PRESS SUPPR ATTACK 4
SEE FIVE 9 25 KIRK SHOOT
SEE 1ST AMENDMENT nyt v sullivan 2025 pjt trump
// PPL LOSE CONST RTS
NO MERRI
see retaliation FASCISM
SEE BONDI 2
SEE CBS PARAMOUNT SKYDANCE ELLISON bari weiss 60 MIN CECOT
SEE AP BAN GULF AM
accidental overwrite 3.20?
SEE FOX GUTFELD
gingrich maga mike disd biden win gotcha looking fwd // jdv pre-emptive trash bias press before “answer” tough question SOP eg cruz
see sullivan v nyt libel tourism
see brendan carr FCC ~ pbs npr cbs abc nbc
SEE HEGSETH DOD
SEE DEFAM LEGAL SUPPRESSION LAWFARE
neglect? over 200 attacks by cops BLM?
SEE BANNON TRUMP GOP MSNBC
see authoritarian fascism AUTOCRATIC BRKTHRU TRMS
SEE TRAITOR // ENEMY OF THE PPL
NOTE ACCOUNTABILITY IS A EUPHEMISM FOR VIOLENCE EXECUTION SEE RETALIATION FASCISM
AHA NOTE PRESS SUPPRESS LIBERAL MEDIA BIAS bs ESSENTIal for earth2
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yikes omg
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10 26
- Hafiz Rashid @ The New Republic: FCC Threatens Broadcasters Over Polls Predicting Disaster for GOP
The Federal Communications Commission is ramping up Trump’s war on “fake polls” as it looks to be a bloodbath for Republicans this election.
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Global Press Freedom Hits Record Low, U.S. Drops to 64th in the World: Reporters Without Borders
May 6, 2026 Latest Shows
Support our work: https://democracynow.org/donate/sm-de...Reporters Without Borders warns press freedom has fallen to its lowest level since the group began publishing its annual World Press Freedom Index in 2002. The index has charted how press freedoms have deteriorated in the United States and elsewhere over the past 25 years.
The U.S. was ranked 17th in the world in 2002. In the latest index, the U.S. is down to 64th, falling seven places since last year. "It's tempting to lay all of this at the feet of President Donald Trump, and to be clear, he is the single biggest threat to American press freedom today," says Clayton Weimers, the North America director for Reporters Without Borders. "But the mere fact that we fell from 57th last year tells us that this isn't just a Trump problem. We have structural deficiencies that are imperiling the future of press freedom in this country.
..3:20
3 minutes, 20 seconds
But the mere fact that we fell from 57th last year tells us that this isn't just the Trump problem. We have structural
3:28
3 minutes, 28 seconds
deficiencies that are imperiling the future of press freedom in this country.
3:33
3 minutes, 33 seconds
And I think that shocks a lot of Americans when they hear it because, as you said, press freedom is enshrined in the First Amendment. Journalism is the
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3 minutes, 41 seconds
only profession actually called out by the bill of rights. But when you dig into it, it becomes a little bit less surprising. You think about the
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3 minutes, 49 seconds
economics of the news industry right now. Thousands of jobs lost over recent years. An average of two local newspapers closing every week in this
3:57
3 minutes, 57 seconds
country and tens of millions of Americans living in news deserts.
4:00
4 minutes
Meanwhile, there's a great deal of consolidation of the media with uh fewer and fewer people owning uh the airwaves
...
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4 minutes, 23 seconds
outlets. And you know, we have a safety problem in this country. There is a a a startlingly high incidence of violence against journalists. And and what we've
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4 minutes, 32 seconds
especially seen in 2025 is violence committed by law enforcement agents,
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4 minutes, 36 seconds
particularly masked anonymous law enforcement agents who are policing protests, particularly the No Kings protest or anti-ICE protests, and journalists getting caught up in that.
4:46
4 minutes, 46 seconds
Dozens and dozens of very violent incidents uh against journalists sending them to the hospital, causing journalists to be blinded, one lost a finger, concussions, visits to the ER.
4:58
4 minutes, 58 seconds
These are very serious conditions. In fact, it's caused us to introduce a new program that provides independent and
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5 minutes, 5 seconds
freelance journalists with protective gear. That's the kind of program we've been running for years in places like Ukraine and Lebanon, the Democratic
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5 minutes, 14 seconds
Republic of Congo, and it really is a sad state of affairs that we now feel compelled to do the same thing in the United States.
5:20
5 minutes, 20 seconds
I want to ask you about Lebanon, about Israeli attacks on journalists there.
5:26
5 minutes, 26 seconds
Last month, Israeli forces killed the prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil, a correspondent for the daily
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5 minutes, 33 seconds
newspaper Alkbar. In 2024, Amal told local media she'd received an Israeli death threat warning her to leave southern Lebanon or risk decapitation.
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5 minutes, 45 seconds
This is what she said.
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5 minutes, 49 seconds
I received direct targeting on my phone from the Israeli Mossad. They threatened to kill me. They literally said, "We will separate your head from your
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5 minutes, 56 seconds
shoulders if you don't leave from the south." They advised me to leave the south.
6:01
6 minutes, 1 second
So, talk about what happened to Amal and the photojournalist she was with as she was covering an Israeli strike in
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6 minutes, 9 seconds
southern Lebanon and then fled into a house for protection and then Israel bombed the house.
6:18
6 minutes, 18 seconds
Oh, well, that's right. And it it didn't stop there. We know that Amal initially survived the strike. Uh we were aware of
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6 minutes, 26 seconds
her position as was uh several of our colleagues in the international community and we were urging the Israelis to allow the Red Cross to get
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6 minutes, 34 seconds
through uh in order to access her and hopefully save her. Uh but for hours the IDF refused to relent its its bombing campaign even though they knew very well
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6 minutes, 42 seconds
what was happening. Uh they they allowed not only did they target Amal with an airirst strike, they then allowed her to
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6 minutes, 49 seconds
die by denying ambulances access to the site. Uh it's the latest in a series of quite literally hundreds of targeted
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6 minutes, 58 seconds
killings of journalists while they're doing their jobs as journalists, not just in Gaza, but also across the border
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7 minutes, 6 seconds
in Lebanon. Uh the the kill targeted killing of journalists in Lebanon has been going on since the very beginning of the war. Uh I'm I'm thinking back to
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7 minutes, 15 seconds
Isam Abdalah uh a Reuters journalist who was killed just across the the border in Lebanon in the first weeks of the war in
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7 minutes, 22 seconds
in a targeted double tap air strike. And so this is really just a a policy at this point to target journalists and
....
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7 minutes, 54 seconds
I wanted to turn to what has recently happened here. In January, FBI agents raided the home of the Washington Post reporter Hannah Natinson. Uh,
8:06
8 minutes, 6 seconds
authorities seized her phone to laptops and a Garmin watch. She spent the past year covering the Trump administration's
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8 minutes, 14 seconds
cuts to the federal workforce. Matt Murray, the executive editor of the Post, said in a staff message, quote,
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"This extraordinary aggressive action is deeply concerning and raises profound questions and concern around the
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constitutional protections for our work." According to the Post,
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8 minutes, 35 seconds
investigators reportedly told Natinson she wasn't the target of the probe. A warrant obtained by the Washington Post
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cited an investigation into a government contractor with a top secret security clearance who's been accused of taking home classified intelligence reports.
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Just this week, Hannah won a Pulitzer Prize along with her colleagues for their reporting on Doge. The
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significance of this Clayton and what happened to her?
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I don't think we can overstate how dangerous that raid is. It is unprecedented for the FBI to raid the
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9 minutes, 16 seconds
home of a journalist and seize both their professional and personal devices.
