Bizarre, Courts, Media, Politics, Uncategorized

President Trump Calls For Lawyers To Strip Reporters Of Their Pulitzer Prizes

donald_trump_president-elect_portrait_croppedPresident Donald Trump turned to Twitter this weekend in a rage against a less than flattering Times story  about his work habits and schedule.  The Twitter tirade turned into a demand that New York Times reporters give back the “Nobles” for their coverage of the Russian investigation. That will be difficult for a number of reasons, including the fact that they never received Nobel prizes but Pulitzer Prize.  More importantly, the courts have no role in such awards and the suggestion of litigation to force their return is completely meritless and frankly bizarre.  Update: President Trump is now claiming that, like the disinfectant remarks, he was just being sacrastic.

I have previously criticized the President for these attacks on the media.  I have also criticized many in the media for highly biased and inaccurate coverage.  However, that is no excuse for the ongoing attacks, particularly (as was the case recently with the disinfectant story) when the media was correctly reporting on a controversy.

The President has previously demanded that Times Reporter Maggie Haberman return her Pulitzer Prize for the Russian coverage in light of recent disclosures that the investigation was based on flawed evidence and improper procedures. However, Haberman was correctly reporting that such an investigation was ongoing within the FBI. Many reporters understated the evidentiary foundation for the investigation and Trump is correct that the media never fully addressed the misrepresentations of sources that riddled these reports. The media was too eager to accept that Russian collusion allegations of such highly flawed and biased reports as the Steele dossier.

Initially President Trump was addressing what he said were false aspects in the reporting on his work and eating habits, declaring:

“I work from early in the morning until late at night, haven’t left the White House in many months (except to launch Hospital Ship Comfort) in order to take care of Trade Deals, Military Rebuilding etc., and then I read a phony story in the failing @nytimes about my work … schedule and eating habits, written by a third rate reporter who knows nothing about me. … I will often be in the Oval Office late into the night & see that I am angrily eating a hamberger & Diet Coke in my bedroom. People with me are always stunned. Anything to demean!”

“I can give the Committee a very comprehensive list. When will the Noble Committee DEMAND the Prizes back, especially since they were gotten under fraud? The reporters and Lamestream Media knew the truth all along … Lawsuits should be brought against all, including the Fake News Organizations, to rectify this terrible injustice. For all of the great lawyers out there, do we have any takers? When will the Noble Committee Act? Better be fast!”

I would hope that there would be no “takers” for such a case.  Rule 11(b) states:

“REPRESENTATIONS TO THE COURT. By presenting to the court a pleading, written motion, or other paper — whether by signing, filing, submitting, or later advocating it — an attorney or unrepresented party certifies that to the best of the person’s knowledge, information, and belief, formed after an inquiry reasonable under the circumstances:

  1. it is not being presented for any improper purpose, such as to harass, cause unnecessary delay, or needlessly increase the cost of litigation;

  2. the claims, defenses, and other legal contentions are warranted by existing law or by a non-frivolous argument for extending, modifying, or reversing existing law or for establishing new law;

  3. the factual contentions have evidentiary support or, if specifically so identified, will likely have evidentiary support after a reasonable opportunity for further investigation or discovery; and

  4. the denials of factual contentions are warranted on the evidence or, if specifically so identified, are reasonably based on belief or a lack of information.”

Such a filing would arguable violation all four criteria.

The President has every right to raise the accuracy of coverage of the Russian collusion stories, though during a pandemic would seem a poor time for such diversions.  However, this attack show more rage than reason in calling for a lawsuit to strip Haberman and others of their Pulitzer Prizes.

Update:  President Trump is now offering a defense that he was being sarcastic, again: “Does anybody get the meaning of what a so-called Noble (not Nobel) Prize is, especially as it pertains to Reporters and Journalists? Noble is defined as, ‘having or showing fine personal qualities or high moral principles and ideals.’ Does sarcasm ever work?”

