Riled Up!

Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin were greeted in Helsinki with a large billboard advertisement purchased by Helsingin Sanomat, the nation’s largest newspaper.  The billboard message  bashed Trump and Putin as being enemies of journalism and a free press.  The paper’s editor-in-chief said, “As we welcome the presidents to the summit in Finland, we want to remind them of the importance of the free press"….later adding, “The media shouldn’t be the lap dog of any president or regime.”

Putin is alleged to have had dissident members of the press killed in Russia.  Donald Trump has repeatedly called much of the American press “fake news” and the free press as “the enemy of the people.”  He has said this again and again and every time he says it, I get riled, and I expect you and every other U.S. citizen and every World citizen to rise up and take issue with it—just as Finland has done with their billboard (and protests).  Everybody gets hot under the collar about people not standing up for the national anthem—but seem not to get hot under the collar when our very Constitution is ignored.  What a farcical thing!

When the media (the free press) becomes Putin’s or Trump’s lap dog, we are in deep trouble—because here in this country the First Amendment is in jeopardy.  Many get all riled up about the Second Amendment and yet seem undisturbed when the First is ridiculed. There is a reason the “free press,” “freedom of religious expression,” and the “right to air grievances” is the FIRST!

Donald Trump criticized Theresa May in England.  That criticism was reported by a British tabloid which Trump called “fake news,” because it said he had criticized May. The paper, however, released an audio of the interview proving Mr. Trump wrong.  Still Mr. Trump continues to suggest that his meetings in Brussels and with Theresa May in England were all “inaccurately covered by much of the media.”  He refused, for example, in a press conference to take questions from a CNN reporter because Trump believes CNN is “fake news.”  He did take a question from Fox News (his lap dog?) immediately following his rebuke of the CNN reporter.  

Today, as Donald Trump prepared to meet with Vladimir Putin, he tweeted that the special counsel investigation into Russia’s election interference is a  “Rigged Witch Hunt.”  He echoed Moscow’s view saying the United States—not Russia—is to blame for hostilities between our two countries.  He tweeted this morning that the special counsel investigation and the  “many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity” are why the United States’ relationship with Russia “has NEVER been worse.”  Donald Trump is his own fake news!

The Star-Gazer Lilly keeps me sane
 in the midst of our present irrationality!