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9 minutes, 20 seconds
They took her laptops, they took her phones, they took her Garmin watch,
which suggests that they are tracking her movements. And there are legal protections against this. There's the Constitution obviously, but there's also
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9 minutes, 31 seconds
the Privacy Protection Act, which flatly uh uh rejects uh which flatly makes searches like this illegal. And in fact,
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9 minutes, 40 seconds
when the government went to court over this uh against the Washington Post, the judge admonished the government lawyers for failing to disclose the specific
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legal protections that they should have when they sought the warrant. And so,
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you know, we've now had two judicial decisions that have ruled that this search was improper. And what I think is really scary about this is if you dig
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deeper into the government's justification, they cite possible violations of the Espionage Act that they thought Hannah may have committed,
which is a preposterous conclusion for them to draw, but unfortunately, not totally unexpected. You know, the Espionage Act is uh an overly broad
piece of legislation from World War I that makes no distinction between an act of journalism and an act of espionage.
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And at RSF, we've long warned that there is this sort of backdoor that the federal government could use in order to
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target journalists. And we've been urging reform of the Espionage Act uh going back a long time. And you know,
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10 minutes, 40 seconds
viewers of this program may remember the Espionage Act is also what was used to prosecute Julian Assange. And our argument at that time was, you know,
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whether or not you think Julian Assange is a journalist is kind of beside the point. What Julian Assange did was publish secret government documents. And
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fundamentally, that is no different from what other journalists are doing like Hannah when she obtains uh leaked information from whistleblowers in the
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government. And I also want to point out that Hannah is a a really talented reporter who has communications with
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hundreds, if not over a thousand sources in the government who are all trying to blow the whistle on wrongdoing and corruption. I don't think it's any
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coincidence that she's the one who was targeted because that has a profound chilling effect on anyone else being willing to come forward and blow the whistle when they see something wrong.
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DON LEMON ARREST AFTER 2X CT LOSS BY DOJ
ALSO
'Agents at my door right now': Minnesota journalist arrested after filming church protest
AN 1 30 26
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AN 12 25
Donald Trump on Monday night went after the New York Times in a "deranged" rant on Truth Social, per a report from the Daily Beast, though the exact reason for the attack is unclear.
"The Failing New York Times, and their lies and purposeful misrepresentations, is a serious threat to the National Security of our Nation," Trump's post read, echoing many of his recurring complaints about negative media coverage. "Their Radical Left, Unhinged Behavior, writing FAKE Articles and Opinions in a never-ending way, must be dealt with and stopped. THEY ARE A TRUE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE! Thank you for your attention to this matter. PRESIDENT DJT."
As the Daily Beast noted in its coverage of the social media blast, it is unknown what precisely set the president off this time, though the outlet highlighted two possibilities.
Last month, Trump was "triggered for days" by a report fromTimesdetailing his lightened schedule of public events and later start to the day, presenting these as symptoms of increasing "fatigue" due to his old age and observing that his "battery shows signs of wear." Trump lashed out against this report numerous times, at one point attacking co-writer Katie Rogers' physical appearance.
More recently, the Times published a piece about Trump's long friendship and history with deceased pedophile sex trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein, describing the pair as having “pursued women in a game of ego and dominance” in which “female bodies were currency.” Trump has been dogged about his past affiliation with Epstein for years, but most intensely during his second term in the White House, when his administration appeared bent on preventing the release of files related to the late trafficker, prompting mass speculation that the president was implicated in Epstein's crimes, or was at least aware of them.
The report contained "one particularly damaging section," according to the Daily Beast, in which the mother of a 14-year-old girl invited to an event at Mar-a-Lago alongside other young models was confronted by Trump's then-wife, Marla Maples, who told her, “Whatever you do, do not let her around any of these men, and especially my husband.”
//
President Donald Trumpfutilely tried to delete his Sunday night Truth Social rant, but his typo-filled fury was captured by various screen shots, The Daily Beast reports.
“Ther [sic] are laws that effect our nation," Trump posted, but then quickly deleted, they note.
On Trump's second attempt at posting, he confused “effect” and “affect,” instead going with what The Daily Beast describes as "the less problematic word" “impact” instead.
Trump's edited version finally made it to Truth Social, with both ending in the taunt, "DO WHAT HAS TO BE DONE!!!”
"Trump seemed to be quoting former U.S. Navy Commander Kirk Lippold, who now works as an inspirational speaker, as part of a rant against Democratic 'traitors,'" the Daily Beast reports.
Last week, six Democratic lawmakers with military and intelligence backgrounds released a video urging current U.S. service members to refuse any orders they deem unlawful, an action that aligns with U.S. military law.
Trump called them the “Seditious Six” andposted that the lawmakers, including former Navy captain and astronaut Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) had committed “SEDITIOUS BEHAVIOR, punishable by DEATH!”
This tear comes after another of Trump's Truth Social tantrums, in which he used an offensive slur against Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) "in a scathing post at Thanksgiving, where he also called out political correctness," the Daily Beast explains.
"There’s something wrong with him, absolutely, sure,” Trump told reporters Sunday on Air Force One, refusing to apologize.
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an 12 25
Once you begin surrendering to Trump, he always wants more. You can’t appease a tyrant.
David Ellison’s CBS — after gutting DEI policies there, appointing right-wing hack Kenneth R. Weinstein to a new “ombudsman” role, and making anti-“woke” opinion journalist Bari Weiss editor-in-chief of CBS News (despite her lack of experience in either broadcasting or newsrooms) — yesterday removed a segment from “60 Minutes” featuring stories of Venezuelan men deported by the Trump administration to what the program called a “brutal” prison in El Salvador. Bari Weiss had demanded changes to the segment.
The Ellisons — fils et père — have been seeking Trump’s support for their hostile bid to acquire Warner Bros Discovery, but Trump has been unhappy with recent episodes of “60 Minutes,” even under its new management. Hence, the segment’s removal.
Sharyn Alfonsi, a long-standing “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment that was removed, accused CBS News of pulling it for “political” reasons. “Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices,” she wrote in a note to the CBS News Team. “It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now, after every rigorous internal check has been met, is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.”
Here’s Alfonsi’s note in full:
News Team,
Thank you for the notes and texts. I apologize for not reaching out earlier.
I learned on Saturday that Bari Weiss spiked our story, INSIDE CECOT, which was supposed to air tonight. We (Ori and I) asked for a call to discuss her decision. She did not afford us that courtesy/opportunity.
Our story was screened five times and cleared by both CBS attorneys and Standards and Practices. It is factually correct. In my view, pulling it now-after every rigorous internal check has been met is not an editorial decision, it is a political one.
We requested responses to questions and/or interviews with DHS, the White House, and the State Department. Government silence is a statement, not a VETO. Their refusal to be interviewed is a tactical maneuver designed to kill the story.
If the administration’s refusal to participate becomes a valid reason to spike a story, we have effectively handed them a “kill switch” for any reporting they find inconvenient.
If the standard for airing a story becomes “the government must agree to be interviewed,” then the government effectively gains control over the 60 Minutes broadcast. We go from an investigative powerhouse to a stenographer for the state.
These men risked their lives to speak with us. We have a moral and professional obligation to the sources who entrusted us with their stories. Abandoning them now is a betrayal of the most basic tenet of journalism: giving voice to the voiceless.
CBS spiked the Jeffrey Wigand interview due to legal concerns, nearly destroying the credibility of this broadcast. It took years to recover from that “low point.” By pulling this story to shield an administration, we are repeating that history, but for political optics rather than legal ones.
We have been promoting this story on social media for days. Our viewers are expecting it. When it fails to air without a credible explanation, the public will correctly identify this as corporate censorship. We are trading 50 years of “Gold Standard” reputation for a single week of political quiet.
I care too much about this broadcast to watch it be dismantled without a fight.
Sharyn
Sharyn Alfonsi wins this week’s Joseph N. Welch Award for courage in the face of tyranny (named for the chief counsel for the U.S. Army who confronted Senator Joe McCarthy with the iconic question, "Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?" which led to McCarthy’s demise).
