Agreed. I have spent more money in the past two years investing in quality journalism. Now more than ever, we need truth tellers to shine a light on what is being done in our name, with our money.
Trump’s mendacity, disdain for facts, and dangerous remarks like “I think there is blame on both sides (regarding Russia & Charlottesville) make his contempt for the media understandable. What’s troubling are those who follow, or worse, enable him.
Rich- the rest of us are happy to read your posts about anything you deem newsworthy. This article was excellent and in point to the current sutuation. I hope it gets national exposure.
there are multiple books out there now warning of fascism with good lessons to teach to observe and fight against it. squelching news and making the people hear one message is one very troubling feature of dictatorships. we are moving in that direction. the only fake news is coming from the President.
>It allows for dissent and the expression of opinions that are unpopular, which is why the majority often finds the concept offensive.
Great column. Trump represents a more traditional battleground on the issue. In recent years, it seems like the First Amendment, with decisions like Citizens United, is being interpreted more in terms of protecting the powerful than the minority.
In taking such a strong line on Trump, you hijack the blog and make it a Cook Country operation. People in downstate Illinois have different opinions. We have enough trouble on our own in Illinois, and it is wiser to try to find things that make us able to work together for our state.
This article is spot on with the lessons that history teaches us about the most radical and most American of all concepts; a free press. It is indeed an Illinois concern and really a concern about basic liberty for all Americans. The loss of a free press, the attack on those that bring information out, is really an attack on democracy and our way of life. An informed electorate is necessary for a democracy to survive and thrive. Well done.
“People in downstate Illinois have different opinions”
I don’t know the opinions of “downstate Illinois” but I figure everyone has one and not all have the same one. I read a lot of things I disagree with on this blog. If you have a problem with differences of opinion, that’s on you.
Attacking the media polls well and Trump loves doing it, so it won’t stop as long as he’s President.
- NeverPoliticallyCorrect - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:01 pm:
Ok, gonna say some difficult things here. 1. I agree with the Sun Times piece. 2. I am an American first (not a Rep. or a Dem. or any other flavor). 3. I have lost confidence in the media because, in my opinion, far too much of the media, be it newspapers or television or radio or magazines (yes I still read those) present opinion rather than facts and don’t bother to distinguish between the two. And for many of us who lean conservative we read/hear story after story in the mainstream media that presents a conclusion regarding an event as opposed to reporting the facts and leaving the conclusions to the editorial page. I am not saying this is what happens every minute of every day but it is enough that those of us on this side of the position begin to question the veracity and ability of the media to be fair. And this includes the right leaning media also. So when we don’t believe we can get fair news some of us call it out and then we are attacked for hating the media. Solution? In my mind reporters have got to go back to reporting facts and news outlets have to clearly distinguish between news and opinion. Then shut down all the 24 hour cable news shows. They just serve to hype up the noise.
===So when we don’t believe we can get fair news some of us call it out and then we are attacked for hating the media===
Nope. That would be a total strawman argument. Do better. I’ve also criticized the media. But I don’t call reporters or columnists enemies of the people.
Another great one from Phil Kadner, one of the sharpest and most honest columnists around.
The constant, false attacks on the press serve no purpose other than to deceive and mislead the public as part of an attempt consolidate power and silence everyone who does not march in lockstep with the current power structure.
==In taking such a strong line on Trump, you hijack the blog and make it a Cook Country operation. People in downstate Illinois have different opinions.==
No we don’t. You trump lovers are the only people who have different opinions. Literally everyone else, both upstate and downstate, dem, independent and republican, agree with the premise of Kadner’s article. Republicans were rightfully upset when Obama tried to block fox news from briefings because they realized that, just as now, a free press is a vital part of our nation. Please desist from trying to put us all in your orange messiahs corner - we refuse to be associated with views like this.
