Category: Hate Crimes

Two Issues Inextricably Intertwined…

President Trump certainly has a record of making statements that are false. Or put another way, statements for which there is no credible evidence in support of his support his statements in question. Does this mean he lied? It might, but only if he knew the actual facts relative to his statements and intentionally misrepresented the truth. Something we all know politicians of both parties do more than just occasionally.

Does Donald Trump lie? If you read the fact checks conducted by a growing number of major media outlets, you bet. Like, all the time. And not just little stretches of the truth.

 Just over half the Trump statements checked by Politifact’s Truth-o-Meter were classified as false or pants-on-fire false, for example, while The Washington Post’s fact checker gave a four Pinocchio rating (its highest falsehood) to nearly 65 percent of the Trump claims it checked.

But what if we can’t agree on the facts? How do you determine “truth?” And if there is no agreement, is it still OK for the mainstream media to call them lies? Chuck Todd asked Wall Street Journal editor-in-chief Gerard Baker as much on “Meet the Press”, and Baker’s response sort of broke the Internet.

“I’d be careful about using the word ‘lie.’ ‘Lie’ implies much more than just saying something that’s false. It implies a deliberate intent to mislead. I think it’s perfectly — when Donald Trump says thousands of people were on the rooftops of New Jersey on 9/11 celebrating, thousands of Muslims were there celebrating, I think it’s right to investigate that claim, to report what we found, which is that nobody found any evidence of that whatsoever, and to say that.

“I think it’s then up to the reader to make up their own mind to say, ‘This is what Donald Trump says. This is what a reliable, trustworthy news organization reports. And you know what? I don’t think that’s true.’ I think if you start ascribing a moral intent, as it were, to someone by saying that they’ve lied, I think you run the risk that you look like you are, like you’re not being objective.”

Washington Post blogger Greg Sargent shot back that of course the media has an obligation to call out Trump’s lies – and use the word lies – because Trump continues to repeat falsehoods even after they have been debunked. He’s a new kind of political animal, Sargent argued, and the media is utterly unprepared to cover his presidency.

The takeaway? It’s going to be a long four years for the press, and this debate has only just begun. (MORE BELOW THE FOLD)

Our nation is now divided by starkly different political ideologies, With the exception of The War Between The States we have never been so divided. Right now our major political parties are, on most important issues affecting all Americans, 180 degrees apart. And it seems as though there exists no desire to find common ground.

Unless Americans start demanding from their congressional representatives and senators  a degree of bipartisanship, mutual cooperation, concern for America rather than party ideology, and putting the welfare of all Americans as their foremost responsibility we are doomed as a democratic republic.

Food For Continued Thought…

Given what we are seeing from the Trump administration the following article by Yousef Munayyer , written in 2015 and published in The New York Times seems especially pertinent today. But maybe it’s just me?

Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from its consequences. The ideal of freedom of speech is one well worth defending but it can only be guaranteed in a perfect world and sadly, as we have seen throughout 2014 and in the early days of 2015, our world is far from perfect.

The heinous attacks and murders in Paris are the responsibility of the killers alone. Freedom of speech, however, is upheld by certain rules and laws in our society and governments and there is always going to be a minority who refuse to play by the rules. This reality means that merely having a public profile and expressing views on contentious issues can put one at risk.

Should writers and artists be able to express themselves in any way they choose even if it is provocative and offensive? Sure, but they should also expect that provocative expressions will provoke and what exactly it provokes is impossible to know.

Each writer, artist and publisher must decide for themselves which risks they are willing to take. Those who died in Paris knowingly took a risk and died. Did they expect that? I don’t know. Did they deserve that? Certainly not! Could they have avoided such provocations? Yes. But should they have?

My writing often focuses on Palestinian rights and you might be able to imagine the hate mail I get. Every unfamiliar letter, package or knock at the door I receive raises a troubling question in my mind; what if this is one I shouldn’t open? I live with that question as do countless people every day who write publicly on emotional issues. The hope is that the contentious convictions you espouse are ones that are truly worth taking on risks for.