I’m old enough to remember when CBS News would never have surrendered to a demagogic president. But that was when CBS News — the home of Edward R. Murrow (who also revealed to America the danger of Joe McCarthy) and Walter Cronkite — was independent of the rest of CBS. And when the top management of CBS felt they had independent responsibilities to the American public.
America can survive without a “60 Minutes” it can trust, just as we can survive without trustworthy editorial pages of the Washington Post.But at some point, as Trump continues to repress criticism of him and his regime, American democracy is compromised beyond repair.
We are coming to the end of only the first year of Trump II. He and the lapdogs and sycophants around him have done more damage to this nation in less than a year than I thought possible.
They have not been them alone in their destruction. They’ve had enablers in the form of billionaires such as Larry and David Ellison, along with quisling managers such as Bari Weiss, who confuse having money and power with possessing integrity and fostering the common good.
Here, in sharp contrast to today’s cowardly suck-up CBS News under Bari Weiss and David Ellison, is
, from April 13, 1954.
*Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/.
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an 11 25
An appeals court upheld a lower court’s decision to dismiss President Donald Trump's years-old $475 million defamation lawsuit against CNN, deeming it "unpersuasive" and "meritless," reports *The New Republic*.
Trump sued the cable news network in 2022, for using the term “the Big Lie” in its coverage of "Trump’s debunked claims of sweeping election fraud that supposedly robbed him of a second term in the White House in 2020," The New Republic writes.
“Trump has not adequately alleged the falsity of CNN’s statements. Therefore, he has failed to state a defamation claim,” wrote 11th Circuit Court of Appeals Judges Adalberto Jordan, Kevin Newsom, and Elizabeth L. Branch in an eight-page filing.
“Trump’s other arguments are likewise meritless," the judges wrote.
Trump nominated both Newsom and Branch, as well as District Judge Raag Singhal, who first dismissed the case in July.
Trump also accused CNN of using “the Big Lie” to create a “false and incendiary association” between him and "Adolf Hitler, who originally coined the term in Mein Kampf," The New Republicexplains, "But the lower court ruled that “bad rhetoric is not defamation when it does not include false statements of fact.”
The panel of appeals court judges ruled that Trump’s argument was “unpersuasive,” because the term “Big Lie” did not "constitute a statement of fact," they report.
“This assumption is untenable,” the judges wrote, adding that "Trump’s argument hinges on the fact that his own interpretation of his conduct — i.e., that he was exercising a constitutional right to identify his concerns with the integrity of elections — is true and that CNN’s interpretation — i.e., that Trump was peddling his ‘Big Lie’ — is false. However, his conduct is susceptible to multiple subjective interpretations, including CNN’s."
This is the latest in a series of failed lawsuits Trump has issued against media companies reporting on his lies, including a $15 billion defamation suitagainst The New York Times that was dismissed in September.
“We have held that, by using ‘Big Lie’ to describe Trump, CNN was not publishing a false statement of fact. Therefore, whether CNN used ‘Big Lie’ one time or many is irrelevant to the question of falsity,” the judges said.
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NYT SUED uae chips deal?! LOOMER?!
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an 9 25
Far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist and self-described "proud Islamophobe" Laura Loomer was critical of Charlie Kirk near the end of his life. As Loomer saw it, the Turning Point USA founder wasn't pro-Donald Trump enough — even though Kirk was, in fact, an ardent Trump supporter.
In a July 13, 2025 post on X, formerly Twitter, Loomer wrote, "I don't ever want to hear @charliekirk11 claim he is pro-Trump ever again. After this weekend, I'd say he has revealed himself as political opportunist and I have had a front row seat to witness the mental gymnastics these last 10 years. Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next."
But after his fatal shooting, Loomer called for the imprisonment of anyone who criticizes Kirk — a proposal that former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan is calling out as "fascism."
READ MORE:'Didn't work for you': CNN analyst confronts Trump's favorite pundit on political violence
In a September 13 post on X, Loomer wrote, "I have to say, I do want President Trump to be the 'dictator' the Left thinks he is, and I want the right to be as devoted to locking up and silencing our violent political enemies as they say we are. I've had enough of the Left only thinking we will defund them, prosecute them, lock them up and dismantle their power for generations to come. It just needs to happen."
Hasan gave a forceful response to that post on September 17, tweeting, "If this isn't a call for open, violent, unadulterated fascism and authoritarianism, from a top adviser to the president, then what is it? Seriously, what the hell is it?"
Hasan isn't the only one on X who is sounding the alarm about Loomer calling for Trump to act like a "dictator."
Journalist Bastian Brauns posted, "It's already well past 10 after 12. 'I do want President Trump to be the 'dictator' the Left thinks he is.' This is written by Laura Loomer, the woman who is allowed to personally whisper to Trump which 'traitors' he should fire from the government next."
READ MORE: 'I'm the one asking the questions': CNN host cuts off Ted Cruz after he shouts over her
Iowa-based writer Raymond Baker tweeted, "You know @LauraLoomer has never studied history nor does she understand what drives men like Stalin, Putin, Kim Jong II, Pol Pot, or Donald Trump. Authoritarian dictators are cruel and once they assume power, they no longer want or need supporters like Loomer."
Activist William Richards wrote, "Laura Loomer wants Trump to be a dictator? She wants to lock up the Left because she believes they are all violent. Mirror politics & projection is what Laura is up to! It's easily demonstrated that the Right are the purveyors of violence in our Country, not the Left.
READ MORE:'Undisputed idiot king': Former NBC journalist calls Eric Trump 'the epitome of stupidity'
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rww
09/15/2025
by
Brenden Dilley is a overtly racist, unapologetically misogynistic, and gleefully amoral Trump cultist who has established close ties to the Trump administration and the president himself, thanks to the role he plays in leading a "troll army" that relentlessly promotes Trump and attacks his enemies on social media.
Dilley has openly stated that he doesn’t “give a fuck about being factual” and will “make shit up” if doing so furthers Trump’s political agenda, pledging to "lie, cheat, [and] fucking steal" on behalf of Trump. For this, he has been repeatedly rewarded with meetings with Trump and invitations to the White House.
Dilley has openly issued threats against Trump's enemies, declaring that Trump supporters had better "start developing a stomach for death," proclaiming that his mission to just keep "keep curb-stomping these motherfuckers," and warning that he and others MAGA activists are just waiting until Trump "gives us the green light" to take to the streets and start gunning down activists.
Ignoring his own history of violent rhetoric, Dilley reacted to the murder of Charlie Kirk by calling on Trump to become a dictator and impose martial law on the nation until those on the left whom he deems responsible for Kirk's death have been rooted out and destroyed.
"The time for words is totally over, man," Dilley declared. "The only thing I wanted to hear [from Trump is,] 'Here's what I'm doing to make sure that this shit stops instantly.' I wanted to wake up today and have all of the media outlets banned temporarily; executive order. I'm pulling the licenses of Fox, MSNBC, CNN, CBS, and all other mainstream media until we can sort out what is going on."
"They've been calling Donald Trump a dictator for 10 years," he added. "You already got the name. One man's dictator is another man's patriot. Go full Abe Lincoln; suspend habeas corpus, introduce martial law. Let's actually cut out the cancer from the mainstream media."
"What is it going to take us? 90 days?" Dilley asked. "All I know is that whatever the response is to Charlie's death—and Charlie's death is horrific—must be 100 times more aggressive, deliberate and well-executed. It has to be. Whatever the government's response is to this has to be shock and fucking awe."
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an 925
After Trump’s Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem complained that several minutes of her August 31 Face the Nation interview had been “shamefully edited…to whitewash the truth,” CBS News announced that its flagship Sunday morning program will no longer edit its interviews, except for “legal or national security” reasons.