Holy cow. How many Russian trolls are there if they are commenting on this blog, and have sufficient savvy to know downstate and Cook Country (sic) differ in politics? A basic point about Illinois, but they must have long-term assigned staff for an area, or dossiers. Suggests planning…
The first amendment should be respected and protected. I think Trump mistakes cable shows with news. These are entertainment channels in my opinion, and need ratings to match. If anyone thinks Fox,MSNBC,CNN AND Rush represent news, well, that’s on them. Regardless of what they are, they certainly have a right to exist.
- Bruce (no not him) - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:30 pm:
Your own Russian bot. Obviously, you now are a target. Congratulations.
Kadner is a journalistic gem. In 2017, a T supporter said T’s rhetoric “would adjust”. The problem is, T has been taking the bit on the free reign ( not a misspelling) and trampling everything and everyone who gets in the way of his regime- a word he seems to love and a concept he seems to want to emulate… and one that is not applicable to US Democracy.
What does that say about us when we are happy to cling to known lies and attack messengers of the truth? We, the human race, are deeply flawed and we refuse to learn from past mistakes.
I really think most of Trump’s antics at the press is him using them as a tool to whip up his base. While I do believe he doesn’t like them much and doesn’t care for much of what they report, his hammering of them is a political tool utilized for his benefit…and the media generally helps feed that beast. The media is an easy target for him so he goes there often.
===People in downstate Illinois have different opinions.===
As a downstate dweller, I could tell you that people in the same household can have different opinions. In fact, my wife and I often have differing opinions. My father-in-law is a quite reasoned, thoughtful individual, though my mother-in-law once chose Obamacare over the Holocaust in a game of Apples to Apples when the green card was “tragedy.”
Given that Wordslinger has been honored with an award in his name for Best Commenter, I suggest Rich establish a Troll of the Day Award in the name of “Anonymous.” It’s always “Anonymous” isn’t it?
ps: Anybody else flash to “First thing we do let’s kill all the [journalists]?”
Seriously, I think the 24 hour news channels need to get away from the format of covering a news story for 2 minutes then follow it with 20 minutes of a panel discussion with “experts”. This causes blurred lines between facts and commentary.
“When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”
It’s about ignorance, the politics of fear and the ability of people to use the democratic process to silence those who hold opinions they view as threatening.
I would add even opinions to a degree they disagree with are threatening.
If you need to be constantly told you and your ideas are awesome, take a look at yourself.
There were too many of us in the party that should and might have seen some of this coming and just kind of ignored it.
One of the things about politics in a large town that in many ways was a small town was how both Democrats and Republicans thought the local Aurora paper got it wrong all the time.
Now it is a shell of what it was and doesn’t report on much of anything and does even less investigative reporting and that doesn’t do anyone any favors.
If you can deal with your ideas and attitude being mocked, usurped or whatever by a free press then you need to check yourself and ideas.
If you need to have an enemy, you should look at yourself long and hard.
Never PC, that whole take is hot garbage. Conservatives simply don’t like it when any media entity presents a fact that doesn’t already align with conservative group think. You guys go so far as to derisively refer to anyone who doesn’t toe the company line as “mainstream media”, while ignoring that the vast majority of what is considered to be “real news” by the right is simply whatever trump or Hannity or Limbaugh or Laura Ingraham says it is. Media reports fact X, and well, that doesn’t make some republican politician look too good so therefore it’s automatically a “conclusion” and should be immediately discounted. For Pete’s sake, your boy this week literally said “Don’t believe what you’re seeing or hearing, only what I say is the truth”. Doesn’t that set off any alarm bells in your bs detectors? If Obama had said that he’d have been rightfully been laughed out of DC, but you guys just cheer and go back to shouting threats at reporters.
This is the reason that guys like Brett Baier and Shep Smith and Chris Wallace regularly choose to go out of their way to separate themselves from everything else on Fox News. It’s also the reason the Trib reporting team constantly refutes what is on their own editorial page. If anything the media has a truth bias, and they shouldn’t have to slant it or shade it or leave out certain parts just to make partisan right wingers feel justified about their preconceived notions.
Excellent article. Not to sound like an old timer but before cable and the internet and the splintering of “news sources” Americans got their news from essentially three networks.
We shared the same news and thus could have rational debate about its content as we weren’t free to make up our own facts.
