Full Show - GOP Admits Attempt At Stealing Election - 03/17/2016
Published on Mar 17, 2016 by The Alex Jones Channel
On this Thursday, March 17 edition of the Alex Jones Show we cover the plan to sabotage the Trump campaign at the convention and a report by a Rothschild operation saying Trump is more dangerous to the globalist order than jihadi terror and a currency meltdown. We also examine a planned protest at the Trump Tower by a gaggle of leftists and fellow traveler Democrats. Also, we cover the Pope’s request nations open their borders and “hearts” to rampaging immigrants. On today’s worldwide broadcast we talk with Trump confidant and insider Roger Stone.
Full Show - Happy Millionth Kill, Obama! - 03/18/2016
Published on Mar 18, 2016 by The Alex Jones Channel
On this Friday, March 18 edition of the Alex Jones Show, we look into the exploding surveillance state as Apple engineers threaten to quit if the government tries to force them to undermine encryption software. Journalist Dr. Jerome Corsi breaks down how the establishment is moving against Trump and we also look into why the globalists fear Trump. Additionally, we look into how leftist “anti-hate” activists are actually the most hateful people imaginable.
Donald Trump makes his third visit to Arizona. The rally takes place at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona.
[also includes most of Trump's March 18, 2016 rally in Utah, beginning at c. the 12:25 mark and running through c. the 50:40 mark, and from there through the beginning of the rally covers protests there in Fountain Hills/the Phoenix area and in New York City]
FULL COVERAGE: Donald Trump Rally in Tucson, Arizona - FNN
Streamed live on Mar 19, 2016 by FOX 10 Phoenix
Donald Trump talks about immigration and border issues at a rally in Tucson, Arizona on Saturday, March 19, 2016. Steve Krafft and Samia Khan then analyze Trump's Fountain Hills event [item just above] and Steve compares and contrasts it with Trump's first campaign event in Phoenix back in summer 2015.
A young protester got knocked down and kicked several times by a Donald Trump supporter, all while being escorted out of the Republican presidential front-runner's rally in Tucson on Saturday evening. (March 19)
Violence erupts at Donald Trump rally in Tucson A member of the audience, right, throws a punch at a protester as Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a campaign event in Tucson, Arizona March 19, 2015. Last Updated Mar 20, 2016 http://www.cbsnews.com/news/violence-erupts-at-donald-trump-rally-in-tucson-arizona-election-2016/ [with embedded video report, and comments]
During the rally, the man introduced himself to Tucson police officers as a member of Trump’s security team during a discussion about the large contingent of protesters at the rally, according to a source who witnessed the exchange in the upper level of the Tucson Convention Center. The source said the man, dressed in a dark pullover embroidered with the logo for “Trump National Doral” resort, also could be seen directing uniformed security personnel inside the convention center, which hosted the rally.
Multiple journalists who have covered Trump’s campaign rallies also identified the man [ https://twitter.com/SchreckReports/status/711363902374805505 ] as a member of the candidate’s private security detail, which has deployed staffers in street clothes to root out protesters.
At some point during the rally, the unidentified man in the dark pullover was captured on video, alongside Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, engaging in what appears to be a heated conversation with a young protester. Lewandowski can be seen grabbing the collar of the protester, who is subsequently pulled backward forcefully.
Trump campaign spokesman Hope Hicks, in a statement issued Saturday night in response to the Tucson video, said it was the man in the dark pullover ? not Lewandowski ? who forcefully pulled the protester. While she failed to identify the man in the dark pullover as a member of Trump’s security detail, she suggested his actions were justified by the behavior of the protester, who can be seen in the video grabbing the arm of a young woman in front of him.
When POLITICO on Sunday asked Hicks why she did not identify the man as a member of Trump’s security detail, she explained: “Although we did not identify this individual, we did not make any suggestion as to his affiliation or lack thereof.”
In her original statement on Saturday night, Hicks said that the protester in question “was pulled from behind by the man to Lewandowski’s left. The video clearly shows the protestor reacting to the man who pulled him, not to Mr. Lewandowski. The man to Corey's left who pulls the protester back and many other people in the scene are reacting to the protestor grabbing the woman in the green shirt.”
Hicks on Sunday declined to provide the name of the security officer in the dark pullover. But she suggested the campaign would try to limit its staff’s interactions with protesters going forward.
“We will be dedicating additional security resources to larger events in the future to prevent staff from having to intervene,” she told POLITICO.
Hicks pointed out that the Tucson protesters with whom Lewandowski and the unidentified security officer had the altercation were “holding signs laced with profanity.” She added “while we do not condone violence or interactions of any kind, that kind of language is not acceptable for the families and television cameras in attendance.”
During Saturday’s rally in Tucson, Trump was interrupted several times by protesters.
And, in a separate incident [ https://twitter.com/alex_satterly/status/711323486950596608 ], a protester who was being led out of the rally by uniformed security was punched and stomped by another attendee, who was subsequently detained by police.
Trump campaign manager charged with battery in Florida
Corey Lewandowski, campaign manager for Donald Trump, speaks with the media at the Mar-A-Lago Club in Palm Beach on March 11. (Joe Raedle)
By David A. Fahrenthold and Wesley Lowery March 29, 2016
The campaign manager for Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump was charged Tuesday in Florida with battery for allegedly grabbing and yanking the arm of a Breitbart News reporter who had been trying to ask Trump a question.
Corey Lewandowski, 42, faces one misdemeanor count of battery. He voluntarily went to police headquarters in Jupiter, Fla., and signed paperwork that ordered him to appear in court on May 4.
Afterward, however, Lewandowski and Trump both rejected Fields’s account. Lewandowski tweeted that Fields was “totally delusional” and wrote that he “never touched you.”
But on Tuesday, a court affidavit written by Marc Bujnowski of the Jupiter Police Department said that was untrue.
The affidavit cited a security-camera tape from Trump’s own club — which was made public Tuesday. More clearly than past videos of the incident, it appeared to show Lewandowski reaching out to grab the reporter.
