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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/16/pittsburgh-cartoonist-firing-publisher-gazette-650389

‘He’s just become too angry’: Pittsburgh Post-Gazette publisher defends firing cartoonist

LAKEVILLE, Conn. — The publisher of a Pittsburgh newspaper on Saturday defended the controversial firing of its editorial cartoonist, saying he “hasn’t been funny in a long time.”

“He’s just become too angry for his health or for his own good,” John Block, the publisher and editor-in-chief of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, told POLITICO in his first interview since the firing earlier this week. “He’s obsessed with Trump.”

The veteran cartoonist, Rob Rogers, disputed Block’s assessment as “completely inaccurate” and claimed that Block was mistaking strong opinion for anger.

Rogers maintained Saturday that he was let go for being too anti-Trump in his cartoons.

The firing came as journalists and comedians debate how to respond to a president who frequently lambastes the media as “fake news,” and two months after comedian Michelle Wolf was heavily criticized for biting humor aimed at Trump and Sarah Sanders during the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Late-night comedians like Stephen Colbert have also drawn attention during Trump’s presidency for their frequent, sharply worded criticism of Trump.

The Post-Gazette covers a key area in a critical swing state that helped elect Trump president in 2016. The paper helps to shape the views of Trump supporters and others among his base of voters in their state, which will likely play an important role in 2020 as well.

Block said that Rogers wanted to make cartoons every day about Trump, and among the issues that led to his firing was a lack of a diversity of subjects.

“I wanted clever and funny instead of angry and mean,” he said in an interview in Lakeville, Connecticut, at a reunion of his boarding school Hotchkiss.

Editorial cartoonists should augment the positions of the newspaper they work for, not stray too far from them, Block said.

Block said that the newspaper has picked up some conservative readers recently after the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, which was owned by the late right-wing billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, stopped printing daily in 2016.

“We’re trying to have some acceptability to them too,” he said.

Rogers told POLITICO that he didn’t want to draw Trump every day.

"If you look through my work, you will see that many cartoons had nothing to do with Trump," he said in an email.

"If I drew Trump more often than Block would have liked, it was because I base my cartoons on the most urgent topics at hand. Sadly, Trump provides that fodder every day."

"Mr. Block mistakes a strong opinion, particularly one he doesn't agree with, as anger. I see it as my job to critique injustices. I don't see that as anger, nor do many readers or fellow journalists."

Rogers, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist in 1999 and had worked for the newspaper for over two decades, wrote a New York Times op-ed on Saturday with the headline “I Was Fired for Making Fun of Trump.”

“Our job is to provoke readers in a way words alone can’t. Cartoonists are not illustrators for a publisher’s politics,” he wrote in the article.

“Every year, a few of my cartoons get killed. But suddenly, in a three-month period, 19 cartoons or proposals were rejected. Six were spiked in a single week — one after it was already placed on the page,” he wrote. He also said he would continue to work on his cartoons “every day of this presidency.” His cartoons will continue to be distributed by a syndication service.

Asked his reaction to the Times op-ed, Block said: “I haven’t seen it yet. He’s playing it for everything that it’s worth and I think that’s a mistake. I don’t think that’s a good idea.”

Block, who said he has lost $161 million on the newspaper in the last 10 years, declined to say if he had personally given the order to fire Rogers.

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https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/17/bannon-trump-proud-talk-voice-650393

Bannon: ‘I couldn’t be prouder’ of Trump


Former Trump chief strategist Steve Bannon may not have left the White House on the best of terms, but he still “couldn’t be prouder” of President Donald Trump and the job he’s doing, Bannon told Jonathan Karl on ABC’s “This Week” on Sunday morning.

“Donald Trump is accomplishing everything he committed to the American people on the campaign that I stepped in as CEO. I couldn’t be prouder of the guy,” Bannon said. “All he has to do is continue to hit those marks on that whiteboard and he’s going to run the tables.”

But that doesn’t mean that and Trump have kept in touch since Bannon’s very public exit.

