# Republicans: candidate who assaulted reporter is fine with us! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 25, 2017, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443 "2017-05-25T21:36:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/181 "2017-05-26T23:46:25Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > You may be right, but I’ve given you my opinion on why that would be unwise. > > Let’s assume he ends up in front of a judge who decides to throw the book at him. It’s not completely out of the realm of possibility and we both know it wouldn’t be the first time a first offender receives the maximum sentence. So, why don’t you answer the hypothetical I posed? It’s based in fact, so there’s no reason to dispute the punishment Gianforte is facing. > > Let me refresh you memory: OK. You want an answer for a concedely technically possible but highly highly unlikely outcome? Here: he’d be very ineffective during the time he was in jail. SO far as I am aware, there is no provision to reduce a salary paid to a member of the House even if he is absent. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 11:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/182 "2017-05-26T23:53:44Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > So the media has a liberal bias, therefore it’s okay to assault them and treat them like an enemy of the country. You know that’s not what I said. But you imputed it to me anyway. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 26, 2017, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/183 "2017-05-26T23:59:10Z")
> [@Chisquirrel](#): > > Too bad you ignored the posts from liberals there, and in this thread, in your neverending quest to prove liberal hypocrisy. Is it just the lawyer in you that will go anywhere and everywhere to defend your chosen? Too bad you missed the point I was making. It’s not about “liberal hypocrisy,” but about reactions by the board population. I certainly don’t claim the board population was monolithic in that reaction. So what’s your response? You argue (apparently) that a single act of physical violence is sufficient for disqualification, and that all right-thinking people should agree. I point out lots of people that don’t agree (when the perpetrator is their favored side). Your response is to complain about my attack on liberal hypocrisy. ---
**Author:** ![ganthet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9de0a6/32.png) [@ganthet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ganthet)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/184 "2017-05-27T00:06:51Z")
[QUOTE=iiandyiiii] Do you really think that the press, by and large, hasn’t been fair to Trump? [/QUOTE] > [@Bricker](#): > > I do. > > And because Trump is such a disaster, that takes some doing. But yes. Please explain how the media should have treated a public figure seeking to be a politician who did the following in the course of just the 2016 campaign before actually becoming president (as pointed out by [conservative editorialist Michael Gerson](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-conservative-mind-has-become-diseased/2017/05/25/523f0964-4159-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html?utm_term=.762efb609a87)): > [@Michael Gerson](#): > > Who is the politician who legitimized conspiracy thinking at the highest level? Who raised the possibility that Ted Cruz’s father might have been involved in the assassination of John F. Kennedy? Who hinted that Hillary Clinton might have been involved in the death of Vince Foster, or that unnamed liberals might have killed Justice Antonin Scalia? Who not only questioned President Barack Obama’s birth certificate, but raised the prospect of the murder of a Hawaiian state official in a coverup? “How amazing,” Trump tweeted in 2013, “the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived.” > > We have a president charged with maintaining public health who asserts that the vaccination schedule is a dangerous scam of greedy doctors. We have a president charged with representing all Americans who has falsely accused thousands of Muslims of celebrating in the streets following the 9/11 attacks. It is perversely appropriate that the conservatives who whine so much about liberal snowflakes who demand safe spaces free from “unfairness and bias” (i.e. scrutiny, criticism or the potential for hurt feelings) are themselves the biggest whiners who create safe spaces free from scrutiny and criticism (Fox News, Breitbart, etc.) and demand other media platforms conform to this standard. Gerson’s thesis appears to be cuttingly accurate. For a large segment of the right, “the conservative mind has become diseased.” ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/185 "2017-05-27T00:11:43Z")
> [@k9bfriender](#): > > Third, the idea that removing the mandate just gives people the choice of not having insurance is not really true. The mandate did not require you to have insurance, it just made you pay out about a thousand bucks if you did not. So, by removing the mandate, you are increasing the effective opportunity cost of having insurance by a thousand dollars. Those who drop their insurance because the change in opportunity cost can very well be said to have been removed from insurance. Many will also not get insurance because the cost of premiums is going up, the ACA tried to address this, and had arguably effective controls on the rate of increase of premiums. The AHCA does not even try to address this, and it is quite likely that premiums will become unaffordable for anyone who actually needs insurance. Choosing food, clothing, and shelter over insurance premiums is not the same as choosing to not have insurance. For the purposes of this discussion, I accept this as true. But that does not describe “thrown off” insurance. That language is not correct. And even if it’s defensible as you’ve done (“…can very well be said to have been removed from insurance…”) it’s supportive of my point that someone who chooses that phrasing to describe the situation is not doing so as a neutral observer of facts. That’s the choice made by a narrator who believes that the ACA’s model is a comparatively good thing when contrasted with the AHCA and seeks to persuade the reader of this belief. ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/186 "2017-05-27T00:20:31Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > For the purposes of this discussion, I accept this as true. > > But that does not describe “thrown off” insurance. That language is not correct. And even if it’s defensible as you’ve done (“…can very well be said to have been removed from insurance…”) it’s supportive of my point that someone who chooses that phrasing to describe the situation is not doing so as a neutral observer of facts. That’s the choice made by a narrator who believes that the ACA’s model is a comparatively good thing when contrasted with the AHCA and seeks to persuade the reader of this belief. It’s nowhere near as malicious a distortion of arguments compared to conservative nuts like Cruz saying they want to get government out of the way so people have more choice and access to care. No one is barring any person from being eligible to get insurance from such a model, but merely having access in principle does not mean everyone can pay for access. Conservatives love ignoring this key concern, shine the laser pointer on the wall with rhetoric like less government and more choice and getting away with it because too many conservatives have the attention spans and mental capacity of cats chasing the light. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/187 "2017-05-27T00:21:05Z")
