everwas

a blog by Ian Kennedy

Tag: Donald Trump

  • The $20B Edit

    The $20B Edit

    MediaPost delves into the specifics of what caused the Trump administration to accuse 60 Minutes of manipulating a quote and commit election fraud.

    Face the Nation used the first half of Kamala Harris’ response to a question while 60 Minutes used the second half. Was this really cause for a $20 billion lawsuit that ultimately resulted in the resignation the 37-year veteran Executive Producer of 60 Minutes, Bill Evans?

    You can read Adam Buckman’s details below,

    The question posed by “60 Minutes” correspondent Bill Whitaker in that part of the transcript was a follow-up question to a previous question-and-answer about the relationship between the Biden administration and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

    “But it seems that Prime Minister Netanyahu is not listening,” Whitaker said. “The Wall Street Journal said that he — that your administration has repeatedly been blindsided by Netanyahu and, in fact, he has rebuffed just about all of your administration’s entreaties.”

    To which Harris replied: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region. And we’re not going to stop doing that. We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

    The first sentence of that answer was used on “Face the Nation”: “Well, Bill, the work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things, including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”

    On “60 Minutes,” the final sentence was used instead: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”

    Revealed: The ’60 Minutes’ Edit That Spawned A $20 Billion Lawsuit

  • Don’t Do It

    Don’t Do It

    We’re now down to the final days and it’s still really close. For those that think another President Trump can’t be that bad or just want to send a message to the political establishment, here’s a rundown of what happened the last time Trump was in office and what awaits if he’s re-elected.

    Remember all the crazy turnover at the White House? For awhile, I was keeping track.

    January 2017 – Remember the Muslim Ban and how BART had to tweet that “those of foreign national origin are welcome on BART.”

    March 2017 – “We have to understand that the alternative to facts is not alternative facts. It’s fiction.” Marty Baron, then editor of the Washington Post

    September 2017 – Hillary Clinton on Trump, “So when I say that he doesn’t just like Putin, that he wants to be Putin. I’m not saying he’s going to start killing journalists but I am saying he likes the idea of unaccountable, unchecked power.”

    August 2018 – Remember when Trump was just a “unindicted co-conspirator”

    June 2019 – an all-star cast of actors gathered together in New York to perform a dramatic reading of the 448-page Mueller Report

    November 2019 – Remember Marie Yovanovitch, the former US Ambassador to Ukraine and how Trump threatened her, as she was testifying to congress? What about when her replacement,

    October 2020 – The venerable and respected New England Journal of Medicine broke with tradition and published a political editorial lambasting the current administration’s response to Covid-19.

    November 2020 – Was there a Quid Pro Quo? “As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes.”

    And that’s just stuff that I wrote about.

    “Mr. Trump’s first term was a warning,” says The New York Times did put together a timeline setting the record straight. (gift link

    Not that this should be any indication of a candidate’s qualifications for the job, it does give you insight to their web dev team and it’s something I did before. Interesting to see that Trump’s team is still running a 404 jabbing at the last guy.

    As Michelle Obama said at a recent rally in Michigan, “This is not just the obligation of what we should say no to, it’s about the opportunity for what we can say yes to.”

    And just to put a point on it . . .

  • The Day After

    The Day After

    There was a global sigh of relief yesterday as the news broke that Joe Biden would be the 46th president and Kamala Harris would be the first bi-racial woman as his vice-president.

    The funny,

    The emotional,

    But as we pick up the champagne bottles from the park, let’s not forgot how we got here in the first place. While Biden-Harris received the most votes anyone has ever received, there still were almost 71 million souls who voted for another Trump term.

    Looking at a post from the day after Trump’s election in 2016, there’s a somber message on how we ended up with Trump in the first place that we must never forget. We have a social and economic system that doesn’t work for many people in the United States. The pandemic has only exasperated things and brought the divide between the upper and lower classes into even starker relief.

    As Michael Moore said last night, “Now we must defeat that which gave us Trump.”

    Folks, we stand at an inflection point. We have the opportunity to beat despair, to build prosperity and purpose. We can do it. I long talked about the battle for the soul of America. We must restore the soul of America. Our nation is shaped by the constant battle between our better angels and our darkest impulses. It’s time for our better angels to prevail.