“Before I stepped in as CEO of the campaign, I probably talked to Donald Trump 10 times in my entire life,” he said. “I don’t need to talk to Donald Trump.”

Bannon told Stephanopoulos that “no,” he hasn’t actually talked to Trump recently but explained that he communicates with him “every day through the press and the media.”

“He’s got too many guys to talk to right now,” Bannon said. “All he’s got to do is listen to his own inner voice.”

And Bannon is confident that if Trump keeps it up, November’s midterm elections will be an easy win in the president’s favor.

“[Listening to his inner voice] is going to lead — write this down — that’s going to lead to an astounding victory in November, where he’s going to run the tables in the House and he’s going to pick up a couple seats in the Senate.”

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https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livew...n-with-russian-national-offering-clinton-dirt

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...80389a4e569_story.html?utm_term=.6fa5ddea9512

WaPo: Stone Met During Campaign With Russian National Offering Clinton Dirt

Despite his past claims to the contrary, Trump confidant Roger Stone did in fact meet with a Russian national during the 2016 presidential campaign, the Washington Post reported Sunday.

The man, Henry Greenberg — though he has used other names in the past, the Post reported, including as an apparent information source for the FBI — asked Stone for $2 million from Trump in exchange for damaging information about Hillary Clinton during a May 2016 meeting at a Miami area restaurant.

Stone told the Post he rejected the offer, saying that Trump “doesn’t pay for anything.” The paper also reviewed a text message exchange between Stone and Michael Caputo following the meeting; the Trump campaign communications staffer had arranged the meeting between Greenberg and Stone, the Post reported, after Greenberg first met with Caputo’s business partner.

Caputo told the Post prosecutors on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team brought up the meeting in an interview last month. Caputo remembered Mueller’s team seeming to have “intense interest” in the meeting, the paper said.

“How crazy is the Russian?” Caputo texted Stone following the 2016 meeting, according to text messages reviewed by the Post.

“Wants big &$ for the info- waste of time” Stone responded.

“The Russian way,” Caputo said. “Anything at all interesting?”

“No” Stone said.

Speaking to CNN’s Jake Tapper Sunday, Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani said he “certainly” did not have any knowledge of the 2016 meeting, nor did he believe Trump had been aware of it.

Though the Post reported there’s no evidence that Greenberg was working on the FBI’s behalf in the meeting, the paper said it had reviewed a 2015 immigration filing for the same man using a different name, Henry Oknyansky, in which he claimed to have provided information to the FBI for 17 years. Greenberg told the Post he stopped cooperating with the FBI “sometime after 2013,” in the paper’s words.

After initially denying the story, the Post said, Greenberg essentially confirmed Stone’s version of it with one exception: Greenberg claimed to have been accompanied by a man named Alexei who he claimed had once worked for the Clinton Foundation, though the foundation told the Post that it had never employed a man with that first name. Greenberg also denied having personally asked Stone for money.

Caputo’s attorney, the Post said, sent a letter to the House Intelligence Committee Friday correcting earlier testimony about whether he was ever offered information about Clinton by a Russian. He also told the paper he would tell the DOJ inspector general about the meeting, as well. Stone’s attorney, Stone told the Post, “has done the same.”

The May 2016 meeting, the Post noted, came before Wikileaks began publishing stolen Democratic emails, before the acknowledged start of the FBI counterintelligence investigation, and before the Trump Tower meeting between several top Trump campaign officials and a Russian lawyer similarly promising dirt on Hillary Clinton.
 
I figured out why he wants to the NFL players to choose ppl to pardon.

He gon Pardon his friends and say he just doing the same thing he did for black players.

We cant fall for this one. He playing chess with this shit
man this shit aint chess....this nigga playing i d clare war.

he trying to make it seem strategic.

if niggas fall for that.....they deserve what they get.

he just trying to shut them up and stand them up
 
So trump is basically holding kids hostage in order to get his stupid as wall built..as foul as it is i hope democrats dont give in, because if they do his ass is gonna pull some shit like this again to get what he wants, they gotta ride this one out and hope the backlash makes him change it on his ownol(although i have very little faith in that)or someone else steps up
 
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