HALLOWEEN 2017
Monday, October 30, 2017
#45's New Low in the Polls -- 33% Approval; 62% disapproval
Every Gooper who's forced to look at #45's miserable approval numbers will yelp and yap that "the polls said Hillary would win last October!" as if predicting who will win is the same as asking Americans how they feel about their president. They're not the same thing.
Americans do NOT support this malignant narcissist and his crooked regime.
And this poll was taken before this morning's indictments from Mueller's team.
It appears that Trump's frantic tweeting "Crooked Hillary did it! Crooked Hillary did it!" didn't have the desired effect.
As of yesterday, Trump has a 33% approval rate and a 62% disapproval rate. This is a new low.
The GOP and Corruption
Check out any far right blog or news site and you'll read their alternative realities. They've been howling for years about Crooked Hillary and the corrupt Democrats. But do the facts bear any of that out?
No.
Our far right brethern yell LOUDLY so as to drown out the facts and divert attention from reality. Below is the reality of where true political corruption lies. And it ain't with the current Democratic Party.
From my friend, Lee Arnold:
In the 28 yrs that Republicans have held office over the last 53 yrs they have had a total of (a drum roll would be more than appropriate) 120 criminal indictments of executive branch officials with 89 criminal convictions and 34 prison sentences handed down.
That’s more prison sentences than years in office since 1968 for Republicans. If you want to count articles of impeachment as indictments (they aren’t really but we can count them as an action), both sides get one more. However, Clinton wasn’t found guilty while Nixon resigned and was pardoned by Ford (and a pardon carries with it a legal admission of guilt on the part of the pardoned).
So those only serve to make Republicans look even worse. With everything going on with Trump and his people right now, it’s a safe bet Republicans are gonna be padding their numbers a bit real soon.
So let’s just go over the numbers one more time, shall we?
120 indictments for Republicans. 89 convictions, and 34 prison sentences.
Those aren’t 'feelings' or 'alternative facts.' Those are simply the stats by the numbers.
Republicans are, and have been for my entire lifetime, the most criminally corrupt party to hold the office of the presidency."
Charlie Pierce, Esquire:
"Ten months.
It took Richard Nixon four years to get himself tangled up with serious felonies. It took Ronald Reagan five years to sign off on arming the Contras in contravention of federal law. Hell, it was almost three years—and two special prosecutors—into Bill Clinton’s term before anybody was indicted with the remotest connection to whatever the Whitewater affair really was all about. Ten months is all it took for the president*’s former campaign manager, a guy who ran the president*’s campaign for almost twice as long as evil genius Steve Bannon did, and his principal aide, who was still hanging around the White House as recently as last June, to get hauled into FBI headquarters early Monday morning to begin what may be several years worth of similar perp walks. Ten months.
This is impressive."
TRUMP'S CAMPAIGN MANAGER, PAUL MANAFORT AND ASSOCIATE RICK GATES, SURRENDER TO FBI
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| photo via Daily Kos |
Former Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort To Surrender In Russia Probe
Former Manafort business associate Rick Gates also is expected to be charged.
Ryan Lizza: "Unlike Manafort, who was forced out last year, Gates continued to work on the Trump campaign and even the inaugural committee."
"The addition of Gates suggests that the Oleg Deripaska connection might be central here. Gates worked on a failed deal involving all 3."
***********************
Never in United States history have criminal indictments been handed down to a president's close associates in such a short period of time.
Trump and his supporters will find ways to deceive themselves into thinking this is all a "hoax," or Hillary's fault, but reality will bleed through eventually when more indictments are handed down to more of Trump's people.
More to come...
George Papadopolous is noted in indictments -- very close foreign policy advisor to Trump has pled guilty to lying to the FBI in Mueller's Russia probe. (Otherwise known in Trump circles as a "hoax.")
Sunday, October 29, 2017
SUNDAY NIGHT FUNNIES
Is President Bone Spur nervous about something?
From Digby
America, your president is very upset. He's tweeting like a madman.Flailing wildly about the person he defeated a year into his presidency. This is not normal. None of this is normal.