Now we don’t have the same facts to debate and we stay in our own circle of like minded believers and cannot find reasonable grounds to debate differing opinions.
Hatred of certain media has been with us a long time. I remember when certain people hated the “liberal media.”
The problem now is that the president is instigating hatred and rage against the media, and calling them the enemy of the people—anyone who dares criticize him.
Hillary Clinton has more grounds to rage at the so-called deep state that dropped the needless emails bombshell 11 days before the election, and the same media Trump attacks, for constantly playing the emails story up until the election.
There are more if not many more Americans who don’t support Trump than who do, compared with his core supporters who rage with him. Will the opponents maybe vote more than they did in the past, and increase turnout?
===People in downstate Illinois have different opinions.
Are you actually trying to make the claim that people downstate don’t value Freedom of Speech and the Press? That defies my recollection of their beliefs while growing up there, but whatevs comrade.
=== More likely somebody using IP cloaking software. If so, it’s still an interesting choice of countries.
That’s the hard part of figuring out what you are dealing with as Russian trolls tend to use VPNs showing they are not in Russia, but enough screw that up that you don’t know whether someone like this is using a VPN in another place to hide their identity or it’s an incompetent Russian troll.
- Veil of Ignorance - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 4:30 pm:
Wow, who knew there would be anybody here that disagrees with elected leaders, let alone the sitting POTUS, calling journalists enemies of the state? Russian bots on CapitolFax comments chains…what a crazy world we live in now.
- 47th Ward - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:12 pm:
Good for Kadner. And Jim Acosta. And Rich Miller.
The rhetoric coming from the White House is dangerous and un-American and it needs to stop. It is a cancer on our democracy.
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:18 pm:
I thought this blog was about Illinois politics, not about national politics or US foreign policy.
- pawn - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:18 pm:
Agreed. I have spent more money in the past two years investing in quality journalism. Now more than ever, we need truth tellers to shine a light on what is being done in our name, with our money.
- pawn - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:19 pm:
Anon. Do you consider elections and election tampering to be only a national or foreign policy concern?
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:19 pm:
===I thought this blog was about Illinois politics===
Sorry you were so triggered.
- Jocko - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:24 pm:
Trump’s mendacity, disdain for facts, and dangerous remarks like “I think there is blame on both sides (regarding Russia & Charlottesville) make his contempt for the media understandable. What’s troubling are those who follow, or worse, enable him.
- Thoughts Matter - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:26 pm:
Rich- the rest of us are happy to read your posts about anything you deem newsworthy. This article was excellent and in point to the current sutuation. I hope it gets national exposure.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:29 pm:
Stick to the topic, please.
- Colin O'Scopy - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:32 pm:
I saw this play at the Goodman a few months ago. Very powerful. What’s old is, indeed, new.
- Amalia - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:32 pm:
there are multiple books out there now warning of fascism with good lessons to teach to observe and fight against it. squelching news and making the people hear one message is one very troubling feature of dictatorships. we are moving in that direction. the only fake news is coming from the President.
- Earnest - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:41 pm:
>It allows for dissent and the expression of opinions that are unpopular, which is why the majority often finds the concept offensive.
Great column. Trump represents a more traditional battleground on the issue. In recent years, it seems like the First Amendment, with decisions like Citizens United, is being interpreted more in terms of protecting the powerful than the minority.
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:43 pm:
In taking such a strong line on Trump, you hijack the blog and make it a Cook Country operation. People in downstate Illinois have different opinions. We have enough trouble on our own in Illinois, and it is wiser to try to find things that make us able to work together for our state.
- Lt Guv - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:44 pm:
A-freakin’-men.
This is a great piece of writing by Kadner and ought to be up for several awards.
- Tired Teacher - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:49 pm:
This article is spot on with the lessons that history teaches us about the most radical and most American of all concepts; a free press. It is indeed an Illinois concern and really a concern about basic liberty for all Americans. The loss of a free press, the attack on those that bring information out, is really an attack on democracy and our way of life. An informed electorate is necessary for a democracy to survive and thrive. Well done.
