reminds me of Dan Brown's latest book: The Secret of Secrets.
Why?
The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
91–100 of 377 posts
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#92[flagged]
Do you ask this about all of the alt right slop artists that have been legitimized by the Trump admin? Or only about those who pose adversarial questions to the Trump administration?
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#93"Belgian police willingly comply with U.S. ambassador's request, and Belgian police stopped your reporting" FTFY > a foreign ambassador had Belgian police remove us Belgian police removed us . FTFY again. The article is making a good point, especially the hilarious irony of all the private companies, and US being complicit in limiting press freedom. But it also fails to recognize the agency and complicitness of the B…
Indeed, I find this story quite interesting (and disturbing) from the Belgian point of view.
Suppose the Belgian government declared the ambassador persona non grata, and sent them on the next plane to Washington. Presumably this would raise their popularity with their own voters, although if Trump noticed he'd throw another temper tantrum. What then?
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
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The US ambassador to France is a convicted felon, father of Jared Kushner. From Wikipedia: «In February 2026, French authorities restricted Kushner’s direct access to government ministers after he failed to attend a summons from Foreign Minister Jean-Noël Barrot, sending a senior embassy official in his place. The French foreign ministry cited an "apparent failure to grasp the basic requirements of the ambassadorial…
If true, there must be something seriously, profoundly, wrong in the Beltway.
It somehow seems like a huge number of people are working to throw America down the drain faster.
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
Only if you’re not following along. The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest.
> The link is police abusing their allowed powers to silence free speech and protest. If you'd actually read the post you'd know that its about the the US ambassador being an asshole and the Belgian police doing their job (quickly removing a supposed 'active threat' from an event - because that's the only information they had - they later realized their mistake and that the 'active threat' was just a journalist askin…
> because that's the information they had
That has always been and will always be the excuse for these kind of rights violations by the police. "Oh it's just what we were told, sorry".
And yes, it's worth bringing up e.g. Palestine or climate activists being beaten, arrested etc. in this context, because it's where the limits and tolerances for this kind of behavior are being tested.
Police, at least in Germany, always justify their transgressions with arguments like: "well we had to beat up these demonstrators because they were engaging in criminal behavior", the "criminal behavior" being "chanting a slogan they don't like" or "carrying an umbrella" (I kid you not).
TLDR: If we continue to allow law enforcement to justify their actions with "well that's just what I was told", we are in for a very bad time, because, it turns out, anything can be justified this way.
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it matter? Should they have been kicked out of an event they were invited to for asking a reasonable question? Why are you asking about a news organization and not an extremely fragile man-baby who can't take a tough question?
Many blogs will omit key facts. For example you could write "I was booted out for asking a question" when in actual fact you'd broken in with some wire cutters and then proceeded to pour champagne over all the soft furnishings. A credible reporter for a credible outlet writing a credible article won't, whether that's the Washignton Post, the Daily Telegraph, or Le Monde, or if it's BBC, RTL, Al Jazzera. So it's alway…
Trump omits key facts and lies all the time. Also, the SCOTUS yesterday let stand a ruling that he is in fact a rapist.
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#97For additional context, tensions are already high surrounding the US ambassador after he directly insulted multiple Belgian politicians and also attempted to interfere with local criminal judicial proceedings.
For context: he's accused Belgium of being anti-semitic because a couple of Orthodox Jewish mohels are being prosecuted for practicing illicit medicine (i.e. performing ritual circumcision without a medical license). The investigation started after a complaint was filed by a rabbi, so it's hard to chalk this up to anti-semitisim, but that's modern day US diplomacy for you.
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Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#98I’d say the embassy did a good job of exporting the American journalistic experience. The only point of inauthenticity is that neither journalist suffered any lasting physical harm.
> The only point of inauthenticity ...
And that the fuzz "disagreed with detaining them". The real experience involves them doubling, tripling down, etc. and threatening to "find a reason". By their logic, they are never and could never be wrong.
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#99I hope the journalists in question will lodge a complaint with the Belgian police watchdog, Comité P: https://comitep.be
Belgium has been pretty repressive towards certain journalists for a while now. Our "World Press Freedom Index"-score has gone down a fair bit in recent years, and rightly so. The current prime minister and his friends have a history of litigating against journalists who exposed some questionable deals, so it's all to be expected.
Re: The US ambassador had Belgian police stop our reporting
#100The Streisand Effect is taking effect in here in terms of surpressing a question has lead to many more people finding out about it, as it should be and I just find some layers of irony about America celebrating its freedom while this whole thing happens because of press freedom. I did some search on freedom250.org and found this interesting piece of TOS: YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS THE COMPANY AND ITS AFFILIATES, LIC…
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