    Transcript of Joe Biden’s victory speech
  • NEJM Fires Trump

    NEJM Fires Trump

    The venerable and respected New England Journal of Medicine broke with tradition and published a political editorial lambasting the current administration’s response to Covid-19. While they did not call out Trump & Pence by name, they basically called them a threat to the health and society of all Americans and encouraged their readers to vote them out of office.

    It starts,

    Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.

    The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. 

    After a couple of data points showing how poorly the US squandered its opportunity to respond and how corrosive the administration was to basic science they continue,

    An outbreak that has disproportionately affected communities of color has exacerbated the tensions associated with inequality. Many of our children are missing school at critical times in their social and intellectual development. The hard work of health care professionals, who have put their lives on the line, has not been used wisely. 

    Then finally, the zinger.

    Anyone else who recklessly squandered lives and money in this way would be suffering legal consequences. Our leaders have largely claimed immunity for their actions. But this election gives us the power to render judgment. Reasonable people will certainly disagree about the many political positions taken by candidates. But truth is neither liberal nor conservative. When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.

    Read the full editorial, Dying in a Leadership Vacuum, and vote.

  • Impeachment Bon Mots

    I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a ‘quid pro quo?’ As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is ‘yes.’

    Ambassador Gordon Sondland, November 21, 2019

  • Behind the scenes

    Trump vs. Bald Eagle
  • Post-Midterm Trump

    Post-Midterm Trump

    I am shocked at how this president treats the press. I can appreciate how the relationship is adversarial, that is healthy, but there is no reason for him to hurl insults from the podium and say things like, “You are a rude, terrible person,” to Jim Acosta from CNN.

    Il Duce

    Good for Peter Alexander from NBC to step in and stand up for Jim’s character but that didn’t prevent him from getting some collateral damage of his own.  “Well I’m not a big fan of yours either,” Trump said.

    Later in the day,  Acosta’s press credentials to the White House were taken away because of, “placing his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job as a White House intern.” A tweet from the White House Press Secretary makes it sound as if Acosta assaulted the woman in some way. But if you look at the video above, it does not seem to be that way at all. Acosta was just trying to hang on to the mic to finish his question and even said, “Pardon me, ma’am.” No assault or “karate chop.”

    A couple of months ago, SmartNews hosted Dan Rather at an event at the annual Online News Association conference in Austin. Speaking to a room of fellow journalists, Mr. Rather warned of events such as the one above and stressed the importance of journalists sticking together through what he saw as a very dark time ahead. Here are a few clips from his speech.

    I’m glad to see that CNN, NBC, Peter Alexander the White House Correspondents’ Association are standing behind Jim Acosta. Everyone who believes in a free press should do the same.

  • Turn of the Screw

    Turn of the Screw

    August 21st felt like a turning point. With the simultaneous trials of Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort popping out new bits of information about how Donald Trump ran his campaign, we learned that our President may be an “unindicted co-conspirator” in a crime. That’s an especially loaded term commonly associated with Nixon and Watergate (Wikipedia has already updated itself to include Trump) that indicates we may be headed into impeachment territory depending on the outcome of our midterm elections.

    Joe Kahn, Managing Editor at the New York Times gave a very measured summary of the events of the day on The Daily podcast, part of what I’ve transcribed below.

    This was the day that a series of possible charges turned into something that really is a direct legal and direct political threat to Trump’s longevity in office. It is quite likely that this will become a central issue in the midterm elections and force voters to decide whether or not they want to put Democrats back into majority in the house precisely because impeachment proceedings are the constitutional way to adjudicate a accusation of criminal activity by the President United States.

    Up until now, even Democrats, had been reluctant to waive the impeachment flag as part of their campaign in the midterm elections. But you now have the President effectively being an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime. It seems highly likely that that then becomes a serious political if not a direct legal threat to the President. So this is a historic shift in the nature of the threat that we’ve been hearing about, writing about, talking about for so many months.

    Impeachment is an unavoidable topic. It doesn’t mean he will be impeached. It doesn’t mean that if he is impeached he will be convicted but it is unavoidable topic when the president is an unindicted co-conspirator in a crime. That is the constitutional mechanism for adjudicating a credible accusation of illegal activity by the President of the United States.

    Joe Kahn, Managing Editor, The New York Times

    The following morning, here is the President’s response.

  • Tale of Two Videos

    Compare and contrast.

    French President Emmanuel Macron addressing Congress.

    U.S. President Donald Trump calling in to Fox & Friends this morning.