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Mar 14, 2016

Charles Krauthammer Tells O'Reilly He Is a Weasel for Defending Trump

On the Factor this evening Charles Krauthammer tells Bill O'Reilly he is a weasel for defending donald trump at his Chicago rally Friday night called off due to protester interruption.

Charles Krauthammer had to explain to Bill O'Reilly there were two separate issues: first there was the protest by the left at odds with the views of trump and secondly, the larger issue of trump, an individual running for the highest office in our country, not condemning the fighting taking place in the crowd by his supporters. Krauthammer was specifically talking about the man that sucker punched a protester who had made an inappropriate gesture and then said the next time we may have to kill him.

Charles Krauthammer had to explain the whole thing to Bill--twice and slowly. Bill tried to say trump was in uncharted waters as he had never run for political office and that he should be excused for his lack of criticism for this kind of act.

Charles Krauthammer had to go into more detail of trump's repeated calls to punch someone in the face and recounting tales of protesters being taken out on a stretcher in days past.

Yes, on Fox News Charles Krauthammer spoke against the ideas and campaign of the donald. Charles said the way he was acting was not right, not Presidential and not the kind of activity that should take place by someone running for this kind of position. Charles said donald is making incorrect statements about violence and it has to stop.

As one watches the show one has to wonder if Bill O'Reilly condones this kind of behavior. One wonders if trump is a racist and a bigot and bill follows in that philosophy, as well.

copied from salon.com:

UESDAY, MAR 15, 2016 05:32 AM PDT

Charles Krauthammer ridicules Bill O’Reilly for using “weaselly words” to defend Trump’s violent rhetoric

"Readjust his violent rhetoric?" Krauthammer asked, there's "No excuse" for not condemning it

SCOTT ERIC KAUFMAN Follow

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Bill O'Reilly, Charles Krauthammer (Credit: Fox News)

Charles Krauthammer was unimpressed, to say the least, by Bill O’Reilly’s defense of Trump’s violent rhetoric.

On Monday night’s edition of The O’Reilly Factor, Krauthammer opened by commenting on Sarah Palin’s condemnation of the “punk-ass thuggery” of far-left plants at Trump rallies, saying that “it’s refreshing to hear Sarah Palin — it’s that kind of calm, reasoned political rhetoric that we need in this country, and it’s so welcomed when we can hear it from her.”

O’Reilly chuckled, but his mirth was short-lived, as Krauthammer immediately turned on the GOP front-runner himself. “There are two separate phenomenon here,” by which he meant the organized “tactic of shutting the opposition down,” much like what — according to Krauthammer — happened “in the 1920s and 1930s,” and which is “happening on campuses all the time now, speakers who aren’t allowed to speak,” basically how “the left acts in a totalitarian way to control who speaks.”

Such a phenomenon should be condemned, he added, but that’s not what is happening at Trump events. The candidate himself is “winking and nodding and saying, ‘In the old days, we carried them out on a stretcher,'” suggesting in no uncertain terms that “‘We used to beat people like that until they weren’t able to walk.'”

“We saw a guy on that tape sucker-punching a demonstrator in the face, and saying, ‘If we see him again, we may have to kill him.'” When Trump was asked about it, he said “‘I don’t condone violence in the abstract,’ [and] that’s great, but he refused to condemn it, and that’s unconscionable. Are you letting Trump off the hook for this?” Krauthammer asked.

“I’m not,” O’Reilly shot back. “I’ve said he has to readjust his rhetoric.”

“Come on Bill!” Krauthammer replied. “‘Readjust the rhetoric‘? What kind of weaselly words are those? ‘Readjust the rhetoric‘?”

“I’m trying to deal with this in a fair and balanced way,” O’Reilly said, despite having spent the majority of the program having done nothing of the sort. “So I think we’re going to remove the word ‘weaselly’ from it.”

“I’m not going to rebut the point, I’m going to illuminate the point,” he continued. “Trump speaks in an emotional manner — he talks like this, ‘bang, bang, bang’ — and he doesn’t have a filter. He doesn’t think sometimes before he speaks, he doesn’t understand that his words can carry threats. But I’m not going to sit here and say he’s responsible for what happened in Chicago.”

O’Reilly added that Trump only failed to condemn his supporter because “he never admits a mistake,” a rationale that didn’t sit well with Krauthammer. “That’s no excuse,” he said, “no excuse. How difficult is it to condemn it and not say, ‘it’s obvious that that [who sucker-punched a protester] is a patriot.'”

Watch the entire segment via Fox News.

Scott Eric Kaufman is an assistant editor at Salon. He taught at a university, but then thought better of it. Follow him at @scottekaufman or email him atskaufman@salon.com.

