I have previously written that I believe that Trump supporters have a legitimate complaint about some of the coverage on the mainstream media. I say “some” because Trump has clearly generated the majority of bad press on his own and the media has merely covered the controversies. However, there has been some valid objections to how media has jumped on Trump statements, even positions that mirror those once held by the Clintons or currently held by significant numbers of Americans. Critics insist that media is unrelenting on Trump coverage and interviews while far less aggressive with Clinton or her controversies in coverage or interviews.
CNN has taken the brunt of much of the criticism from Trump supporters who commonly dismiss the network as the “Clinton News Network.” That is unfair in my view but a recent article on CNN.com has raised this issue again. Entitled “Trump wants GOP to court black voters — then slams voting rights for felons,” the column suggests that Trump was somehow hypocritical for making a pitch for African-American votes while opposing voting for felons. Moreover, the assumption that felons are somehow synonymous with blacks went by without any apparent objection or question. Had Trump made such an association, I am fairly certain he would have pilloried. Moreover, the highly negative coverage given his pitch to the black community raises valid questions of the balance in reporting analogous pitches from the Clinton campaign.
The media response to Trump’s speech was rapid and at times rabid. Trump called on black voters to ask what they have really achieved from decades of their overwhelming support for Democrats.
“No group in America has been more harmed by Hillary Clinton’s policies than African Americans. No group. No group. If Hillary Clinton’s goal was to inflict pain to the African American community, she could not have done a better job. It is a disgrace.
Detroit tops the list of most dangerous cities in terms of violent crime, number one . . . The only way to change results is to change leadership. We can never fix our problems by relying on the same politicians who created our problems in the first place. A new future requires brand new leadership . . . Look at how much African American communities are suffering from Democratic control. To those I say the following: What do you have to lose by trying something new like Trump? What do you have to lose? You live in your poverty, your schools are no good, you have no jobs, 58 percent of your youth is unemployed. What the hell do you have to lose?”
That would seem to me little different from Hillary Clinton campaigning in black neighborhoods based on the promise of economic and legal reforms to benefit their community. Yet, Trump was attacked for the pitch for black voters and the speech called possibly the “worst ever” appeal to the black community.
However, the column by CNN seems to do precisely what the media has accused Trump of doing: associating blacks with crime. The column states “Donald Trump acknowledged Saturday that the Republican Party ‘must do better’ in appealing to African-Americans. But in the same speech here, he again slammed an order by the state’s Democratic governor, Terry McAuliffe, to restore voting rights to some convicted felons who have completed their sentences, a move McAuliffe says could help African-Americans who were disproportionally affected by laws that put lifetime bans on felons.”
I happen to favor voting rights for felons. If we want people to rejoin communities, we should be encouraging their participation in civic institutions. However, there is no reason in my view to treat Trump as hypocritical in seeking African-American votes while also opposing voting rights for felons. There are good faith arguments on both sides of the voting rights for felons. More importantly, blacks and felons are not synonymous terms. The irony is that Trump was heavily criticized for linking illegal immigrants coming over the Mexican border with crime. It was an association widely denounced as racist.
The point is not that rights for former felons will not have an impact on this community or that this is not a legitimate issue to be discussed in the context of rebuilding African-American communities. Rather, the issue is one of fairness to the Trump camp in the treatment of analogous associations made by his critics in the past. It is also true in my view that there is nothing inherently ridiculous or hypocritical in Trump maintaining these two positions.
What do you think?
Nick Spinelli, you are spot on that the MSM is helping Trump rather than hurting him. It’s not just bad reporting, or in some cases absolute silence, it’s hyperventilating about the man and his so called evils that un-named experts “all” agree upon.
This makes it virtually impossible to find out anything what so ever about Trump except by what comes out of his own mouth (and I’m not always so sure of that either). Of course it’s the same for Hillary except in reverse but the hyperventilation -in praise of her- makes it equally impossible to find out anything about the woman. In her case we already know more than enough. She’s perfect; absolutely perfect if you want more endless war in the middle east and an insanely irresponsible escalation of nuclear confrontation with Russia using Red baiting techniques that haven’t been seen since the 50’s and McCarthy.
Note: the media is invariably owned by large international corporations and they want more neo-liberalism; more trade deals like TPP, and more imported workers to bust unions and weaken worker’s rights. Trump is a complete unknown to these people and HIllary is truly one of their own which explains a lot.