“Lewandowski .?.?. grabbed Fields’ left arm with his right hand, causing her to turn and step back,” Bujnowski wrote in an affidavit describing the incident. The affidavit continued: “Probable cause exists to charge Corey Lewandowski .?.?. with (1) count of Simple Battery.”
In a tweet shortly after the video was released, Trump stood by his campaign manager, calling him a “very decent man.”
“Look at tapes — nothing there!” he concluded.
Trump’s campaign put out a statement defending Lewandowski on Tuesday. It gave no indication that he would be suspended or otherwise removed from his duties as campaign manager.
“Mr. Lewandowski is absolutely innocent of this charge. He will enter a plea of not guilty and looks forward to his day in court,” campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks said in a statement. “He is completely confident that he will be exonerated.”
Hicks said that Lewandowski will be represented by Florida lawyers Scott Richardson and Kendall Coffey.
Shortly after Lewandowski turned himself in, a dispute erupted over whether he had been arrested. The Trump campaign insisted in a statement that he “was not arrested,” although a police report distributed to news outlets said his arrest occurred at 8:10 a.m.
A spokesman for the Jupiter Police Department said that Lewandowski was informed that he would be charged and that he voluntarily went to police headquarters, where he signed a form at 8:10 a.m. Tuesday to acknowledge his May 4 court date.
“He came in by himself, without us picking him up, and signed his notice to appear,” said officer Joseph Beinlich, a department spokesman. He added that because Lewandowski faces a misdemeanor charge, no booking photo was taken.
It was not clear from the Trump campaign’s statement whether its contention was still that Lewandowski never touched Fields.
In the days after the incident, Trump’s campaign said it believed Fields was grabbed by another man in Trump’s entourage — possibly a security official.
“This was, in my opinion, made up,” Trump told CNN then. “Everybody said nothing happened. Perhaps she made the story up. I think that’s what happened.”
In a previously unpublished interview with The Washington Post — conducted last Wednesday, before charges were filed, at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach — Lewandowski continued to assert that he never made contact with Fields.
He said it was wrong to think that he had cleared Fields away from Trump’s path because he thought she would ask him an uncomfortable question.
“Just the premise that Breitbart is going to ask Mr. Trump a question that he can’t handle, and I’m so concerned what this question might be — on its face, that is just an egregious notion,” Lewandowski said.
A reporter pointed out that Terris, the Post reporter, saw the incident unfold.
“I don’t know. I don’t know what Ben did or didn’t see. I have no idea, but I’m not calling into question anything other than the fact that I don’t know him. He and I have never met,” Lewandowski said. “I don’t know Ben, and I don’t know [Fields], and I’ve never met her.”
Also Tuesday, a spokeswoman for Trump’s chief rival in the GOP presidential race, Sen. Ted Cruz (Tex.), issued a statement condemning Trump’s campaign.
“Unfortunately, this abusive behavior seems to be part of the culture of the Trump campaign. Personal attacks, verbal attacks, and now physical attacks have no place in politics or anywhere else in our society,” spokeswoman Catherine Frazier said.
Callum Borchers, Jose A. DelReal, Karen Tumulty and Sean Sullivan contributed to this report.
Dreams from My Real Father: A Story of Reds and Deception
Published on Apr 24, 2012 by Joel Gilbert http://obamasrealfather.com/ At age 18, Barack Obama admittedly arrived at Occidental College a committed revolutionary Marxist. What was the source of Obama's foundation in Marxism? Throughout his 2008 Presidential campaign and term in office, questions have been raised regarding Barack Obama's family background, economic philosophy, and fundamental political ideology. Dreams from My Real Father is the alternative Barack Obama "autobiography," offering a divergent theory of what may have shaped our 44th President's life and politics. In Dreams from My Real Father, Barack Obama is portrayed by a voiceover actor who chronicles Barack Obama's life journey in socialism, from birth through his election to the Presidency. The film begins by presenting the case that Barack Obama's real father was Frank Marshall Davis, a Communist Party USA propagandist who likely shaped Obama's world view during his formative years. Barack Obama sold himself to America as the multi-cultural ideal, a man who stood above politics. Was the goat herding Kenyan father only a fairy tale to obscure a Marxist agenda, irreconcilable with American values? This fascinating narrative is based in part on 2 years of research, interviews, newly unearthed footage and photos, and the writings of Davis and Obama himself. Dreams of My Real Father weaves together the proven facts with reasoned logic in an attempt to fill-in the obvious gaps in Obama's history. Is this the story Barack Obama should have told, revealing his true agenda for "fundamentally transforming America?" Director Joel Gilbert concludes, "To understand Obama's plans for America, the question is not 'Where's the Birth Certificate?,' the question is 'Who is the real father?'" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jrrnkKmUzo [with comments]
G. Edward Griffin - The Collectivist Conspiracy
Uploaded on Apr 20, 2011 by whahappa [ http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvbjYNBQZeKiqMyK3izcZTQ / http://www.youtube.com/user/whahappa , http://www.youtube.com/user/whahappa/videos ] In this exclusive 80 minute video interview, legendary conspiracy author G. Edward Griffin explains how his research, which spans no less than 5 decades, has revealed a banking elite obsessed with enforcing a world government under a collectivist model that will crush individualism and eventually institute martial law as a response to the inevitable backlash that will be generated as a result of a fundamental re-shaping of society. Griffin discusses the similarities between the extreme left and the extreme right in the false political paradigm and how this highlights a recurring theme - collectivism. Collectivism is the opposite of individualism and believes that the interests of the individual must be sacrificed for the greater good of the greater number, explains Griffin, uniting the doctrines of communism and fascism. Both the Republican and Democrat parties in the United States are committed to advancing collectivism and this is why the same policies are followed no matter who is voted in to the White House. "All collectivist systems eventually deteriorate into a police state because that's the only way you can hold it together," warns Griffin. Carroll Quigley, Georgetown University Professor and mentor to former president Bill Clinton, explained in his books Tragedy and Hope and The Anglo-American Establishment, how the elite maintained a silent dictatorship while fooling people into thinking they had political freedom, by creating squabbles between the two parties in terms of slogans and leadership, while all the time controlling both from the top down and pursuing the same agenda. Griffin documents how the Tea Party, after its beginnings as a grass roots movement, was later hijacked by the Republicans through the likes of Sarah Palin and Glenn Beck. Pointing out how Republicans and Democrats agree on the most important topics, such as US foreign policy, endless wars in the Middle East, and the dominance of the private banking system over the economy, Griffin lays out how the left-right hoax is used to steer the destiny of America. Griffin also talks at length on a myriad of other important subjects, such as the move towards a Chinese-style censored Internet, the demonization of the John Birch Society as a racist extremist group, the Hegelian dialectic, the power of tax-exempt foundations and the Council on Foreign Relations, the movement towards world government, and the question of whether the elite are really worried about the growing awareness of their agenda amongst Americans. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jAdu0N1-tvU [with comments]
Here comes the opposition book: Clinton and her allies prepare for Trump
On the night of Florida’s primary last week, Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton speaks to a cheering crowd of supporters at her victory party in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Melina Mara/The Washington Post)
By Anne Gearan and Abby Phillip March 20, 2016
Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton and her allies have begun preparing a playbook to defeat Donald Trump in a general-election matchup that will attempt to do what his Republican opponents couldn’t: show that his business dealings and impolitic statements make him unfit to be commander in chief.
