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[Puzzlemaker]

Honestly I think it's for the best that the likes of CNN and Buzzfeed are bankrupted and broken down, then the next left wing President can work about destroying the likes of Fox and Breitbart, just keep going about this process until the likes of Reuters and BBC News sets the model standard for reporting. Otherwise, it's all just shit
Pure shit
With no escape

That... is a very dangerous way of thinking.  I agree that a lot of the media out there is pure shit, though.  Having the president directly attack a news organization is a terrible, terrible idea, and sets the precedent for a whole lot more bullshit.  You are basically falling for the propaganda coming from a lot of people these days:  Everything is shit, so it's okay if we are shit as well.  That's a very bad line of thought, and will basically allow fascism to win, either from the extreme left or the extreme right.

[Rolan7]

But what if preventing the genocide of x people will cost the life of x times ten civilians?

There is an argument to be made here, not that I'm qualified.  "America doesn't negotiate with terrorists" may mean tragedy in the short term, but it's a good long-term strategy.

If genocide is allowed, it's allowed.  Stopping it is important not just because of the current victims, but to show that such acts will be stopped and punished.  Civilians, pro and against the genocide, will die...  better that they die this way.  Appeasement does not work /Godwin

[Loud Whispers]

That... is a very dangerous way of thinking.  I agree that a lot of the media out there is pure shit, though.  Having the president directly attack a news organization is a terrible, terrible idea, and sets the precedent for a whole lot more bullshit.  You are basically falling for the propaganda coming from a lot of people these days:  Everything is shit, so it's okay if we are shit as well.  That's a very bad line of thought, and will basically allow fascism to win, either from the extreme left or the extreme right.

No, the propaganda tells me to appreciate the elevation of Breitbart over Buzzfeed, which I reject. I instead appreciate that both cannot be destroyed at the same time but both can be destroyed in sequence. This is for the reason that having control of a biased media company which controls all American information is too valuable for most leaders to resist the temptation of refusing themselves, thus they only wish to refuse it to their opponent. Moments like Milo where both sides attack him are easy because he's an individual, attacking a whole corporate web that dominates America understandably requires mobilizing immense political capital (angry mobs). So how the hell do you go after media companies when they throw principles to the wind? You go after their money, destroy their ad revenues, expose them when they use bots, and make powerful people or big lawsuits land them in hot water. Lacking powerful people, create powerful people and make them go after them. No point signing petitions or circle jerking in reddit, the only time these tale weavers have ever shown interest in being impartial was when they were on the losing side of partisanship. It's insane to think that media collusion or corruption is just brushed away because. There's no reason why one has to accept that, thus when useful statesman (or useful idiot, if you prefer) like Trump arise, I think Americans are wholly right to use them to strike or break up all these media corporations as hard as they can. Whether this comes in the form of orange tangerines or socialist sunberns, anything which rolls back neoliberal submission of the state to the corporation must be utilized to the fullest extent. GE, News-Corp, Disney, Viacom, Time Warner and CBS control American culture, media and thus have immense power to manufacture consensus, controversy, support and civilization. There isn't really any point in engaging with democracy any more when the person with the most money and friends in high places is the one that always wins. It produces systems where you get the choice between voting for someone you utterly despise for ruining the world or someone you utterly despise for promising to desecrate everything you believe in.
Thus every time one of the corrupt media companies cries in pain, why weep with them? Oligarchs losing influence over American democracy is dank and money out their bank. I'm not telling you that everything is shit therefore it is ok to be shit, I'm telling you everything is shit so actually go about fixing that. Left and right both have common targets they identify making everything worse, Media execs, Politicians and Wallstreet - thus I see great opportunities for jolly cooperation when left and right are not killing one another.

[palsch]

The AP have a copy of an incomplete intelligence report by the DHS on the immigration ban.

It's only some of what would go into a complete report, but it isn't exactly making the administration's case so far.

[smjjames]

Maybe we should ask Obama what his rationale was because so far, the only reason Trump has given is 'because Obama did it'.

So, really, its Trump doing it without any understanding of why the previous administration did it.

[Loud Whispers]

The report also found that terrorist organizations in Iran, Libya, Somalia and Sudan are regionally focused, while groups in Iraq, Syria and Yemen do pose a threat to the U.S.
The seven countries were included in a law President Barack Obama signed in 2015 that updated visa requirements for foreigners who had traveled to those countries.
Christensen said the countries were also selected in part because they lacked the ability to properly vet their citizens and don't cooperate with U.S. efforts to screen people hoping to come to the U.S.

Isn't that why

[misko27]

The fact of the matter is Trump is not going to kill CNN and buzzfeed by keeping them out of a single semi-official press event, and I doubt anyone imagined such, so we can safely ignore that for the moment. I'm sure what they really want is for them to fall in line (unlikely), to quit politics (more likely, but still less likely than not) or to just keep them from opportunities to hit Trump (might work, might backfire badly).

Regardless, Loud Whispers you are essentially wishing for Trump to attack the first amendment. Because what he's doing now is not going to destroy CNN. There is evidence to suggest that Trump has actually been very good for CNN and the other fake news. Ratings have been high.  Getting into a standoff with Trump can make a reporter bounce around social media, and the "no such thing as bad publicity" applies to news agencies too; perhaps even more so. And Colbert, the late night host who is least afraid of discussing politics? Colbert has been suffering in the late night market; until the week of Trump's inauguration, when he zoomed past the relatively neutral Jimmy Fallon to hold the top spot, which he has held since then. Doesn't sound like the end of the media to me.