According to AP, CBS said it had edited the interview, which ran 16 minutes and 40 seconds in its original form, for length, and posted the full interview on its website and YouTube. As the AP correctly noted, Noem “made a series of unproven accusations about Abrego Garcia” in the portion of the interview that was cut. This is a pattern of behavior by the administration with respect to Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Salvadoran refugeewho had been illegally deported to the CECOT concentration camp in his country of origin.
In the context of the recent capitulations by CBS News and its parent company Paramount in the face of Trump administration demands, the announcement is noteworthy—and dangerous.
Uneditable propaganda
As Varietysays, “Making decisions that seem to come in response to backlash from public officials is not seen as sound journalistic practice.”
Writing for FAIR, Ari Paul noted in July (https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/cbs-news-face-the-nation-interviews-no-edits-backlash-1236509301/that, in order to facilitate a merger with Skydance,
Paramount has settled what is widely regarded as a frivolous lawsuit from President Donald Trump for $16 million over a CBS 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris; it has also canceled its highly successful and long-running Late Show With Stephen Colbert, whose host was critical of the settlement.
Varietyargued that CBS‘s promise not to edit Face the Nation‘s interviews, which overwhelmingly feature government officials,
is an unorthodox one, potentially leaving show moderators and producers unable to remove false statements or propaganda uttered by political operatives and officials and undermining the authority and credibility of Margaret Brennan, the moderator of the Sunday public affairs program.
An anonymous CBS source weakly protested to the AP that Face the Nation‘s Brennan would “still be able to factcheck or challenge claims made by interview subjects.” But corporate media outlets have never been good at stopping political figures from spewing propaganda (FAIR.org, 6/28/11, 6/26/24, 2/28/25, 7/31/25), particularly those from Trump and his minions, who produce falsehoods at such a rapid clip that it’s impossible to challenge each one. Now CBS will have even fewer tools to do so.
Installing a commissar
AP points out that Kenneth Weinstein will not actually be an ombud, i.e., a person who resolves complaints from the public; “Paramount said it does not envision Weinstein having any public-facing role.”
In yet another move to the right, days after its editing announcement, CBS News announced that, to fulfill part of its settlement with Trump, it would be appointing Kenneth R. Weinstein to serve as an ombud. In addition to being a prominent conservative—Weinstein previously headed the Hudson Institute for over a decade—the new appointee was nominated by Trump for ambassador to Japan in 2020 (though his nomination was never confirmed—Reuters,). Weinstein “will review editorial questions and concerns from outside entities and employees,” CBS said.
While FAIR has lamented the gradual disappearance of ombuds from major journalistic outlets over the years, and the loss of accountability to their audiences that that entails, it’s critical that ombuds be independent. Weinstein’s clear ideological tilt, his connection to the Trump administration and his position’s creation at the command of that administration stand as obvious obstacles to him performing any role but state censor.
FAIR also pointed out that Paramount was looking to give right-wing journalist and censorious “free speech” activist Bari Weiss a top role at CBS News. It has since been reported that the company is looking to buy her publication, the Free Press, for as much as $200 million.
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mma
How CBS News’ Trumpy new ombudsman fits into the right's anti-media campaign
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 09/09/25
The new owners of CBS News announced Monday that they have selected Kenneth R. Weinstein — a Donald Trump supporter and right-wing think-tanker with no apparent newsroom experience who often criticizes the news media’s purported liberal bias — to scrutinize the network’s coverage as its ombudsman.
The position will allow Weinstein to serve as a conduit for the MAGA movement’s complaints about CBS News’ coverage and personnel, allowing Trumpist operatives and right-wing media to discipline the network’s journalists.
David Ellison’s Skydance Media promised to appoint a CBS News ombudsman as part of the shakedown Trump and his administration put it through in order to secure its acquisition of CBS parent company Paramount. When Brendan Carr, the Trumpist head of the Federal Communications Commission, finally blessed the Skydance deal in July, he touted its pledge to “root out the bias” at CBS News.
With Weinstein’s appointment, Trump and Carr are getting exactly what they wanted
A former chief executive of the right-wing Hudson Institute who Trump nominated to serve as ambassador to Japan in 2020, Weinstein is also a GOP partisan who “donated roughly $40,000 to Republican and pro-Trump political groups last year,” The New York Times reported. He has never worked in journalism, though he did serve on the Broadcasting Board of Governors in both the Obama and Trump administrations.
Weinstein’s recent commentary provides more reasons for concern, Oliver Darcy found when he reviewed it for his Status newsletter. Darcy reports that the former Trump appointee had “lavished Trump with praise” in a July column; “fiercely advocated for Trump to win reelection” during an October 2024
; and cheered Fox News founder Rupert Murdoch while issuing innumerable digs at “media elites” for their purported left-wing coverage.
The description of Weinstein’s role that Paramount provides suggests that CBS News’ editorial independence has effectively been terminated. Weinstein will funnel complaints he believes require “further action” above the head of current CBS News president and Executive Editor Tom Cibrowski to Paramount’s president and its chair of TV media. Cibrowski will be consulted only to “recommend and implement any necessary action steps” that Weinstein and Cibrowski’s corporate superiors agree on.
Steve Capus, a former CBS News executive producer who worked with Weinstein at the Broadcasting Board of Governors, told the Times that Weinstein is a “fair arbiter” who deserves “the benefit of the doubt” in the role.
This assessment seems painfully naive. The reason CBS News now has an ombudsman now is because its parent company was trying to assure Carr that if he approved their merger, the network’s coverage would change in a way that the FCC’s Trumpist chair would approve. The president subsequently touted Ellison as a “great man” who would “do the right thing with” CBS. And when Paramount filled the role, the company didn’t pick a journalist with a reputation for neutrality — it went with a right-wing think-tanker and Republican donor with no newsroom experience.
Weinstein has been installed at CBS News to help fulfill Paramount’s promise to move the network’s political coverage to the right.
Weinstein will integrate with the right’s existing anti-media campaign
President Trump regularly attacks and even sues traditional media outlets for providing critical coverage of himself and his administration, as part of a deliberate strategy to keep his supporters from trusting their journalism. He is backed by a massive parallel infrastructure of right-wing media outlets, organizations, and operatives who are constantly on the hunt for instances of purported liberal media bias that they can use to undermine legacy news outlets. And his administration corruptly leverages such claims to threaten and punish the outlets’ owners with adverse regulatory actions.
This campaign’s purpose is not to improve the standards of legacy outlets, but to cudgel them into compliance with Trump’s demands for fawning coverage of his presidency in order to secure right-wing policy objectives. And with Weinstein's appointment, that effort will now have a man on the inside at CBS News who is predisposed to agree with such complaints and aid the right-wing attacks.
There will now be additional steps to the smear cycles in which the right attacks CBS News with preposterous gripes — for example, claiming that its editing of a Kamala Harris interview purportedly concealed her “word salad” responses. After the salvos from MAGA influencers, the endless denunciations on Fox News, and harangues from Trump and other administration officials and Republican notaries, there will now be a push for the ombudsman to step in and compel changes in the CBS newsroom.
It’s also not difficult to imagine someone like Laura Loomer, the notorious conspiracy theorist who regularly gets Trump administration officials fired for insufficient loyalty, scrutinizing the backgrounds and social media activity of CBS staffers and urging Weinstein to ensure their dismissals.
If Weinstein doesn’t take up the right’s cause, or if he does but is then overruled by Paramount’s corporate leadership, that will trigger a new round of right-wing denunciations. It could also lead to painful regulatory retaliation from Carr, who would argue that the company has failed to live up to its pledge. And David Ellison, the son of billionaire Silicon Valley mogul and close Trump ally Larry Ellison, might find the president no longer wants to shower him with praise and sit with him at UFC fights.
What’s happening to CBS News is neither complicated nor subtle: The billionaire son of a Trumpist oligarch is remaking a U.S. news institution to be less of a thorn in the president’s side, installing right-wing leaders and eliminating its independence in response to his grievances. Hoping for the best won’t change that.