But as to Trump, he remains an almost complete mystery. We don’t even know, for sure, if he really wants to win or if this is just a grandiose publicity stunt.
Trump should announce that he supports the right of EVERY U.S. citizen to:
* Vote, even those who are currently being held against their will in America’s Gulag
* Every U.S. citizen not currently imprisoned or on probation or parole should have the right to keep and bear arms.
* Declare a War on Alcohol & Tobacco products – to protect the children from these dangerous
poisons being available on every other block.
* Immediate five billion dollars for earwax research.
CNN is no longer a credible source of news. The democrats and the Clinton campaign’s mutual backscratching with CNN and all sorts money exchanged proves that with regard to CNN, it is not free speech but rather Pay-Per-View.
Oh, and I wonder if CNN’s little faux pas is because their style book utilizes the Oxford English Dictionary definition of “racist”???
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cqajyj0VYAAdngC.jpg
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
Another little racist hypocrisy the press engages in is:
They can’t wait to slam the police for presuming that black suspects are potentially violent and dangerous. . . then when the cops shoot some black dude, under even marginally questionable circumstances, the press is johnny on the spot with news trucks and personnel in order to catch all the black rioting and looting that they presume is about to go down. Because they presume blacks are potentially violent and dangerous. Oh look! A squirrel!
Squeeky Fromm
Girl Reporter
CNN-Clinton News Network. On the surface, I agree with Nick. But I also think this will be open to a lot of debate. If you have paid your debt to society, you should be back in the main stream of society.
I heard someone on a cable network this morning discussing this issue and felons the person mentioned “sex offenders” and he used the word “violent” under the assumption that all registrants are violent, repeat rapist or molesters and nothing could be further from the truth.
According to the NCMEC map, there are over 851,870 men, women and children (as young as 8 and 10 in some states) required to register and the “crimes” range from urinating in public (indecent exposure), sexting, incest, mooning, exposure, false accusations by a soon-to-be ex-wife, angry girlfriend, or spiteful student, viewing abusive OR suggestive images of anyone 18 years old or younger, playing doctor, prostitution, solicitation, Romeo and Juliet consensual sexual dating relationships, rape, endangering the welfare of a child and many others.
If you multiply the number on the registry by 2 or 3 family members you can clearly see there are well over 4 million wives, children, moms, aunts, girlfriends, grandmothers and other family members who experience the collateral damage of being murdered, harassed, threatened, children beaten, have signs placed in their yards, homes set on fire, vehicles damaged, asked to leave their churches and other organizations, children passed over for educational opportunities, have flyers distributed around their neighborhood, wives lose their jobs when someone learns they are married to a registrant….all these things occur when these people try to hold their family together and provide the three things that professionals state are needed for successful re-integration; a job, a place to live and a good support system. Residency restrictions and homeless shelter restrictions only prohibit successful reintegration.
What began as “apostrophe” laws based on a horrible kidnapping, rape and murder (Megan’s Law, Chelsea’s Law) or kidnapping and no evidence of rape (Jacob’s Law, Adam’s Law) etc., has morphed from a law enforcement only tool to a bloated unmanageable, out of date, scarlet letter directory. Numerous studies by academics have debunked the 80% recidivism:
The Supreme Court’s Crucial Mistake About Sex Crime Statistics It is very important that you read the abstract below and then the full 12 page essay by Ira Mark and Tara Ellman.
ABSTRACT This brief essay reveals that the sources relied upon by the Supreme Court in Smith v. Doe, a heavily cited constitutional decision on sex offender registries, in fact provide no support at all for the facts about sex offender re-offense rates that the Court treats as central to its constitutional conclusions. This misreading of the social science was abetted in part by the Solicitor General’s misrepresentations in the amicus brief it filed in this case. The false “facts” stated in the opinion have since been relied upon repeatedly by other courts in their own constitutional decisions, thus infecting an entire field of law as well as policy making by legislative bodies. Recent decisions by the Pennsylvania and California supreme courts establish principles that would support major judicial reforms of sex offender registries, if they were applied to the actual facts. This paper appeared in Constitutional Commentary Fall, 2015.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/Papers.cfm?abstract_id=2616429
Another important document (residency restrictions and registry):
The U.S. Department of Justice, July 2015, report shows that sex offender laws are ineffective and create more harms than producing any genuine good. See http://www.smart.gov/pdfs/AdultSexOffenderManagement.pdf
The public needs to decide if they want to continue to focus on those who, for the most part, are one time offenders or if they see a greater need to fund programs like “Stop It Now” that teaches about grooming behaviors and other things in their Circles of Safety. It is documented that 95% of the sexual abuse occurs within the victim’s family and those known to the family?
