Below is the sub headline for Dan Abram’s interview.
“Arts and Sciences faculty at Columbia University on Thursday passed a vote of no confidence in the school’s president, Minouche Shafik, after her handling of pro-Palestinian protests. NewsNation’s Dan Abrams argues Shafik was ‘stuck in the middle’ when it came to her decisions, including calling [the] NYPD to campus. The Daily Beast Columnist Wajahat Ali joins ‘Dan Abrams Live’ to discuss why he believes the president shouldn’t have used police in response to the Hamilton Hall takeover: ‘in her attempt to please everyone, she has pleased no one.’”
Also below is how NewsNation describes itself and Dan Abram’s show.
“‘Dan Abrams Live’ brings a fresh, no-holds-barred approach to covering and analyzing the news. NewsNation is your source for fact-based, unbiased news for all America.”
I’m still laughing.
“I spent most of my time occupying various administration buildings… smoking a lot of Thai sticks… breaking into the ROTC… and bowling.”
― The Dude, or, uh, His Dudeness, or uh, Duder, or El Duderino, if you're not into the whole brevity thing.
[edited for content]
I'm with Ali in this case.
Of course, Dan sides with the police, like he always does, as he's a groupie.
Right off the bat, Dan gave us his snarky and false premise that Columbia's only recourse to removing the protesters from the lawn and the building was, "Your position is that she should have just let the students take over the building. And what, write it off as a tax deduction?"
Ali then came back at Dan with context to his obvious smear ploy: "The use of riot police, for example, the fact that it seemed like a militarized presence on an academic institution, the fact that even the head of the riot police said, yeah, they were 'peaceful. They didn't really, you know; they complied with us.’ That image and the fact that these faculty members saw that their students were attacked upon and that she, according to them, betrayed the safety and security of not just these students. You can agree with them or not, but this is the reason why the faculty, like you showed in the graphic, has given them about a 69%, 65% vote of no confidence."
But his next statement was both exceptionally brilliant and pertinent because of how Stefanik has been portraying herself as some sort of Israeli, Jewish American hero, but instead is the propaganda queen, and she's part and parcel of why these protests are being handled the way Columbia handled theirs.
Ali: "I would say, like you mentioned, that right-wing lawmakers, they're not pleased with her at all. Elise Stefanik is still not pleased with our—Elise Stefanik, by the way, I want to mention one last thing: she cares so much about Jews and cares so much about antisemitism that, to this day, she has not condemned Donald Trump for dining with Nick Fuentes, a white supremacist. And she used her own money to promote the white supremacist antisemitic replacement theory to win over voters—It's all bad faith.”
Dan then tried to dodge all of that, because he knows he can't argue against it—Stefanik is most likely an ally of his—with, "All right, look, let's put Stefanik aside"?
Dan then conflated this story with the Trump-Maro Lago raid? You see, that's what Dan does. He seems to have missed his calling because he should have been employed as a White House Press Corp spokesperson, as he loves using obfuscation tactics to downplay his side of things while also promoting misinformation and disinformation as a regular tactic, while never really answering any salient questions when prompted to do so by his guests. Instead, Dan merely switches gears and goes on the attack, or he will reiterate a previous nonpoint that never really landed, as you will see later in this article.
Dan: "Oh, my goodness, the fact that they had guns with them—that becomes, oh, you see that the police are always in riot gear. The reason they're coming in that way is because the protesters are locking arms when they're being arrested and forcing the police to go hands on. And number two: the fact that they are barricading themselves in a building, so when they come in, there is the real chance of danger the same way it is in any other situation where police have to literally break into a building. So of course, they're going to look militarized because the protesters have forced them into that position."
Wow, that's quite a bit to unpack there, but I'll give it the old college try.
Yeah, Dan, we are constantly, or as you put it, "always" seeing police "in riot gear." And that's part of a larger problem of our domestic police agencies purchasing militarized gear from the U.S. Army. And when we look at most situations where our police are involved in a call, whatever the call, they're "always" dressed that way. A kitten could be stuck in a tree, and the police will show up dressed like that!? It’s as though they want citizens to feel like they're being occupied by a military force to "force" compliance with oftentimes unconstitutional laws thrust onto them by corrupt lawmakers with agendas that don't help the people they're so-called "representing."
Second: Dan's "locking arms" issue is ludicrous. So, you're telling us, Dan, that these huge cops wouldn't be able to break free college kids' locked arms without all that riot gear, tear gas shot at them, pepper spray sprayed on them, while also using batons to hit them? That's your excuse? I also love the word Dan used to describe what the police would have to do in that situation as "forcing." And that's just more charged rhetoric from a hack "journalist."
Three: the students who barricaded themselves—sure, I'll give you that one—because the police couldn't see inside the building to know if those students had armed themselves or not. Although, whatever happened to that robot equipped with a camera that's used every so often in "dangerous" situations. And since they didn't use that tool, that tells me the "danger" part of this story is being used for political fodder. But I digress.
