(If I believed in karma, which I don’t, I’d swear this has happened because I mocked my old school chum Dr. Peter Canaday for his comment proving that he was the exception to the rule—and it IS a rule—that supporting Donald Trump for President proves that a parasite has eaten your brain and defecated out your sense and values.)
During his Iowa press conference yesterday, Univision anchor Jorge Ramos insisted on asking questions (a.k.a. “making a speech”) of the current GOP front-runner for the nomination without waiting to be called on—-this is consistent for Ramos, who also feels that Mexicans should be able to jump ahead of legitimate immigration applicants and just enter the country at will…same principle, really—and when he refused to sit down, Trump had him removed.
OK, I’m settling my gorge, swallowing twice, wiping my brow, but…
Good for Donald Trump.
This was absolutely a fair, correct and proper way of handling Ramos, who was not there as a reporter but as an advocate for illegal immigration, and who willfully broke the well-establishes rules of press conferences. If a journalist acted as he did at a Presidential press conference, he or she might also be ejected. Later, while making the rounds on the morning news shows, Ramos claimed that he had a right to ask his questions. No, he didn’t. He had a right to raise his hand. This was Trump’s event, his rules applied, and Ramos was breaking them, unethically.
Later Trump allowed Ramos to re-enter the conference and make his points. This was a canny tactic by Trump: he didn’t have to do it, but he calculated that doing so might win him some more fans, so he did.
Journalists who are attacking Trump for his handling of the matter are completely misguided, and just showing their Trump hate while closing ranks around a pseudo-journalist who doesn’t deserve it. MSNBC reporter Kasie Hunt, for example, who was in the room when Jorge Ramos was ejected, said that it “felt” like the “forced removal of a journalist.” Well, she’s close: it was the forced removal of an activist who poses as a journalist—sort of like half the fake journalists on her own network, such as Al Sharpton—and his forced removal was provoked and reasonable.
If Ramos has been paying attention, as I assume he has, he must have known Trump would kick him out if he demanded to speak. Trump correctly (he agreed with me, so he must have been correct!) chastised Bernie Sanders as weak for letting “BlackLivesMatter” demonstrators grab his microphone during a Sanders rally. Trump had to show how a “real leader” handles interlopers. Ramos must have calculated that this would make him a martyr for freedom of the press in the eyes of those who don’t understand the concept, and give him some media exposure during which he could recite his pro-illegal immigration arguments. (My favorite of Ramos’s blatherings, which he repeats to Trump in the video: he insists that we should call illegal immigrants just immigrants because “no human beings are illegal.” I guess it’s a language thing: see, Jorge, “illegal immigrant” is understood by all fair, literate and non-deceitful to mean “immigrants who have broken the law to enter the country.” Understand now?)
In summary, Trump was handed an opportunity to emulate Ronald Reagan’s “I paid for this microphone!” moment by an opportunistic, unethical, misbehaving crypto-journalist with an agenda, they both got what they wanted out of the episode, Trump looked good to anyone who knows what “good” looks like, and I’m nauseous.
One last note: Interviewing Ramos while he made his rounds this morning, Chris Cuomo signed off by saying, “I respect you as a journalist.” That’s right: Cuomo respects a biased, unobjective, unethical journalist who openly advocates policies that he supports and that benefit those who share his ethnic heritage. That’s a respectable journalist to one of CNN’s stars.
Disgraceful.
Ethics Alarms 
At least Hunt did not say Trump deported Ramos from the press conference.
-Jut
My proposed solution to “people aren’t illegal” is to call them criminal immigrants.
“Invader”?
Works for me.
It shouldn’t work, because it’s the wrong term and a faulty diagnosis generally leads to a faulty prescription for treatment. What is going on isn’t invasion but infiltration.
Any reply to the effect that it’s just as wrong either way is missing the point, like saying that all cancers are bad and so they should be treated the same.
Both terms are quite applicable depending on the immigrant population and motive in question.
Nice try though.
Nope, no good. I’ve already heard the excuse that they can’t be criminals or even mere law-breakers, because they’re not American citizens to whom our laws could possibly apply. At some point, the conversation is no longer rational or productive. Where do you go from there? Personally, I go grab another glass of wine and start picking over leftover holiday turkey.
Then we can treat them as spies or saboteurs.
and we all know what rights spies and saboteurs have.
Anyone who tries to make that argument is either woefully ignorant of the law or just woefully ignorant. They are subject to our law as soon as they step across the border. They do NOT get the same RIGHTS as a citizen just by stepping across the border, as they are not covered by our Constitution.
