Why we shouldn’t accept the absurdity of dehumanizing people based on their politics or job
In just the last several days, there have been several instances of intolerance, bullying and just plain meanness toward people in politics. More specifically in conservative politics. From Sarah Huckabee Sanders being kicked out of restaurant in Virginia, to Florida AG Pam Bondi being accosted at a movie theatre screening the new Mr. Rogers film — the irony of that should not be lost on anyone; bullying someone in a movie about the life of a man who dedicated his life to kindness and friendship. The thing that’s infuriating about this is that our politics, or even our jobs, don’t define us as individuals as people. As I’ve written before, civility is nonpartisan. Those of us who work in politics don’t check our humanity at the door when we walk into the office. Our compassion for others regardless of political ideology will always win out when there’s a chance to help someone in need. Who we work for can speak to our character but it can also be a testament to bigger things. I believe that some times people serve for the greater good. I believe there are people serving in President Donald Trump’s administration who are doing just that. Could you imagine if conservatives started targeting liberals for their policies? Let’s not forget, liberal Democrats are the Party that condones, if not celebrates the murder of the unborn. Let’s not forget that it’s liberal policies that keep teacher’s unions fat and administration costs bloated while our students fail across the country. It’s largely in Democratic communities like Detroit, Washington D.C., and yes even Birmingham that we see more and more poverty and crime while liberal elected officials rail against the rich and continue failed policies that have never worked and show no promise of ever working. What if conservatives, libertarians, or independents started refusing to serve liberals in restaurants and businesses based on any of those or other factors? The fact is that doesn’t happen because in a civilized society people are, wait for it, civil. We see past the political interests and votes of individuals and recognize that we are people. Mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers and so much more than a vote or a candidate or issue we support. The fact is: we’re all human. We all have our own mistakes, our own histories, our own issues. But before everything else, we’re individuals who have families, and friends, and belief systems. Individuals who need to eat, and sleep, and occasionally go out recreationally and have fun. There should be no fear for politicians, or those within the political sphere, for simply living life. We live such stressed lives already. Most individuals, especially those in politics, live in high-stress environments filled with chaos. It’s sad when, as a community, rather than seeing the person, someone would choose to see their job. We need to do better.
Sarah Huckabee Sanders says she was told to leave Virginia restaurant
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was booted from a Virginia restaurant because she works for President Donald Trump, the latest administration official to experience a brusque reception in a public setting. Sanders tweeted that she was told by the owner of the Red Hen in Lexington, Virginia, that she had to “leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left.” She said the episode Friday evening said far more about the owner of the restaurant than it did about her. “I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so,” Sanders said in the tweet from her official account, which generated 22,000 replies in about an hour. The restaurant’s co-owner Stephanie Wilkinson told The Washington Post that her staff had called her to report Sanders was in the restaurant. She cited several reasons, including the concerns of several restaurant employees who were gay and knew Sanders had defended Trump’s desire to bar transgender people from the military. “Tell me what you want me to do. I can ask her to leave,” Wilkinson told her staff, she said. “They said yes.” Wilkinson said that she talked to Sanders privately and that Sanders’s response was immediate: “That’s fine. I’ll go.” Employees at the restaurant told The Associated Press that Wilkinson wasn’t available for further comment. Lexington, located in the Shenandoah Valley and a three-hour drive from the nation’s capital, is politically a spot of blue in a sea of red. It sided with Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election, by a 2-1 margin. It’s the county seat of Rockbridge County, which went with Trump by a similar margin. And it is home to Virginia Military Institute and Washington and Lee University. Sanders’ treatment at the restaurant created a social media commotion with people on both sides weighing in, including her father, Mike Huckabee, a former Arkansas governor and Republican presidential candidate. “Bigotry. On the menu at Red Hen Restaurant in Lexington VA. Or you can ask for the ‘Hate Plate,’” Huckabee said in a tweet, quickly generating 2,000 replies in about 30 minutes. “And appetizers are ‘small plates for small minds.’” On Yelp, a responder from Los Angeles wrote: “Don’t eat here if you’re a Republican, wearing a MAGA hat or a patriot.” But many were also supportive of the restaurant owner’s actions. “12/10 would recommend. Bonus: this place is run by management who stuck up for their beliefs and who are true Americans. THANK YOU!!!!” said a comment from Commerce City, Colorado. Tom Lomax, a local business owner, brought flowers to the restaurant Saturday afternoon as a show of support. He called Wilkinson a “force of nature” and “one of the biggest drivers of the downtown.” “We support our own here, great little community we have,” he said. Brian Tayback, of Shrewsbury, Pennsylvania, and Brandon Hintze, of Alexandria, Virginia, walked by the restaurant during a visit. Tayback said he believes the owner made the right decision. “They’re taking a stand against hate,” Tayback said. Dave Kurtz, who lives near the Red Hen, came to the restaurant wearing a T-shirt supporting the president that says: “Get on board or get run over.” “I want to see why they would do that,” Kurtz said, adding he had planned to eat at the restaurant but doubts he will now. “She’s a paying customer. She’s just coming in here to have dinner.” The separation of families trying to enter the U.S. at the southern border has intensified political differences and passions that were already at elevated levels during the Trump presidency. Earlier in the week, Trump’s Homeland Security secretary, Kirstjen Nielsen, cut short a working dinner at a Mexican restaurant in Washington after protesters shouted, “Shame!” until she left. A few days earlier, Trump aide Stephen Miller, a key adviser on immigration, was accosted by someone at a different Mexican restaurant in the city, who called him “a fascist,” according to the New York Post. The Trumps don’t get out a lot socially in Washington and Trump often dines at BLT Prime in the Trump International Hotel or at Trump properties elsewhere when he does go out. He’s talked about getting out more, but some have questioned whether he would be welcome at some establishments in the city. Ari Fleischer, who was a press secretary for President George W. Bush, tweeted Saturday: “I guess we’re heading into an America with Democrat-only restaurants, which will lead to Republican-only restaurants. Do the fools who threw Sarah out, and the people who cheer them on, really want us to be that kind of country?” Republished with permission from the Associated Press.