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MMA
Trump calls for FCC retribution against “FAKE NEWS” ABC and NBC — while touting the “great man” who “just bought CBS”
How to get off Trump’s media shit list
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 08/25/25
President Donald Trump sent a clear message over the weekend that media companies can forestall his vicious denunciations and threats of federal retribution. All their owners have to do is bend the knee and grant his administration sufficient reassurance that their news outlets won’t prove troublesome.
Trump urged the Federal Communications Commission to punish two of the “Big Three” national broadcast networks for their political content, a straightforward assault on the First Amendment, in a pair of Sunday night posts.
The president condemned ABC and NBC as “FAKE NEWS” and an “actual threat to our Democracy” because they purportedly run too many “BAD STORIES” about him and provide “unfair coverage of Republicans.” He added that in response, these outlets should either “HAVE THEIR LICENSES REVOKED BY THE FCC” or be forced to pay “Millions of Dollars a year in LICENSE FEES.”
CBS, the third of the “Big Three,” escaped Trump’s malice.
As recently as April, Trump denounced CBS as “out of control, at levels never seen before,” and called upon FCC chair Brendan Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment, which is substantial, for their unlawful and illegal behavior.” Carr at the time was corruptly delaying the purchase of CBS parent company Paramount by Skydance Media, owned by David Ellison, the son of billionaire Silicon Valley mogul and close Trump ally Larry Ellison, in response to Trump’s frivolous lawsuit over CBS News’ handling of a 60 Minutes interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in October 2024.
But since then:
- Trump got his payoff. Paramount agreed to pay $16 million to Trump’s presidential library to settle the lawsuit and resolve “a threatened defamation action concerning a separate 60 Minutes report,” the company announced on July 1. The president subsequently claimed there is a side deal in which Paramount will air $16-19 million in free public service announcements.
- CBS canceled Stephen Colbert’sThe Late Show.Colbert, an outspoken Trump critic, announced on July 17 that CBS was ending his program. While CBS insiders argued that “the move was financially driven, not politically motivated,” the announcement came the same week Ellison met Carr and other FCC officials in hopes of securing the merger. Trump, for his part, responded the following morning, “I absolutely love that Colbert’ got fired.”
- Reports circulated over a possible Bari Weiss role with CBS. The Status newsletter’s Oliver Darcy reported in late June that Ellison was seeking to recruit Weiss, the conservative journalist whose outlet The Free Press provides a sort of permission structure for centrists to support Trump over Democrats, “to work in some capacity” at CBS. In mid-July, several outlets reported that Ellison and Weiss were discussing a possible deal in which Skydance would buy The Free Press.
- The FCC approved Skydance purchase of Paramount late last month, citing Skydance’s “commitment to make significant changes” at CBS News.The FCC announced on July 24 that it had approved the acquisition. Carr cited in an accompanying statement “Skydance’s commitment to make significant changes at the once storied CBS broadcast network,” its provision of “written commitments to ensure that the new company’s programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints from across the political and ideological spectrum,” and its pledge to “root out the bias that has undermined trust in the national news media.”
- Massive layoffs are looming over CBS. It would be difficult to convince or compel CBS News’ current slate of journalists to lay off the president — but it’s easy to fire them. After Variety reported last week that CBS News staffers “are worried about the potential for a new round of layoffs,” the New York Post reported Friday that a “bloodbath” of layoffs at Paramount Skydance is expected in early November.
The moves were more than enough to get CBS off Trump’s media shit list. In fact, the president recently lavished praise on its new owner, Paramount Skydance chief executive David Ellison.
“CBS was just sold to a great person that I know very well,” Trump told reporters on Friday. “A great man. He actually just bought CBS. And I think he‘s going to do the right thing with it.”
Trump’s authoritarian assault on the free press offers media moguls both sticks and carrots — and too many of them have decided they would rather submit to his will than fight. Just seven months into his administration, he’s already forced one of the major broadcast networks to yield. Two to go.
//
04/28/25 1:22 PM EDT
07/23/25 11:57 AM EDT
02/04/25
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an 8 25
The administration of President Donald Trump reacted badly to a Washington Post story reporting Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth quadrupled his security detail over that of past administrations to guard his multiple homes and properties.
The Post reported Wednesday that “Hegseth’s unusually large personal security requirements are straining the Army agency tasked with protecting him as it pulls agents from criminal investigations to safeguard family residences in Minnesota, Tennessee and D.C., according to numerous officials familiar with the operation.”
Described by the Post as a “sprawling, multimillion-dollar initiative” the security team has forced the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division to staff weeks-long assignments in each location and monitor residences belonging to Hegseths’ former spouses, say officials.
READ MORE: Aides sat 'helpless' as 'incoherent' Trump displayed 'stunning ignorance': biographer
“I’ve never seen this many security teams for one guy,” said one official, speaking anonymously to reporters. “Nobody has.”
Sources told the Post about 150 agents typically serve on VIP security details, but one source said Hegseth team is “400 and going up,” while another claimed it was “over 500.”
Trump administration officials pounced the Post for publishing the revelation.
“By publishing details about Secretary Hegseth’s security protocols, the Washington Post is actively putting him and his family in danger for clicks, posted Department of Defense Press Secretary Kingsley Wilson on X.
READ MORE: 'Keeps me up at night': Veterans fear Trump is gunning for another 'Kent State' massacre
Several people working with the Department of Defense’s Press Secretary joined in and slammed the info, including Assistant Press Secretary Jacob Bliss, who called the Washington Post “scum” for publishing the embarrassing numbers. Bliss also claimed reporting the staff increase put “numerous lives and families at risk.”
“How do these reporters sleep at night,” asked Assistant Press Secretary Riley Podleski on X.
Acting Deputy Press Secretary Joel Valdez claimed the Post “intentionally published sensitive details of [Hegseth’s] security detail for him and his family — putting their safety at risk.” He even called for “severe punishment for what [reporters] are doing.”
“President Trump was SHOT and nearly KILLED just last year—yet the corporate media STILL plays reckless games with people’s lives,” posted the Department of Defense “Rapid Response” account on X.. “Have they learned NOTHING?”
READ MORE: 'Good Luck to JD Vance': CNN data guru says Trump’s signature bill is worst in decades
None of the Department of Defense commenters explained in their posts how citing the size of Hegseth’s detail endangered lives as of early Wednesday morning.
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lee fang praying for armageddon
Why evangelicals influence US foreign policy in the Middle East | EP1 | Witness Documentary
phil king tx had tkt: called to arrenge interv, sec threw out this is tex we do not want anti anything anti israel 24 min i will report you to fbi; for what? --> 0
Phil King (Texas politician) - Wikipedia
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NO LNX
This new capitulation to Trump is grotesque — and the most dangerous yet
Thom Hartmann July 31, 2025
The media’s job in a democratic society is to speak truth to power, not to suck up to it. But last week, CBS and its parent company Paramount waved the white flag, handing Donald Trump a $16 million bribe and agreeing to censor their own newsroom to curry favor with a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted rapist authoritarian who lost the popular vote twice.
That is not journalism. That’s capitulation. And it’s devastating to democracies.
The Paramount merger with Skydance should never have been a political issue. In normal times, regulatory agencies like the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) operate independently, applying laws without fear or favor. But these are not normal times.
Trump’s FCC — under the control of far-right ideologue Brendan Carr, who helped draft the fascism-friendly blueprint known as Project 2025 — made it clear they’d block the deal unless CBS “cleaned house.”
Carr even bragged on CNBC that the merger only went through because Skydance promised to remove “bias” from CBS News. By “bias,” of course, he means “truth.”