- @misterjayem - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:50 pm:
“In taking such a strong line on Trump, you hijack the blog…”
Rich can no more hijack the blog than he can hijack his own car.
It’s his.
He’s the driver.
If you don’t like it, beat it.
– MrJM
- Present - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:55 pm:
I think the comments make the point.
- a drop in - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:55 pm:
“People in downstate Illinois have different opinions”
I don’t know the opinions of “downstate Illinois” but I figure everyone has one and not all have the same one. I read a lot of things I disagree with on this blog. If you have a problem with differences of opinion, that’s on you.
- Two facts - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 12:57 pm:
Ibsen is the best.
Our pres is the worse … and doesn’t read.
- Grand Avenue - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:00 pm:
Attacking the media polls well and Trump loves doing it, so it won’t stop as long as he’s President.
- NeverPoliticallyCorrect - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:01 pm:
Ok, gonna say some difficult things here. 1. I agree with the Sun Times piece. 2. I am an American first (not a Rep. or a Dem. or any other flavor). 3. I have lost confidence in the media because, in my opinion, far too much of the media, be it newspapers or television or radio or magazines (yes I still read those) present opinion rather than facts and don’t bother to distinguish between the two. And for many of us who lean conservative we read/hear story after story in the mainstream media that presents a conclusion regarding an event as opposed to reporting the facts and leaving the conclusions to the editorial page. I am not saying this is what happens every minute of every day but it is enough that those of us on this side of the position begin to question the veracity and ability of the media to be fair. And this includes the right leaning media also. So when we don’t believe we can get fair news some of us call it out and then we are attacked for hating the media. Solution? In my mind reporters have got to go back to reporting facts and news outlets have to clearly distinguish between news and opinion. Then shut down all the 24 hour cable news shows. They just serve to hype up the noise.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:02 pm:
=== People in downstate Illinois have different opinions===
I didn’t realize that Downstaters opposed the 1st Amendment.
If you are one of those, kindly leave.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:05 pm:
===So when we don’t believe we can get fair news some of us call it out and then we are attacked for hating the media===
Nope. That would be a total strawman argument. Do better. I’ve also criticized the media. But I don’t call reporters or columnists enemies of the people.
- Precinct Captain - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:11 pm:
Another great one from Phil Kadner, one of the sharpest and most honest columnists around.
The constant, false attacks on the press serve no purpose other than to deceive and mislead the public as part of an attempt consolidate power and silence everyone who does not march in lockstep with the current power structure.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:11 pm:
=== you hijack the blog and make it a Cook Country operation===
Perhaps the stupidest comment of the week. Congrats [exclamation point]
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:15 pm:
===In taking such a strong line on Trump, you hijack the blog===
Well, well. Isn’t this interesting…
I have my own pet Russian bot.
- Da Big Bad Wolf - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:22 pm:
Russia? Now that’s downstate Illinois alright. And a bit sideways.
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:22 pm:
==In taking such a strong line on Trump, you hijack the blog and make it a Cook Country operation. People in downstate Illinois have different opinions.==
No we don’t. You trump lovers are the only people who have different opinions. Literally everyone else, both upstate and downstate, dem, independent and republican, agree with the premise of Kadner’s article. Republicans were rightfully upset when Obama tried to block fox news from briefings because they realized that, just as now, a free press is a vital part of our nation. Please desist from trying to put us all in your orange messiahs corner - we refuse to be associated with views like this.
- Tommydanger - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:24 pm:
Congrats Rich!
Even Putin knows who you are!
- Jibba - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:25 pm:
Holy cow. How many Russian trolls are there if they are commenting on this blog, and have sufficient savvy to know downstate and Cook Country (sic) differ in politics? A basic point about Illinois, but they must have long-term assigned staff for an area, or dossiers. Suggests planning…
- blue dog dem - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:28 pm:
The first amendment should be respected and protected. I think Trump mistakes cable shows with news. These are entertainment channels in my opinion, and need ratings to match. If anyone thinks Fox,MSNBC,CNN AND Rush represent news, well, that’s on them. Regardless of what they are, they certainly have a right to exist.