North Korea threatens to cancel Trump-Kim summit over drills
North Korea on Wednesday threatened to scrap a historic summit next month between its leader, Kim Jong Un, and U.S. President Donald Trump, saying it has no interest in a “one-sided” affair meant to pressure the North to abandon its nuclear weapons. The warning by North Korea’s first vice foreign minister came hours after the country abruptly canceled a high-level meeting with South Korea to protest U.S.-South Korean military exercises that the North has long claimed are an invasion rehearsal. The surprise moves appear to cool what had been an unusual flurry of outreach from a country that last year conducted a provocative series of weapons tests that had many fearing the region was on the edge of war. Analysts said it’s unlikely that North Korea intends to scuttle all diplomacy. More likely, they said, is that it wants to gain leverage ahead of the talks between Kim and Trump, scheduled for June 12 in Singapore. In Washington, Trump said the U.S. hasn’t been notified about the North Korean threat. “We haven’t seen anything. We haven’t heard anything. We will see what happens,” he said as he welcomed the president of Uzbekistan to the White House. White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the administration is “still hopeful” that the summit will take place, and that threats from North Korea to scrap the meeting were “something that we fully expected.” She said Trump is “ready for very tough negotiations,” adding that “if they want to meet, we’ll be ready and if they don’t that’s OK.” She said if there is no meeting, the U.S. would “continue with the campaign of maximum pressure” against the North. North Korean first vice foreign minister Kim Kye Gwan said in a statement carried by state media that “we are no longer interested in a negotiation that will be all about driving us into a corner and making a one-sided demand for us to give up our nukes and this would force us to reconsider whether we would accept the North Korea-U.S. summit meeting.” He criticized recent comments by Trump’s top security adviser, John Bolton, and other U.S. officials who have said the North should follow the “Libyan model” of nuclear disarmament and provide a “complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantlement.” He also took issue with U.S. views that the North should fully relinquish its biological and chemical weapons. Some analysts say bringing up Libya, which dismantled its rudimentary nuclear program in the 2000s in exchange for sanctions relief, jeopardizes progress in negotiations with the North. Kim Jong Un took power weeks after former Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi’s gruesome death at the hands of rebel forces amid a popular uprising in October 2011. The North has frequently used Gadhafi’s death to justify its own nuclear development in the face of perceived U.S. threats. The North’s warning Wednesday fits a past North Korean pattern of raising tensions to bolster its positions ahead of negotiations with Washington and Seoul. But the country also has a long history of scrapping deals with its rivals at the last minute. In 2013, North Korea abruptly canceled reunions for families separated by the 1950-53 Korean War just days before they were scheduled to begin to protest what it called rising animosities ahead of joint drills between Seoul and Washington. In 2012, the North conducted a prohibited long-range rocket launch weeks after it agreed to suspend weapons tests in return for food assistance. On Wednesday, senior officials from the two Koreas were to sit down at a border village to discuss how to implement their leaders’ recent agreements to reduce military tensions along their heavily fortified border and improve overall ties. But hours before the meeting was to start, the North informed the South that it would “indefinitely suspend” the talks, according to Seoul’s Unification Ministry. In a pre-dawn dispatch, the North’s official Korean Central News Agency, or KCNA, called the two-week Max Thunder drills, which began Monday and reportedly include about 100 aircraft, an “intended military provocation” and an “apparent challenge” to last month’s summit between Kim Jong Un and South Korean President Moon Jae-in, when the leaders met at the border in their countries’ third summit talks since their formal division in 1948. “The United States must carefully contemplate the fate of the planned North Korea-U.S. summit amid the provocative military ruckus that it’s causing with South Korean authorities,” the North said. “We’ll keenly monitor how the United States and South Korean authorities will react.” Kim Dong-yub, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, said the North isn’t trying to undermine the Trump-Kim talks. The North’s reaction is more like a “complaint over Trump’s way of playing the good cop and bad cop game with (Secretary of State Mike) Pompeo and Bolton,” he said. Seoul’s Unification Ministry, which is responsible for inter-Korean affairs, called North Korea’s move “regrettable” and urged a quick return to talks. The Defense Ministry said the drills with the United States would go on as planned. Annual military drills between Washington and Seoul have long been a major source of contention between the Koreas, and analysts have wondered whether their continuation would hurt the detente that, since an outreach by Kim in January, has replaced the insults and threats of war. Much larger springtime drills took place last month without the North’s typically fiery condemnation or accompanying weapons tests, though Washington and Seoul toned down those exercises. The KCNA dispatch said the U.S. aircraft mobilized for the drills include nuclear-capable B-52 bombers and stealth F-22 fighter jets, two of the U.S. military assets it has previously said are aimed at launching nuclear strikes on the North. Seoul has said F-22s are involved in the drills, but has not confirmed whether B-52s are taking part. In Washington, the U.S. State Department emphasized that Kim had previously indicated he understood the need and purpose of the U.S. continuing its long-planned exercises with South Korea. State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said the U.S. had not
Donald Trump chides Rudy Giuliani to ‘get his facts straight’ on Stormy Daniels