Saturday, October 28, 2017
INTERESTING TO THINK ABOUT...
One man was a big-time Hollywood producer; the other man is the POTUS.
Weinstein got kicked to the curb (rightly so).
The other man, Trump, is supported, admired, and embraced by the Evangelical Christians who despise everything Weinstein stands for, but look the other way on Trump, and give him a pass.
Ask one of them to explain why that is.
People who've followed the current GOP understand why.
Why Harvey Weinstein is disgraced but Donald Trump is president
The allegations against Weinstein and Trump are strikingly similar.
Why have the outcomes been so different?
Weinstein’s community rejected him — Trump’s hasn’t
In the days after Ashley Judd, Asia Argento, and several other women publicly accused Harvey Weinstein of harassment and assault in the New York Times and the New Yorker, Weinstein was fired from the Weinstein Company and kicked out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His brother Bob (who has now been accused of sexual harassment as well) called him a predator and said, “I want him to get the justice that he deserves.”
[skip]
The allegations against Weinstein and Trump are strikingly similar To date, Weinstein has been accused of sexual harassment or assault by more than 50 women. At least 17 women have accused Trump of harassing, assaulting, or otherwise violating them. Both men have been accused of touching women against their will, of making unsolicited and sexualized comments about women’s bodies, of using their power to coerce women into sex and to protect themselves in the aftermath. Both men have been caught on tape.
In a recording published by the New Yorker, Weinstein appears to admit to groping model Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, and pressures her to come to his room. In the infamous Access Hollywood tape released last October, Trump bragged that his celebrity status allowed him to touch women: “When you’re a star, they let you do it,” he said. “Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.” After the tape was released, several women, including Zervos, came forward to say that Trump had done the things he described, kissing and touching them without their consent.
Trump also boasted to Howard Stern about going backstage at the beauty pageants he owned and seeing the contestants naked. “I’m allowed to go in, because I’m the owner of the pageant and therefore I’m inspecting it,” he said. “And you see these incredible looking women, and so I sort of get away with things like that.”
Thursday, October 26, 2017
President Bone Spur Gets a Win!
Trump has finally won big, breaking a historic record – by earning himself the lowest first quarter approval rating in the history of polling! Gallup reported:
Tired of all that winning?
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Trump Hump Day Funnies
Found at Verified Postings.
Someone photoshopped the paintings at the White House, and they're hilarious.
"RECKLESS, OUTRAGEOUS, AND UNDIGNIFIED" -- Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) on Trump
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| DJT: "Reckless, outrageous, and undignified." |
Another Republican condemns #45, who is currently embarrassing America with his careless tweets, bellicose rhetoric, and childish attacks on Gold Star families and fellow Republicans.
Will other GOPers of conscience follow or will they, like so many of #45's supporters, just shrug their shoulders and excuse #45's rotten character as nothing more than "speaking his mind?"
The world knows that if a Democratic POTUS behaved as #45 does, the GOP would be calling for his/her head on a pike. The nauseating hypocrites on the right are willing to debase themselves and their party by keeping quiet and pretending that #45 is doing a great job because he's "pissing off the Left."
We have news for the GOP and their junior high school mentality: "Pissing off" constituents is not an honorable governing principle, and it's not just the Left that is sickened by #45's unpresidential, abnormal behavior -- a majority of Americans and the rest of the civilized world is as well.
“We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that is just the way things are now. If we simply become used to this condition . . . then heaven help us,” Flake said, his voice shaking. “Without fear of the consequences and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe, we must stop pretending that the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal. Reckless, outrageous and undignified behavior has become excused as telling it like it is when it is actually reckless, outrageous and undignified.” -- Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ)
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Meanwhile, Goopers are salivating over an old Russian/uranium/Clinton/story while they ignore the corruption in their own party and State Dept. (h/t D/U):
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/10/busted-rachel-maddow-reports-that-state-dept-lied-and-faked-photo-of-tillerson-in-afghanistan/
On Tuesday, the State Department was forced to admit that it lied about Secretary of State Rex Tillerson meeting in Kabul, Afghanistan with that country’s president — and altered a photo as fake evidence of the visit.