- Bruce (no not him) - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:30 pm:
Your own Russian bot. Obviously, you now are a target. Congratulations.
- JoanP - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:31 pm:
= the only fake news is coming from the President. =
Oh, I’m not so sure of that. I think there’s been plenty coming out of the Governor’s mansion.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:33 pm:
===How many Russian trolls are there if ===
More likely somebody using IP cloaking software. If so, it’s still an interesting choice of countries.
- Ned Nederlander - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:35 pm:
Well now I really need to know…how many Russian IP addresses commented about hot dogs yesterday?
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:35 pm:
Please disregard my previous post. I thought I was replying to an actual American who just happened to be dumb. You fooled me there, comrade!
- Skeptic - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:39 pm:
“I have my own pet Russian bot.” Do we need to scan you for listening devices?
- Anonimity - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:41 pm:
==The first amendment should be respected and protected==
BDD: I am not saying this is what you meant, but I quoted you above to say this:
The First Amendment does not “give” us rights. It is stating the rights we have as Americans and that congress shall make no law infringing upon them.
- Anon221 - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:48 pm:
Kadner is a journalistic gem. In 2017, a T supporter said T’s rhetoric “would adjust”. The problem is, T has been taking the bit on the free reign ( not a misspelling) and trampling everything and everyone who gets in the way of his regime- a word he seems to love and a concept he seems to want to emulate… and one that is not applicable to US Democracy.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/amp/3729946.html
Journalists, like Kadner, are needed now more than ever.
- Wensicia - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:51 pm:
What does that say about us when we are happy to cling to known lies and attack messengers of the truth? We, the human race, are deeply flawed and we refuse to learn from past mistakes.
- Free - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:53 pm:
I really think most of Trump’s antics at the press is him using them as a tool to whip up his base. While I do believe he doesn’t like them much and doesn’t care for much of what they report, his hammering of them is a political tool utilized for his benefit…and the media generally helps feed that beast. The media is an easy target for him so he goes there often.
- Ducky LaMoore - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 1:55 pm:
===People in downstate Illinois have different opinions.===
As a downstate dweller, I could tell you that people in the same household can have different opinions. In fact, my wife and I often have differing opinions. My father-in-law is a quite reasoned, thoughtful individual, though my mother-in-law once chose Obamacare over the Holocaust in a game of Apples to Apples when the green card was “tragedy.”
- 37B - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:02 pm:
Given that Wordslinger has been honored with an award in his name for Best Commenter, I suggest Rich establish a Troll of the Day Award in the name of “Anonymous.” It’s always “Anonymous” isn’t it?
ps: Anybody else flash to “First thing we do let’s kill all the [journalists]?”
- Wilson - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:08 pm:
The Turn Around Agenda
- Casual observer - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:34 pm:
Uh oh. Rich has been compromised? I think yet.
Seriously, I think the 24 hour news channels need to get away from the format of covering a news story for 2 minutes then follow it with 20 minutes of a panel discussion with “experts”. This causes blurred lines between facts and commentary.
- Casual observer - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:35 pm:
Was supposed to be “nyet” not yet. Darn smell checker.
- Rich Miller - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:36 pm:
===This causes blurred lines between facts and commentary===
And that has zero to do with the topic.
- Al - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:39 pm:
Hope good old David McKinney is enjoying his summer.
- lakeside - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:43 pm:
There is a chance your friendly Russian (or IP masker) got pulled in by the [hashtag Q*a*n*o*n] reference someone dropped in the comments yesterday.
To the post: yay for the First Amendment. And a good piece by Kadner.
- Steve Rogers - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 2:47 pm:
Actual quote from Abraham Lincoln:
“When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read “all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and catholics.'’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretence of loving liberty—to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocracy.”
- OneMan - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 3:00 pm:
I would add even opinions to a degree they disagree with are threatening.
If you need to be constantly told you and your ideas are awesome, take a look at yourself.