Trump and Carr appear to be demanding that CBS stop telling the truth about the GOP’s fascist drift, stop investigating corruption, and stop airing facts that make Trump and the MAGA movement look bad. And CBS didn’t just roll over: they cut a personal check to Trump for $16 million, reportedly threw in an equal amount in free advertising, canceled Stephen Colbert’s show to eliminate critical comedy, and agreed to install a literal “monitor” in their newsroom to hunt down and eliminate so-called “leftwing bias.”
This is not just grotesque. It’s dangerous.
Installing government-friendly “monitors” in newsrooms to silence dissent is one of the first things authoritarians do when they take power. It happened in Hungary under Viktor Orbán. It happened in Russia under Vladimir Putin. In Germany in the early 1930s, Adolf Hitler handed control of the media to Joseph Goebbels and banned reporting that contradicted Nazi talking points.
What Trump and Carr are doing is textbook fascism: co-opting the press, criminalizing dissent, and demanding personal loyalty above all else across both government and the media.
The problem, of course, is that reality has a well-known leftwing bias. That’s because reality, unlike rightwing ideology, is rooted in facts. For example:
Trickle-down economics has never helped the working class — it’s a scam to transfer wealth to the rich.
Immigrants are not more likely to commit crimes — they’re less likely.
Late-term abortions are rare and almost always involve severe fetal abnormalities or risks to the mother — women don’t “love getting abortions” or do so with little thought.
Unions raise wages and reduce inequality — they don’t “steal from workers.”
Climate change is real and accelerating, and fossil fuel companies and Republicans have known it — and spent billions to cover it up — for decades.
Renewable energy is cheaper than coal, gas, or oil in most of the world.
People on public assistance are usually not “lazy” but are either disabled, working or actively seeking work, or living in areas where there is no work.
Raising the minimum wage doesn’t increase unemployment — it boosts the economym, which increases employment.
Universal healthcare works in every other developed nation — it’s not “impossible” to implement here in America.
The U.S. was not founded as a Christian nation, but as a secular republic.
Yet when these facts and others become “too political” for CBS to air — when truth is treated as liberal bias — we’re in real trouble. If CBS can’t push back on obvious lies because it’s afraid of offending Trump’s FCC, how long before every newsroom falls in line?
This is exactly how freedom of the press — and then freedom for everybody — dies: not with a bang, but with a checkbook and a veiled threat. When media companies start self-censoring to avoid regulatory retribution, they become lapdogs, not watchdogs.
And Trump isn’t even trying to hide this. He’s bragging about it.
Last week, the White House even released a full-on tantrum of a statement attacking South Park for mocking Trump. The show dared to suggest that combining the powers of the presidency with lawsuits and bribes might be a bad thing for democracy. In response, Trump’s staff accused the show of being “irrelevant” and “desperate for attention.”
Can you name any other president in American history who issued a press release attacking a cartoon?
But Trump’s not just punching down with his words: he’s using the full weight of the federal government to go after anyone who defies him. He’s already targeted universities, law firms, prosecutors, and journalists with bogus DOJ investigations and regulatory harassment. Now he’s turned the FCC into his personal censorship bureau.
The bribes paid by CBS and ABC weren’t one-offs, they were the first installment in a classic protection racket.
That’s not America. That’s a mob state being run by a man who behaves like a mob boss.
So what do we do? First, we must stop pretending this is normal. It’s not. CBS didn’t make a “business decision,” they submitted to a political shakedown. And the rest of the media should not let them get away with it.
Second, we must speak out, loudly and relentlessly. Let CBS know that rolling over for a wannabe strongman is unacceptable. Tell your local stations you want truth, not Trump-approved propaganda. Support independent journalism and media outlets willing to tell the truth even when it’s unpopular. Subscribe. Donate. Amplify their work.
And finally, we need to get serious about defending our democracy. That means voting like our freedoms depend on it, because they do. It means rejecting candidates who would silence the press and stack the courts and install “monitors” in our newsrooms. It means recognizing authoritarianism when it’s right in front of us and calling it what it is. It means getting inside your local Democratic Party and fighting for real progressive change and the survival of our republic.
Trump has shown us, again and again, that he will use every lever of power to silence his critics and punish his enemies. Now he has the FCC and a major news network doing his bidding. If we stay silent now, we may not get another chance.
Democracy dies when people stop caring. Let’s prove that we still do.
NOW READ: 'You guys made this happen': Dems find a way to stick it to a furious GOP
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NOTE LEGACY MEDIA CNN NBC ~ OBAMA TRAITOR BS
As Trump struggles to deflect from reporting on his Epstein ties, MAGA media set their sights on the press
It’s getting really bad out there
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 07/23/25 MMA
Six months into Donald Trump’s second presidency, an unhinged MAGA media is infested with calls for the arrest of former President Barack Obama — and one prominent right-wing commentator is even floating legal consequences for journalists who debunk their twisted rationale.
On July 18, amid a Trump administration effort to stave off a MAGA revolt over its handling of disclosures related to convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard released documents she claimed proved the existence of “a treasonous conspiracy” by the Obama administration following the 2016 election against Trump, claiming she had asked the Justice Department to investigate further. The president piled on in remarks to the press on July 22, claiming that “we caught Barack Hussein Obama” and accusing him of “treason.”
This argument is based on either malice or stupidity. Gabbard is conflating the findings of a December 2016 document showing that the intelligence community did not assess that the Russian government had hacked election systems and changed vote totals to benefit Trump with those of a January 2017 assessment that the Russian government had sought to influence the campaign to benefit Trump by, among other things, hacking Democratic email servers and releasing the contents.
Based on that faulty premise, Gabbard accused Obama and his advisers of subverting the intelligence community for political aims. But the December 2016 assessment is consistent with what the Obama administration was saying publicly at the time, while the findings of the January 2017 assessment were reiterated in Trump administration reports by the Justice Department as well as a Senate committee helmed at the time by current Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Indeed, that committee reviewed the January 2017 intelligence community analysis and concluded it was an “impressive accomplishment” that “reflects proper analytic tradecraft” and “provides a proper representation of the intelligence” and that the analysts who produced it faced “no politically motivated pressure.”
Members of the right-wing media ecosystem, with few exceptions, do not care about these facts, and they are using incredibly demagogic language to rile up their audiences as they call for political retribution.
Benny Johnson is floating a “military tribunal” for Obama; Mike Davis says the former president should “lawyer up”; Charlie Kirk wants “perp walks”; Liz Wheeler is demanding that the charges be not “perjury” but “treason”; Jesse Watters is asking a U.S. senator whether Obama should “go to prison.” They have apparently learned nothing from overpromising on Epstein only for the Trump administration to under-deliver when the facts couldn’t match the MAGA narrative.
Indeed, according to Mollie Hemingway, editor-in-chief of The Federalist and a Fox contributor, even typing the preceding paragraphs casting doubt on the validity of Gabbard’s argument should expose me to legal exposure. In a July 22 thread, she described Gabbard’s “revelations” as “the biggest scandal in our history” and condemned media outlets for “ignoring” and “downplaying” it.
“Every time the Washington Post, CNN, the New York Times, Margaret Brennan, The Atlantic, etc., lie and say this story is not a big deal, they are perpetuating their seditious conspiracy,” she added. “Creative minds should think about what legal exposure they have for their role in this.”
Hemingway went on to describe those outlets and journalists as “co-conspirators” in the alleged plot. She did not identify the legal consequences she believes they should face. Nor is it clear what this legal argument would mean for conservatives like her Fox colleague Andrew McCarthy or Eli Lake, who criticized Gabbard’s conclusions, or the right-wing outlets which published their assessments, Rich Lowry’s National Review and Bari Weiss’ The Free Press.
It should go without saying that the idea of “creative minds” dreaming up ways to punish journalists for producing reporting which contradicts the views of the president, his administration, and its propagandists is an affront to the First Amendment and basic principles of free speech and a free press.
