Trump II

[Alan Klein]

Fact:  According to the Department of Homeland Security, from 2009 through 2014 2.4 million illegal immigrants were removed from the US under Obama.  Even Trump used this number during one of the debates.  Hardly a sign of dereliction of duty. 

But there are at least 12 million illegals.  And this situation pre-dated Obama by at least 30 years.  My point is the government has been doing very little.   Obama got some of the criminals out and most of the other were those who were caught at the border.  The fact is no one on any side really wants to stop the problem.

It's really very simple to fix.  We have laws on the books that it's a criminal offense to hire an illegal.   Arrest two or three employers who have done this.  Prosecute them.  Send them to jail and fine them big time.   And all the other employers will stop using illegals.  The jobs for them will dry up.  They'll all go home back to their countries.  We won't have to round them up and deport them.  We won't have to build a wall.  Mexico will save their money.  We won't need those extra 15000 ICE and Border Patrol guards and millions of American citizens will get jobs currently filled by illegals in restaurants. landscaping, farming, and construction. 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Read in my local media that:

"Journalists are not allowed to use undisclosed information sources", the president declared. Despite the use of anonymous sources by journalists residing under the freedom of press as warranted under the US constitution.

It was a new attack on the media, at whom the American President already aimed his arrows the last weeks. Trump repeatedly claims that newspapers report 'fake news' and has declared prominent media as Enemies of the People.
The President emphasized he was not talking about all media, but only against the 'fake news media and press'. "I'm  against people that make up stories and make up sources", according to the President. "They are not telling the truth. They do not represent the people. I do. And I'm going to address that".

End of translated citation.

Well, good luck to the United States America, who are frankly looking more like a banana republic as the days (a little over one month now) pass. Trump defenders will share the responsibility.

Cheers,
Bart

BTW, Trump claimed there were lines going back 6 blocks (to attend the CPAC gathering), can anyone confirm that?

[Alan Klein]

 Presidents have been complaining about news' bias  for years.  Obama complained that Fox news made him look bad.   I guess he was happy the way CNN, MSNBD, ABC, CBS, NBC and all the other (liberal) stations treated him, the opposite with Trump.  Liberals and Democrats once tried to use the FCC under Obama to shut down Fox and take their license to broadcast away, saying they were biased.  It appears freedom of the press only applies to Liberal media.   

[ppmax2]

Nobody so far seems to challenge my math that
20-30% of illegals ARE SERUOUS CRIMINALS? Come on, purveyors of fake news, spin that!

First, your injection of the word "serious" is found nowhere in the ICE report. They make distinction between convicted criminal and non criminal deportations, nothing more. However, we can certainly differentiate between violent and non violent crime...which you may consider "serious."

2011 saw the most deportations in US history, nearly 400,000. During that year 55% of these deportations were of convicted criminals. Of those, almost 95% were non-violent (drug or traffic related). Taken together that means there were roughly 7000 violent convicted criminals deported out of 400,000 deportations, or 1.7%. For context that's 1.7% of a given year, not 1.7% of the estimated 11-12 million illegal aliens currently estimated to be living in the US.
Source:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_immigration_to_the_United_States#Deportation

I'd say that pretty much torpedoes you assertion. But don't take my word for it....A multi year, multi sourced study concludes:

With few exceptions, immigrants are less crime prone than natives or have no effect on crime rates.  As described below, the research is fairly one-sided.

Source:
https://www.cato.org/blog/immigration-crime-what-research-says


I've provided my sources, reasoning, and links to peer reviewed studies. Q.E.D.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Presidents have been complaining about news' bias  for years.  Obama complained that Fox news made him look bad.   I guess he was happy the way CNN, MSNBD, ABC, CBS, NBC and all the other (liberal) stations treated him, the opposite with Trump. Liberals and Democrats once tried to use the FCC under Obama to shut down Fox and take their license to broadcast away, saying they were biased.  It appears freedom of the press only applies to Liberal media.

Sources?

Cheers,
Bart

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Sources?

