The Current Events, News, and Politics Thread
07-03-2018, 12:19 PM
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very timely:
Billionaire Richard Branson: America should give out free cash to fix income inequality
1. you know he wont give away his own income. Let's pretend that Richard was given the choice to completely end income inequality completely by relinquishing his estate, or just continue to sniff his own farts, what choice do you think he would make?
2. do you think he would be for income inequality and/or have a business today if we passed a law that said no one person could have more than $100,000 a year? (kinda like vacation day caps)
3. serious question: why is income inequality bad?
IMHO, income inequality suggests very good things. There will always be poor. always. source: history. But, the wider the gap, the better. the smaller the gap, the more it means everyone else is closer to being poor.
again, it's just another one of those "im a liberal, I'm jealous of everything and live in la la land, so I make policy based on bitter-jealousy and fluff stories" things.
Billionaire Richard Branson: America should give out free cash to fix income inequality
One solution to income inequality is giving out free cash, according to the British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson.
“A basic income should be introduced in Europe and in America,” Branson told David Gelles of The New York Times.
Branson was responding to the question, “What do you think those in positions of power should do to address social problems like income inequality?”
In a report published in January, the global charity Oxfam found that 82 percent of the growth in global wealth in the previous year went to the top 1 percent of individuals ranked by riches. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent had no increase in their wealth, the report says.
“It’s a disgrace to see people sleeping on the streets with this material wealth all around them,” Branson said.
A universal basic income, as it's known, is a cash payment distributed to residents irrespective of their employment status.
“A basic income should be introduced in Europe and in America,” Branson told David Gelles of The New York Times.
Branson was responding to the question, “What do you think those in positions of power should do to address social problems like income inequality?”
In a report published in January, the global charity Oxfam found that 82 percent of the growth in global wealth in the previous year went to the top 1 percent of individuals ranked by riches. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent had no increase in their wealth, the report says.
“It’s a disgrace to see people sleeping on the streets with this material wealth all around them,” Branson said.
A universal basic income, as it's known, is a cash payment distributed to residents irrespective of their employment status.
2. do you think he would be for income inequality and/or have a business today if we passed a law that said no one person could have more than $100,000 a year? (kinda like vacation day caps)
3. serious question: why is income inequality bad?
IMHO, income inequality suggests very good things. There will always be poor. always. source: history. But, the wider the gap, the better. the smaller the gap, the more it means everyone else is closer to being poor.
again, it's just another one of those "im a liberal, I'm jealous of everything and live in la la land, so I make policy based on bitter-jealousy and fluff stories" things.
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07-03-2018, 04:08 PM
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The question demonstrates the reporter is a moron.
The answer demonstrates the lack of meaningful thought on the subject by Dick Branson.
Universal basic income already exist in United States and in most of Europe. It may not be as much money as the left desires to give away but we give away a fuckton of money to people who do not generate anything's back in return for it. Food, housing, cell phones, electricity, Water and Sewer, Transit passes, Healthcare, and so much more for people who were too sorry to get off their asses and do anything except smoke dope and make more babies. Then we cut their benefits if they get paid more than a certain amount at their menial jobs, disincentivizing them to work harder. What the hell did you think was going to happen?
I can show you where they hang out during the day up under the shade tree behind the liquor store or Kwik-E-Mart drinking and bullshittin. There's 6, 10, 12 of them hanging out in the middle of the day sitting on stolen milk crates when everybody else is at work, able-bodied and healthy. No, you're right. That's unfair. They probably paid good money for those milk crates.
The real answer to the question is to say that education and job training is free in this country to individuals at great expense to those who paid for it. We provide free public school and people drop out, don't go, or don't take advantage of the opportunity to pay attention. Then we give them free libraries with access to job training and medical information and how to plumb or do electrical work and how to do engineering of various sorts, and computers to look up anything they don't have in print completely free of charge. We also offer scholarships and grants and Federal loans for anyone who is impoverished and wishes to attempt a higher education or Technical Training.
Many people make good use of these opportunities but many don't wish to be bothered and are just fine with their situation and station in life. If they are happy I am happy. I will not encumber them to exert the effort on their behalf but I certainly don't wish to be encumbered with caring for them myself. If they want to be left alone I will leave them alone. I do not bother the bums who are hanging out playing poker or telling stories all day long and certainly wish people would stop bothering me on their behalf.
And with regard to the poor and so much of the rest of the world, you can't begin to help them until you eliminate the extreme corruption in most third world governments. The corruption is here too but we are lucky to have a little bit more control over which bums are stealing from us.