Both the Clinton campaign and outside supporters are confident that she and Trump will almost certainly face each other in the general election and that the focus is shifting past her hard-fought primary campaign against Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont.
They are now focused intently on researching the billionaire real estate mogul’s business record, dissecting his economic policies and compiling a long history of controversial pronouncements that have captivated and repelled the nation in this tumultuous election season.
Neither the Clinton campaign nor several independent super PACs working on her behalf plan to respond with the same brass-knuckles style that Trump has taken with his Republican opponents, aides and outside supporters said. But in their view, Trump isn’t Teflon: Republicans waited too long to go after him, and they went about it the wrong way.
“What the Republicans did was too little, too late,” said David Brock, who runs two pro-Clinton super PACs now engaged in researching and responding to Trump. “It was petty insults. It was not strategic.”
Justin Barasky, spokesman for the large pro-Clinton super PAC Priorities USA, said Republican candidates committed “malpractice” by failing to raise liabilities from Trump’s past or aggressively challenge him on offensive or incorrect statements.
Implicit in the effort is real worry about Trump’s outsider appeal in a year dominated by ¬working-class anger and economic anxiety. The prospect that Trump could compete for some of the blue-collar voters who have flocked to Sanders, for instance — or to reorder the map of competitive states to include trade-affected Michigan or Pennsylvania — has prompted Clinton’s allies to leave nothing to chance.
Yet, they also believe that, although Trump has motivated a loyal plurality of supporters in primary contests, he has limited ability to expand that support once the Republican field clears. Because of the litany of controversial pronouncements he has made, they expect a Trump nomination to make it easier to rally women, Latino and African American voters to turn out for Clinton. In fact, her aides are planning for a historic gender gap between Clinton and Trump.
Given Trump’s willingness to attack his opponents — and his pivot to going after Clinton in recent days — one clear presumption has emerged about the fall contest: It will be ugly.
That’s one reason the former secretary of state plans to counter Trump with high-road substance, policy and issues, according to one senior campaign aide. The idea is to showcase what Clinton’s backers see as her readiness for the job without lowering her to what they describe as Trump’s gutter.
The aide said the campaign’s day-to-day decision-making remains focused on Sanders. But Clinton swept all five states that voted Tuesday, and Trump did well, meaning both are far closer than any competitor to securing their respective party’s nomination. Clinton is also far ahead in polling in Arizona, a large contest this week, while Sanders is expected to pick up victories in other Western states that the Clinton campaign maintains will have little effect on her lead.
A central lesson of Trump’s primary battle, the campaign aide said, is that he cannot be ignored — but also that he cannot be beaten at his own game. The key will be to maintain stature by focusing on her message of political unity and economic growth and by showing knowledge and strength on foreign issues. The aide spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak candidly about internal strategy.
“It’s kind of mutually assured destruction: Both sides line up their nukes. It’s going to be just ugly and nasty and icky,” said another Democrat with longtime ties to the Clinton family. “The winner will not be the least bad of the two. The winner will be the one in the contest of that mutually assured destruction who also has a vision and a message about the future that is both inspiring and credible for the rest of the country.”
At the same time, her infrastructure of outside supporters will be poised to respond to what they expect will be Trump’s all-out war against Clinton on everything, both personal and political. Clinton’s backers acknowledged that she is also a divisive figure and that controversies such as her use of a private email server while secretary of state will not evaporate during the general election.
“We will not make the same mistake the Republicans made” by letting attacks go unchallenged, Brock said.
Trump has repeatedly brushed off polling indicating that he would lose in a head-to-head contest with Clinton. But after his victories in Florida and elsewhere last week, he sounded like a ¬general-election candidate who recognizes the challenge ahead.
“We have to bring our party together,” he said. “We have something that actually makes the Republican Party probably the biggest political story in the world.”
Trump has benefited in the primary season from the failure of Republicans to unite behind a single foil to his candidacy — and from his own strategy of picking off successive targets whom he viewed as weak. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson both made the mistake, Clinton supporters said, of trying to ignore Trump’s insults or wait out a Trump decline that never came. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) made the other mistake of trying to use Trump’s own tactics.
“You can’t beat him by being him,” Barasky said.
In a one-on-one race against Clinton, Trump would have less room to parry or pivot the same way, the senior Clinton campaign aide said, because Trump would have one target and one target only.
Barasky and others also predicted that Trump will emerge more damaged by his primary fight than Clinton, because of the deep divisions he has caused and exploited. Sanders supporters may not like Clinton, but their distaste for her doesn’t approach the antipathy or angst that many Republican voters harbor about Trump, they said.
Trump satisfied his loyal supporters by playing a character — the bully, the iconoclast — but he turned off many in his own party in the process, said several Clinton supporters who are studying the Republican race.