Jul 25, 2015

Roger Waters Talks Palestinian Freedom and Asks Dionne Warwick to Share His Cause

THURSDAY, MAY 14, 2015 11:15 AM PDT

Roger Waters to Dionne Warwick: “You are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant of what has happened in Palestine since 1947″

EXCLUSIVE: Dionne Warwick called me out by name in asserting she'd play Tel Aviv. Here's what she misunderstands

ROGER WATERS

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TOPICS: ROGER WATERS, DIONNE WARWICK, ISRAEL, PALESTINE, EDITOR'S PICKS, MUSIC, PINK FLOYD, SUN CITY,BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN, ENTERTAINMENT NEWS, POLITICS NEWS

Roger Waters (Credit: AP/Vadim Ghirda)

Singer and U.N. global ambassador Dionne Warwick recently released an interesting if puzzling statement asserting that she would, and I quote, “never fall victim to the hard pressures of Roger Waters, from Pink Floyd, or other political people who have their views on politics in Israel.”

“Waters’ political views are of no concern,” I assume she means to her, the statement read. “Art,” she added, “has no boundaries.”

Until today, I have not publicly commented on Ms. Warwick’s Tel Aviv concert or reached out to her privately. But given her implicit invitation, I will comment now.

First, in my view, Dionne Warwick is a truly great singer. Secondly, I doubt not that she is deeply committed to her family and her fans.

But, ultimately, this whole conversation is not about her, her gig in Tel Aviv, or even her conception of boundaries and art, though I will touch on that conception later. This is about human rights and, more specifically, this is about the dystopia that can develop, as it has in Israel, when society lacks basic belief in equal human value, when it strays from the ability to feel empathy for our brothers and sisters of different faiths, nationalities, creeds or colors.

It strikes me as deeply disingenuous of Ms. Warwick to try to cast herself as a potential victim here. The victims are the occupied people of Palestine with no right to vote and the unequal Palestinian citizens of Israel, including Bedouin Israeli citizens of the village of al-Araqib, which has now been bulldozed 83 times by order of the Israeli government.

I believe you mean well, Ms. Warwick, but you are showing yourself to be profoundly ignorant of what has happened in Palestine since 1947, and I am sorry but you are wrong, art does know boundaries. In fact, it is an absolute responsibility of artists to stand up for human rights – social, political and religious – on behalf of all our brothers and sisters who are being oppressed, whoever and wherever they may be on the surface of this small planet.

Forgive me, Ms. Warwick, but I have done a little research, and know that you crossed the picket line to play Sun City at the height of the anti-apartheid movement. In those days, Little Steven, Bruce Springsteen and 50 or so other musicians protested against the vicious, racist oppression of the indigenous peoples of South Africa. Those artists allowed their art to cross boundaries, but for the purpose of political action. They released a record that struck a chord across the world. That record, “I Ain’t Gonna play Sun City,” showed the tremendous support of musicians all over the world for the anti-apartheid effort.

Those artists helped win that battle, and we, in the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, will win this one against the similarly racist and colonialist policies of the Israeli government of occupation. We will continue to press forward in favor of equal rights for all the peoples of the Holy Land. Just as musicians weren’t going to play Sun City, increasingly we’re not going to play Tel Aviv. There is no place today in this world for another racist, apartheid regime.

As I’m sure you know, Lauryn Hill canceled her gig in Tel Aviv last week. She did not explicitly cite Israeli oppression of Palestinians as her reason for canceling, but the subtext of her actions is clear and we thank her for her principled stand.

Dionne, I am of your generation. I remember the road to Montgomery, I remember Selma, I remember the struggles against the Jim Crow laws here. Sadly, we are still fighting those battles, whether here in the USA in Ferguson or Baltimore, or in Gaza or the Negev, wherever the oppressed need us to raise our voices unafraid. We need to stand shoulder to shoulder with them, our brothers and sisters, until true equality and justice are won.

Remember, “Operation Protective Edge,” the Israeli bombing of Gaza last summer, resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, including more than 500 Palestinian children. It is hard for us over here to imagine what it is like to be exiled, disenfranchised, imprisoned, rendered homeless and then slaughtered, with no place to flee. Hopefully, in the end, love will triumph. But love will not triumph unless we stand up to such injustice and fight it tooth and nail, together.

Dionne, your words indicate that part of you is set on going through with your concert. I am appealing to another part of you, to implore that other part to join us. We will welcome you. It is more than likely that you harbor reservations in your heart about what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, that when you see a mother’s child in ruins you wonder what if that child were mine? It is not too late to hear those reservations, to listen to that other voice, to value freedom and equality for all over the value you place on your concert in Tel Aviv.

When global pressure finally forces Israel to end its occupation, when the apartheid wall comes down, when justice is served to Palestinian refugees and all people there are free and equal, I will gladly join you in concert in the Holy Land, cross all the boundaries and share our music with all the people.