The answer demonstrates the lack of meaningful thought on the subject by Dick Branson.
Universal basic income already exist in United States and in most of Europe. It may not be as much money as the left desires to give away but we give away a fuckton of money to people who do not generate anything's back in return for it. Food, housing, cell phones, electricity, Water and Sewer, Transit passes, Healthcare, and so much more for people who were too sorry to get off their asses and do anything except smoke dope and make more babies. Then we cut their benefits if they get paid more than a certain amount at their menial jobs, disincentivizing them to work harder. What the hell did you think was going to happen?
I can show you where they hang out during the day up under the shade tree behind the liquor store or Kwik-E-Mart drinking and bullshittin. There's 6, 10, 12 of them hanging out in the middle of the day sitting on stolen milk crates when everybody else is at work, able-bodied and healthy. No, you're right. That's unfair. They probably paid good money for those milk crates.
The real answer to the question is to say that education and job training is free in this country to individuals at great expense to those who paid for it. We provide free public school and people drop out, don't go, or don't take advantage of the opportunity to pay attention. Then we give them free libraries with access to job training and medical information and how to plumb or do electrical work and how to do engineering of various sorts, and computers to look up anything they don't have in print completely free of charge. We also offer scholarships and grants and Federal loans for anyone who is impoverished and wishes to attempt a higher education or Technical Training.
Many people make good use of these opportunities but many don't wish to be bothered and are just fine with their situation and station in life. If they are happy I am happy. I will not encumber them to exert the effort on their behalf but I certainly don't wish to be encumbered with caring for them myself. If they want to be left alone I will leave them alone. I do not bother the bums who are hanging out playing poker or telling stories all day long and certainly wish people would stop bothering me on their behalf.
And with regard to the poor and so much of the rest of the world, you can't begin to help them until you eliminate the extreme corruption in most third world governments. The corruption is here too but we are lucky to have a little bit more control over which bums are stealing from us.
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07-03-2018, 04:31 PM
My dumb answer, socioeconomic reasons that outweigh parents raising unwanted children. Also, I do not see pass an argument solidified in religion - not enough for me. It's not necessarily important to me, but I don't line up with banning it.
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07-04-2018, 12:49 AM
Interesting little editorial by a liberal Never-Trumper journalist:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/...r-13015500.php
Liberals get ‘woke’ that families at border get separated
In the words attributed to the great Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran: “No mas!” No more. I can’t take it anymore.
Even as a Mexican-American “Never Trumper” who has been attacked for three decades by racists and restrictionists for defending illegal immigrants, I’ve had my fill of the recent surge of convenient and politically driven outrage over the policy of separating families (which the president said Wednesday the administration would quit doing).
But, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as many as 2,342 children were taken into custody from May 5 to June 9.It’s tempting to join the liberal media chorus and blame the ghastly practice of separating families solely on President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. The administration’s “axis of evil” — White House aide Stephen Miller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House chief of staff and former Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly — have made it clear that they wanted to punish parents who come here illegally by confiscating their children at the border as a form of deterrence.
I’ll admit that it’s not exactly responsible parenting to bring your child with you while entering the United States illegally, if you’ll admit that neither is leaving your child to the tender mercies of ruthless and violent gangs in Central America.
And yet, those of us who follow the immigration debate closely year in and year out — and not just when there’s a Republican in the White House — and who remember the atrocities committed by the Obama administration, will have difficulty pinning the current border crisis entirely on President Trump.
I’ll leave that trick to partisan Democrats with bad memories. For instance, it was priceless to see what California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said about the border crisis of summer 2014, when more than 100,000 women and children from Central America came across the U.S.-Mexico border. Feinstein claims she was totally unaware that President Obama had reinstated a policy of incarcerating immigrant families at the border. That story was hard to miss.
Now, with Trump in the White House, it’s a new day. Who knew that liberals, Democrats and Trump-haters cared so much about the well-being of immigrant and refugee children who get separated from their parents?
Especially given how indifferent many of those same folks seemed just four or five years ago when the president doing the separating was a Democrat.
Of course, there is a difference — location. Donald Trump likes to divide families when they first cross the U.S.-Mexico border; Barack Obama preferred to let them get settled in the interior and then send ICE agents to arrest mommy or daddy at home or work, leaving the children behind.
During the Obama years, more than 40,000 U.S.-born kids whose parents had been deported were dumped into foster care.
Now liberals — late-night talk-show hosts, Hollywood celebrities, media commentators, Democratic politicians, et al — who have discovered the immigration issue are up in arms because that sort of thing is happening again.