In fact, they believe Trump’s own words will make one of their central objectives easy: tearing him down in the eyes of women, notably Republicans and independents.
Several outside groups — including Emily’s List, which supports Democratic women who favor abortion rights — are compiling dossiers of statements denigrating women that were taken from the candidate’s own mouth, not just in this campaign but far into his past.
“You’re a mom and you’ve got your kids sitting on the couch and you watch the nightly news and you’ve got this guy saying things as a presidential candidate that you tell your kids not to say,” said Stephanie Schriock, president of Emily’s List. “You don’t call women bimbos; you don’t say that they’re fat.”
Women, including independents who sometimes vote Republican, are going to be repulsed, Schriock said.
Trump will also be a rallying point for Clinton’s message to black voters, particularly older ones, who view Trump’s rhetoric and his raucous rallies as reminiscent of the worst of America’s past.
At an MSNBC forum Monday, Clinton said that Trump’s rallies and his exhortations to violence resemble the “lynch mobs” of the South during the Jim Crow era. The remark came after videos from a Trump rally in Fayetteville, N.C., were widely disseminated and showed a white Trump supporter punching a black protester in the face.
“The secretary has hit on a really important chord that is running through the African American community: This community is 50 years or less from the civil rights images of dogs and hoses and frightening images,” said Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Tex.), who has endorsed Clinton. “That visual of the sucker punch is going to be ingrained in us forever. You can’t take it back.”
Several pro-Clinton super PACs are compiling research on Trump from his long career in business and much shorter career in politics. The strategy is still a work in progress, and ongoing research through polling, focus groups and forensic accounting, among other tools, will continue through the spring.
Much of the work is to search for vulnerabilities that in other years, with other candidates, would have already been exploited by other Republican candidates during the primary.
Plans are well underway to present Trump’s bankruptcies and management history to voters — particularly to women and the working class.
In addition, Trump opposes an increase in the minimum wage and has proposed tax breaks for the wealthy, positions that his Republican opponents could not go after but which Clinton supporters believe will play poorly in the general election.
People who suffered from Trump’s business decisions will be featured in testimonial advertisements and media campaigns, Brock said. The media strategy is not unlike several successful efforts in 2012 to tie Republican Mitt Romney to the layoffs and business closures that his company, Bain Capital, was responsible for.
“You’re definitely going to hear from a number of people who are former customers, clients, employees, who got the short end of the stick in various ways dealing with Trump,” Brock said. “That’s fertile ground.”
Schriock also noted: “It’s about character. It all ties to what kind of character does this man have.”
And it is about money. As the general election approaches, Clinton’s allies are preparing to draw from the discontent in Republican ranks to fill her campaign coffers.
“I’ve gotten phone calls and emails from a few major Republican donors who have said, in effect, ‘I will let you know when I’m ready to have you make an introduction for me,’?” said Andy Spahn, president of a Los Angeles consulting firm and a longtime Clinton adviser and top Democratic fundraiser. “There is certainly an element of the Republican Party, be it voters or high-net-worth donors, who are uncomfortable with what is happening.”
Other Democrats also assessed that, in addition to GOP donors, Republican congressional candidates will run away from Trump in the general election, underscoring what they see as his thin qualifications — and the danger he poses to their own political fortunes.
Obama Urges Journalists to Cover the Substance of the Campaign
President Obama at the Toner Award Ceremony on Monday in Washington. The prize was named after Robin Toner, a longtime political reporter who died in 2008. Credit Zach Gibson/The New York Times
By MARK LANDLER MARCH 28, 2016
WASHINGTON — President Obama [ http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/o/barack_obama/index.html ] delivered a forceful critique on Monday of politicians and the journalists who cover them, lamenting the circuslike atmosphere of the presidential campaign and declaring, “A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone.”
Speaking at a journalism prize ceremony in honor of Robin Toner, a longtime political reporter for The New York Times who died in 2008 [ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/13/obituaries/12toner.html ], Mr. Obama said the 2016 campaign had become “entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis,” a coarse spectacle that he said was tarnishing the “American brand” around the world.
“I was going to call it a carnival atmosphere,” the president said, “but that implies fun.”
“The No. 1 question I’m getting as I travel around the world or talk to world leaders right now is, ‘What is happening in America about our politics?’ ” Mr. Obama continued. “They care about America, the most powerful nation on earth, functioning effectively and its government being able to make sound decisions.”
Mr. Obama’s references to Donald J. Trump [ http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2016/us/elections/donald-trump-on-the-issues.html ], the New York real estate developer turned Republican front-runner, were unmistakable in his criticism of “divisive and often vulgar rhetoric,” frequently aimed at women and at ethnic and racial minorities. But he also turned his fire on the news media, saying it had given an uncritical platform to those pronouncements, in part because of relentless economic pressures that have changed the way news organizations operate.
“When people put their faith into someone who can’t possibly deliver his or her own promises,” Mr. Obama said, “that only breeds more cynicism.”
The president denounced what he called the practice of drawing “false equivalences” between competing claims made by politicians. “If I say the world is round and someone else says it’s flat, that’s worth reporting,” Mr. Obama said. “But you might also want to report on a bunch of scientific evidence that seems to support the notion that the world is round.”
Addressing an audience that included newspaper proprietors in addition to editors and reporters, the president said that despite their shrinking newsrooms and profit margins, they needed to plow money into investigative journalism. He warned them to avoid the ephemeral blandishments of the digital age — “slapdash” Twitter posts that disappear from iPhone screens within seconds — in favor of in-depth coverage of the issues.
“Just because something is substantive doesn’t mean it is not interesting,” Mr. Obama said.
Mr. Obama has discussed the coarse tone of the campaign before, as well as the economic realities of the corporate media world. But rarely has he spoken with such passion about what he views as the unmet promise of the news media. He spoke nostalgically about returning to his house in Chicago to sift through stacks of old newspapers, left on his desk, from the months before he was elected president.
“The curating function has diminished in this smartphone age,” he said.