81 thoughts on “President Trump Calls For Lawyers To Strip Reporters Of Their Pulitzer Prizes”

  1. Turley keeps calling that election cheater “President”, but in another piece published today, he refers to former Vice President Joe Biden as just “Biden”. Well, Turley, Joe Biden didn’t cheat to win his election, but Trump did. He does not deserve the title of “President”.

    Which brings us to the Russia investigation, reporting of which Turley claims was: “highly flawed’ and “biased’. BUT, the evidence was there, proven by the fact that there were dozens of indictments, guilty pleas and a jury verdict against Stone. Russia DID help Trump “win the victory”. Trump’s personal involvement in this fraud on the American people was never fully investigated because Trump refused to cooperate with the investigation, AND that constitutes obstruction of justice. Those are facts, which are neither “highly flawed” nor “biased”. Trump has been a cheater all of his life, and earned the nickname “Don the Con”.

    The last point is that Turley overlooks yet more proof that Trump is clueless and unfit for office. No reporters writing about him ever won any “Noble” or even a “Nobel” Prize. He doesn’t even know that. He is insanely jealous of anyone who receives praise and adulation, especially when it involves telling the truth about him or reporting facts that prove he is clueless. He doesn’t understand that journalists receive Pulitzer Prizes, not Nobel Prizes. There are Nobel Prizes for literature, but not journalism. But, dare anyone explain this to him, s/he would get fired.

  3. There have been numerous Pulitzers awarded for what turned out to be false reporting, and some have been rescinded. The most prominent one I can think of involved a reporter who made up a story (which is also common in the media.) There is nothing wrong with the subject of a story bringing suit to have the prizes invalidated. So-called “freedom of the press” which is actually seizure of the clause in the First Amendment guaranteeing the right of THE INDIVIDUAL to use the written word to express opinion does not give license to make up stories, which the New York Times’ reporters are prone to do.

  4. Regardless of this writers opinions on the President. The one thing Trump is correct on, the Media is LYING Propaganda pushers for the DNC and now even the CCP..The Lying Media needs to be Taken apart and laws passed on Printing Lies.

  6. Start with Walter Duranty (NYTimes)
    —
    Walter Duranty (1884-1957) was a classic made man and noxious stooge who played a primary cover-up role in the communistic mass looting and genocide of Ukrainians during a widespread famine (1932–1933) in the USSR.

    1. Oh, but the Pulitzer board insists it has insufficient evidence that he lied, the contemporaneous reports of other journalists notwithstanding.

      Even if you believed Duranty was on the level, the revelation that he grossly misreported a human catastrophe might out of embarrassment induce you to put an asterisk after his name. Just what are ‘awards’ for? Well, it’s an organization run by one of the most repulsive guilds in America, so nothing will be done.

      1. Of course. The Pulitzer Board also said that Duranty made a mistake and it wasn’t intentional. OK, that is BS, but let us accept that accuse. That means his reporting was totally inaccurate and in the process may have aided the killing of millions. Either way Duranty’s Pulitzer should be withdrawn. But why should we care? Obama got the Peace Prize before he had a chance to do anything. The intellectual caliper of those on the left is very low so they haven’t served the people that won the Prize for good reason.

        1. Joseph Epstein offered the view some years ago about prizes that you give them to too many of the wrong people or fail to give them to too many of the right people, they are ruined as distinctions. As Epstein was writing, the National Book Award was taken seriously by people in the writing trade, not the Pulitzers. Media executives take the Pulitzers seriously. The prestige of the media was at its zenith around about 1975. Now, about 1/2 the public with an opinion despises them and 1/2 the remainder don’t take them seriously. You can see on these boards the calibre of people who do take them seriously.

          1. I agree with Epstein. He has one of the finest minds even though very early on he predicted the Covid death rate would be below 500. He later corrected his number and provided reasons for such an error but he was on the right track from the begninning.