President Donald Trump is suggesting Rudy Giuliani, the aggressive new face of his legal team, needed to “get his facts straight” about the hush money paid to porn actress Stormy Daniels just before the 2016 election. Giuliani quickly came up with a new version. Trump on Friday chided Giuliani even while insisting “we’re not changing any stories” about the $130,000 settlement paid to Daniels to keep quiet about her allegations of a sexual encounter with Trump — a tryst Trump has denied. Hours later, Giuliani backed away from his previous assertion that the Oct. 27 settlement had been made because Trump was in the stretch run of his campaign. “The payment was made to resolve a personal and false allegation in order to protect the president’s family,” Giuliani said in a statement. “It would have been done in any event, whether he was a candidate or not.” A day earlier, Giuliani had told Fox News: “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton.” Trump said Giuliani was “a great guy but he just started a day ago” on the defense team, and the former New York mayor was still “learning the subject matter.” Giuliani disclosed this week that Trump knew about the payment to Daniels made by Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and the president repaid Cohen. Giuliani insisted Trump didn’t know the specifics of Cohen’s arrangement with Daniels until recently, and he told “Fox & Friends” on Thursday that the president was unaware of all the details until “maybe 10 days ago.” Giuliani told The New York Times that Trump had repaid Cohen $35,000 a month “out of his personal family account” after the campaign was over. He said Cohen received $460,000 or $470,000 in all for expenses related to Trump. While Giuliani suggested Trump knew something about the payments, even as a monthly retainer, Trump had told reporters on Air Force One last month that he hadn’t known about a settlement with Daniels. Trump’s irritation was plain Friday when reporters reminded him of his previous denial. He blasted the media for focusing on “crap” stories such as the Daniels matter and the special counsel’s investigation of Russian meddling in the 2016 election. The president claimed that “virtually everything” reported about the payments has been wrong. He declined to elaborate. It was the Trump team’s own missteps that yielded another day of headlines about Daniels. In his statement, Giuliani said his previous “references to timing were not describing my understanding of the president’s knowledge, but instead, my understanding of these matters.” He didn’t elaborate on that either. Giuliani’s statement correcting himself came just a day after he said, “You won’t see daylight between me and the president.” The about-face came amid concern in the White House that Giuliani’s comments could leave the president legally vulnerable. Giuliani repeated his belief that the payment did not constitute a campaign finance violation. But legal experts have said the new information raises questions, including whether the money represented repayment of an undisclosed loan or could be seen as reimbursement for a campaign expenditure. Either could be legally problematic. The episode also revived worries in Trump’s inner circle about Giuliani, who enjoys the media limelight and has a tendency to go off script. He had been widely expected to join Trump’s administration but was passed over for secretary of state, the position he badly wanted. His whirlwind press tour this week bewildered West Wing aides, who were cut out of the decision-making process when Giuliani first revealed that Trump, who often boasts about signing his own checks, had some knowledge about the payment to Daniels. No debt to Cohen was listed on Trump’s personal financial disclosure form, which was certified on June 16, 2017. Asked if Trump had filed a fraudulent form, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Thursday: “I don’t know.” Daniels, whose legal name is Stephanie Clifford, is seeking to be released from a nondisclosure deal she signed in the days before the 2016 election to keep her from talking about a 2006 sexual encounter she said she had with Trump. She has also filed defamation suits against Cohen and Trump. Her attorney, Michael Avenatti, tweeted Friday that “Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Trump are making it up as they go along.” He added: “How stupid do they think all of us are?” Trump is facing mounting legal threats from the Cohen-Daniels situation and the special counsel’s investigation of possible Russian coordination with the Trump presidential campaign. Cohen is facing a criminal investigation in New York, and FBI agents raided his home and office several weeks ago seeking records about the Daniels nondisclosure agreement. Trump has been playing down his relationship with Cohen but did acknowledge last week that Cohen represented him in the “crazy Stormy Daniels deal.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
The White House should revoke April Ryan’s press credentials
There are times in which I imagine working in the Trump White House — you look around you at the President, his press coverage and his staff get and you wonder if you’re in some kind of twilight zone. To say the media has been unfair to Trump, his staff and his Administration since day one would be the understatement of the century. Which is why confidence in the media and its “balanced” coverage is so dismal right now. Today there’s been a lot of talk about CNN’s April Ryan and her delusional misrepresentation of her very pubic exchange with Sarah Huckabee Sanders. What may be one of the most absurd stories I’ve seen come of this White House press briefing room is that Ryan believes Huckabee Sanders was essentially inviting her to a street fight. Because that’s what I think of when I think of Huckabee Sander’s a woman who wants to throw down. Ryan went so far as to call sweet Sarah “Very Street.” Is that even a phrase that people use? Sarah Huckabee Sanders, as I said in my last editorial on the White House Correspondents Dinner, is one of the classiest, most respectable people working in Washington, D.C. and this administration right now. For anyone to insinuate that she is looking for a fist fight is nothing short of comical. It reeks of media desperation in an attempt to shine a media spotlight on yourself. The headlines of the interaction and Ryan’s take on it have been hysterical if not sad: “April Ryan claims Huckabee Sanders’ response could have initiated ‘physical fight’: It was ‘gutter’” and “April Ryan accuses Sarah Huckabee Sanders of ‘singling her out’.“ Sarah is a professional who’s doing her job. Lord knows it’s not an easy job, but to have to deal with the accusations that she trying to start a street fight with a reporter because she pointed out that the reporter couldn’t speak to what she was feeling is insane. Should the White House just turn a blind eye to Ryan’s continued antics in the press briefing room? I don’t think they should. Essentially, April Ryan has forfeited her professional obligations as a journalist and has become a sideshow herself. The White House has an obligation to allow the press to cover their events — even press who disagree with the administration — but Ryan has passed that point. Allowing her in, is just allowing a heckler in who’s going to seek out every opportunity to cause a stir and make the media rounds herself. We deserve better. The American people deserve better. Journalists deserve better. This women needs to have her credentials revoked then she needs to issue Huckabee Saunders an apology. I realize that neither of these things are likely to happen, but that’s what should happen. The press briefing room and press corp should have higher standards than April Ryan and her antics.