Mr. Obama acknowledged that his relationship with the news media had not been unruffled during his years in the White House, but he suggested that he followed daily news coverage closely, saying, “You should not underestimate the number of times I’ve read something that you did and called somebody up and said, ‘What’s going on here?’ ”
The president singled out Jeffrey Goldberg, the national correspondent for The Atlantic magazine, for a lengthy article [ http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/04/the-obama-doctrine/471525/ ] he wrote on Mr. Obama’s foreign policy that caused ripples around the world. Mr. Obama made clear the quotes attributed to him were accurate (they included blunt criticism of American allies like Saudi Arabia and Prime Minister David Cameron of Britain).
The article, Mr. Obama said, had come up in a conversation he had with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia. Mr. Putin, evidently, was surprised by the candid tone of his comments.
“Unlike you, Vladimir, I don’t get to edit the piece before it’s published,” Mr. Obama said with a grin.
President Obama Delivers Remarks at the Toner Prize Ceremony
Published on Mar 29, 2016 by The White House
President Barack Obama delivers the keynote at the award presentation for the Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting, March 28, 2016.
*
Remarks by the President at the 2016 Toner Prize Ceremony
Andrew W. Mellon Auditorium Washington, D.C. March 28, 2016
7:49 P.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening, everybody. And thank you, Chancellor Syverud for those wonderful remarks and reminding me of how badly my bracket is doing. (Laughter.) Congratulations, Syracuse. You guys are doing great. (Applause.) I want to thank Robin’s wonderful husband, Peter, and their incredible kids, Jake and Nora, for organizing this annual tribute to her memory. And I want to thank all of you for having me here this evening.
A Washington press dinner usually means ill-fitting tuxes, celebrity sightings, and bad jokes. So this is refreshing.
And it is a great honor to be here to celebrate the 2015 Toner Prize for Excellence in Political Reporting. In this political season, it is worth reflecting on the kind of journalism Robin practiced -- and the kind of journalism this prize rewards.
A reporter’s reporter -- that was Robin. From her first job at the Charleston Daily Mail to her tenure as the New York Times' national political correspondent -- the first woman to hold that position -- she always saw herself as being a servant for the American public. She had a sense of mission and purpose in her work. For Robin, politics was not a horserace, or a circus, or a tally of who scored more political points than whom, but rather was fundamentally about issues and how they affected the lives of real people.
She treated the public with respect -- didn’t just skim the surface. Few reporters understood the intricacies of health care policy better. Few could cut to the heart of a tax reform plan more deeply -- and analyze how it would affect everybody, from a struggling worker to a hedge fund manager. Few could explain complicated, esoteric political issues in a way that Americans could digest and use to make informed choices at the ballot box.
Robin's work was meticulous. No detail was too small to confirm, and no task too minor to complete. And that, too, she saw as her responsibility -- the responsibility of journalism. She famously developed her own fact-checking system, cleaning up every name and date and figure in her piece -- something most reporters relied on others to do. And it's no wonder then that of her almost 2,000 articles, only six required published corrections. And knowing Robin, that was probably six too many for her taste.
And this speaks to more than just her thoroughness or some obsessive compulsiveness when it came to typos. It was about Robin’s commitment to seeking out and telling the truth. She would not stand for any stray mark that might mar an otherwise flawless piece -- because she knew the public relied on her to give them the truth as best as she could find it.
Of course, these were qualities were harder to appreciate when her lens was focused on you. She held politicians’ feet to the fire, including occasionally my own. And in her quiet, dogged way, she demanded that we be accountable to the public for the things that we said and for the promises that we made. We should be held accountable.
That’s the kind of journalism that Robin practiced. That’s the kind of journalism this prize honors. It’s the kind of journalism that’s never been more important. It's the kind of journalism that recognizes its fundamental role in promoting citizenship, and hence undergirds our democracy.
As I’ve said in recent weeks, I know I’m not the only one who may be more than a little dismayed about what’s happening on the campaign trail right now. The divisive and often vulgar rhetoric that's aimed at everybody, but often is focused on the vulnerable or women or minorities. The sometimes well-intentioned but I think misguided attempts to shut down that speech. The violent reaction that we see, as well as the deafening silence from too many of our leaders in the coarsening of the debate. The sense that facts don’t matter, that they're not relevant. That what matters is how much attention you can generate. A sense that this is a game as opposed to the most precious gift our Founders gave us -- this collective enterprise of self-government.
And so it's worth asking ourselves what each of us -- as politicians or journalists, but most of all, as citizens -- may have done to contribute to this atmosphere in our politics. I was going to call is "carnival atmosphere," but that implies fun. And I think it’s the kind of question Robin would have asked all of us. As I said a few weeks ago, some may be more to blame than others for the current climate, but all of us are responsible for reversing it.
I say this not because of some vague notion of “political correctness,” which seems to be increasingly an excuse to just say offensive things or lie out loud. I say this not out of nostalgia, because politics in America has always been tough. Anybody who doubts that should take a look at what Adams and Jefferson and some of our other Founders said about each other. I say this because what we're seeing right now does corrode our democracy and our society. And I'm not one who's faint of heart. I come from Chicago. Harold Washington once explained that "politics ain't beanbag." It's always been rough and tumble.
But when our elected officials and our political campaign become entirely untethered to reason and facts and analysis, when it doesn’t matter what's true and what's not, that makes it all but impossible for us to make good decisions on behalf of future generations. It threatens the values of respect and tolerance that we teach our children and that are the source of America’s strength. It frays the habits of the heart that underpin any civilized society -- because how we operate is not just based on laws, it's based on habits and customs and restraint and respect. It creates this vacuum where baseless assertions go unchallenged, and evidence is optional. And as we're seeing, it allows hostility in one corner of our politics to infect our broader society. And that, in turn, tarnishes the American brand.
The number one question I am getting as I travel around the world or talk to world leaders right now is, what is happening in America -- about our politics. And it's not because around the world people have not seen crazy politics; it is that they understand America is the place where you can't afford completely crazy politics. For some countries where this kind of rhetoric may not have the same ramifications, people expect, they understand, they care about America, the most powerful nation on Earth, functioning effectively, and its government being able to make sound decisions.