I guess I have an ethical dilemma here. Although not particularly a Trump fan, I’m just enjoying the hell out of how he makes the GOPe Professional Politicians squirm, and how he treats the “media” (with the exception of him getting personal). There is a lot of anger here in my personal unwashed segment of American Society and these guys need to understand that.
Love it! Too often weenie leaders and administrators just smile benignly as the loudmouthed take over. Wait till some of these candidates have legit police and Secret Service protection. I am going to enjoy seeing some protestors get thumped on.
Regarding the MSM, you are on a roll and I like how you are explaining what they do and how wrong they are. Hope you get a chance for a triple play.
If you had asked me about the candidates a few weeks ago, I would have told you that Trump wasn’t in the race to win it, but Sanders was. My, how things change. Sanders has shown himself as more interested in raising awareness of the liberal cause than raising his odds of winning, and Trump has made it clear that, this time, he’s not interested in publicizing Celebrity Apprentice. Alas. I would vastly prefer Sanders to Trump, because it seems like Sanders cares about people while Trump only cares about Trump.
What IS a journalist, anyway? Did it start with Walter Cronkite’s declaration that the US had lost Tet ’68, and that the Vietnam War was a “quagmire,” after which he advocated US withdrawal? He was suddenly a journalist turned advocate, and isn’t that what 99% of “journalists” are today? At one time (pre-Cronkite?) they tried to hide their bias and appear objective, but that went out the window decades ago. Chris Cuomo’s admiration for ethnic chauvinist Ramos proves it.
Good point. I wonder whether it began with the WWII “war correspondent” thing. Edward R. Murrow, et al. And then there’s Morely Safer. These guys created a path to celebrity.
To my friend, Jack. Remember…. drip, drip, drip, and little by little you will be forced to recant. In Russian, it goes “ответ на привет”…”the answer is from the greeting,” otherwise known as, “What goes around, comes around.” It’s still early, Jack, but I am very patient.
Damn, was sure ответ на привет translated as “My hovercraft is full of eels!”
Just like Latin class…
The Week is centre, or centre-left. Here’s their opinion piece: http://theweek.com/articles/573870/why-not-donald-trump
“The Answer is from the Greeting” is the Russian version of “What goes around, comes around”??
Yeesh.
I see Russians treat idiomatic phrases much like they treat aircraft design:
(oops, wrong image)
I actually like the one with the battleship turrets mounted top and bottom. Firing a broadside from those (presumably) 16-inchers while airborne would probably stop that beast dead.
I couldn’t find a quality image of the real deal so I had to settle on artist rendition…
Then I misfired and grabbed the artist’s fanciful rendition.
But then again, the Russians designed a tank glider… I wouldn’t put it past them to mount battleship turrets on a plane.
“Comrade, it dyoesn’t fly!”
“Just pyut more engine!”
“Da!”
One lesson to draw from this incident is simple, and longstanding; The sun even shines on a dog’s arse occasionally.
The second is that if one “ah shit” wipes out a thousand “attaboys,” this incident amounts to a fart in a category five hurricane when it comes to Trump’s ethics and behavior over the years. It is the very definition of insignificance, yet we’ll here people tell us it is somehow dispositive (and in a good way). Fooz.
Words mean things. Past (and present) actions do as well.
Jack,
While I’m inclined to agree, he also did it in the most slimey way possible, even going so far as to shout “Go back to Univision!” Which is another of his loaded, yet still plausibly deniable turns of phrase.
What a maroon
Sincerely,
Neil
Of course. He does everything like a boor and a bully. “Maroon” is too nice.
Can we please stop talking about this embarrassment of a human being? Please?
Between the horrible comb over, the fake tan, his appealing to the lowest common denominator on every issue and a voice that would make someone wish to go deaf he is pushing me over the edge.
The difficulty with trying to call on people to be ethical or moral is that they can immediately say “What about you?” It may seem old history to Jorge but I never forgot how a beautiful Latin anchorwoman he dated for 4 years found herself being cheated on by the great “silver fox” himself. I didn’t like listening to Bill Clinton or Cosby talking about ethics because I knew who they were and I didn’t appreciate it when Jorge waxed on about loyalty and ethics either. I would have respected Jorge more if he’d put his philosophies to practice in his personal life. Now it’s 2016 and when I think of him, I think of him as “Oh that’s the short little guy with the pretty hair that can’t keep it in his pants.” And it obliterates the expansive body of work he’s done. I’m one of millions of Latin American women with long, long memories.