Rachel Maddow opened her Tuesday show with the news, which was reported by the BBC after observers noticed discrepancies in different version of the photo — which was actually taken at a U.S. military installation.
...
The State Department issued a correction on Tuesday, admitting it had faked the photo and lied about the meeting’s location and about Kabul being safe enough for the U.S. Secretary of State to openly visit.
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Trump: "BONE-SPUR BOZO"
Roger Cohen of the NYTimes perfectly describes what #45 is when he's compared with a man who spent 5 years being tortured and held prisoner while he, Trump, bragged about having so much sex (while enduring a bone spur) that he risked getting an STD during the Vietnam conflict.
Only the most craven would continue to support a zero like Trump:
Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona and a decorated Vietnam War veteran, picked up on those foot issues in a C-Span interview the other day. McCain, who is fighting brain cancer, said of the conflict: “We drafted the lowest income level of America, and the highest income level found a doctor that would say they had a bone spur.”
That would be Trump, the coward who gets his testosterone kick from nuclear brinkmanship. [...] When a draft-evading bone-spur bozo takes on a man of character who put his life on the line for his country and knows what the United States means to the world, the result can only be ugly. Trump will look very small. He will look smaller than his fingers, as small as his spite. No puffed-up chest, no jutting upraised chin will be able to conceal the zero at his heart.
The New Yorker (Trump, The Creepy Clown) cover:
Bone-spur Bozo promised to "drain the swamp?"
Instead he's made it bigger and swampier:
Small company from Trump Interior chief's hometown wins massive contract to restore Puerto Rico's power
A tiny company from the Montana hometown of Trump Interior secretary Ryan Zinke that had just two full-time employees the day Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico has been awarded a $300 million contract to restore the island’s power.
Friday, October 20, 2017
Wednesday, October 18, 2017
Wednesday Night Funnies
Russia Wants Bulgarians to Stop Painting Soviet Monuments To Look Like American Superheroes
Russia is demanding that Bulgaria try harder to prevent vandalism of Soviet monuments, after yet another monument to Soviet troops in Sofia was spray-painted, ITAR-Tass reported.
The Russian Embassy in Bulgaria has issued a note demanding that its former Soviet-era ally clean up the monument in Sofia’s Lozenets district, identify and punish those responsible, and take “exhaustive measures” to prevent similar attacks in the future, the news agency reported Monday.
The monument was sprayed with red paint on the eve of the Bulgarian Socialist Party’s celebration of its 123rd anniversary, the Sofia-based Novinite news agency reported. The vandalism was the latest in a series of similar recent incidents in Bulgaria — each drawing angry criticism from Moscow…
Happy Wednesday!
Here's a Conservative writer, Ross Douthat, with some harsh truths about the people who voted for and still support the bullying Liar-in-Chief :
What's the Matter with Republicans?
A depressing percentage of American conservatives seem perfectly happy with the bargain that [Thomas] Frank claimed defined their party, with a president who ignores their economic interests and public policy more generally and offers instead the perpetual distraction of Twitter feuds and pseudo-patriotic grandstanding.
This dispiriting contentment is the sentiment you see from … those who plainly prefer his brutish braggart’s style to … public decency…. What’s the matter with the Republican Party? Many things, but right now above all this: Far too many Trump supporters, far too many conservatives, have … become exactly what their enemies and critics said they were, become a movement of plutocrats and grievance-mongers with an ever-weaker understanding of the common good.
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
McCain: "I have faced tougher adversaries."
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump on Tuesday issued a warning shot after Republican Sen. John McCain questioned “half-baked, spurious nationalism” in America’s foreign policy. Trump said in a radio interview with WMAL in Washington that “people have to be careful because at some point I fight back.”
The president added “I’m being very, very nice but at some point I fight back and it won’t be pretty.”
McCain, a former Navy pilot who spent 5½ years in a Vietnam prisoner of war camp and is battling brain cancer, offered a simple response to Trump: “I have faced tougher adversaries.”