After flirting with gun-control movement, Donald Trump faces NRA
Back for a return engagement, President Donald Trump’s address to the National Rifle Association on Friday comes after he temporarily strayed from the group’s strong opposition to tougher gun controls following the school shooting in Parkland, Florida — only to rapidly return to the fold. For the fourth year in a row, Trump will speak to the group, which meets this year in Dallas. Last year, he became the first sitting president to appear in more than 30 years, declaring that the “assault” on the Second Amendment had ended. But this year’s speech comes as the issue of gun violence takes on new urgency after one of the deadliest school shootings in U.S. history. Student survivors of the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead are now leading a massive national gun control movement. While the shooting has not led to major changes from the White House or the Republican-led Congress, it did — at least briefly — prompt Trump to declare that he would stand up to the powerful gun lobby. He later backpedaled on that tough talk. Trump’s attendance at this year’s NRA convention was announced just days ago and came after Vice President Mike Pence already was scheduled to appear. Asked why Trump was attending, given the current political tensions around gun violence, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said this week that safety was a “big priority.” But, she added, “We also support the Second Amendment, and strongly support it, and don’t see there to be a problem with speaking at the National Rifle Association’s meeting.” Trump has long enjoyed strong backing from the NRA, which spent about $30 million in support of his presidential campaign. The NRA showcased its high-profile guests for the event, with NRA Executive Director Chris Cox saying on Twitter: “We are honored to celebrate American Freedom with @realDonaldTrump, @VP Mike Pence and others. #2A #watchtheleftmeltdown” But one of the Parkland student survivors, David Hogg, was critical of Trump’s planned attendance. “It’s kind of hypocritical of him to go there after saying so many politicians bow to the NRA and are owned by them,” Hogg said. “It proves that his heart and his wallet are in the same place.” During a televised gun meeting with lawmakers in late February, Trump wagged his finger at a Republican senator and scolded him for being “afraid of the NRA,” declaring that he would stand up to the group and finally get results in quelling gun violence. He praised members of the gun lobby as “great patriots” but declared “that doesn’t mean we have to agree on everything. It doesn’t make sense that I have to wait until I’m 21 to get a handgun, but I can get this weapon at 18.” He was referring to the AR-15 the Parkland shooting suspect is accused of using. Those words rattled some Republicans in Congress and sparked hope among gun-control advocates that, unlike after previous mass shootings, tougher regulations would be enacted this time. But Trump later retreated on those words, expressing support for modest changes to the background check system, as well as arming teachers. After expressing interest in increasing the minimum age to purchase a so-called assault weapon to 21, Trump later declared there was “not much political support” for the move. He then pushed off the issue of age restrictions by assigning the question to a commission. Trump’s moves have drawn concerns from both sides of the gun debate. “He ran as supposedly the best friend of the Second Amendment and has become gun grabber in chief,” said Michael Hammond, legislative counsel to the Gun Owners of America. Hammond said his members were upset Trump had approved a spending bill that included background check updates. “We’re not confident at all. We are very disappointed.” Kristin Brown, of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, said Trump had offered mixed messages since the Parkland shooting. “Which Donald Trump is going to show up?” she asked. “Will it be the one who sympathized with the Parkland students he brought to the White House, the one who met with members of the Senate … or the one who had burgers” with NRA head Wayne LaPierre. Several groups announced plans to protest over the weekend. The protesters will include parents of those killed in Parkland and in other shootings. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
‘Were you lying?’ Sanders faces new credibility questions
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders is facing a barrage of questions about whether she purposely misled the American people amid fallout over Rudy Giuliani’s stunning revelation about hush money paid by President Donald Trump’s lawyer to a porn star who alleges a tryst with Trump. “Again, I gave you the best information that I had,” Sanders said over and over again Thursday in response to questions about why the White House failed to disclose that Trump had reimbursed his longtime lawyer, Michael Cohen, for the $130,000 payment to keep Stormy Daniels quiet. “Were you lying to us at the time? Or were you in the dark?” one reporter asked. It was an awkward position for Sanders, who is tasked with speaking on behalf of the American president. It also highlighted the difficulty the White House communications office has had in navigating an unpredictable and free-wheeling president. “As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” Trump tweeted last year. Sanders on Thursday had to acknowledge that Giuliani hadn’t given her a heads-up that he would reveal that Trump had reimbursed Cohen. She said she didn’t know about the reimbursement at all until Giuliani’s interview Wednesday night. “I’m not part of the legal team and wouldn’t be part of those discussions,” she said when asked whether she’d been caught off guard. It was an omission by design. “They were (caught off guard). There was no way they wouldn’t be,” Giuliani told CNN on Thursday in reference to White House staffers. “The President is my client. I don’t talk to them.” Jason Miller, who has worked for both Trump and Giuliani and remains in close touch with both teams, said White House staffers shouldn’t have to deal with issues like Cohen and the special counsel’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election. “Finally, for the first time there’s now an external operation that’s handling such matters,” he said, describing the model as similar to the one developed during the Clinton administration as he faced impeachment hearings over his cover-up of an affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. During that time, the Clinton administration developed a crisis communications team to respond to reporters’ inquiries about the scandal so that regular press staffers could focus on business as usual. But, according to former Clinton staffers, their model was very different from the one on display this week with Trump. Joe Lockhart, White House press secretary from 1998 to 2000, said the separation proved effective, but only because both sides were in constant communication. “It was actually very hugely