        2. The Peace Prize was always humbug, and should be eliminated. The Literature Prize is a dubious bit of business as well, but not disgusting the way the Peace Prize is.

  7. It would be inappropriate for the reporters to return their Pulitzers.

    In the last few years the Pulitzer has been rewarded expressly for bad reporting.

    It should come with a cord so it can be hung around necks like a decaying albatross.

  8. Do you think that this might be a standard response by Trump? He seems to suggest bizarre legal action whenever bizarre legal action is suggested against him, i.e. Article 25 suggestions being discussed?

  9. President Donald Trump turned to Twitter this weekend in a rage against a less than flattering Times story about his work habits and schedule.

    A story that one might wager was manufactured out of whole cloth.

    The Warren Court had a corrupt deal with the media: you fawn over us, and we make it effectively impossible for anyone to given you the hiding you deserve in civil defamation suits. The excuse will be ‘free speech’. The decay of the quality of the media and of the quality of public discourse has been the result.

    Note, the democratization of communications has made it possible to read the British media, which still employ actual reporters and are somewhat detached from topical controversies in this country. Once you get beyond suburban Patch sites, our media is sh!t. You can thank Earl Warren’s rotting corpse for that.

  10. Why would anyone think that journalists should return Pulitzers awarded for writing what amounts to propaganda when the New York Times still has Walter Duranty’s prize hanging on the wall.

          1. Covid is looking for > 70 year olds in Gainesville to add to the growing data. Know any ?

    2. MofoKnow – I was thinking Duranty’s prize would be the first to be returned. 😉

    3. I am slowly enjoying the book another communist sycophant from the American press wrote, “Red Star Over China,” (1937) which is an enjoyable read by Edgar Snow. It’s often interesting to read first hand accounts even if they come from apple polishing bootlickers.

  11. Not to mention, that many members of the Main Stream Media are just bat poop crazy to boot! Read this idiot from CNN- a letter to his newborn son. Talk about a mega-barf alert virtue signalling orgy! This guy is wallowing around in it and picking up big handfuls of smarm and smearing it all over his naked body.
    ————-
    Brooklyn(CNN) My dearest River,

    Against all odds you were conceived in a lighthouse, born during a pandemic and will taste just enough of Life as We Knew It to resent us when it’s gone.

    I’m sorry.

    I’m sorry we broke your sea and your sky and shortened the wings of the nightingale.

    I’m sorry that the Great Barrier Reef is no longer great, that we value Amazon™ more than the Amazon and that the waterfront neighborhood where you burble in my arms could be condemned by rising seas before you’re old enough for a mortgage.

    The scent of your downy crown makes my heart explode. The curl in your Tic Tac toes fills me with enough love to power New York City.

    If only.

    Instead, the milk in your bottle was warmed by dirty, ancient fuels and as a result, you will learn to walk on a planet that has never been this hot for humans.

    We are just now wrestling with the implications of this but as your Pop, the most poignant evidence was seeing your mother give you your first kiss through a P100 mask that smelled faintly of smoke. I’m sorry my boy, but we were warned.

    See, for decades, scientists told us that if we weren’t careful, humans would unleash an invisible enemy out of the jungle and into our lungs. But that was a story few wanted to believe.

    So we kept cutting down jungles — and prairies and mangroves and the last few the places where the wild things are — to pave and plow, develop and devour everything inside.

    https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2020/04/25/weather/climate-change-bill-weir-letter-to-son/index.html?__twitter_impression=true
    ———–
    There is a whole lot more at the link with pictures. I started copying it all here, but the idiot wouldn’t shut up and just kept running on and on and on, so I cut it short. I wonder how a wimp like this ever got an erection in the first place, enough to impregnate anybody.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

    1. Yesterday as a family we went to the local city park to stretch our legs, move our bodies and enjoy the sun. As we were enjoying ourselves we saw a young man in his late 20s, early 30s, tall, lanky, bearded and looking angry. There was no joy in this man. He had a t-shirt with large bold letters screaming: “STOP KILLING BLACK TRANS WOMEN”