There were too many of us in the party that should and might have seen some of this coming and just kind of ignored it.
One of the things about politics in a large town that in many ways was a small town was how both Democrats and Republicans thought the local Aurora paper got it wrong all the time.
Now it is a shell of what it was and doesn’t report on much of anything and does even less investigative reporting and that doesn’t do anyone any favors.
If you can deal with your ideas and attitude being mocked, usurped or whatever by a free press then you need to check yourself and ideas.
If you need to have an enemy, you should look at yourself long and hard.
- Lester Holt’s Mustache - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 3:14 pm:
==Ok, gonna say some difficult things here==
Never PC, that whole take is hot garbage. Conservatives simply don’t like it when any media entity presents a fact that doesn’t already align with conservative group think. You guys go so far as to derisively refer to anyone who doesn’t toe the company line as “mainstream media”, while ignoring that the vast majority of what is considered to be “real news” by the right is simply whatever trump or Hannity or Limbaugh or Laura Ingraham says it is. Media reports fact X, and well, that doesn’t make some republican politician look too good so therefore it’s automatically a “conclusion” and should be immediately discounted. For Pete’s sake, your boy this week literally said “Don’t believe what you’re seeing or hearing, only what I say is the truth”. Doesn’t that set off any alarm bells in your bs detectors? If Obama had said that he’d have been rightfully been laughed out of DC, but you guys just cheer and go back to shouting threats at reporters.
This is the reason that guys like Brett Baier and Shep Smith and Chris Wallace regularly choose to go out of their way to separate themselves from everything else on Fox News. It’s also the reason the Trib reporting team constantly refutes what is on their own editorial page. If anything the media has a truth bias, and they shouldn’t have to slant it or shade it or leave out certain parts just to make partisan right wingers feel justified about their preconceived notions.
- don the legend - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 3:39 pm:
Excellent article. Not to sound like an old timer but before cable and the internet and the splintering of “news sources” Americans got their news from essentially three networks.
We shared the same news and thus could have rational debate about its content as we weren’t free to make up our own facts.
Now we don’t have the same facts to debate and we stay in our own circle of like minded believers and cannot find reasonable grounds to debate differing opinions.
Now it’s time for my nap.
- Grandson of Man - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 3:48 pm:
Hatred of certain media has been with us a long time. I remember when certain people hated the “liberal media.”
The problem now is that the president is instigating hatred and rage against the media, and calling them the enemy of the people—anyone who dares criticize him.
Hillary Clinton has more grounds to rage at the so-called deep state that dropped the needless emails bombshell 11 days before the election, and the same media Trump attacks, for constantly playing the emails story up until the election.
There are more if not many more Americans who don’t support Trump than who do, compared with his core supporters who rage with him. Will the opponents maybe vote more than they did in the past, and increase turnout?
- Archpundit - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 3:52 pm:
===People in downstate Illinois have different opinions.
Are you actually trying to make the claim that people downstate don’t value Freedom of Speech and the Press? That defies my recollection of their beliefs while growing up there, but whatevs comrade.
- Anonymous - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 3:58 pm:
37B….uh, you’re ‘anonymous’ so get off your high horse or use your real name.
- Archpundit - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 4:00 pm:
=== More likely somebody using IP cloaking software. If so, it’s still an interesting choice of countries.
That’s the hard part of figuring out what you are dealing with as Russian trolls tend to use VPNs showing they are not in Russia, but enough screw that up that you don’t know whether someone like this is using a VPN in another place to hide their identity or it’s an incompetent Russian troll.
- don the legend - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 4:10 pm:
Ironic that Trump earned an estimated 2 Billion Dollars in free media during the 2016 campaign.
$20,000,000,000
- don the legend - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 4:11 pm:
$2,000,000,000
Sorry for the extra zero.
- Veil of Ignorance - Friday, Aug 3, 18 @ 4:30 pm:
Wow, who knew there would be anybody here that disagrees with elected leaders, let alone the sitting POTUS, calling journalists enemies of the state? Russian bots on CapitolFax comments chains…what a crazy world we live in now.