Donald Trump’s Attempt to Destroy Press Freedom Is Reminiscent of 1930’s Fascists

Robert Reich | Robert Reich’s Facebook Page | Reader Supported News | May 15, 2016

f Donald Trump’s many fascistic tendencies, his treatment of the media — “disgusting reporters” he calls them – replicates the tactics of demagogues since the 1930s:

1. Banning not just reporters but even publications that have covered him negatively from covering at his public events, while giving campaign credentials to extremist outlets like “Political Cesspool,” a radio show that labels itself “pro-white.”

2. Inciting crowds against the media.Trump regularly whips his crowds into an anti-media frenzy and urges his fans to boo the press pen. Hostile rhetoric toward the press is a staple of his events. “I would never kill them, but I do hate them,” he said of the press in December. “And some of them are such lying, disgusting people.”

3. Throwing reporters out of Trump rallies. Last weekend, Michael Mayo, a columnist for Florida’s Sun-Sentinel, was threatened with arrest if he didn’t leave a Trump rally in West Boca after he entered through the public line and tried to film protesters. The campaign has reportedly begun to intersperse plainclothes security officers amid the crowd to root out anyone who is not a true Trump fan.

4. Using violence against reporters. Two weeks ago, a Secret Service officer watching over the press section choked Time photographer Chris Morris and slammed him to the ground when he tried to venture out of the media pen.

5. Threatening the media with libel. Last month, Trump vowed to make libel laws more punitive against the media if he becomes president. “I’m going to open up our libel laws so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money,” Trump said during a campaign event in Texas.

A free society depends on a free press. Which is why demagogues and fascists like Trump seek to destroy press freedom.

What do you think?

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Donald Trump and the politics of bullying

Dr. Warren J. Blumenfeld | Bilerico Report | LGBTQNation | May 12, 2016

Donald Trump DonkeyHotey (via Flickr)

I find Donald Trump as the presumptive Republican candidate for the presidency disconcerting for many reasons, the most important being that his popularity stems not from the substance of this policy initiatives – of which he has generated very few – but, rather, from the style and tone of his arguments. Trump has conducted a campaign of attack, innuendo, name-calling, and incessant racist, Islamophobic, and misogynistic bullying and scapegoating.

I would not find this so concerning if it had not resonated with a significant majority of the Republican electorate.

While some others in contention for the White House on the Republican side understood that their chances hinged on attracting a more diverse electorate in addition to older white people, Trump figuratively spit in the faces of minoritized racial groups, in particular Latinos, during his off-scripted rambling announcement speech last summer.

“The US has become a dumping ground for everyone else’s problems,” he said. “[Mexico is] sending people that have lots of problems, and they are bringing those problems to us. They are bringing drugs, and bringing crime, and they’re rapists.”

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Protesters amass as Trump holds meeting with GOP leaders

 

RT America | May 12, 2016

Protesters gathered outside the Republican National Committee in Washington DC, Thursday, to protest against Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, who was holding a meeting with GOP leaders in an attempt to unify the party.

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Secret Service Will Investigate Trump’s Former Butler as Campaign Disavows Statements

Mother Jones | May 13, 2016

 

Rich Schultz/AP

Earlier today, Mother Jones published a story detailing some extreme and threatening statements about President Barack Obama written by Donald Trump’s former butler Anthony Senecal on his personal Facebook page. The 84-year-old worked as Trump’s butler for 17 years before becoming the in-house historian at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida. In the last year, Senecal has written multiple public posts on Facebook calling for Obama to be killed, with remarks such as, “If that means dragging that ball less dick head from the white mosque and hanging his scrawny ass from the portico–count me in !!!!!”

Threatening the president is a federal crime, and the Secret Service told the Daily Beast in a statement Thursday afternoon that it plans to investigate the butler’s statements. “The U.S. Secret Service is aware of this matter and will conduct the appropriate investigation,” wrote spokesman Robert Hoback in an email to the Daily Beast.

Also on Thursday afternoon, the Trump campaign distanced itself from Senecal’s statements. “Tony Senecal has not worked at Mar-a-Lago for years, but nevertheless we totally and completely disavow the horrible statements made by him regarding the President,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks told CNN.