Unfortunately, right-wing dreams of frog-marching journalists may not be far-fetched
We warned in December, after Trump campaigned on threats to jail reporters and pull the licenses of critical news outlets and won, that a coalition of elite right-wing figures were “using wealth, lawfare, and government power to silence the press and carry out their political agenda unimpeded.” And the last six months have demonstrated the president’s determination to use his power to bend the press to his will.
Trump has sought to put financial pressure on news outlets in order to chill speech critical of him. He filed lawsuits that experts found frivolous over reporting he disliked from ABC News and CBS News, then successfully leveraged the threat or use of corrupt regulatory actions to secure eight-figure settlements. He is currently pursuing similar lawsuits against the Pulitzer Prize Board, The Des Moines Register, and the corporate parents of The Wall Street Journal. The president has threatened additional lawsuits against The New York Times and CNN and called for the firings of their reporters.
Corporate owners of media outlets appear to be buckling to this pressure. “Executives at major media outlets are reportedly instructing their newsrooms to temper their coverage of President Trump and his administration amid growing fears of political retribution,” Axios reported in May. Indeed, Trump has gloated to reporters about the effectiveness of his strategy.
Beyond personal lawsuits, Trump has floated federal criminal investigations into news outlets over their reporting. That is no idle threat given his pattern of launching Justice Department probes into his political enemies via executive order and given the reality that the top ranks of federal law enforcement are stocked with people who are comfortable functioning as an extension of his personal desires.
Indeed, federal law enforcement officials appear more than willing to participate in Trump’s assault on the free press. His attorney general terminated rules which restricted prosecutors from seeking records and testimony from journalists as part of leak investigations. Several noncitizens have faced detention by the Department of Homeland Security over their public writing. And a former lawyer for January 6 defendants is running a DOJ “Weaponization Working Group” whose purpose appears to be weaponizing the government against Trump’s foes.
Trump’s diverse right-wing coalition and the fractured media ecosystem he unified during his campaign may be breaking apart over his handling of the Epstein case. But he seems to recognize that one thing that brings them together is their shared hatred of Democrats like Obama and the free press, and he’s been acting accordingly. And that means that just an eighth of the way through his second presidency, we’re already in very dangerous territory.
//
Trump’s latest attempt to defuse the Epstein revolt: Point supporters at common enemies
07/21/25 2:38 PM EDT
12/23/24 9:59 AM EST
05/28/25
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PRESS SUPPRESS MAFIA DON SHAKEDOWN
AN 7 25
On July 1, CBS News' parent company, Paramount, agreed to pay $16 million to settle a lawsuit from President Donald Trump —who claimed that CBS edited a 2024 interview with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in a way that amount to election interference. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous and baseless, arguing that Paramount was submitting to a shakedown just to be done with the matter.
Now, Fox News is drawing criticism for its editing of a 2024 interview with Trump, and critics argue that it was edited in a way to make Trump look good — not edited for journalistic purposes.
CNN's Andrew Kaczynski, in a July 14 post on X, formerly Twitter, tweeted video of the Fox News interview and noted their editing of comments on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
READ MORE: 'You dress as a cowgirl?' Kristi Noem bashed at homestate fundraiser
Kaczynski posted, "I had not seen this Fox News extended interview with Trump from 2024 — where they deliberately edited his (Jeffrey) Epstein answer — where he won't commit to releasing the full files because of 'phony' stuff in it."
Kaczynski, comparing the unedited interview to Fox News' edited version, tweeted, "Check out what Trump said vs what Fox edited."
In response to Kaczynski's tweets, Media Matters' Matthew Gertz — obviously mindful of Trump's CBS News lawsuit — posted, "My understanding based on the CBS News precedent is that this is an illegal interference with the 2024 election that should result in Fox News paying tens of millions of dollars to orgs chosen by Kamala Harris and facing an FCC probe. Quote Andrew Kaczynski @KFILE."
In a separate tweet, Gertz posted, "At least that's the result when the president is engaged in a corrupt abuse of power crying out for more scrutiny."
READ MORE:There's far more to Trump and Epstein's relationship: Trump biographer
Former Trump supporter turned Trump critic A.J. Delgado tweeted, "Yup, I was tweeting about this last October, as were others, and no one seemed to care. It's insane that Fox edited the answer (the only reason the full answer came out is, I believe, that Will Cain later absentmindedly shared the full answer on his own show. That's the only reason we even know.)"
The Trump War Room account on X posted Fox News' edited version of the interview in June 2024.
Observations from Kaczynski, Gertz and Delgado's tweets on Fox News' 2024 interview with Trump are drawing a lot of discussion on X.
Former Obama Administration official Tommy Vietor wrote, "Time for Kamala to sue Fox News???"
X user Michael Serdikoff tweeted, "This is same (guy) suing CBS for editing Harris' remarks."
Another X user, Cindy Cooper commented, "So the Fox News network via Fox News Radio did air the entire answer. Thanks."
Watch the video belowor at this link.
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// LIE GASLIGHT ON JAN 6
NOTE LIBERAL MEDIA BS BELOW
Trump says “Russia, if you’re listening” was a joke. There’s tape proving otherwise. | Vox
no lnx
Trump says “Russia, if you’re listening” was a joke. There’s tape to prove otherwise.
Trump is layering lie upon lie to rewrite the history of his encouragement of Russian hackers.
by Aaron Rupar
Sep 29, 2020,
Trump accused reporters this weekend of mischaracterizing comments he made in July 2016 publicly encouraging Russian hackers to attack Hillary Clinton. But the way he described those comments is completely at odds with reality, and there’s video to prove it.
“Do you remember when I said, ‘Russia, if you’re listening, find her emails,’ or whatever the hell I said? ‘Find her emails,’ and then we all laughed together, 25,000 people in a stadium,” Trump said at a rally in Middletown, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. “They cut it off exactly before we all started to laugh together, right? And for two years they’ve been saying, ‘He dealt with Russia. He asked Russia to please get her emails,’ or whatever the hell we were asking ... the whole place cracks up with me ... this is how dishonest these people are.”
This is no doubt part of his never-ending effort to discredit the media.
Watch:
Trump made the remarks in question during his first campaign, saying, “Russia, if you’re listening — I hope you are able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens.”
But Trump did not say this to a cheering and laughing crowd at one of his rallies. He actually said it in front of a handful of reporters during a news conference at his Doral property in Florida. That news conference wound up being his final one before the election, in large part because of the negative stir his remarks generated.
Furthermore, nobody laughed when Trump said it, and his comments are just as bad in context as they are when the “Russia, if you’re listening” line is considered on its own. Here’s the footage:
Jim Acosta of CNN, the reporter who asked the question that prompted Trump to say “Russia, if you’re listening” at the July 2016 news conference, tweeted on Tuesday morning that “the reporters at the news conference didn’t laugh. And Trump didn’t appear to be joking.”
The president seems to be trying to turn reality on its head, even though there’s tape to prove otherwise.
Trump is spitting on his supporters and telling them it’s raining
Retconning the incident has become a staple of Trump’s campaign speeches. On September 19 in Fayetteville, North Carolina, for instance, Trump brought it up and claimed “everybody laughed” and “it was a joke,” then added the lie about it happening at a rally for the first time over the weekend.
Even if Trump didn’t mean for his comments to be taken seriously, Russian hackers apparently did. According to Robert Mueller’s indictment of 12 Russian military intelligence officials, on the same day Trump made those comments, Russian hackers “attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provided and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.”
Trump has made clear in the years since that he doesn’t think foreign interference in American elections is a bad thing, insofar as it helps him. In October 2019, Trump flatly told reporters that he thought the Chinese and Ukrainian governments “should investigate the Bidens.” Those comments were widely condemned but were defended as just a joke by Republican members of Congress like Kevin McCarthy and Roy Blunt, even though footage of the comment showed Trump was serious.