However, the way the media and you, Dan, portrayed that event in real time was pathetic. It was as though ISIS members themselves were inside that building, armed to the teeth. And even more embarrassing was that video the NYPD produced and showed to their officers after they cleared out the protesters, like it was a Hollywood movie, and they just took down terrorists while dramatic jingoistic hero music blares in the background?
And the spooky word Dan used to describe that incident was "danger"—spooky language for a spook-loving guy. And in his last sentence, again, he used the word "forced." I'd say that word should have been used to describe Dan's stance on this entire thing—forced.
And then Ali brought us back to sanity and used context: "Compare and contrast: was this the best judicious way of dealing with the protesters? Let's compare Columbia's response to [the] Northwestern response to Brown. Did they take over buildings in this way? So they had encampments. And in this particular case, with the takeover of Hamilton Hall, this is a tradition, whether you agree with it or not."
And of course, Dan interrupted Ali with more snark:"It's a tradition. It's just a fun time. It's just college. It's like getting a gig night.”
But then Ali brought Dan back to reality, saying, "Okay. So check it out: [in] 1985, they took over the building for three weeks, right? Three weeks. They did not bring a militarized police response. Eventually, this was resold in 1968. When they did, they brought in the police. [Do] you remember what happened? Hundreds of injuries. [In] national news to this day, it's seen as a disgrace and a Columbia."
And sure, Ali mixed up the timeline a bit, but his point was correct. We have precedent to show us how to handle these situations. But of course, Dan doesn't care about that, because for him and others like him, it's about a "show of force." They don't like the message, so they want the messengers crushed under an iron fist. They want them harshly punished; for them, punitive measures are necessary because, not only do they not like the message and the messengers, but they also want the punishment to be public and painful to work as a deterrent against others who may think about doing the same thing in the future.
Now, if this were pro-Israel protesters, or, to use a Dan rhetorical tactic trick, "'anti-Palestinian' protesters," Dan and others like Stefanik wouldn't hold the same view on tactics taken on these protesters. And if copsdidcome at those protesters the same way, restassured,the "antisemitic" cardwould be tossed at them, although I bet Dan would still protect the police by straddling that fence, because that's just who Dan is when it comes to law enforcement. But again, I digress.
Ali continued,"This president should have done, in my opinion, instead of bring[ing] out this militarized response immediately, bring[ing] in the riot police, [and] deal[t] with what the other chancellors. Let's talk to these students. Do not bring in the police. Condemn them if you have to, but in every single place where we've seen the police show up—Emory University, we saw in Dartmouth, we saw in UCLA, we saw [in] Columbia, we saw in Washington, Saint Louis University—you saw, then what happened? Unnecessary violence."
Indignant and bloodied Dan then charged in andblamedthe people who were killed by stating,"The unnecessary deaths [are] happening because of the protesters"??? He then continued, "If they want to just get arrested in peace, then don't lock arms; don't make the police go hands-on"??? Again, Dan, the police could have broken free those "locked arms" in a way that didn't involve pepper spray, tear gas, or the use of a baton to their skulls. And if those cops couldn't do that without those weapons, then they're weak and should probably hit the weights more.
But Ali parried Dan’s weak shot and countered,"The locking arms. Right. It's done for solidarity, but they do not care what it's done for. But it's not. There's not; it's not violence. You're saying that locking arms justifies a militarized riot."
Dan, following a wobbly-kneed guidance to his corner by the referee and after an eight-count by that very same ring official and much-needed smelling salts were placed under his crimson-colored nose by his trainer, he then tried to elaborate and babbled through sporadic strings of bloody spit,"I'm saying it forces police to go hands on because they continue to try to prevent the police from arresting them. If you want to just do a peaceful arrest, you want to protest, you want to say, ‘Alright, I got it.’ I'm going, ‘You don't even have to help them, right? Let them carry you by your legs and your arms.’ Fine. The problem for me is [that] when you lock arms, when you barricade a building like that, you are forcing the police into a more dangerous situation where they can get hurt as well."
All of that is balderdash. We have seen protests from the 1960s to this very day, and there have been times when the police didn't have to resort to those tactics. We've seen protesters lock arms before! And we've also seen the police take them to jail without much effort! They never needed to dress up like military soldiers about to go into battle, and they didn't need to use clubs, pepper spray, or tear gas to break up those locked-armed protesters!
It's the police, Dan, who decide what tactics they use in situations like this one. Nobody is "forcing" them to do anything. They're choosingto perform their job this way because the political optics and powerful lobbying groups and people behind itdemandit be that way.
Ali then finished off Dan by stating,"So my final word is this: in response to that, your comment, number one: the riot police, the head of the police said they were 'peaceful.' Number two: why even bring it to the point where you have to bring in the police? There were better ways to do it. And what we have seen is [that] in each instance where the police were brought [in], it made the situation worse and emboldened the protesters. It led to violence against faculty, against students. It was a terrible look for the institution."
Ohhhhhh, Ali… with theright hook!
DOWN GOES ABRAMS! DOWN GOES ABRAMS!! DOWN GOES ABRAMS!!!