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Why Trump and Clinton share exact same address

 

RT America | April 28, 2016

Both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are among the more than 285,000 corporations who call an address in Delaware home. Specifically, they both use the Corporate Trust Centre at 1209 North Orange Street in Wilmington, Delaware, to take advantage of what is known as the Delaware loophole, which allows corporations to avoid paying taxes on non-physical incomes generated outside the state. The Resident discusses. Follow The Resident at http://www.twitter.com/TheResident

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Donald Trump gives first ‘detailed’ foreign policy speech

 

RT America | April 27, 2016

Donald Trump gave his first speech meant to be ‘detailed’ on his foreign policy platform, though it lacked in actual details. It did however, layout an overall outline of the candidate’s approach towards foreign policy. To breakdown the speech and how it may have been an effective one, former Pentagon analyst Michael Maloof joins ‘News With Ed.’

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Is Hillary Stealing the Nomination? Will Bernie Birth a Long-Term Movement?

Bob Fitrakis & Harvey Wasserman | Reader Supported News | April 27, 2016

t this delicate moment in the primary season, we all need to take a deep breath and evaluate what comes next.

Bernie Sanders has a mathematical chance to win. But Hillary seems the likely Democratic nominee.

Donald Trump has an army of delegates. But if he doesn’t win on the first ballot, Paul Ryan could be the Republican nominee.

Oy!

For a wide variety of reasons, we believe Hillary and Bernie could beat Trump. But we’re not sure about Ryan, who we find absolutely terrifying.

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GOP-backing Koch brother: Hillary Clinton might make a better president than any of the Republicans

Reuters | Raw Story | April 24, 2016

Billionaire industrialist Charles Koch, a key source of financing for conservative Republican causes along with his brother, said Democrat Hillary Clinton might make a better president than the candidates in the Republican field.

Koch, in an interview to air on Sunday on ABC’s “This Week” program, said that in some respects Bill Clinton had been a better president than George W. Bush, who Koch said had increased government spending. Then when asked if Hillary Clinton would be a better president than the Republicans currently running, he said, “It’s possible, it’s possible.”

ABC said Koch, who along brother David leads an influential political organization called Freedom Partners, has been displeased so far with the tone of the Republican presidential race, in which billionaire Donald Trump leads U.S. Senator Ted Cruz of Texas and Ohio Governor John Kasich.

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On Invincible Ignorance

Paul Krugman  | New York Times | March 21, 2016

Remember Paul Ryan? The speaker of the House used to be a media darling, lionized as the epitome of the Serious, Honest Conservative — never mind those of us who actually looked at the numbers in his budgets and concluded that he was a con man. These days, of course, he is overshadowed by the looming Trumpocalypse.

But while Donald Trump could win the White House — or lose so badly that even our rotten-borough system of congressional districts, which heavily favors the G.O.P., delivers the House to the Democrats — the odds are that come January, Hillary Clinton will be president, and Mr. Ryan still speaker. So I was interested to read what Mr. Ryan said in a recent interview with John Harwood. What has he learned from recent events?

And the answer is, nothing.

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America in Crisis: What Happens When Neither Political Party Answers to the Bottom 90 Percent?

Thom Hartmann / AlterNet | Truthdig | March 20, 2016

As Donald Trump leads a full-scale war against the Republican establishment and elites, particularly through his attack on both their military (Iraq) and their trade (NAFTA) policies, the Democratic Party is also in a predicament that Bernie Sanders’ candidacy is exposing. Both parties right now face a great crisis of leadership/ideology as well as a great opportunity for reinvention, and whichever party first reinvents itself successfully will begin winning elections the way the Democrats did in the 1932-1968 era.

If neither does, our nation faces a massive crisis provoked by the loss of democratic representation of the majority of the American electorate.  Neither party today does much of anything for the bottom 90% of Americans, as so clearly demonstrated by a recent study out of Princeton that showed that the likelihood of legislation passing that represents the interest of that bottom 90% was equivalent, statistically, to white noise.

Thomas Frank’s new book “Listen, Liberal: Or, Whatever Happened to the Party of the People?” offers the fascinating premise that starting with the McGovern Commission of 1972 (which largely excommunicated Labor from having a large role in Democratic Party decision-making) and going into a full-out embrace of the “professional class” – i.e. the top 10% economically – the Democratic Party has largely abandoned the American working and middle class – the bottom 90%.

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