coordinated,” he said, recalling that he spent almost as much time meeting with members of the legal team as he did political aides. “It really was the only way you could effectively communicate, when you knew what everyone was doing,” he said. “There wasn’t a communication strategy and a lawyers’ strategy. There was one strategy: a political strategy.” Michael McCurry, who was press secretary from 1994 to 1998, said that while there were significant disagreements between lawyers and communication and political staffers who came to the table with different priorities and concerns, the group was committed to working as a team. “I think it was very critical to helping President Clinton get through a difficult period,” he said. “It was a very, very delicate balance” that requires “a lot of goodwill and camaraderie.” Sanders, meanwhile, was forced to defend her credibility, a week after comedian Michelle Wolf created an uproar at the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner with jokes about the press secretary, including one quip that she “burns facts” and “uses that ash to create a perfect smoky eye.” “Like maybe she’s born with it, maybe it’s lies,” Wolf cracked. “It’s probably lies.” Many who saw the routine felt Wolf went too far. On Thursday, Sanders took issue with a reporter’s characterization that she had felt blindsided by Giuliani’s interview. “With all due respect, you actually don’t know much about me in terms of what I feel and what I don’t,” she said. Lockhart, meanwhile, said that often the hardest part of the job is “standing up there and looking like you don’t know what you’re doing, but understanding that just getting through the day and getting through the week is the best thing you can do.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Progressive ‘comedians’ have lost sight of what’s funny or decent
I found a Facebook a meme in my timeline the other day that pretty much summarizes how I feel about Michelle Wolf’s performance at the White House Correspondents Dinner’s (WHCD). Her supposed “comedy” act. I reposted it and went about life feeling like other pundits were saying all that needed to be said about the train-wreck that was the entertainment. Then several days later comedian Kathy Griffin decided to take back her apology for her offensive photo shoot with a mock severed head of President Donald Trump. The two instances together made me realize: Maybe the problem is that the Left has no idea what’s funny and what’s offensive. These comedians and so many others out there these days, use laughter as a way to push the boundaries of decency, and they should be called out for what they are and what they’re doing. They’re antagonists who want to take the sting out of bullying, name-calling, hate speech and yes, even at times outright violence by cloaking it as part of an “act” with a few punchlines thrown in for good measure. I often hear from pro-choice supporters that pro-choice isn’t pro-abortion. Tell that to Wolf and others like her who make the killing of the innocent unborn a joke, a one-liner in a hate filled rant. You can’t tell me that the labels pro-life and pro-choice are unfair because even though someone supports abortion they don’t support it as a normalized behavior when comedians and candidates alike act like it’s something as flippant as running a quick errand or any other minor life event. In addition to making offensive “jokes” about killing innocent babies Wolf filled several minutes of her act with hate-filled insults towards White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Calling her an “Uncle Tom” who has betrayed white women for the work she does in the White House. I don’t speak for every white woman, but I have to say that Sanders is one of the classiest people in Washington D.C. at the moment and certainly one of my favorite people in the Trump administration. Does that mean I stand by every statement that she makes? No. She has an incredibly hard job. Speaking as a communications professional there is no more challenging job than to work for someone who undermines your work constantly. Trump doesn’t understand the importance of staying on message or of using his professional communications team as his mechanism to create the narrative of what’s happening in his administration often going around them or contradicting them. Few people could do the job Sanders does with such patience, pose and professionalism, but day after day — she does. She is firm when she’s speaking for her boss and when she’s speaking as herself. Unlike Wolf, Sanders is somebody that I can show my daughter and be proud to have her look up to her. She is a mother. She relies on her faith in her decision-making. She makes incredible sacrifices to serve our country by doing her job, and she does it well. I feel sorry for Wolf. Yes, she’s getting her 15 minutes right now. I frankly never heard her name before this pathetic excuse for a comedy act. And someone who lacks the self-respect and self-awareness to recognize the way she spoke is demeaning to herself and women everywhere deserves our pity. From the jokes she made about masturbation, to abortion, to some of her other comments — clearly she is crying for help in her own life and giving her a stage to speak on was a bad decision . It’s sickening and disheartening. It is time for the White House Press Association to seriously consider what sort of image they want send to the public. This event has been on my bucket-list for years. I love what it used to be. I love that it was a night for politicos, reporters and even some Hollywood elite to get together and celebrate news and promote journalism. This year was about hate and divisiveness and that was a shame. There can be comedy without cruelty. Comedy without such divisiveness. There can be tasteful jokes. But that wasn’t the case this year in many of Michelle Wolf’s jokes. I think that was the goal of the Association and Wolf herself. It’s truly a shame. In terms of what the next steps should be. I read many suggestions the past few days. Among the best of them was to take a year off and not hold the dinner in order to reevaluate the goal and purpose of the dinner — which is supposed to be to actually raise money for college scholarships for aspiring journalists. To consider the public’s distrust of media in general and understand that a night like the WHCD does nothing to alleviate the fear’s of normal people who just want unbiased news. As for Kathy Griffin, she saw an opportunity to regain the spotlight and she took it. Her photo was offensive when it first came out and it is just as offensive now. She lost her co-hosting gig for New Years Eve last year and should never be booked by another major news outlet again. It is an affront to the American people to have anyone regardless of party be so incredibly disrespectful and distasteful with the image of the President. Enough is enough. Freedom of speech allows these women to spew their hate but the voices of the public need to make clear that we will not continue to stand for it. These two women’s comedy acts were anything but funny.