The fact of the matter is about half of the country wants Trump out of office, and probably behind bars if not worse. So if Trump attacks them, he's going to create more support for them. People ranted and raved against the news media for creating Trump! But now Trump and the media are working together again, and in a far more subtle way then before (to the point that I don't know if the media or Trump realize it consciously). Trump says or does something stupid, media calls him out, Trump calls out media for not reporting him right. Repeat several times, and add Trump going on a rant every so often. Don't you see how this is helping them both? Trump gets to look like he's at war with "the media", and "the establishment" and pretend that he's not incompetent to half of the country. The media gets to look like a hero doing their job and speaking truth to power to the other half the country. Both sides just get more positive responses for attacking each other.

Ultimately, it is a mutually beneficial relationship, said Dylan Ratigan, former MSNBC anchor and founder of Helical Holdings, an American resource technology company.

“Anytime Donald Trump can generate a sense of conflict or hostility toward the mainstream media it’s great for his supporters, for his base, and any time a member of the mainstream media can portray themselves as being hard on Donald Trump is great for their supporters, for their base,” Ratigan said. “There’s a mutual benefit to both participants because Trump voters want to see him confront the media and the audiences of the television networks want to see the hosts confront Donald Trump, so it’s like getting to see your favorite fight happen.”

If you think Trump is going to dismantle the News Media, then you must believe he is actually going to roll back the laws that protect them (which, again, will go up against the first amendment), because what he is doing now is not going to do that at all. It's going to endlessly increase polarization, decrease communication between the two sides, and increase the phenomenon where one side of the country sees the same events in entirely incompatible ways. But it absolutely will not weaken the media, let me assure you of that. In fact, if the media did listen to Trump, and did just support him and act like Breitbart and whatever, or even if they were just deferntial to him, it would probably hurt them more then opposition would. People were watching less and less media here for ages. Fox News does well because they have one entire ideological wing watching one network. The media would be fighting for the scraps, and it would lose them the very large anti-Trump coalition to people who would be willing to criticize.

[Flying Dice]

Rather than killing Buzzfeed or Breitbart the first step in fixing the media should be to kill Rupert Murdoch. Not that I'm advocating for that or anything.

Thankfully the Trump debacle (ongoing) seems to have shaken some degree of sense back into the press.

[redwallzyl]

Open-carry advocates walked into a police station with a loaded rifle. Officers were not amused.
who would have thunk it?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/07/open-carry-advocates-walked-into-a-police-station-with-a-loaded-rifle-officers-were-not-amused/?utm_term=.60c9336c0e8c

[palsch]

Just to try to summarise the Obama era rules;

The US has a visa waiver program for 38 countries, which means you don't need a visa for short visits and get expedited electronic processing in the case that you do need a visa. The fear was that someone from one of those countries could visit a terrorist training camp or similar, then enter the US without being screened by the normal visa process that would catch such things.

A law was passed that excluded visitors or nationals of certain countries from that program. You can see the term in the original law;

(Sec. 3) An alien shall be ineligible for program participation who:

    has been present, at any time on or after March 1, 2011, in Iraq or Syria, in a country designated as one that has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, or in any other country or area of concern designated by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS); and
    regardless of whether the alien is a national of a program country, is a national of Iraq or Syria, a country designated as a country that has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism, or any other country or area of concern.

And for a country to be designated the DHS had to find that;

    the presence of an alien in the country or area increases the likelihood that he or she is a credible U.S. security threat,
    a foreign terrorist organization has a significant presence in the country or area, and
    the country or area is a safe haven for terrorists.

Basically the DHS had to draw up a list of 'areas of concern' alongside the pre-determined Iraq and Syria and sponsors of international terrorism. The latter is why Iran and Sudan are on there. The DHS then further assigned Libya, Somalia, and Yemen - after a month's consideration - as areas of concern due to the large numbers of fighters moving through those nations. Alongside the restrictions they put in place new measures for expediting visa reviews in exceptional cases ("urgent business, medical, or humanitarian") as well as a new electronic process for diplomatic and related travel that could be covered by a case-by-case waiver.

In other words it was a measured and carefully executed implementation of a law passed by congress, based on the constraints of the law and the assessment of the DHS, designed to minimise the impact on those it might harm.

IMO the forced inclusion of Iran was irrational, as was the inclusion of dual citizens. Those were parts that the Republicans in congress fought for and screamed about Kerry trying to find workarounds for (such as when he wanted to use the case-by-case waver by default for dual citizens who hadn't visited the country), so I can't really blame Obama for them, and the mitigating efforts reduce a lot of the harm. The DHS assessments are reasonable to me. It was a probably unneeded but at least somewhat proportional response to a fairly small threat.

[martinuzz]

Open-carry advocates walked into a police station with a loaded rifle. Officers were not amused.
who would have thunk it?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2017/02/07/open-carry-advocates-walked-into-a-police-station-with-a-loaded-rifle-officers-were-not-amused/?utm_term=.60c9336c0e8c

I'm not quite sure if the police officers in the scene deserve a medal for not shooting the guy, or should be fired and replaced with more capable officers for not shooting the guy. I'm amazed that the two could set that many steps into a police station with a heavy weapon and their faces covered without being taken out.

[Steelmagic]

I like the "What the hell's the matter with you?" From one of the officers.

[Strife26]

Shot for exercising constitutionally protected rights?

[martinuzz]

Shot for exercising constitutionally protected rights?

Walking into a police station like that has jack shit to do with exercising constitutionally protected rights. The only thing it does is create fear and panic. As such, it should be regarded as an act of terrorism. I hope the two face terrorism charges.

[Wolfhunter107]

No, shot for being a dumbass and walking into a police station looking like he was about to shoot it up.