It never stopped happening. The Border Patrol has more than its share of burned out, tunnel-visioned, sadistic bullies who are often indifferent to human suffering and play God with desperate immigrants.
These civil servants didn’t do all this during the George W. Bush administration and then go on an extended vacation for the eight years of the Obama administration. They were on the job from 2009 to 2017. You just weren’t paying attention.
One person who did pay attention was Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who recently told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield that, while immigrant families were separated during the last crisis, “the Obama administration was trying to keep this quiet.”
In criticizing the Trump administration for separating families — a righteous beef, if you ask me — liberals went from sanctimonious to silly.
Still, I guess that’s an improvement over what they were the last time this happened: silent.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/opinion/...r-13015500.php
Liberals get ‘woke’ that families at border get separated
In the words attributed to the great Panamanian boxer Roberto Duran: “No mas!” No more. I can’t take it anymore.
Even as a Mexican-American “Never Trumper” who has been attacked for three decades by racists and restrictionists for defending illegal immigrants, I’ve had my fill of the recent surge of convenient and politically driven outrage over the policy of separating families (which the president said Wednesday the administration would quit doing).
But, according to the Department of Homeland Security, as many as 2,342 children were taken into custody from May 5 to June 9.It’s tempting to join the liberal media chorus and blame the ghastly practice of separating families solely on President Trump’s “zero tolerance” policy. The administration’s “axis of evil” — White House aide Stephen Miller, Attorney General Jeff Sessions and White House chief of staff and former Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly — have made it clear that they wanted to punish parents who come here illegally by confiscating their children at the border as a form of deterrence.
I’ll admit that it’s not exactly responsible parenting to bring your child with you while entering the United States illegally, if you’ll admit that neither is leaving your child to the tender mercies of ruthless and violent gangs in Central America.
And yet, those of us who follow the immigration debate closely year in and year out — and not just when there’s a Republican in the White House — and who remember the atrocities committed by the Obama administration, will have difficulty pinning the current border crisis entirely on President Trump.
I’ll leave that trick to partisan Democrats with bad memories. For instance, it was priceless to see what California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said about the border crisis of summer 2014, when more than 100,000 women and children from Central America came across the U.S.-Mexico border. Feinstein claims she was totally unaware that President Obama had reinstated a policy of incarcerating immigrant families at the border. That story was hard to miss.
Now, with Trump in the White House, it’s a new day. Who knew that liberals, Democrats and Trump-haters cared so much about the well-being of immigrant and refugee children who get separated from their parents?
Especially given how indifferent many of those same folks seemed just four or five years ago when the president doing the separating was a Democrat.
Of course, there is a difference — location. Donald Trump likes to divide families when they first cross the U.S.-Mexico border; Barack Obama preferred to let them get settled in the interior and then send ICE agents to arrest mommy or daddy at home or work, leaving the children behind.
During the Obama years, more than 40,000 U.S.-born kids whose parents had been deported were dumped into foster care.
Now liberals — late-night talk-show hosts, Hollywood celebrities, media commentators, Democratic politicians, et al — who have discovered the immigration issue are up in arms because that sort of thing is happening again.
It never stopped happening. The Border Patrol has more than its share of burned out, tunnel-visioned, sadistic bullies who are often indifferent to human suffering and play God with desperate immigrants.
These civil servants didn’t do all this during the George W. Bush administration and then go on an extended vacation for the eight years of the Obama administration. They were on the job from 2009 to 2017. You just weren’t paying attention.
One person who did pay attention was Rep. Henry Cuellar, D-Texas, who recently told CNN’s Fredricka Whitfield that, while immigrant families were separated during the last crisis, “the Obama administration was trying to keep this quiet.”
In criticizing the Trump administration for separating families — a righteous beef, if you ask me — liberals went from sanctimonious to silly.
Still, I guess that’s an improvement over what they were the last time this happened: silent.
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07-04-2018, 09:25 AM
Boost Pope
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Either your father never had "the talk" with you, or something very seriously wrong is going on here.
I've seen pictures of Mrs. Braineack, and she certainly appears to be human. We can talk offline about the correct procedure. Note: it does not involve your cats.
I've seen pictures of Mrs. Braineack, and she certainly appears to be human. We can talk offline about the correct procedure. Note: it does not involve your cats.
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07-04-2018, 11:14 AM
Boost Czar
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straight out of obama's playbook: it's not a tax in public, argues tax in court.
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...lisher-lawsuit
https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...lisher-lawsuit
Facebook has long had the same public response when questioned about its disruption of the news industry: it is a tech platform, not a publisher or a media company.