So we are all invested in making this system work. We are all responsible for its success. And it's not just for the United States that this matters. It matters for the planet.
Whether it was exposing the horrors of lynching, to busting the oil trusts, to uncovering Watergate, your work has always been essential to that endeavor, and that work has never been easy. And let's face it, in today’s unprecedented change in your industry, the job has gotten tougher. Even as the appetite for information and data flowing through the Internet is voracious, we've seen newsrooms closed. The bottom line has shrunk. The news cycle has, as well. And too often, there is enormous pressure on journalists to fill the void and feed the beast with instant commentary and Twitter rumors, and celebrity gossip, and softer stories. And then we fail to understand our world or understand one another as well as we should. That has consequences for our lives and for the life of our country.
Part of the independence of the Fourth Estate is that it is not government-controlled, and media companies thereby have an obligation to pursue profits on behalf of their shareholders, their owners, and also has an obligation to invest a good chunk of that profit back into news and back into public affairs, and to maintain certain standards and to not dumb down the news, and to have higher aspirations for what effective news can do. Because a well-informed electorate depends on you. And our democracy depends on a well-informed electorate.
So the choice between what cuts into your bottom lines and what harms us as a society is an important one. We have to choose which price is higher to pay; which cost is harder to bear.
Good reporters like the ones in this room all too frequently find yourselves caught between competing forces, I'm aware of that. You believe in the importance of a well-informed electorate. You’ve staked your careers on it. Our democracy needs you more than ever. You're under significant financial pressures, as well.
So I believe the electorate would be better served if your networks and your producers would give you the room, the capacity to follow your best instincts and dig deeper into the things that might not always be flashy, but need attention.
And Robin proves that just because something is substantive doesn’t mean it's not interesting. I think the electorate would be better served if we spent less time focused on the he said/she said back-and-forth of our politics. Because while fairness is the hallmark of good journalism, false equivalency all too often these days can be a fatal flaw. If I say that the world is round and someone else says it's flat, that's worth reporting, but you might also want to report on a bunch of scientific evidence that seems to support the notion that the world is round. And that shouldn’t be buried in paragraph five or six of the article. (Applause.)
A job well done is about more than just handing someone a microphone. It is to probe and to question, and to dig deeper, and to demand more. The electorate would be better served if that happened. It would be better served if billions of dollars in free media came with serious accountability, especially when politicians issue unworkable plans or make promises they can’t keep. (Applause.) And there are reporters here who know they can't keep them. I know that's a shocking concept that politicians would do that. But without a press that asks tough questions, voters take them at their word. When people put their faith in someone who can’t possibly deliver on his or her promises, that only breeds more cynicism.
It's interesting -- this is a little going off script. But we still have our house in Chicago, and because Michelle, me and the kids had to leave so quickly, it's a little bit like a time capsule, especially my desk -- which wasn’t always very neat. So I've got old phone bills that I think I paid -- (laughter) -- but they're still sitting there. And for a long time, I had my old laptop with the AOL connection. But there's also these big stacks of newspapers from right before the election. And every time I go back, I have occasion to look back and read what I said at the time. And Lord knows I've made mistakes in this job, and there are areas where I've fallen short, but something I'm really proud of is the fact that, if you go back and see what I said in 2007 and you see what I did, they match up. (Applause.)
Now, part of the reason they match up is because in 2008, during the campaign, people asked me really tough questions about whether they'd match up. And we had to spend a lot of time worrying about whether what I said I could deliver on, and whether we believed it was true. And there was a price if you said one thing and then did something completely different. And the question is, in the current media environment, is that still true? Does that still hold?
I think Robin understood this because she asked those questions. She asked me some of those questions.
One of the reasons I ran for this office was to try and change the tone of our politics in Washington. And I remember back in early 2008 -- eight years ago this month -- Robin wrote a story wondering whether I could; whether it was even possible. At the time, I probably thought the piece was fairly cynical. And while I still believe Americans are hungry for a better politics, as I’ve said several times now, one of my great regrets is that the tone of our politics has gotten worse. And I won’t take all the responsibility for it, but I'll take some. We all own some of it. I'll take my share. But Robin asked that question. She cast a critical eye from the very beginning. And that was useful. Still is.
As I believe that that for all the sideshows of the political season, Americans are still hungry for truth, it's just hard to find. It's hard to wade through. The curating function has diminished in this smartphone age. But people still want to know what's true.
Think about it. Hollywood released films about getting stuck on Mars, and demolition derbies in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, and you even had Leo DiCaprio battling a grizzly bear. And yet it was a movie about journalists spending months meticulously calling sources from landlines, and poring over documents with highlighters and microfiche, chasing the truth even when it was hard, even when it was dangerous. And that was the movie that captured the Oscar for Best Picture.
I’m not suggesting all of you are going to win Oscars. But I am saying it’s worth striving to win a Toner. (Applause.)
So, look, ultimately I recognize that the news industry is an industry -- it's a business. There’s no escaping the pressures of the industry and all its attendant constraints. But I also know that journalism at its best is indispensable -- not in some abstract sense of nobility, but in the very concrete sense that real people depend on you to uncover the truth. Real people depend on getting information they can trust because they are giving over decision-making that has a profound effect on their lives to a bunch of people who are pretty remote and very rarely will they ever have the chance to ask that person a direct question, or be able to sort through the intricacies of the policies that will determine their wages or their ability to retire, or their ability to send their kid to college, or the possibility that their child will be sent to war.
These are folks who trust you when you tell them that there’s a problem in their schools, or that their water has been poisoned, or that their political candidates are promoting plans that don’t add up.
That’s why the deep reporting, the informed questioning, the in-depth stories -- the kind of journalism that we honor today -- matters more than ever and, by the way, lasts longer than some slapdash Tweet that slips off our screens in the blink of an eye, that may get more hits todays, but won't stand up to the test of time. (Applause.) That's the only way that our democracy can work.