For me, freedom and equality for Palestinians is worth taking on risks to espouse. Gratuitous insults at venerated religious figures and others employing sometimes racist and disparaging images is not, simply because it adds nothing of any value to the public discourse. I am well aware that the staff of Charlie Hebdo believed otherwise, and paid the ultimate price for it.

It must also be noted that there is a hypocritical tension around free expression in France, where Islamophobic speech is protected and yet Muslims cannot dress freely in certain public spaces.

I respect the right of Charlie Hebdo to express what they want while simultaneously having no respect for most of the distasteful content they produced. If only more people could see that these two views are not mutually exclusive we would be in a better place. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.

When A President Emboldens Haters…

It happened last week in St Louis and Saturday it happened again in New York. Are the incidents of anti-Semitism that have occurred with increasing regularity since Trump hit the political streets just coincidental. Or is it possible that his divisive rhetoric has actually giving impetus and cover for what we’ve seen happening since his announcement that he was running for president?

To think Trump’s rhetoric does not represent his true beliefs and feelings is naïve. To believe the millions who support and voted for Trump for the presidency don’t approve of his bigoted rhetoric is, to say the least, naïve as well.  When the leader of a nation speaks, his words have consequences. The consequence of Trump’s many bigoted, racist, and xenophobic words? To embolden and give rise to the bigotry and hatred we say in St Louis and New York just this past week.

Stacy Silver prayed as she drove with her husband to Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia’s Wissinoming section Sunday: Please don’t let my mother and great-grandmother be among the victims.

When Silver, 50, of Cherry Hill, N.J., heard about the vandalism at the Jewish cemetery that occurred overnight Saturday, she rushed to her loved ones’ graves.

What she saw when she arrived was worse than she imagined — tombstone after tombstone, story after story, was toppled to the ground — including those belonging to her mother and great-grandmother.

“Your stomach just drops,” Silver said. “I mean it’s just horrible.”

Detectives canvassing the cemetery Sunday afternoon estimated that  75 to 100 headstones had been knocked over.

“It’s criminal. This is beyond vandalism,” said Northeast Detectives Capt. Shawn Thrush, as he walked the cemetery grounds. “It’s beyond belief.”

The vandalism, coming a week after a similar incident in St. Louis, prompted the Anne Frank Center to call for President Trump to make a forceful denunciation of anti-Semitic hate crimes.

“Mr. President, it’s time for you to deliver a prime-time nationally televised speech, live from the Oval Office, on how you intend to combat not only #Antisemitism but also Islamophobia and other rising forms of hate,” the organization posted Sunday on Twitter. “Whether or not your intention, your Presidency has given the oxygen of incitement to some of the most viciously hateful elements of our society.”

The Southern Poverty Law Center recorded 1,372 bias incidents between Trump’s inauguration and Feb. 7, the watchdog group reported. Among those, the group highlighted 57 incidents in 24 states of anonymous bomb threats being called in to Jewish Community Centers. The organization has also recorded that the number of hate groups in the U.S. grew in 2016 for the second straight year, with a threefold increase in the number of anti-Muslim hate groups.

The incident at Mount Carmel prompted support from the national Ahmadiyya Muslim Community USA.

“We are deeply troubled by these rising and ongoing attacks on our Jewish sisters and brothers and members from our Philadelphia chapter are in route to assist in clean up,” said Nasim Rehmatullah, the organization’s national vice president. (emphasis mine)

Indeed Mr. Trump. Your words have had an impact. A very dark and sinister one. You can not change or take back your stream of bigoted words and xenophobic utterances. Just as a leopard is incapable of changing its spots your words have defined who and what you are. Simply put Trump, you have zero credibility and anything you say is therefore meaningless. Try as you might to cover your rancid character it will not work in the end.

Find complete article BELOW THE FOLD.

CNN UPDATE AT 10:25 AM WITH VIDEO.