Several, easy to google. But since you trust only the left-wing ones, here it is, from HuffPost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/fcc-rupert-murdoch-fox-broadcast-licenses_n_1514415.html

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

Bart on Trump:

...they will extend the definition of criminal to include those who ever got a parking ticket...

ppmax2 on Obama:

...almost 95% were non-violent (drug or traffic related)...

Damn, looks like Obama pre-empted Trump's move, stealing his thunder... or it seems so, according to our anonymous friend ppmax2 

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Several, easy to google. But since you trust only the left-wing ones, here it is, from HuffPost:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/14/fcc-rupert-murdoch-fox-broadcast-licenses_n_1514415.html

Thanks for providing 1 (of several?) presumed sources. BTW, I'm not sure, but are you suggesting that you, or Alan, endorse the hacking of the email account of 13-year old Milly Dowler in March 2002 (who later turned out to be a suicide victim) and deleting of voicemails which interfered with police inquiries, and led to subsequent bribery of the parents, without consequences for the Rupert Murdoch empire's 'News of the World' tabloid that perpetrated that?

Cheers,
Bart

[jeremyrh]

Presidents have been complaining about news' bias  for years.  Obama complained that Fox news made him look bad.   I guess he was happy the way CNN, MSNBD, ABC, CBS, NBC and all the other (liberal) stations treated him, the opposite with Trump.  Liberals and Democrats once tried to use the FCC under Obama to shut down Fox and take their license to broadcast away, saying they were biased.  It appears freedom of the press only applies to Liberal media.

So, some group nobody has ever heard of requesting that the FCC do something is the same as the President of the United States actually doing it? Alan, to be honest, your mental contortions in defending Trump don't do you any favours.

[stamper]

So, some group nobody has ever heard of requesting that the FCC do something is the same as the President of the United States actually doing it? Alan, to be honest, your mental contortions in defending Trump don't do you any favours.

Is he defending Trump or defending the Republican party? Some people will put up with anyone in charge as long as the party they support is in power.

[Rob C]

Is he defending Trump or defending the Republican party? Some people will put up with anyone in charge as long as the party they support is in power.

You are 100% right!

It's part of the moral decline of mankind. We reached an apotheosis some decades ago and are now on the opposite side of the pendulum's swing. Macmillan was right: we never did have it so good, but the error we mostly all made was to measure that good in terms of money. As is almost always the case where Mammon rules, disaster follows like night doth the day. We see it in states, in dynasties both private and corporate, in "normal" families and even within ourselves.

We encounter and embrace complacency, and forget morality at our peril.

[pegelli]

The press isn't doing itself a favour by complaining so much they were kept out of a press briefing. In actual fact it wasn't even a press briefing but a gaggle in which it happens a lot more that only selected news media get invited. So in my mind this is really a storm in a teacup

So Trump wins again, the whole press is up in arms and can't talk about anything else then the "boycot" while the real newsworthy matter at hand is the revelations that his chief of staff spoke with top officials at the FBI about the bureau’s investigation into potential links between the president’s associates and Russia. The White House lambasted the reports but in doing so confirmed the conversations between Reince Priebus, the FBI director, James Comey, and his deputy, Andrew McCabe.

I'm not a Trump supporter, but the press spending more time on their "unfair treatment" vs. the real issues isn't going to help.

[Alan Klein]

So, some group nobody has ever heard of requesting that the FCC do something is the same as the President of the United States actually doing it? Alan, to be honest, your mental contortions in defending Trump don't do you any favours.

Your post is an example of the"fake news" Trump complains about.   He never petitioned the FCC to shut down liberal news outlets like liberal groups tried to shut down Fox.  Also,  you never addressed my point that Obama bitched about the conservative bias coming from Faux Fox.  You've proven my point that liberals are only concerned with free speech from liberal presidents and free press for liberal news media.   Suddenly,  you become "holier than thou."  Finally we have a Republican conservative president willing to take on the liberal biased press.   It's about time.

[Alan Goldhammer]

So, some group nobody has ever heard of requesting that the FCC do something is the same as the President of the United States actually doing it? Alan, to be honest, your mental contortions in defending Trump don't do you any favours.