      My husband looked at me, the kids thankfully ignored him, and I laughed. This is what happens when they killed God and hoisted a golden calf on a Burning Man pile of wood

      1. Maybe he was actually a young woman??? What is it with these idiots? I mean the people killing black trans women are other blacks. That message should be delivered in the inner city, but no one would give him any Virtue Signalling Brownie Points. One good thing from China was the word:

        Baizuo (/ˈbaɪˌdzwɔː/; Chinese: 白左 báizuǒ, literally White Left[1]) is a derogatory Chinese neologism and political epithet used to refer to Western Liberal ideologies primarily espoused by white people.[2][3][4] The term baizuo is related to the term shèngmǔ (圣母, 聖母, literally “holy mother” or St Mary), a sarcastic reference to those whose political opinions are perceived as being guided by emotions or a hypocritical show of selflessness and empathy.[3]

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

    2. And yet these hand-wringing libs are all for open borders, when increased population in the U.S. is one of the biggest contributors to pollution. Think of every Third World person with a donkey cart who moves to the U.S. and buys a car for himself, his wife, and his teenager. Then multiply that times one million per year over the past 30 years. The “carbon footprint” of Americans is exponentially larger than that of any other country. Yet liberals continue to demand unprecedented immigration, all while shedding tears for the environment. Frigging irrational nut jobs.

        1. Our carbon footprint has virtually nothing to do with illegal immigrants – it’s was our industrial output, including coal usage, and is now our advanced – but also wasteful – lifestyle. On a per capita basis we now are among – with Australia – the most profligate of countries. We are 4+ times more so than the Chinese and that does not count our past when with Europe we released huge quantities of CO2 beginning in the late 19th century. The Industrial Revolution and those advancement were worth it, but enough already. The 3rd world wants to go through it too. (There is some indication that technical advancements will help keep future CO2 production through this historical catching up much lower than we banked.)

          Keeping the something like 12 million illegals living here illegal depresses wages. Making them legal will increase wages.

          1. “Keeping the something like 12 million illegals living here illegal depresses wages. Making them legal will increase wages.”

            Yeah because if you make them legal then the laws of supply and demand will magically cease to exist, and the fact that there 10 applicants for each low skill job will no longer matter!

            Really, you just spout out nonsense and you think you are convincing people. You aren’t. You are just spewing out talking points from the DNC script, and it will not hold up to rational analysis. You act like a talking head on a TV show who can spin, and then go away when the commercial comes on and never have to explain yourself.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

            1. They are here working now and at lower wages because they are illegal.

              1. And yet they are still here. Why? Because for many of them, their compensation plans include more than non-taxed income. For many of them, they have access to free healthcare, education, legal services, social services, and so on.

                Reminds me of the guy who was getting rats inside his RV. So he buys rat bait and puts it inside the RV where the rats have been. For some strange reason, the number of rats increased. It was then he learned from an exterminator that he was luring them inside and should place the bait outside by the access points. Problem solved.

                1. They are still here because employers benefit, consumer’s benefit by lower prices, we don’t have the police power to catch and remove them, and because we also don’t want to.

                  “…..There is overwhelming bipartisan backing among Americans for providing illegal immigrants a way to become US citizens but not so much for sanctuary cities, a poll out Thursday shows.

                  Eighty percent of Americans surveyed said they support a pathway to citizenship – including 87 percent of Democrats, 83 percent of independents and 69 percent of Republicans – if illegals are willing to learn English, pay fines and hold jobs and pay taxes, according to a McClatchy-Marist Poll….”

                  1. There are a myriad of reasons they are still here illegally. consumer’s benefit by lower prices, Well duh. What are the other pros to having illegal immigrants in this country? What are the cons? Are consumers (citizens) truly aware of the economic/social impact of having policies enabling/encouraging illegal immigration?