> [@ganthet](#): > > Please explain how the media should have treated a public figure seeking to be a politician who did the following in the course of just the 2016 campaign before actually becoming president (as pointed out by [conservative editorialist Michael Gerson](https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-conservative-mind-has-become-diseased/2017/05/25/523f0964-4159-11e7-9869-bac8b446820a_story.html?utm_term=.762efb609a87)): Answer: by factual descriptions of each of his proposals. In other words, because Trump suggested that “unnamed liberals might have killed Justice Antonin Scalia,” the press should certainly report there is no known factual predicate for that claim. But that kind of insane claim does not license the press to claim that 23 million people will be thrown off health care. There’s no concept here that Trump has somehow lost the accurate reporting on all issues because he lies about things. Or is that your argument? That because Trump has made a series of absurd, clearly false, and utterly ungrounded claims he has forfeited the deontological press treatment that otherwise guarantees accurate reporting? Has this penalty been applied to the entire GOP as well? Is this what justifies the various posts here that misrepresent my own positions? ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/188 "2017-05-27T00:24:54Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > It’s nowhere near as malicious a distortion of arguments compared to conservative nuts like Cruz saying they want to get government out of the way so people have more choice and access to care. I also accept this statement for the purposes of this thread: Cruz’s misrepresentation is far more of a distortion than the 23 million “thrown off” statement. But this is the difference: Cruz is an advocate. I don’t expect him to neutrally describe his position. I’m talking about the press, whose reporting I do expect to be factual. So your complaint that Cruz’s statements are more biased than the press statements are is unsurprising. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/189 "2017-05-27T00:35:05Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > What is amazing is why the dems have such a hard time fielding a decent candidate. Maybe none want to try in Montana which is a deeply red state. Since 1950 they have voted republican in all but two of seventeen elections and went to the likes of Nixon and Reagan and Bush and Trump by 20+ points. > > So yeah, cutting that lead by 2/3 by a hippy ain’t bad at all. I don’t know why people keep saying this. As I noted earlier in the thread, the governor is a Democrat and one of the Senators is, too. Democrats obviously can win in state-wide elections even if presidential elections tilt towards Republicans. ---
**Author:** ![BigAppleBucky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigapplebucky/32/178_2.png) [@BigAppleBucky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigAppleBucky)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/190 "2017-05-27T00:43:58Z")
Party of Putin über alles. ---
**Author:** ![Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/brown_eyed_girl/32/3574_2.png) [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Brown_Eyed_Girl)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 12:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/191 "2017-05-27T00:49:46Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > OK. You want an answer for a concedely technically possible but highly highly unlikely outcome? Here: he’d be very ineffective during the time he was in jail. SO far as I am aware, there is no provision to reduce a salary paid to a member of the House even if he is absent. First off, props for going back through a long thread and responding to those who are engaging with you. Secondly, I didn’t ask if it was legal to withhold his salary during his jail time, I asked if you thought if it was the right thing to do. Put it this way, do you think it would be ethical for a congressperson to accept full salary for a job he was not able to perform because he was in jail for assault? And further, do you still think that electing a representative who ends up in jail for six months on an assault conviction is better for his constituents than the alternative Democrat? That seems asinine to me. What’s the point of a representative who doesn’t represent for a quarter of his term? ---
**Author:** ![Salvor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Salvor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Salvor)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/192 "2017-05-27T01:02:27Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I also accept this statement for the purposes of this thread: Cruz’s misrepresentation is far more of a distortion than the 23 million “thrown off” statement. > > But this is the difference: Cruz is an advocate. I don’t expect him to neutrally describe his position. > > I’m talking about the press, whose reporting I do expect to be factual. So your complaint that Cruz’s statements are more biased than the press statements are is unsurprising. You know what, I reject this line of argument. It is often used by some of the worst partisan deceit filled hacks like Sean Hannity who use the fact that they are **explicit** in their partisanship as an aegis against the MASSIVE distortions they puke out week after week. Then when the more left leaning media says something with a FRACTION of the spin and misinformation they bitch up a storm. This standard just so happens to conveniently hit non conservative media much harder since most national media outfits are based out of big cities and population centers where more liberals live. And conservative media? They love to play the poor wittle helpless victims, but they can’t play that shit with me because I follow and listen to them. Most of talk radio is an over the top biased cesspool of hyper conservative dogma. They bathe themselves in some of the