#45 threatens John McCain: "You better be careful; I fight back."
John McCain: "I have faced tougher adversaries."
#45 was heroically avoiding the draft while John McCain was being beaten every day by the enemy while in a POW camp in Vietnam.
#45 bragged to Howard Stern that he was getting laid so often during the Vietnam war that he called it his "own personal Vietnam" because of his fear of catching an STD.
Trump: "Vaginas Are ‘Landmines … It Is My Personal Vietnam’ "
#45 is too stupid and too malignantly narcissistic to understand that the American people know all about his craven boasts that make him look like a weak, ridiculous strutting chicken, threatening a real man who faced a real enemy, not some puerile, pussy-grabbing coward.
Who are the people who still support this repulsive worm?
Monday, October 16, 2017
"I Thought You Were Better Than This."
From a friend on facebook:
If you voted for Trump I am disappointed and mad as hell at you regardless of why you voted for him. When you stepped into that voting booth and pulled that lever you knew exactly what kind of man he was.
You knew that Trump had made fun of a man with a physical disability ..and you didn't care
You knew that Trump said, " John McCain was not a war hero, He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”..and you didn't care
You knew that Trump tweeted “Jeb Bush has to like the Mexican Illegals because of his wife.”... and you didn't care
You knew Trump said that Meghan Kelly had " blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever" ...and you didn't care
You knew that Trump said, "Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” about GOP candidate Carly Fiorina ...and you didn't care
You knew that Trump said, " I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters" ...and you didn't care
You knew that Trump said, Look at my African-American here!” ...and you didn't care
You knew that Trump belittled the parents of a slain Muslim soldier ...and you didn't care
You knew that Trump said , "I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn't get there, and she was married. Then all of a sudden I see her, she's now got the big phony tits and everything" ...and you didn't care
You knew that Trump said, "I'm automatically attracted to beautiful [women]—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star they let you do it. You can do anything ... Grab them by the p-say. You can do anything," ...and you didn't care
You knew it all and you overlooked it ,every vile thing he said and did....
And you didn't care
Why?
I thought you were better then this
Do you actually believe that a person who speaks this way has the character and integrity to lead this nation?
Would you want you sons or daughters.. grandsons or granddaughters saying or going any of these things?
Would you want any man grabbing your wife, daughter or granddaughter by the genitalia? Would you find it funny if your son or grandson grabbed someone else's daughter?
I do not understand.
Here is what I do know,
You can never again be offended by the word
p-ssy, you own it now
p-ssy, you own it now
You can not say that our men and women in uniform need to be honored, you negated that right when you accepted Trump's comment about John McCain's time as a POW
If a women you know tells you she was touched by a man in an unacceptable way, you can not be outraged
If you hear someone belittling a person due to their looks, you no longer have the right to be upset
Trump showed us who he was and you embraced him and in doing so you have shown us who you are.
We knew the moral compass Trump held, now you hold it. It is yours.
I thought you were better then this
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Never let them forget it.
Sunday, October 15, 2017
Saturday, October 14, 2017
TRUMP'S NET APPROVAL RATINGS -- THEY'RE NOT GOOD
Nationwide, 43 percent of respondents approved of Trump in September, according to Morning Consult, while 52 percent disapproved of him.
In January, he had 49 percent approval compared to 39 percent disapproval.
Trump's net approval — which is the percent who approve subtracting the percent who disapprove — has fallen by a total of 19 points within nine months.
Take heart, America! There isn't one state -- NOT ONE -- where his net approval approaches 50%.
The highest net approval rate for Lord Dampnut is in Wyoming with a paltry 40%
The lowest net approval rate is in Hawaii at -14%
My state, Massachusetts, has his net approval at -4%
Go here and enjoy seeing how his support has fallen since he was elected, and see how even the reds in the red, red states don't much like him anymore either.
Friday, October 13, 2017
Can Someone Explain The Difference?
Compare and contrast Trump's pledges to Americans in Texas vs. Americans in Puerto Rico.