But in a small courtroom in California’s Redwood City on Monday, attorneys for the social media company presented a different message from the one executives have made to Congress, in interviews and in speeches: Facebook, they repeatedly argued, is a publisher, and a company that makes editorial decisions, which are protected by the first amendment.
The contradictory claim is Facebook’s latest tactic against a high-profile lawsuit, exposing a growing tension for the Silicon Valley corporation, which has long presented itself as neutral platform that does not have traditional journalistic responsibilities.
But in a small courtroom in California’s Redwood City on Monday, attorneys for the social media company presented a different message from the one executives have made to Congress, in interviews and in speeches: Facebook, they repeatedly argued, is a publisher, and a company that makes editorial decisions, which are protected by the first amendment.
The contradictory claim is Facebook’s latest tactic against a high-profile lawsuit, exposing a growing tension for the Silicon Valley corporation, which has long presented itself as neutral platform that does not have traditional journalistic responsibilities.
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07-05-2018, 09:16 AM
I am of the opinion that usually the kind of people that have little to no care about being, and planning to be parents usually do not magically get their ducks in a row when they become parents.
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07-05-2018, 09:37 AM
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bonus tolerance:
A man was fired after he was caught on camera stealing a MAGA hat and throwing a drink in a teen’s face.
The clip shows an individual later identified as 30-year-old Jimenez Kino saying, “You ain’t supporting **** *****!” before he throws the drink on 16-year-old Hunter Richard’s face and then exclaims, “Bitch *** ************!”
“This is gonna go right in my ******* fireplace, bitch,” Kino added as he walked away waving the distinctive red Trump hat.
The clip shows an individual later identified as 30-year-old Jimenez Kino saying, “You ain’t supporting **** *****!” before he throws the drink on 16-year-old Hunter Richard’s face and then exclaims, “Bitch *** ************!”
“This is gonna go right in my ******* fireplace, bitch,” Kino added as he walked away waving the distinctive red Trump hat.
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07-05-2018, 11:30 AM
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I'm also not suggesting this is a good argument for banning/not banning.
bonus: leftists love children so much, they hate when you arrest child sex traffickers.
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07-05-2018, 11:36 AM
Boost Pope
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The only people who have to accept the consequences of unwanted pregnancies are the taxpayers.
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07-05-2018, 11:42 AM
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this is why i hate being a taxpayer. i get little of the benefits from being one, yet I pay into the system at a much higher level than people the majority of the people here on MT.
taxes are racist and promote/legitimize inequality.
taxes are racist and promote/legitimize inequality.
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07-05-2018, 11:47 AM
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also in Joe Perez News:
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ce-hate-speec/
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news...ce-hate-speec/
n the week of America’s Independence Day, the algorithms of Facebook decided that the Declaration of Independence was hate speech.
The Liberty County Vindicator, a community newspaper between Houston and Beaumont, had been posting the whole declaration in small daily chunks for nine days on its Facebook page in the run-up to July 4. But the 10th excerpt was not posted Monday as scheduled, and the paper said it received an automated notice saying the post “goes against our standards on hate speech.”
Part of the standard notice, Vindicator managing editor Casey Stinnett wrote, included a warning that the newspaper could lose its Facebook account, on which it depends for much of its reach, if there were more violations.
The offending passage?
It was part of the document’s “Bill of Particulars” against Britain’s King George III: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
The Liberty County Vindicator, a community newspaper between Houston and Beaumont, had been posting the whole declaration in small daily chunks for nine days on its Facebook page in the run-up to July 4. But the 10th excerpt was not posted Monday as scheduled, and the paper said it received an automated notice saying the post “goes against our standards on hate speech.”
Part of the standard notice, Vindicator managing editor Casey Stinnett wrote, included a warning that the newspaper could lose its Facebook account, on which it depends for much of its reach, if there were more violations.
The offending passage?
It was part of the document’s “Bill of Particulars” against Britain’s King George III: “He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.”
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07-05-2018, 11:49 AM
Boost Czar
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in being fair and objective news:
https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/l...onal-emergency
https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/l...onal-emergency
You can count on CNN "Reliable Sources" host Brian Stelter to stay true to the trash-Trump parade. At the liberal Aspen Ideas Festival, he interviewed Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron. Stelter claimed to speak for the crowd when he began asking: "Are we living through a national emergency? And if so, how in the heck should journalists be covering it that way?"
Baron replied that it isn't his place to answer that. His newspaper's role "is to cover very aggressively this administration as we would cover any other administration." He claimed, "We're not in the business of sort of characterizing the era."