Vicki Henry, Women Against Registry
bam, Good to see you. I always love good sarcasm.
News flash:
The mainstream media is extremely biased, slanted, overreactive and unfair in its coverage of Donald.
Wow. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Who knew?
vinegart. I read that piece earlier today.
Whether its felons voting, abetting illegal immigration or efforts to prevent voter ID laws by states its all about putting/keeping democrats in power, by hook or crook. Speaking of crooks look no further than Hill/Bill and McAuliffe.
American journalism is collapsing before our eyes
By Michael Goodwin
August 21, 2016 | 5:40am
http://nypost.com/2016/08/21/american-journalism-is-collapsing-before-our-eyes/
Thanks to CNN for broadcasting the Green Party Town Hall Meeting. No thanks to them for taking it off of YouTube after only two days of exposure. What’s that all about? To offset criticism for supporting Clinton and bashing Trump? If any CNN rep is reading this, please put the Town Hall meeting back up on YouTube. It was an excellent presentation of the Green Party.
You state that CNN is not all the time for Clinton…..when were they not. Cuomo stated on the morning recently, “we have done everything possible for Clinton.”
You must not be watching or understand how newspaper and TV new should work……opinion columns, editorial, news columns or part of the news show opinion is a no no Simple. But also long gone on what we call the news media. The NYTimes is a disgrace and if you notice have so few adv. they are now doing what when I was in the business it was call “Craping out the Page.” Big pictures little news and done by a staff of has beens.
I think convicted felons no longer being supervised on probation or parole should be allowed to vote.
We already know from the DNC themselves (via their “leadership’s” correspondence that CNN and other networks are in fact in the pocket of the Clinton camp. This is not speculation, it’s in their correspondence. “Reporters” have sent their stories to be vetted by the campaign. The campaign has written some of their “reports” for them. Further, the campaign disseminates “talking points” to the press all the way down to blog trolls.
This was also true of Bush/Cheney. In that case, the press got their marching orders for exampl, to gin up the Iraq war, and they did as they were told with few exceptions.
CNN has been complicit with Clinton, not as speculation but as a fact. CNN has agreed to help Clinton “win” the race.
It is also true that not every black person thinks alike and it is insulting to assume such a thing. Some black voters may agree with withdrawing rights from felons and others don’t.
Steve, I agree and have been saying so for some time now. The more frenetic the MSM gets, the more it helps Trump. The MSM not only has lost its power, it is imploding. Fascinating to watch.
Trump will get more black votes than the last 5 Republican prez candidates. I predict he gets close to 20%. John Kass wrote a superb piece in the Chicago Tribune on this topic of Dems treating black voters like slaves. The evidence is overwhelming.
I am for restoring rights on a one by one basis. However, I think there needs to be a waiting period of at least a couple of years to show good faith.
However, I still cannot believe how racist the CNN commentary on this is.
While many of us get irritated by the obvious bias that exists in much of the mainstream media, I have gotten to the point where I actually welcome their partisan articles because they are so obvious and revealing. They are not even smart in their propaganda efforts.
Most of us recognize media bias and as a consequence look elsewhere for trusted news sources (look at the readership numbers of this blog). And we find many excellent alternatives. The MSM is teaching us to look elsewhere.
The MSM media will always have a strong core of followers, but look at the decline in circulation of newspapers (may have a lot to do with poor reading habits in the U.S.), the rise of Fox news (though they are not exactly objective), and the contempt felt by many for the press as an institution.
Trumps an outsider and the lamestream media has conned people into judging him as if he were an insider. That would be like me judging the Olympics rowing champions by the opinions of an opera critic except both those examples are not out and out propagandists.
I’m interested in how he changes and adapts to their antics and it’s a learning process but ….without being co-opted. His main value is being an outsider and I would love to see him take over the formerly independent right wing of the left RINO party and remold it in a different image. After Crushing the Socialist Autocrats What I really want him to do that’s purely political is make a standup case for returning to Constitutional Republic status. After all he does not have to play pretend NY liberal Democrat anymore.