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.

Appropriate…

Mending Wall

by Robert Frost
Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That sends the frozen-ground-swell under it,
And spills the upper boulders in the sun;
And makes gaps even two can pass abreast.

The work of hunters is another thing:
I have come after them and made repair
Where they have left not one stone on a stone,
But they would have the rabbit out of hiding,
To please the yelping dogs.
The gaps I mean,
No one has seen them made or heard them made,
But at spring mending-time we find them there.

I let my neighbor know beyond the hill;
And on a day we meet to walk the line
And set the wall between us once again.

We keep the wall between us as we go.

To each the boulders that have fallen to each.

And some are loaves and some so nearly balls
We have to use a spell to make them balance:
“Stay where you are until our backs are turned!”
We wear our fingers rough with handling them.

Oh, just another kind of outdoor game,
One on a side.
It comes to little more:
There where it is we do not need the wall:
He is all pine and I am apple orchard.

My apple trees will never get across
And eat the cones under his pines, I tell him.

He only says, “Good fences make good neighbors.
”
Spring is the mischief in me, and I wonder
If I could put a notion in his head:
“Why do they make good neighbors?  Isn’t it
Where there are cows?  But here there are no cows.

Before I built a wall I’d ask to know
What I was walling in or walling out,
And to whom I was like to give offense.

Something there is that doesn’t love a wall,
That wants it down.
”  I could say “Elves” to him,
But it’s not elves exactly, and I’d rather
He said it for himself.
I see him there
Bringing a stone grasped firmly by the top
In each hand, like an old-stone savage armed.

He moves in darkness as it seems to me,
Not of woods only and the shade of trees.

He will not go behind his father’s saying,
And he likes having thought of it so well
He says again, “Good fences make good neighbors.

A Different Trump Became President…

Last night on CNN Van Jones said that Trump became the President, the result of his address to the join session of Congress. The President’s tone was decidedly different. Trump did not use I, didn’t make the evening all about him. He talked about republicans and democrats working to move the country forward, together. Yes, there were a lot of platitudes, and, there were many less than accurate statements made by the President. It is fair to say nonetheless that last night Trump was presidential.  Van Jones even went so far as to state if President Trump maintained the tone last night’s performance going forward he would be there for four years.

Van Jones, as well as all other liberals/progressives, have deep differences with the President’s agenda and policies. And so they should. At the same time Van Jones recognizes why it is important to acknowledge what we witnessed last night. If Trump continues to comport himself as he did last night give him his dues on that, and then hammer away at those issues he is wrong on. Respectfully so. Work with him on issues where there is common ground. Because if liberals/progressives don’t they will be viewed as being no different than republicans were during Obama’s presidency. Trump and his handlers are smart enough to know this, and, they will exploit it.

Now on to some fact checking of last nights address.

5 Fact Checks From President Trump’ Joint Address

Fact Check: Trump’s First Address to Congress

Now, the public’s impressions.

Viewers strongly approve of Trump’s speech to Congress

7 in 10 Speech-Watchers Say Trump Boosted Optimism

President Trump has much to overcome as he cannot hide from his past statements and actions. Democrats will certainly and constantly remind. That and it is impossible for a leopard to change its spots. It may very well be almost as impossible for a 70 year old billionaire to change his.

 

 

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.