are ticking bomb seconds from gag rule, as was the case in the antebellum years, in the House and Senate, while in the slaveocracy states the mails and press were utterly censored, even private mail opened, and if the slightest hint of the words abolition or emancipation or slightest suggestion that slavery was inhumane got the person at person beaten, tarred and feathered, and not that infrequently, lynched, or at best shot.

 

[JGP]

19 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Except it might just be someone who lost his cool at an invasive press. 

Might be, though unlikely. Having some past experience with 'losing my cool' (uncouth youth, slow to maturity) his actions are more likely indicative of piss poor impulse control and coping mechanisms, and/or an inability to internally deal with stressors.

So, definitely not someone suited to serve the public.

As an aside, I suppose there's little chance the Judiciary might make a point in this particular case? Like, eschew a mere fine?

[all swedes are racist]

and in some pretty good news:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/26/us/politics/united-states-refugees-trump.html?_r=0

the newly passed spending bill lifts state dept restrictions on number of refugees admitted to u.s.

[LongRider]

Here is an interesting editorial from the Missoulian noted on April 27 Gianforte's apparent agreement that 'the media' is the enemy. 

Quote

And Backus wrote that toward the end of the candidate’s talk, a man in the audience said to Gianforte, “Our biggest enemy is the news media” and asked, “How can we rein in the news media?” The man followed up his question by turning to Backus, who was sitting next to him, and “raised his hands as if he would like to wring his neck.”

Gianforte smiled, pointed at the reporter <Backus> and said this: “We have someone right here. It seems like there is more of us than there is of him. I don’t have a simple solution for you. I will say that doing town hall meetings and getting out and visiting with people is very important.”

This “joke” made at the reporter’s expense wasn’t funny at all. In fact, on its face, the statement demonstrated Gianforte’s agreement that news media are “the enemy.”

 

To be clear, the reporter never felt as though he were in danger of physical harm. But it should concern every Montanan when a candidate for Congress singles out any individual in a crowded room to point out that he is outnumbered.

So is choke slamming a reporter a big surprise here?  Not anymore, the man is an asshole.

[Manhole Eunuchsbane]

9 hours ago, Free Northman Reborn said:

Frankly, listening to Ben Jacobs talk makes me want to punch him too. Such a whiner.

In one interview he is going on about how is is typing one handed as his shoulder feels a bit uncomfortable. Clearly laying down the foundation for some kind of civil claim for "loss of ability to do his work" due to the supposed grievous injury he suffered.

He is going to maximise the mileage from this. Excuse me while I wipe the tears from my eyes. Frankly, there are much bigger things to worry about in the world than one pushy little hipster reporter being dumped on his ass by some provincial politician.

Of course, it will probably move North Korea's nuclear missiles or China's South China Sea annexation off the top of CNN's headline priority list.

That's exactly what he should do. He was doing his job. A big part of Gianforte's job is dealing with reporters. He failed miserably here. If I'm Jacobs, I work this angle as hard as I can. "I'm afraid to go back to work. I can't go back to work. I was humiliated in front of my colleagues" etc etc. 

 All Gianforte had to do was say no comment. If Jacobs persisted, pull his press credential and have him thrown out. (This was Gianforte's event that this occurred at). He fucked up and went over the line. Make him pay for it.  

[OldGimletEye]

19 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

lets be clear I'm not justifying violence. But the press are framing this in the most hysterical fashion, a man trying to shut down the free press!! Waaaah! We're living in communist Russia !!

Still not getting it, it would appear.

Here is essentially what you are doing:

Step One:
Toss a smoke grenade

Step Two:
Say, "looky there fire!!!!"

Step Three:
Hoping the rest of us are dumb enough to fall for it.

Other than Gianforte just being wrong,  the issue many of us are having is that conservatives are trying to in some manner excuse or justify his actions, in part or in its entirety.

You are trying to confuse the situation by making this about whether Giantforte is or is not a monster. That's a tangential issue that is hardly relevant to the main issues here, with regard to Gianforte's actions. 

19 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Except it might just be someone who lost his cool at an invasive press. 

Well golly let's not ask conservatives any sorts of questions!

[maarsen]

47 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

lets be clear I'm not justifying violence. But the press are framing this in the most hysterical fashion, a man trying to shut down the free press!! Waaaah! We're living in communist Russia !!

Except it might just be someone who lost his cool at an invasive press. 

Under the 1st Amendment the press cannot have their rights abridged. The people also have the right to have their petitions to government heard according to the same amendment. My reading of this is that the press has every right to ask questions, being people, of those in government. Any interference with those rights is an attack on the reporter's 1st Amendment rights. Talking about shooting reporters, or actually attacking them, as is done in other nastier parts of the world, is inviting others to join you in the overthrow the Constitution of your republic. 

[Zorral]

Quote

. . . a guy who broke after constant harassment from press allegations by certain publications. Its a mix of both, and different people will see it from different perspectives.

No matter how one looks at it, what Gianforte did was demonstrate he doesn't have the self-control and discipline to be a public servant.  Not to mention that he demonstrates, particularly since the question is about health care, that he has NO INTEREST AT ALL in being a public servant.  Body slamming the reporter demonstrates that he is only interested in telling other people what to do, and if they don't do it he reacts with violence.  Not good for the country or 'the people', that Jefferson so liked to invoke, at all.  (Using 'that'  rather than 'who or whom' advisedly, as Jefferson invoked them as a faceless undifferentiated mass upon which he wrote whatever he was pushing at the moment.)

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

One of the fundamental difficulties with democracy is that we give power to prople who wqnt power for power's sake and voters can, and do, reward horrible behavior if it suits their mood.  I don't know how to avoid this.

[Rippounet]

5 minutes ago, Ser Scot A Ellison said:

One of the fundamental difficulties with democracy is that we give power to prople who wqnt power for power's sake and voters can, and do, reward horrible behavior if it suits their mood.  I don't know how to avoid this.

Education.