                    Fundamentally, they are here because it’s in their best interest to be here rather than wherever they came from. I have no problem with the polling you cite. However, there currently exists a legal pathway to citizenship. Those in this country illegally clearly have rejected it. Passing laws that reward illegal behavior will increase that behavior, not reduce it.

                    I know one thing I will not support. Providing a pathway to the ballot box for any illegal immigrant. If a pathway towards citizenship for those in this country illegally is created parallel to our current system, I would not grant citizenship any sooner than than our current system, In fact, the process should be longer and more comprehensive for those in our country illegally. We should not reward illegal behavior. This means they would stay as guest workers, then green card holders and then onto citizens.

              2. The Parrot says: “They are here working now and at lower wages because they are illegal.”

                They send money out of the country.
                They use all sorts of social services that diminishes the services American citizens can obtain.
                Some are criminals and some have killed and raped but seem to get refuge in sanctuary cities.
                Legal immigrants are hurt by illegals.
                There is no good reason to accept illegal immigrants and all the lawbreaking that accompanies their existence here.

  12. The level of hostility currently displayed
    At News conferences is simply despicable.
    Attack,attack,attack.
    Yes Journaliism is Dead.

  13. To put this in perspective, imagine we are three years into World War II, and Franklin Roosevelt holds a press conference, and half the questions are about whether he knew Pearl Harbor was going to be bombed in advance, or why did we give a bunch of destroyers to Britain, and did any of his family members benefit from that.

    Squeeky Fromm
    Girl Reporter

  14. I guess rather than “win” the election, Trump should start hoping he gets to run against someone who doesn’t know what year it is and can’t talk in complete sentences. Oh wait………

  15. Most Americans fully understand President Trump’s anger. Most fully support him calling out the fake news. Most have been furious for quite some time about the highly negative and down right dishonest coverage by both national and local news organizations. As Dr. Brix indicated this past weekend about the media “slicing and dicing” their reporting. This has been going on for a long time. The media rarely reports the many positive things accomplished by this administration. Most Americans have understood President Trump’s message since the start. Those who still take him literally do not get what he’s saying at all. He speaks for us.
    To another point, most of us know he does not always speak in this manner. We have seen him conducting meetings and also know he’s a successful business man who has accomplished much. That’s why he got elected. Furthermore, we’ll elect him again.

      1. 40%? Based upon which “cooked” poll do we base this assumption? Hopefully, not the same polling houses that predicted “Hillary in a landslide…”

        1. Anyone you want.

          By the way, Hillary did win by the 2% the national polls predicted after Comey’s Deep State hatchet job on her.

  16. “The President has every right to raise the accuracy of coverage of the Russian collusion stories, though during a pandemic would seem a poor time for such diversions. However, this attack show more rage than reason in calling for a lawsuit to strip Haberman and others of their Pultizer Prizes.”
    *******************************
    I wonder what happened to our notions of manhood that now requires us to suffer in silence or to push back in only the most passive-aggressive way when falsely attacked by a corporate organization dedicated to our downfall. This is blood sport for the press and to argue that President Trump should just sit back and take it says something about how we’ve changed as a society. To throw in the needless jab about that pandemic (as if he can only do one thing at a time) is passive-aggressive to a fault If Trump truly believes, as seems evident to anyone with eyes and ears, that the news media is attempting to drive him from office, he is duty bound by his oath to resist them. This is no good faith reporting; it’s orchestrated propaganda for purely corporate purposes that events have shown to be false. (See any Project Veritas expose.) When you do that, you’re not an entity worthy of constitutional protection, you just worthy of the title “enemy of the people.”

    1. The reporting by the NYTs – and WaPo – on the Trump campaign’s Russian collusion and the subsequent investigations was largely accurate. For instance, the meeting in Trump Tower with all the campaign principles except Trump was as reported, as was the lie made up personally by Trump to cover it up while on AIr Force One headed to Europe. Similarly, we know the Russians were behind the hacking of DNC emails which Trump encouraged, Manafort passed on polling information to Russian bots mills, there were over 100 meetings between campaign members and Russians prior to the inauguration, and that Trump relied on the Deutsche Bank and Russian oligarches to bail him out when all other lenders cut him off in the 2000s.