Broadcast licenses must be renewed periodically.  It is not uncommon for groups to petition the FCC regarding the ownership of such licenses.  I cannot remember the FCC ever suspending or not renewing a license as the result of petition(s).  One also needs to be aware that the majority of AM radio stations today are controlled by a relatively few companies.  Most 'talk' radio is very conservative in orientation with hosts such as Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin and others.  I don't particularly care for this and sometimes listen to see what they are saying (one local host believes that there is a secret Obama cabal plotting to overthrow the Trump administration).  I have not nor intend to file an FCC complaint about this as they are entitled to free speech.

Regarding Obama's dislike for Fox news, he did complain about them, but never went off on a lengthy tirade or called them out endlessly as the purveyor of 'fake news.'

[Alan Goldhammer]

I'm not a Trump supporter, but the press spending more time on their "unfair treatment" vs. the real issues isn't going to help.

I read both the Washington Post and NY Times every morning.  It was single story in both papers amidst numerous other stories about all the other issues related to the Trump administration.  Whether it was a gaggle or not, the story was newsworthy as is the singling out of certain news organizations by the President as purveyors of fake news.  There was a story today that this is not working particularly well with some Trump voters in Michigan who think the President is being silly and petulant.

I will let you draw your own conclusions but earlier in the week, the Washington Post adopted "Democracy Dies in Darkness" as the logo to it's on-line website.

[Alan Goldhammer]

For those interested, the issues about Fox, MSNBC (yes, there have been Conservatives that have filed petitions against this 'liberal' network) and other broadcast news outlets, the issue relates to the Fairness Doctrine.  There is a particularly good discussion of THIS on Wikipedia.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

The press isn't doing itself a favour by complaining so much they were kept out of a press briefing. In actual fact it wasn't a press briefing but a gaggle in which it happens a lot more that only selected news media get invited. So in my mind this is really a storm in a teacup

I strongly disagree. The selective exclusion (because they wanted to push back at those selected media) of members of the free press / media to partake in an exchange of firsthand information is a step in undermining parts of the constitution. That is a big deal!

The more informal setting of a so-called gaggle (I thought only birds like geese gaggle) was because they didn't want to draw video coverage away from Trump's performance on CPAC. The White House has a core pool of media that covers press briefings and then those media are asked to share that news with other media

Sean Spicer expanded the number of invited media and then (oh what a surprise) there was not enough room for all to attend, so he selectively excluded some of the core group. This is unprecedented.

So Trump wins again, the whole press is up in arms and can't talk about anything else ...

The press do also speak about other subjects, but this is a major change in how the government communicates with the people of the USA, through selected media. It is an attempt at censorship, in the assumption that media will become less critical in the hope of getting invited next time.

Even Foxnews propaganda was surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOAD0_Ito8E

Cheers,
Bart

[Rob C]

I strongly disagree. The selective exclusion (because they wanted to push back at those selected media) of members of the free press / media to partake in an exchange of firsthand information is a step in undermining parts of the constitution. That is a big deal!

The more informal setting of a so-called gaggle (I thought only birds like geese gaggle) was because they didn't want to draw video coverage away from Trump's performance on CPAC. The White House has a core pool of media that covers press briefings and then those media are asked to share that news with other media

Sean Spicer expanded the number of invited media and then (oh what a surprise) there was not enough room for all to attend, so he selectively excluded some of the core group. This is unprecedented.

The press do also speak about other subjects, but this is a major change in how the government communicates with the people of the USA, through selected media. It is an attempt at censorship, in the assumption that media will become less critical in the hope of getting invited next time.

Even Foxnews propaganda was surprised.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LOAD0_Ito8E

Cheers,
Bart

No, Bart, it is censorship.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

So, some group nobody has ever heard of requesting that the FCC do something is the same as the President of the United States actually doing it? Alan, to be honest, your mental contortions in defending Trump don't do you any favours.

As your reading skills don't do you any favors, apparently. He said "UNDER Obama," meaning during his administration.

[pegelli]

Finally we have a Republican conservative president willing to take on the liberal biased press.   It's about time.

I would have no problem with it if he would use logical arguments. Every story has a counter story. But he's using fake news, alternative facts, lies, dodging the real questions and bullying. Very unworthy of the US commander in chief.