This is preposterous. The Post greeted the Trump presidency by posting a new motto on the front page each day: "Democracy Dies in Darkness." It sells T-shirts with the motto to other liberals. By contrast, during Barack Obama's presidential transition in 2009, the Post promoted to national editor a journalist who wrote gushy captions for a coffee-table book titled "Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs."
Most Americans would suggest that the Dow Jones Industrial Average being up 5,000 points since President Trump's inauguration and the unemployment rate being 3.8 percent is not a national emergency. But then again, most Americans aren't journalists.
The silliness continued. Stelter told Baron, "The media critique from the left is that this is a crisis and thus journalists have to cover it differently than Bush or Obama or other past presidents."
Baron acknowledged the Post is "more blunt about calling out falsehoods" than it was previously "because there are so many of them and they're so blatant." Then he added: "Steve Bannon tried to call us the opposition party. We don't see ourselves as the opposition party and we're not inclined to embrace the notions of some people who would like us to be the opposition party. We're an independent news organization. We're independent of all parties and all ideologies."
Baloney. Baron simply cannot believe that, unless the Kool-Aid is stronger than we thought. Wouldn't it be fun to find out just how many Washington Post reporters and editors voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump? If a single Trump voter could be found in the newsroom, that would be a surprise. How "independent of all parties" would the Post look then? We found in 2016 that among the Post employees who donated to candidates for federal office in recent years, 15 donated only to Democrats and one advertising sales manager gave to $200 to former Gov. Mitt Romney.
Stelter kept pestering Baron from the left in Aspen: "Your famous line is that 'We're not at war; we're at work.' ... But if one side is at war and the other side is a pacifist, doesn't the pacifist lose?"
This may be the one occasion where liberals discuss the benefits of war and the pitfalls of pacifism!
"It's not the way that I would frame it," Baron explained. "(W)e have the greatest credibility when we do our jobs honestly, honorably, accurately, fairly, diligently, energetically, unflinchingly."
Our media have shunned any notion of objectivity under Trump. Activists like Brian Stelter keep urging top editors to oppose, rebel and resist, and they wonder why their own approval ratings continue to sink lower, and lower, and lower.
Baron replied that it isn't his place to answer that. His newspaper's role "is to cover very aggressively this administration as we would cover any other administration." He claimed, "We're not in the business of sort of characterizing the era."
This is preposterous. The Post greeted the Trump presidency by posting a new motto on the front page each day: "Democracy Dies in Darkness." It sells T-shirts with the motto to other liberals. By contrast, during Barack Obama's presidential transition in 2009, the Post promoted to national editor a journalist who wrote gushy captions for a coffee-table book titled "Obama: The Historic Campaign in Photographs."
Most Americans would suggest that the Dow Jones Industrial Average being up 5,000 points since President Trump's inauguration and the unemployment rate being 3.8 percent is not a national emergency. But then again, most Americans aren't journalists.
The silliness continued. Stelter told Baron, "The media critique from the left is that this is a crisis and thus journalists have to cover it differently than Bush or Obama or other past presidents."
Baron acknowledged the Post is "more blunt about calling out falsehoods" than it was previously "because there are so many of them and they're so blatant." Then he added: "Steve Bannon tried to call us the opposition party. We don't see ourselves as the opposition party and we're not inclined to embrace the notions of some people who would like us to be the opposition party. We're an independent news organization. We're independent of all parties and all ideologies."
Baloney. Baron simply cannot believe that, unless the Kool-Aid is stronger than we thought. Wouldn't it be fun to find out just how many Washington Post reporters and editors voted for Hillary Clinton over Trump? If a single Trump voter could be found in the newsroom, that would be a surprise. How "independent of all parties" would the Post look then? We found in 2016 that among the Post employees who donated to candidates for federal office in recent years, 15 donated only to Democrats and one advertising sales manager gave to $200 to former Gov. Mitt Romney.
Stelter kept pestering Baron from the left in Aspen: "Your famous line is that 'We're not at war; we're at work.' ... But if one side is at war and the other side is a pacifist, doesn't the pacifist lose?"
This may be the one occasion where liberals discuss the benefits of war and the pitfalls of pacifism!
"It's not the way that I would frame it," Baron explained. "(W)e have the greatest credibility when we do our jobs honestly, honorably, accurately, fairly, diligently, energetically, unflinchingly."
Our media have shunned any notion of objectivity under Trump. Activists like Brian Stelter keep urging top editors to oppose, rebel and resist, and they wonder why their own approval ratings continue to sink lower, and lower, and lower.
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