What do you suppose is the reason Trump pledged to be there "every single day after to restore, recover, and REBUILD!" Texas, but is telling Puerto Rico not to expect help from their government "forever?"
Can someone explain the difference?
Eugene Robinson:
"The need to solve the island’s debt problem and update its infrastructure is worthy of serious discussion, but not while people are having to collect unpurified water in buckets from mountain springs — and not as some kind of justification for cutting off relief aid. [...]
This may be the most un-American thing Trump has ever said or done. I am serious that if he actually withdraws emergency assistance while Puerto Rico is still in such condition, Congress should begin impeachment proceedings. Presidents do not get to pick and choose which Americans to help at times of disaster. We are one country, and we do what we must to help fellow citizens in need."
Thursday, October 12, 2017
THE AIRPORT BOMBING ATTEMPT FROM LAST WEEK THAT YOU NEVER HEARD ABOUT,,,
because it wasn't planned by a Muslim.
After the horrendous Las Vegas shooting, the right wing noise machine twisted itself into pretzels trying to make a Muslim connection to the massacre. Before any facts were known, the right wing blogs and news sites were slobbering to pin the shooting on jihadists.
An attempt at an airport bombing went unnoticed because the suspect is a white American male.
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| Michael Christopher Estes, attempted bomber/terrorist |
From the Ashville Citizen Times
The man authorities say left an explosive device at Asheville Regional Airport on Friday morning that contained ammonium nitrate and fuel oil said he was preparing to "fight a war on U.S. soil," according to a criminal complaint filed in federal court. The suspect, Michael Christopher Estes, had his first appearance in federal court Tuesday morning. He is charged with attempted malicious use of explosive materials and unlawful possession of explosive materials in an airport.
[skip]
"Estes claimed that he was getting ready to 'fight a war on U.S. soil,' but also claimed that he did not actually set the alarm clock," the complaint states.
The complaint also states that, "Estes described how he created the device using ammonium nitrate and the Sterno as a fuel source and then rigged the alarm clock to strike the matches and cause the flame necessary to trigger the device. Estes admitted to putting the nails in the device as well."
THE AIRPORT BOMBER FROM LAST WEEK YOU NEVER HEARD ABOUT
by Shaun King
The story didn’t go viral and Trump didn’t tweet about it because the bomb was not placed by an immigrant, or a Muslim, or a Mexican. It was placed there by a good ol’ white man, Michael Christopher Estes. Unlike the Las Vegas shooter, Stephen Paddock, whose motive is still hard to discern, Estes wanted to be very clear that his ultimate goal was to accelerate a war on American soil.
Sorry if it sounds like you’ve heard this story before. I’m as tired of writing it as you are reading it, but you know good and well that if Estes was a young Muslim — hell, if he had ever even visited a mosque in the past 25 years — that Trump would be tweeting about him right this very moment to tout how essential a Muslim ban is for American safety.
A Muslim attacker’s mugshot would become a meme across the conservative media. Mainstream American outlets would be covering the heroic bravery of those who thwarted the terrorist plot. We’d all be seeing footage of the perpetrator being walked from the police car to the jail and from the jail to the court room. Out loud, people would talk and tweet about the man’s family and friends and networks — wondering where he was radicalized, and if anyone else feels the way he does.
In this case, though? Crickets. We hear nothing at all — almost exclusively because the man who planted an improvised explosive device, just like ones that have been used to murder and maim people all over the world, was white. His guilt starts and stops with him. His actions aren’t an indictment of his whole faith, political outlook, and race. White people aren’t, thanks to Estes, suddenly labeled terrorists or seen as a threat to American safety in the way that would almost certainly happen had it been anybody other than a white man.
This isn’t me calling for all of those things that happen to Muslims and immigrants every single day to now happen to Estes and white people all over the country. It’s me saying that the fundamentally bigoted double standard by which it is done to virtually everyone except for Michael Christopher Estes and other white men has to stop.
A Majority of GOPers disapprove of the GOP
How're the two main political parties doing?