Welcome to the partisan fury, Michelle Wolf
White House Correspondents Association roaster Michelle Wolf joins a club with likes of Kathy Griffin, Khizr Khan, Stormy Daniels and David Hogg — little-known or unknown figures who suddenly became surrogates for the hyper-partisan rhetorical warfare of the Trump era. President Trump tweeted his disgust at Wolf’s weekend routine on Monday, she was a hot topic on “The View” and the subject of a long and loud CNN exchange between Chris Cuomo and a conservative official. Journalists wondered if the annual WHCA dinner should be changed or ditched. A backlash quickly surfaced. Wolf had become a political symbol, much like Parkland student Hogg when he spoke out on gun restrictions, Khan when he spoke against Trump at the Democratic National Convention, Griffin when she posted a picture of herself with a mock-up of Trump’s severed head. Trump’s supporters took up the cause. Cuomo interviewed Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, who tweeted that he and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, director of strategic communications at the White House, walked out of the dinner. A “Fox & Friends” chyron read: “Should all women be critical of Wolf’s jokes?” Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer called it a disgrace, to which Wolf tweeted: “Thank you.” But a backlash to the criticism quickly developed, with some wondering why the correspondents should be surprised to get edgy comedy from an edgy comedian. “The comedian did her job,” said Sara Haines on “The View” Monday. “She is there to push the envelope.” Don’t like it? “Hire a juggler next year,” ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel tweeted. In his interview with Schlapp, Cuomo pressed the point that many Trump opponents made: how can you be insulted by Wolf’s routine and not by some of the things that Trump has said or done? While Wolf’s performance was vulgar and unseemly, “the three-year performance of candidate and president Donald Trump has been vulgar, unseemly and infinitely more damaging to our civil discourse,” tweeted conservative commentator Bill Kristol. The White House quickly sniffed an opportunity. Trump, who held a rally in Michigan at the same time as the dinner, asked aides for an update soon after leaving the stage. When he watched it being talked about on cable TV the next day, he called several outside advisers to bash the comedian, saying she was unfunny and mean-spirited. He told at least one confidante that it again proved he can’t get a fair shake from the media and he was certain his base would agree with him Wolf, who begins a Netflix show later this month and is best known for work on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show,” was not made available to The Associated Press on Monday. She tweeted a few replies to critics. Her routine directed barbs at Congress, Democrats and the media. But the jokes that targeted Trump, his daughter Ivanka and press aides Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway attracted the most negative attention. Her comedy was risque; C-SPAN radio cut away from her routine over what its management called an “abundance of caution” about whether she’d violate FCC indecency guidelines. Wolf joked that Ivanka Trump had proven as useful to women as “a box of empty tampons.” She wished for a tree to fall on Conway, not so she’d get hurt — just stuck. Wolf suggested Sanders burns facts and uses the ashes to create perfect eye makeup. Margaret Talev, president of the reporters’ organization that puts on the dinner, said in a statement that she’d heard from members who expressed dismay with Wolf’s monologue. The WHCA wanted to honor free press and great reporting, “not to divide people,” Talev said. “Unfortunately, the entertainer’s monologue was not in the spirit of that mission.” Some reporters, notably Maggie Haberman of The New York Times in expressing support for Sanders, made their feelings known publicly. It’s not the first time comics have made people uneasy at the event, particularly since it has been televised across the country: Don Imus, Stephen Colbert and Larry Wilmore all had their critics. Trump’s absence magnified the reaction to Wolf, since no one took to the podium to punch back. Trump did so on Twitter. “The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is DEAD as we know it,” he tweeted Monday. “This was a total disaster and an embarrassment to our great Country and all that it stands for. FAKE NEWS is alive and well and beautifully represented on Saturday night!” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Trump gives thumbs-down to comic who roasted his spokeswoman
The reviews are in: President Donald Trump gave a thumbs-down Sunday to the comedian who roasted his chief spokeswoman at the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner, offending present and past members of his administration, including one who walked out in protest. The organization’s leader said she regretted that Michelle Wolf’s routine may end up defining an evening that was designed to rally around journalism. WHCA President Margaret Talev said she has “heard from members expressing dismay with the entertainer’s monologue and concerns about how it reflects on our mission.” She said she will work with the incoming president of the group and take comments from members on their views “on the format of the dinner going forward.” Trump joined in the criticism. “Everyone is talking about the fact that the White House Correspondents Dinner was a very big, boring bust…the so-called comedian really ‘bombed,’” Trump tweeted Sunday. The president, who regularly lobs sharp attacks at the news media, including individual news organizations and reporters, declined to attend the journalism awards dinner for the second consecutive year. He instead held a campaign rally in Michigan. Wolf is known as a contributor on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Trevor Noah.” But some of her jokes, particularly a series of barbs about White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders as Sanders sat just feet away, seemed to spark the most outrage. Sean Spicer, who preceded Sanders at the White House lectern, tweeted after dinner that the night “was a disgrace.” Others, including Ed Henry, chief national correspondent for Fox News and a former association president, and MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski, called on the association to apologize to Sanders. Brzezinski has been the subject of personal attacks by Trump. Henry also called on Wolf to apologize. Matt Schlapp, chairman of the American Conservative Union, tweeted that he and his wife, Mercedes Schlapp, director of strategic communications at the White House, walked out of the dinner. “Enough of elites mocking all of us,” he said. Talev, Bloomberg News’ senior White House correspondent, said she didn’t want a dinner celebrating the constitutional right to free speech to be overshadowed by the ensuing uproar over Wolf’s jokes. “My only regret is that to some extent those 15 minutes are now defining four hours of what was a really wonderful unifying night and I don’t want the cause of unity to be undercut,” Talev said Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” Talev said she spoke to Sanders after Wolf’s routine and “I told her that I knew that this was a big decision whether or not to attend the dinner, whether to sit at the head table and that I really appreciated her being there.” “I thought it sent an important message about the role of government and the press and being able to communicate with one another and work together,” Talev added. No Trump administration officials attended the dinner last year after Trump decided to skip it. Many were in the audience Saturday