Critique of the Los Angeles Times Scathing Review of Trump — Part Two & Three Jason Follow Apr 5, 2017 · 7 min read

He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes.

Donald Trump is the Sith Emperor. I mean, how else would I take that quote?

If his attempt to limit the number of Muslim visitors to the U.S. degenerates into an absolute fiasco and a display of his administration’s incompetence, then he falsely asserts that terrorist attacks are underreported.

Well, they are underreported. How many of these actually received mainstream cable news coverage? Because, let’s be honest, an article or two at the bottom of a site is not really coverage. Who is actually going to check it? I hate to link to Wikipedia but it has a good list with sources.

If he detects that his audience may be wearying of his act, or if he worries about a probe into Russian meddling into the election that put him in office, he tweets in the middle of the night the astonishingly absurd claim that President Obama tapped his phones. And when evidence fails to support him he dispatches his aides to explain that by “phone tapping” he obviously didn’t mean phone tapping.

By phone tapping, you mean “wire tapping?” Because, he did not say phone tapping and he used quotation marks around wire tapping. Any idiot off the streets would know it was never meant to be taken literally. But even the LATimes changes the word to use “phone.” Gee, I wonder why they would do that? It’s almost like they knew people wouldn’t actually click the link to verify. But since the LATimes likes to get “technical” here, isn’t Trump correct in a way? It may not have been Obama himself that physically ordered the surveillance, but it definitely happened.

He gives every indication that he is as much the gullible tool of liars as he is the liar in chief.

So, does this mean he was not “wire tapped?”

He has made himself the stooge, the mark, for every crazy blogger, political quack, racial theorist, foreign leader or nutcase peddling a story that he might repackage to his benefit as a tweet, an appointment, an executive order or a policy.

I thought this was about Trump but now we seem to be talking about Russian collusion with Trump. How many months has that investigation been going on and there is no credible evidence or any evidence for that matter, that he colluded with Russia?

There have always been those who accept the intellectually bankrupt notion that people are entitled to invent their own facts — consider the “9/11 was an inside job” trope

See? You knew 9/11 was going to be brought up in here! This is what the media wants you to think. They want to lump him into the 9/11 was an inside job conspiracy nut jobs. They want you to picture that when you think of him.

If Americans are unsure which Trump they have — the Machiavellian negotiator who lies to manipulate simpler minds, or one of those simpler minds himself — does it really matter?

They had to label and call all Trump supporters people who are essentially dumb and easily manipulated. Because, we there is no way an “intelligent” person could ever vote for Trump!

In the months ahead, Trump will bring his embrace of alternative facts on the nation’s behalf into talks with China, North Korea or any number of powers with interests counter to ours and that constitute an existential threat.

They didn’t name Russia but you know they wanted to. I think you get the gist of what they are insinuating here — cough, Russian collusion.

Our civilization is defined in part by the disciplines — science, law, journalism

Journalism? Journalism is a discipline that defines our civilization? That is a good laugh.

Be suspicious of those who confuse reality with reality TV, and those who repeat falsehoods while insisting, against all evidence, that they are true.

You mean the left continuously saying Trump colluded with Russia to get elected even though no evidence supports that?

Part Three

…one that would crop up time and again as he talked about overruling generals, disregarding international law, ordering soldiers to commit war crimes, jailing his opponent.

So, when did these things happen? He never actually said he was going to overrule generals, disregard international law, order soldiers to commit war crimes, or actually jail his opponent. Not even an accurate representation of what he said. It’s one thing to think your opponent is guilty of a crime and another thing to actually jail your opponent.

He has repeatedly questioned the impartiality and the motives of judges. For example, he attacked the jurists who ruled against his order excluding travelers from seven majority Muslim nations…

What’s your point? A judge is suppose to examine the order under the law and the language in that ruling. Instead, these judges decided to rule based on feelings and what he said on the campaign trail. It really isn’t our fault the majority of all terrorism comes from Muslim countries mostly located in the Middle East. I mean, not really a whole lot you can do about the demographics there. Should we also talk about Justice Ginsburg openly criticizing Trump? A judge is not supposed to criticize like that for the specific reason of having to be unbiased. As of right now, anything from the Trump administration, you know she will vote no on it or will assume she would looking at her personal hatred for him. But I guess it’s different for others, according to the media.

The intelligence community.

I think you can take a guess at what they were talking about. Russia. I mean, I’d criticize the intelligence community as well seeing as how they’ve been able to find zero evidence of Russia assisting Trump.

Trump has blistered the mainstream media for reporting that has cast him in a poor light, saying outlets concocted narratives based on nonexistent anonymous sources.

When the overwhelming majority of the mainstream media blasts Trump and is actually mostly negative, why would anything think otherwise? It is one thing to be critical of Trump, it is another to just write hit pieces over and over. Kind of like what you guys over at the LATimes are doing?

In addition to calling for agency budgets to be chopped by up to 30%, Trump appointed a string of Cabinet secretaries who were hostile to much of their agencies’ missions and the laws they’re responsible for enforcing.

Yes, they just hate the entire organization and plan on violating the laws they are required to enforce. That is why the Senate confirmed them! Here is an interesting story for a government budget. Why are most budgets so bloated that an average stapler could cost $50? It’s called padding the budget so they don’t get cuts next year. If they can show they “need” their budget, then they are less likely to receive cuts. Pretty simple. But this is how the government operates under most democrats and why they tend to never really care about slimming down the budget over increasing taxes.

It’s one thing to complain about a judicial decision or to argue for less regulation, but to the extent that Trump weakens public trust in essential institutions like the courts and the media, he undermines faith in democracy and in the system and processes that make it work.

Doesn’t this Politifact article kind of corroborate that these courts seem to be more activists than anything else looking at their overturn rate? These figures are between 2010–2015.

6th Circuit — 87 percent;

11th Circuit — 85 percent;

9th Circuit — 79 percent;

3rd Circuit — 78 percent;

2nd Circuit and Federal Circuit — 68 percent;

8th Circuit — 67 percent;

5th Circuit — 66 percent;

7th Circuit — 48 percent;

DC Circuit — 45 percent;

1st Circuit and 4th Circuit — 43 percent;

10th Circuit — 42 percent.

Those are some fairly high percentages for judges who just enforce the law and our constitution.

Can the courts stand up to Trump? Already, several federal judges have issued rulings against the president’s travel ban. And although Trump has railed against the decisions, he has obeyed them.

How exactly has he disobeyed them? Unless he makes a new order, the order cannot be carried out. Again though, see how they want you to think he is ignoring a court’s ruling and doing it anyway?

None of these institutions are eager to cede authority to the White House and they won’t do so without a fight.

That is a good way to end this. How would the White House take authority over the Legislative Branch or the Judicial Branch? This article wants you to think the separation of powers is a myth and doesn’t exist. As of right now, the media is our most dangerous enemy in the United States. Not Trump.