#45's supporters are in a bubble and think half the country supports him and the GOP agenda.
It's not true. Support for the GOP and the 9-month old presidency is at historic lows.
The Democratic Party's approval is low; the Republican Party's approval is even lower.
Where do #45's supporters get the idea that half the country supports him and them? The numbers don't support that fantasy.
Here's the latest from Gallup:
POLITICS OCTOBER 5, 2017
Approval of Parties in Congress Near Record Lows
by Jeffrey M. Jones
20% approve of job Republicans in Congress are doing
31% approve of job Democrats in Congress are doing
Minority of Republicans approve of job their party is doing.
A majority of GOPers disapprove of the GOP and the job it's doing. That is obviously because of the Maniac-in-Chief they voted into office.
#45 represents the GOP, and nothing good can come from that.
From Digby:
Sherman's sources believe that Trump is losing it; there's no other way to put it. And there's reason to think they're right. Even by Trump's standards, he often seems a little bit confused. During Wednesday's press availability with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the president was asked how his lunch on Tuesday with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson went. He replied:
Very good. You mean last week? John, you're so far behind the times. Do you mean today or last week? Because today I didn't have lunch with him.
No, I had a lunch last week, and we had a very good lunch. We have a very good relationship. The press really doesn't understand that, but that's OK. We actually have a very good relationship.
It had been widely reported that Trump had had lunch the previous day with Tillerson and Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, as the reporter in question had said. It was on the president's official schedule and MSNBC's Peter Alexander checked with the White House and was told that the lunch took place. Sherman also reports that the White House doesn't want Trump doing adversarial interviews (such as one with "60 Minutes" that was canceled) because "he's lost a step," which suggests there's something else going on.
Wednesday, October 11, 2017
Trump: "I HATE EVERYONE!"
Trump White House :
“I HATE EVERYONE IN THE WHITE HOUSE!”: TRUMP SEETHES AS ADVISERS FEAR THE PRESIDENT IS “UNRAVELING”
In recent days, I’ve spoken with a half dozen prominent Republican"s and Trump advisers, and they all describe a White House in crisis as advisers struggle to contain a president that seems to be increasingly unfocused and consumed by dark moods."
This is the end of the Vanity Fair article linked above:
"Even before Corker’s remarks, some West Wing advisers were worried that Trump’s behavior could cause the Cabinet to take extraordinary Constitutional measures to remove him from office. Several months ago, according to two sources with knowledge of the conversation, former chief strategist Steve Bannon told Trump that the risk to his presidency wasn’t impeachment, but the 25th Amendment—the provision by which a majority of the Cabinet can vote to remove the president. When Bannon mentioned the 25th Amendment, Trump said, “What’s that?” According to a source, Bannon has told people he thinks Trump has only a 30 percent chance of making it the full term."
We can only hope.
**********************************
#45's tweet threatening the 1st Amendment:
"With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!"
Also this from #45:
President Trump on Wednesday said it is "disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write" during remarks from the Oval Office, with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sitting by his side.
So the Dictator-in-Chief has threatened to take away NBC's broadcasting license because he doesn't like what it's reporting about him?
That may not be a high crime, but it sure as hell sounds like a presidential misdemeanor. We can get to the "high crimes" after Mr. Mueller finishes his investigation.
Since when does a POTUS threaten our First Amendment rights? And where are the 2nd Amendment champions on this? Or are they champions of only one amendment? Remember when they lied so blatantly and warned their sheeple that President Obama would repeal the 2nd Amendment? As though a president had that power (a president doesn't). But lies and fake rumors got the 2nd Amendment fetishists all riled up. Yet they've nothing to say about #45's real attack on the First Amendment.
Their silence is a loud message to America.
"The founders of our nation set as a cornerstone of our democracy the First Amendment, forever enshrining and protecting freedom of the press," said Gordon Smith, the CEO of the National Association of Broadcasters and a former Republican Senator.
"It is contrary to this fundamental right for any government official to threaten the revocation of an FCC license simply because of a disagreement with the reporting of a journalist."