And as I go into my last year, I spend a lot of time reflecting on how this system, how this crazy notion of self-government works; how can we make it work. And this is as important to making it work as anything -- people getting information that they can trust, and that has substance and evidence and facts and truth behind it. In an era in which attention spans are short, it is going to be hard because you're going to have to figure out ways to make it more entertaining, and you're going to have to be more creative, not less. Because if you just do great reporting and nobody reads it, that doesn’t do anybody any good, either.
But 10, 20, 50 years from now, no one seeking to understand our age is going to be searching the Tweets that got the most retweets, or the post that got the most likes. They’ll look for the kind of reporting, the smartest investigative journalism that told our story and lifted up the contradictions in our societies, and asked the hard questions and forced people to see the truth even when it was uncomfortable.
Many of you are already doing that, doing incredible work. And in some ways, the new technologies are helping you do that work. Journalists are using new data techniques to analyze economics and the environment, and to analyze candidates' proposals. Anchors are asking candidates exactly how they’re going to accomplish their promises, pressing them so they don’t evade the question. Some reporters recently watched almost five hours of a certain candidate's remarks to count the number of times he said something that wasn’t true. It turned out to be quite a large number. So talk about taking one for the team. That was a significant sacrifice they made.
This is journalism worth honoring and worth emulating. And to the young aspiring journalist that I had a chance to meet before I came on stage, those are the models you want to follow.
As all of you know, I just came back from Cuba, where I held a press conference with President Castro that was broadcast all over the country. So in a country without a free press, this was big news. And it was a remarkable thing that the Cuban people were able to watch two leaders -- their own, and the leader of a country that they'd grown up understanding as their archenemy -- answer tough questions and be held accountable. And I don’t know exactly what it will mean for Cuba’s future. I think it made a big difference to the Cuban people. And I can't think of a better example of why a free press is so vital to freedom. (Applause.)
In any country, including our own, there will be an inherent tension between the President and the press. It’s supposed to be that way. I may not always agree with everything you report or write. In fact, it's fair to say I do not. (Laughter.) But if I did, that would be an indication that you weren’t doing your job.
I'll tell you -- I probably maybe shouldn’t do this, but what the heck, I'm in my last year. (Laughter.) I had an in-depth conversation with President Putin a while back about Syria and Ukraine. And he had read an article in The Atlantic that Jeff Goldberg had done about my foreign policy doctrine. And he said, well, I disagree with some of the things that you said in there. And Jeff is a remarkable journalist who I admire greatly, and all the quotes that were directly attributed to me in there I completely agreed with. I said, well, but some of the things that were shaped may not fully reflect all the nuance of my thoughts on the particular topic that President Putin was mentioning. But I pointed out to him, of course, that unlike you, Vladimir, I don’t get to edit the piece before it's published. (Laughter and applause.)
So you are supposed to push those in power for more evidence and more access. You’re supposed to challenge our assumptions. Sometimes I will find this frustrating. Sometimes I may not be able to share with you all of the context of decisions that I make. But I never doubt how much -- how critical it is to our democracy for you to do that; how much I value great journalism. And you should not underestimate the number of times that I have read something that you did, and I have called somebody up and said, what's going on here? Because as Bob Gates told me when I first came in -- I think it was my first or second week -- I said, well, what advice do you have, Bob? You've been around seven presidents. You've served in Washington, in the administration. He said, Mr. President, the only thing I can tell you for sure is that you've got about two million employees, and at any given moment in any given day, somebody, somewhere, is screwing up. (Laughter.)
So you help me do my job better, and I’m grateful for that. Because the point of politics, as Robin understood it -- certainly as I've tried to understand it throughout my tenure in this job -- the point of politics is not simply the amassing of power. It's about what you do with that power that has been lent to you through a compact, with a citizenry, who give you their proxy and say "I'm counting on you" to not just make my life better, but more importantly, to make my kids' lives better, and my grandkids' lives better. Who will we help? How will we help them? What kind of country do we leave to the next generation?
My hope is, is that you continue to ask us questions that keep us honest and elevate our democracy. I ask that you continue to understand your role as a partner in this process. I say this often when I speak to Democratic partisan crowds: I never said, "Yes, I can." I said, "Yes, we can." And that means all of us. (Applause.) If we can keep supporting the kind of work that Robin championed, if we cultivate the next generation of smart, tough, fair-minded journalists, if we can all, every single one of us, carry on her legacy of public service and her faith in citizenry -- because you have to have a certain faith to be a really good journalist; you have to believe that me getting it right matters, that it's not just sending something into the void, but that there's somebody on the other end who's receiving it, and that matters -- if you continue to believe that, if you have faith, I have no doubt that America's best days are ahead.
So thank you to Robin's family. Congratulations to this year's winner. And thank all of you. God bless you, and God bless the United States of America. (Applause.) Thank you.
this is the concluding part 6 of a 6-part post -- part 5 of this post is the post to which this is a reply -- the '..., see also (linked in):' listing below is, subject only to further updates for any newer post(s) of note I pick up before completing this post, common to all 6 parts of this post
It's a time capsule,When Jackie Robinson Confronted a Trump-Like Candidate
At its core, Barry Goldwater’s campaign threatened blacks’ ability to fully engage in a two-party system.
Jackie Robinson speaking to reporters in San Francisco, July 10, 1964. Bettmann / CORBIS
Matthew Delmont Mar 19, 2016
“The danger of the Republican party being taken over by the lily-white-ist conservatives is more serious than many people realize,” Jackie Robinson cautioned in his syndicated column in August 1963. He was worried about the rise of Barry Goldwater, whose 1964 presidential bid laid the foundation for the modern conservative movement. Today, Goldwater’s shadow looms over Donald Trump’s campaign for the Republican Party’s nomination.
Speaking in the East Room of the White House while Mr. Trump rallied supporters in a nearby Virginia suburb, the president noted the Republican criticism of Mr. Trump for his attacks on the Muslim parents of an American soldier, Capt. Humayun Khan, who died in Iraq.
But Mr. Obama said the political recriminations from Republicans “ring hollow” if the party’s leaders continue to support Mr. Trump’s campaign.
“The question they have to ask themselves is: If you are repeatedly having to say in very strong terms that what he has said is unacceptable, why are you still endorsing him?” Mr. Obama said. “What does this say about your party that this is your standard-bearer?”