night, however, including counselor Kellyanne Conway, herself a target of Wolf, and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Sanders sat at the head table with association board members. Talev said that, by tradition, the association does not review the comedian’s monologue before it is delivered. “We don’t censor it. We don’t even see it,” she said. Wolf tweeted “thank you” to Spicer. As he did last year, Trump flew to a Republican-friendly district to rally supporters in an attempt to counter the dinner. He assured the audience in Washington Township, Michigan, a state he won in 2016, that he’d rather be there than at “that phony Washington White House Correspondents’ Dinner.” Wolf’s act, which also included abortion jokes, had some in the audience laughing. Others sat in stony silence. Among Wolf’s less off-color one-liners: —“Just a reminder to everyone, I’m here to make jokes, I have no agenda, I’m not trying to get anything accomplished, so everyone that’s here from Congress you should feel right at home.” —“It is kinda crazy that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia when the Hillary campaign wasn’t even in contact with Michigan.” —“He wants to give teachers guns, and I support that because then they can sell them for things they need like supplies.” Wolf closed by saying, “Flint still doesn’t have clean water,” a reference to the Michigan city where lead-tainted tap water flowed into homes for 18 months before a disaster was declared in 2015. The state recently decided to end distribution of free bottled water in Flint, saying the tap water was now as “good or better” than in many communities. Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
In Donald Trump era, the death of the White House press conference
The presidential news conference, a time-honored tradition going back generations, appears to be no longer. More than a year has passed since President Donald Trump held the only solo news conference of his administration — a rollicking, hastily arranged, 77-minute free-for-all during which he railed against the media, defended his fired national security adviser and insisted nobody who advised his campaign had had contacts with Russia. But there are no signs the White House press shop is interested in a second go-round. Instead, the president engages the press in more informal settings that aides say offer reporters far more access, more often, than past administrations. “President Trump is more accessible than most modern presidents and frequently takes questions from the press,” says White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The president often answers shouted questions at so-called pool sprays, in which a small group of rotating reporters is given access to events such as bill signings and Cabinet lunches. Trump has also taken to answering shouted questions on the White House lawn as he arrives at and departs the White House. The frenzied exchanges — frequently taking place over the roar of Marine One’s rotor — often produce news. But the format also gives the president far more control than he would have during a traditional question-and-answer session. Trump can easily ignore questions he doesn’t like and dodge follow-ups in a way that would be glaring in a traditional news conference. On Friday, for instance, Trump answered several questions in the Oval Office about North Korea and Iran. But when a reporter asked about his threats regarding intervening in the Justice Department, Trump responded with a curt “thank you” that signaled to reporters that he was done with the Q&A session. The president also holds joint news conferences with visiting world leaders, a format reporters call “two and two” because each leader selects two of its country’s reporters to ask questions. While the format looks similar to a solo news conference, the president more often than not calls on friendly reporters from conservative outlets and limits the opportunity for follow-up questions. On Friday, during a joint news conference with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Trump called on reporters from Fox Business Network and the Christian Broadcasting Network. Fox News correspondent John Roberts has been called on so often that Trump once picked him and then changed his mind. “Actually, we’ll go somebody else this time, John. You’ve been doing enough, John,” he said to laughs. Trump also submits to occasional one-on-one interviews with individual news outlets. Last week, he called in to “Fox & Friends,” his favored format during the campaign. And several times he has held longer, impromptu question-and-answer sessions, including one in the Rose Garden with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell that, for reporters, had the feel of a mosh pit. Margaret Talev, a longtime White House reporter and president of the White House Correspondents Association, said the association welcomes Trump’s “openness to engage on a regular basis, in pool sprays in the Oval Office and less traditional settings such as South Lawn departures.” But, she said, “We have been disappointed at his reluctance to engage in regular full-format news conferences and we will continue to encourage him and his team to return to the practice. Such news conferences help the public to gain a deeper understanding of a president’s thinking on an issue; show transparency and accountability; allow journalists to raise questions the public may be concerned about; and also allow a president to shape his message.” Indeed, during his campaign, Trump often criticized his rival, Democrat Hillary Clinton, for failing to engage more with the press. “Crooked Hillary Clinton has not held a news conference in more than 7 months. Her record is so bad she is unable to answer tough questions!” he tweeted in June 2016. The pattern marks a dramatic departure from historic precedent, according to records kept by The American Presidency Project and dating back to Calvin Coolidge. In their first years alone, President Barack Obama held 11 solo news conferences, George W. Bush held five, and Bill Clinton a dozen. Trump held just one. It’s part of a pattern reflecting Trump’s extraordinarily hostile relationship with a press he loves to hate. “The White House isn’t legally mandated or required to hold press conferences, but it’s a tradition that’s been in place because it serves the public,” said Katie Townsend, the litigation director at Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press. “And I think the idea that the media is the enemy of the American people and an enemy of the president itself … I think the unwillingness to talk to the members of the media is part of that.” But Ari Fleischer, who served as press secretary for George W. Bush, said there is little benefit for a White House to hold solo new conferences anymore since the president can communicate with the public in other ways. “So long as the president is held accountable as a result of frequent pool sprays, as a result of frequent press conferences with heads of state, one-on-one interviews, the public gets its accountability through other tactics beyond formal long-winded news conferences,” Fleischer said. Bush, he noted, wasn’t a fan of the prime-time news conference, complaining that reporters would “peacock” at those events, making them more about themselves than the president. Trump, however, seems to like the format, which he credited last year for his election win. “Tomorrow, they will say, ‘Donald Trump rants and raves at the press.’ I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you. You know, you’re dishonest people. But I’m not ranting and raving. I love this,” he said during his press conference last year. “I’m having a good time doing it.” Republished with the permission of the Associated Press.