most caustic and biased and dishonest media around, then turn around and cry about CNN because it was slightly slanted towards a liberal perspective? Oh but it’s OK for their media centers to do FAR worse since they are admitted partisans? Eff that. We do not live in some closed off world today, and those cheap distinctions so are not enough in my eyes to absolve the absolute cancer of conservative commentary. ---
**Author:** ![TokyoBayer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tokyobayer/32/13989_2.png) [@TokyoBayer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TokyoBayer)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 1:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/193 "2017-05-27T01:59:23Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I’m talking about the press, whose reporting I do expect to be factual. So your complaint that Cruz’s statements are more biased than the press statements are is unsurprising. But that’s only an expectation for the “liberal press,” right? Fox News, which your Republican friends love, has no such expectation. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/c57346/32.png) [@Little\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Pig)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/194 "2017-05-27T02:14:29Z")
How long until a journalist gets stomped by the crowd at a Republican candidate/office holder rally? How long until one gets shot? ---
**Author:** ![Chisquirrel](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6bbea6/32.png) [@Chisquirrel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chisquirrel)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/195 "2017-05-27T02:17:03Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Too bad you missed the point I was making. It’s not about “liberal hypocrisy,” but about reactions by the board population. I certainly don’t claim the board population was monolithic in that reaction. > > So what’s your response? You argue (apparently) that a single act of physical violence is sufficient for disqualification, and that all right-thinking people should agree. I point out lots of people that don’t agree (when the perpetrator is their favored side). > > Your response is to complain about my attack on liberal hypocrisy. Poster often complains about liberal hypocrisy. In an effort to deflect attention from support for a criminal, poster brings up liberal examples, tenuously related, selectively edit quotes, and say THERE! But now it’s not about liberal hypocrisy, 3 pages later. Goalposts only a Vikings kicker could love. ---
**Author:** ![purplehearingaid](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7bcc69/32.png) [@purplehearingaid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/purplehearingaid)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/196 "2017-05-27T02:26:41Z")
> [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](#): > > [The Gianforte “bodyslam” showed how deeply Americans are divided about the media - Vox](https://www.vox.com/2017/5/25/15691988/political-reporters-under-attack-conservative-voters-greg-gianforte-ben-jacobs) > > Now, leaving aside the talk of the actual people in Montana in the article (which, at best, demonstrates that the state should be depopulated, deemed a superfund site, and offered as a gift of the ‘white elephant’ variety to Canada), this is what we get from the Republican party. Party before basic human decency. Again. For fuck’s sake, the guy body-slammed a reporter and put him in the hospital in front of a goddamn news team. And the response from the right wing is, “Yeah, we’re cool with that.” A literal assault on a journalist is not enough to make republicans in congress rescind their approval. What even the fuck. “Unless the reporter deserved it”. Yeah, _that’s_ not fucking ominous at all. > > This guy is probably still going to win. > > What the fuck is wrong with this country? I guess this is what Trump call "Making America great again " ! :eek: ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/197 "2017-05-27T02:31:19Z")
> [@Salvor](#): > > Y > > And conservative media? They love to play the poor wittle helpless victims, but they can’t play that shit with me because I follow and listen to them. > > Most of talk radio is an over the top biased cesspool of hyper conservative dogma. They bathe themselves in some of the most caustic and biased and dishonest media around, then turn around and cry about CNN because it was slightly slanted towards a liberal perspective? > > Oh but it’s OK for their media centers to do FAR worse since they are admitted partisans? Eff that. I agree with this. It’s like the conservatives think it’s OK to say "well, sure our media talkers are outrageous partisan liars who make up the nastiest shit about our opponents. But that’s OK, since this is the expected level of what we will tolerate. " YOU LIBERALS on the other hand, have to play by the rules, and be fair, and tolerant, and even handed. Otherwise you are being MEAN! and BIASED! And we will bitch and cry and complain. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tooth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c67d28/32.png) [@The\_Tooth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tooth)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/198 "2017-05-27T02:36:39Z")
N/M ---
**Author:** ![Fubaya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c2a13f/32.png) [@Fubaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fubaya)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/199 "2017-05-27T02:43:35Z")
I’d be curious to see the right wing’s take on the fact that if that reporter had a concealed handgun, he would have been justified in putting a bullet right between Gianforte’s eyes. I’d like to know why they think Gianforte should be forgiven for a transgression that they normally consider serious enough to take a person’s life no questions asked. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2017, 2:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443/200 "2017-05-27T02:53:48Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Pro-life as opposed to pro-choice. > > Quist favors keeping the ACA. > > Quist opposes school vouchers. > > Quist supports federal legislation that would allow class action suits in which individuals may be joined as party plaintiffs without their written consent. Pro-life people don’t grab people by their throats and throw them to the floor. Pro-life people also don’t advocate against legislation that saves millions of lives. You are endorsing the anti-life candidate over the actual pro-life candidate. You used to be better than this, **Bricker**. Please try to find that better you again. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/republicans-candidate-who-assaulted-reporter-is-fine-with-us/787443.md?page=11)