The president’s condemnation of Mr. Trump, and his direct appeal to Republicans to abandon their candidate, were stunning even in a city where politics has become a brutal and personal affair. Mr. Obama seemed eager to go beyond his past interventions in the race, which have included forceful rejections of Mr. Trump’s statements and policy proposals.
Douglas Brinkley, a presidential historian, called Mr. Obama’s comments “a highly unusual and almost unprecedented moment.” The last time a sitting president was as openly critical of the other party’s candidate, Mr. Brinkley said, was in 1953, when President Harry S. Truman mocked Dwight D. Eisenhower as not knowing “any more about politics than a pig knows about Sunday.”
“It’s a reflection of just how radical and dangerous President Obama feels that Trump is,” Mr. Brinkley said.
Using the formal backdrop of a joint news conference with Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong of Singapore, Mr. Obama suggested that Mr. Trump would not abide by “norms and rules and common sense” and questioned whether he would “observe basic decency” should he reach the Oval Office.
The president said he would have been disappointed to lose in 2008 or 2012, but added that he had never doubted whether his Republican rivals in those races, John McCain and Mitt Romney, could function as president or had the knowledge to make government work.
“That’s not the situation here,” Mr. Obama said.
As Mr. Obama condemned Mr. Trump, the Republican candidate — apparently unaware of the president’s remarks — repeatedly criticized his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and the president in an hour of remarks. He called Mrs. Clinton a “liar” and a “thief” and said the country would be “finished” if voters chose four more years of a presidency like Mr. Obama’s. Mr. Trump also accused Mrs. Clinton of repeatedly lying over the weekend when she told Chris Wallace on “Fox News Sunday” that James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, had said her statements about her private emails were truthful.
“I mean, she lied,” Mr. Trump said, prompting cries of “Lock her up!” from his supporters. “She, pure and simple, she only knows to lie. She really does. She only knows to lie. But she lied, and it’s a big story.”
Mr. Comey, testifying last month to Congress, said that “we have no basis to conclude she lied to the F.B.I.” But he also said he could not say whether Mrs. Clinton’s many public statements on the issue were truthful.
Mr. Trump, in a written statement meant to respond directly to the president’s remarks, called Mrs. Clinton “unfit to serve in any government office.” He also accused Mr. Obama and Mrs. Clinton of allowing Americans to be slaughtered in Benghazi, Libya; letting veterans die waiting for medical care; and releasing immigrants into the United States to kill innocent people.
“Our nation has been humiliated abroad and compromised by radical Islam brought onto our shores,” Mr. Trump’s statement said. “We need change now.”
The dueling appearances by the president and the Republican candidate seeking to replace him escalated the heated political rhetoric in a race that had already devolved into a series of personal attacks and character assassinations. Mr. Obama cited Mr. Trump’s reaction to Captain Khan’s parents, Khizr and Ghazala Khan, as a principal reason for his extended remarks. Mr. Trump had criticized the Khans after they honored their son at the Democratic National Convention and urged people to vote for Mrs. Clinton.
Mr. Obama lamented what he called an attack on a “Gold Star family that had made such extraordinary sacrifices on behalf of our country.” He said he did not doubt that Republicans were outraged about the statements Mr. Trump and his supporters had made about the Khan family in the last several days.
“But there has to come a point at which you say somebody who makes those kinds of statements doesn’t have the judgment, the temperament, the understanding, to occupy the most powerful position in the world,” Mr. Obama said.
The president did not limit his criticism to Mr. Trump’s treatment of the Khan family. Mr. Obama said the Republican nominee had repeatedly demonstrated that he was “woefully unprepared to do this job.” The president said Mr. Trump had proved he lacked knowledge about Europe, the Middle East and other parts of Asia.
“This isn’t a situation where you have an episodic gaffe. This is daily,” Mr. Obama added. “There has to be a point at which you say, ‘This is not somebody I can support for president of the United States, even if he purports to be a member of my party.’ The fact that that has not yet happened makes some of these denunciations ring hollow.”
Mr. Trump, who spoke at a boisterous rally at Briar Woods High School in Ashburn, Va., began his remarks there by saying a veteran had given him a Purple Heart medal earlier in the day.
“I always wanted to get the Purple Heart,” said Mr. Trump, who received five deferments from the draft during the Vietnam War. “This was much easier.”
“Let Obama go to the golf course,” Mr. Trump said. “But you know what? We’d be better off.”
At one point during the rally, a crying baby interrupted Mr. Trump’s speech.
“Don’t worry about that baby. I love babies,” Mr. Trump said at first. “I hear that baby crying, I like it. What a baby, what a beautiful baby. Don’t worry, don’t worry.”
A few beats later, he changed his tune. “Actually, I was only kidding,” Mr. Trump said. “You can get that baby out of here.” Laughs and a few gasps escaped from the crowd. “Don’t worry, I think she really believed me that I love having a baby crying while I’m speaking,” Mr. Trump added. “That’s O.K. People don’t understand. That’s O.K.”
Even as Mr. Obama discussed trade policy and security issues with the Singaporean prime minister, Mr. Trump criticized world leaders. He said he would ask Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany “what went wrong” in her country. And he criticized Mrs. Clinton for what he called “terrible relations” with President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.
At the White House, Mr. Lee of Singapore responded to a question about Mr. Trump with diplomacy, and said Singapore would look forward to working with whomever Americans chose as president.
“Many pressures build up during the election campaign, and after the elections in a calmer, cooler atmosphere, positions are rethought, strategies are nuanced, and a certain balance is kept in the direction of the ship of state. It does not turn completely upside down,” Mr. Lee said.
“The Americans take pride in having a system with checks and balances,” he added. “So, it is not so easy to do things, but it is not so easy to completely mess things up.”
Correction: August 2, 2016 An earlier version of this article misstated where Mr. Obama made his comments. He was in the East Room of the White House, not on the South Lawn.
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Michael D. Shear reported from Washington, and Nick Corasaniti from Ashburn, Va. Alexander Burns contributed reporting from New York.
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