        1. The Mueller Report confirms what the Times and WaPo wrote on these events.

          1. BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

            You would have made a great cult member back in the 1950s when the UFO cult said aliens would save them from a flood that would wipe out Chicago. The aliens dis not come, but that did not dissuade many of the cult members. They just said that it was all a test of their faith and went on believing.

            That was the group that research was done on for cognitive dissonance.

            Squeeky Fromm
            Girl Reporter

            1. The Mueller Report confirms what the Times and WaPo wrote on these events.

              It’s simpler than that. When he’s wrong about something, he lies for effect. Out of puerile curiosity, I’d love to know what strategies his family employs to put up with it.

              1. “Out of puerile curiosity, I’d love to know what strategies his family employs to put up with it.”
                *****************
                I’m guessing copious Scotch and industrial grade ear plugs.

      2. “Similarly, we know the Russians were behind the hacking of DNC emails which Trump encouraged,”

        We do not know any such thing. You are just making stuff up to avoid Democrats looking like paranoid idiots over Russiagate. And you are failing.

        No member of the FBI ever looked at the DNC servers. Not one single agent.

        Squeeky Fromm
        Girl Reporter

      3. I never saw a Parrot that lied so well. This Parrot must have a very dedicated trainer.

      4. The reporting by the NYTs – and WaPo – on the Trump campaign’s Russian collusion and the subsequent investigations was largely accurate.
        ***********************
        A fine example of the Big Lie.

    2. This is the way Universities function. One plays nice-nice unless one is supporting a Democratic cause. Turley is stuck. He is both on the left and actually believes in things like freedom of speech. Therefore, Turley can’t say exactly what might be on his mind. If he did he would be ostrasized as would his wife and children. Alan Dershowitz learned that in his old age but Turley is still a relatively young man with a career ahead and children that might wish to attend the Ivy Leagues.

      1. He’s got tenure and he’s about a decade from retirement. It’s doubtful his children will be hunted down by admissions examiners. As for the Ivy League, it’s for two sorts of people: those for whom $250,000 is sofa change and those who can get a deep discount. If that’s not you, they ain’t worth the candle. The University of Maryland will do passably, and it’s likely GW has deep discounts for employees. Most institutions of higher education do.

        Academics do tend to be other-directed people whose capacity for resistance extends only to defending what they conceive of as being their personal / professional prerogatives. A lot of them are bubble-dwellers who believe crazy sh!t. Not an admirable crew, by and large.

        1. DSS, yes and no. Turley doesn’t want to lose his income stream and fame by upsetting those that provide the benefits outside the university setting. You might be considering the risk to Turley’s family based on ‘actual risk’ or not. Turley is the head of the family so he will likely be far more risk averse regarding his family than the ‘actual risk’.

          Alan Dershowitz recently has paid a huge price with his name being besmearched and his friends abandoning him. Dershowitz history and recognition protected him more than Turley would be protected.

  17. All the news that’s fit to print. That was the hashtag of the N Y Times.
    Now it’s all the itShay no matter what the piglatin tells them.
    Fake news is a nice term. Maybe “Jake” news after Jake Tapper.

  18. If this is the strongest evocation of frustration that Trump can call up, then he is surely the most well-tempered man I have ever seen. Obama would have folded the first month of his presidency had he been covered with such virulent scrutiny as the media has layed uponTrump.

  19. The Fake News Media can’t go two days without having to correct a story. Just a bunch of leftists activists. Journalism is Dead!

  20. There are several Nobels or Nobles, and god knows how many Pulitzers that should be demanded back. Suing would be an interesting way to go. Suing in the public interest.

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