Donald Trump’s VA choice bows out in latest Cabinet flame-out
President Donald Trump’s White House doctor reluctantly withdrew his nomination to be Veterans Affairs secretary Thursday in the face of accusations of misconduct, the latest embarrassing episode highlighting Trump’s struggles to fill key jobs and the perils of his occasional spur-of-the-moment-decision-making. The weeks-long saga surrounding the nomination of Navy Dr. Ronny Jackson leaves the government’s second-largest agency without a permanent leader while it faces an immediate crisis with its private health care program. And it abruptly tarnished the reputation of a doctor beloved by two presidents and their staffs. White House officials say they are taking a new look at the way nominees’ backgrounds are checked — and they believe they will persuade Trump to take additional time to ensure that a replacement is sufficiently vetted. The leading person now under consideration for the VA post is former Rep. Jeff Miller, who chaired the House Veterans Affairs Committee before retiring last year, according to White House officials. Miller is a strong proponent of expanding private care for veterans, a Trump priority. Trump quickly selected Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy, to head the VA last month after firing Obama appointee David Shulkin following accusations of ethical problems and a mounting rebellion within the agency. Jackson, a surprise choice who has worked as a White House physician since 2006, faced immediate questions from Republican and Democratic lawmakers as well as veterans groups about whether he had the experience to manage the massive department of 360,000 employees serving 9 million veterans. Then this week’s unconfirmed allegations by current and former colleagues about drunkenness and improper prescribing of controlled substances, compiled and released by Democrats, made the nomination all but unsalvageable. “The allegations against me are completely false and fabricated,” Jackson said in a statement announcing his withdrawal. Press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Jackson was back at work at the White House on Thursday. But his future there remains uncertain. He had stepped aside from directing Trump’s medical care and leading the medical unit while his nomination was being considered. “I would hope the White House would closely consider whether he is the best person to provide medical care for the president,” said Democratic Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware. Trump himself praised Jackson, saying, “He’s a great man, and he got treated very, very unfairly.” Then the president went after Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana, who released a list of allegations against Jackson that was compiled by the Democratic staff of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee. Trump aides said the president was furious with Tester, who faces a tough re-election fight this fall, and plans to aggressively campaign against him. “I think Jon Tester has to have a big price to pay in Montana,” Trump warned on “Fox & Friends” on TV. Tester, meanwhile, called on Congress to continue its investigation of Jackson. “I want to thank the service members who bravely spoke out over the past week. It is my constitutional responsibility to make sure the veterans of this nation get a strong, thoroughly vetted leader who will fight for them,” he said. Elsewhere in the capital, Congress was questioning another Trump official whose job appears in jeopardy. Scott Pruitt, head of the Environmental Protection Agency, was questioned closely by House Democrats about revelations of unusual security spending, first-class flights, an advantageous condo lease and more. Even Republicans who support Pruitt’s deregulation efforts, said his conduct needed scrutiny. Tom Price, Trump’s first secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, resigned last year after criticism of his use of private charter flights and military jets. The turmoil at the VA comes as it faces a budget shortfall for its private-sector Veterans Choice program, a campaign priority of Trump’s, with lawmakers deadlocked over a long-term fix due to disagreements over cost and how much access veterans should have to private doctors Veterans are “exhausted by the unnecessary and seemingly never-ending drama,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “VA’s reputation is damaged, staff is demoralized, momentum is stalled and the future is shockingly unclear.” The VA issued a statement late Wednesday that it would push to have Congress move on an expansion of Choice next month. Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia, chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee, said Thursday he would “work with the administration to see to it we get a VA secretary for our veterans and their families.” White House officials were visibly dismayed Wednesday and Thursday as they watched Jackson suffer the blows of the allegations. The doctor, who is well-liked by and has personal relationships with many White House staffers, cited the withering pressure for withdrawing from consideration for the post, but maintained he had done nothing wrong. Trump said on Fox that he has an idea for a replacement nominee, adding it will be “someone with political capability.” Miller, the former congressman who was described as the leading candidate, is a strong proponent of expanding private care for veterans, Miller led the push to create Choice in 2014. However, major veterans groups and Democrats stand opposed to an aggressive expansion of Choice, seeing the effort as a potential threat to VA medical centers. Dan Caldwell, executive director of the conservative Concerned Veterans for America, urged the White House to take more time “to carefully select and vet a new nominee” who could head VA. “The VA currently has a competent Acting Secretary in Robert Wilkie who can manage the VA along with the rest of his leadership team,” he said. “Considering the tremendous challenges that the last three VA secretaries have faced, it is important that a capable individual with a high level of integrity is selected.” During the presidential campaign, Trump repeatedly pledged to fix the VA by bringing accountability and expanding access to private doctors, criticizing the department as “the most corrupt.” At an Ohio event last July, Trump promised to triple the number of veterans “seeing the doctor of their choice.” Currently, more than 30