Trump’s comments about the July 2016 news conference were especially shameless, but they were far from the only brazen lie he pushed in Middletown. He told his supporters that just prior to the coronavirus hitting the US, “we were coming together ... I was getting calls from stone-cold, hard-line Democrats,” even though in reality he had just been through an impeachment trial. He claimed 35,000 people attended his Friday evening rally in Newport News, Virginia, but local reports indicate there were around 4,000. And he appeared to fabricate stats about excess mortality in order to mislead people about how hard the US has been hit by Covid-19.
Trump once advised his supporters in 2018 to “just remember — what you’re seeing and what you’re reading is not what’s happening.” He’s not subtle about it.
See More:
2020 Presidential Election
Donald Trump
Politics
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mma
July 2, 2025, edition of Fox News' The Five
EMILY COMPAGNO (CO-HOST): I think the biggest case here is for impeding federal law enforcement. Because everything that ICE agents are in the course of doing is their official acts. I think obstructing law enforcement -- that's usually, or obstructing justice, is usually sort of more procedural. But go ahead and try. At the end of the day, I think it's important to send a message that behavior is not without accountability. And I'm not quite sure why all the proponents for this, including CNN, who defended itself by saying, "Well, we were just merely reporting it." But it was pretty clear it wasn't just reporting it. They were huge advocates for this.
GREG GUTFELD (CO-HOST): Breathless.
COMPAGNO: Yes. Why is it that for some reason they want people to have notice, and by people I mean the illegal immigrant that set the subway rider on fire, the illegal immigrant that raped the dead person on the subway, the illegal immigrant that killed Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray -- her rapist and murderers. Why do you want to give those people notice when those victims have no notice. Laken Riley didn't get notice that there was an illegal immigrant lurking in the trees that was going to murder her. And the list goes on.
So I am sickened by this notion that not only is the app creator and the proponents and CNN calling for an additional vulnerability for these I.C.E. Agents that are already getting doxed and already getting attacked up 700%.
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dropped bs lawsuit poll desmoines reg 7 25
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an 7 25
A new report suggests that President Donald Trump may soon be setting his sights on the Fourth Estate, and his administration is already allegedly looking for a "test case" to see how much it can get away with in the courts.
That's according to a Monday article in Rolling Stone, which reported that unnamed sources close to the White House say Trump is considering the Espionage Act to prosecute journalists who report on leaks obtained from inside the administration. According to Rolling Stone, the president was so incensed about reporting on a leaked Pentagon report that undermined his claims about Iranian nuclear sites being "obliterated" as a result of strikes he ordered in mid-June that he contemplated using the 108 year-old law to bring cases against reporters.
"Why not the press?" Trump reportedly said during the conversation.
READ MORE: 'Effects could be catastrophic': Trump and the Republican Congress could achieve a first
The source said that the Trump administration would not only charge individual journalists under the Espionage Act, but would also indict their employers as "co-conspirators" and bring cases against publications. A separate source described as a "senior Trump administration official" affirmed that the question of whether to invoke the Espionage Act wasn't merely theoretical.
"All we’d really need is one text or email from a reporter telling a source: ‘Can you pull something for me?’ or something very direct of that nature,” the senior official told Rolling Stone. “If somebody in the media wasn’t careful even for a split second, that could make the difference between a reporter, and a criminal.”
Rolling Stone's Ryan Bort and Asawin Suebsaeng recalled a comment from an unnamed conservative attorney close to Trump who suggested in December that Trump's second term would be "brutal" in his approach to whistleblowers, leakers and journalists who they speak to. That attorney promised that Trump's second administration would "be even more aggressive" in its crackdown on leaks and reporters that publish them.
Trump isn't the first president to use the Espionage Act against journalists, however. Bort and Suebsaeng reported that former President Barack Obama's administration indicted eight sources under the law, though Trump had already surpassed that number just two years into his first term.
READ MORE:George Conway reveals the 'one remedy' left to stop Trump's 'lawlessness and illegality'
Click here to read Rolling Stone's full report (subscription required).
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AN 6 25
Dispatch writer John McCormack has a lesson for reporters who push Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on her opposition to U.S. strikes in Iran: “She may threaten to call the police on you.”
McCormack caught Greene — who vehemently opposes President Donald Trump’s recent bombing of Iran — near the Capitol this week and asked her to clarify her claim that “I don’t know anyone in America who has been the victim of a crime or killed by Iran,” despite 241 dead U.S. service members killed in a Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon in 1983, among other attacks.
“I was talking about on our homeland,” Greene responded, seemingly unaware that the country had also invaded a U.S. Embassy in Tehran and held Americans hostages. It’s leaders have also plotted assassination attempts on U.S. soil, which the Department of Justice claims included Trump.
READ MORE: 'Time for action': Republicans beg Trump to use obscure law to deport Democratic candidate
“I asked Greene if the Iranian attacks on Americans demonstrated that the United States had national interest in the strike against Iran — that it wasn’t simply done to advance the interests of Israel.” But by that point, McCormack said Greene was getting furious.
“Your goal is to attack me and twist my words,” she told him, and kept interrupting his repeated attempts at questions.
“I’m done talking to you,” she snapped, according to McCormack. “You know what? I’m going to go tell the Capitol police you’re harassing me.”
McCormack says the exchange went down in a hallway where credentialed press corps members “have every right to ask members of Congress questions,” and that Greene, herself, has been known to chase down teen victims of the Parkland school mass shooting.
READ MORE:Republican plan could push us over the edge in a way that may well be irreversible
“But the story here isn’t simply another example of Greene’s absurd behavior but of how isolated someone like Greene is inside the Republican Party on matters related to Israel and Iran,” McCormack writes.
Unlike Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who also opposes U.S. Iranian involvement, McCormack says Green posts “antisemitic conspiracy theories” like the one suggesting Israel assassinated President John F. Kennedy.
“There was once a great President that the American people loved. He opposed Israel’s nuclear program. And then he was assassinated,” Greene posted on X as recently as this month. And in 2022, Greene spoke at a conference hosted by a Holocaust-denier who had called a writer a “race traitor” because he “work[s] for Jews.”
Greene isn't just a card-carrying member of the relatively small MAGA caucus that opposes Trump on U.S. intervention in the Middle East, McCormack says.
READ MORE: Dem pollsters say party ripe for 'earthquake in the midterms' after learning a key lesson
“On matters related to Israel and Jews, she’s in a class all by herself.”
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many attacks after iran bomb
'No apology will be forthcoming': New York Times smacks down Trump's demand for retraction
an 6 25
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AN 6 25
Although President Donald Trump is known for avoiding e-mail and text messaging, he is an avid social media user. Trump constantly used Twitter, now X, during his first presidency. But these days, his primary social media outlet is his own Truth Social platform — where he angrily raged against his media foes late Wednesday night, June 25.
Trump was especially angry at CNN.
The U.S. president, who was in The Hague, Netherlands to attend the 2025 NATO Summit, posted, in all caps, "FAKE NEWS CNN IS SO DISGUSTING AND INCOMPETENT. SOME OF THE DUMBEST ANCHORS IN THE BUSINESS!"
READ MORE: 'Unnecessarily chaotic': How red state Republicans are quietly fighting back against Trump
Trump singled out CNN reporter Natasha Bertrand, calling for her to be fired.
Trump posted, "She should be IMMEDIATELY reprimanded, and then thrown out 'like a dog.' She lied on the Laptop from Hell Story, and now she lied on the Nuclear Sites Story, attempting to destroy our Patriot Pilots by making them look bad when, in fact, they did a GREAT job and hit 'pay dirt' — TOTAL OBLITERATION!"
The 79-year-old president added, "She should not be allowed to work at Fake News CNN. It's people like her who destroyed the reputation of a once great Network. Her slant was so obviously negative, besides, she doesn't have what it takes to be an on camera correspondent, not even close. FIRE NATASHA!"
But CNN, according to the Daily Beast's Cameron Adams, said, in an official statement, that they are '100 percent' behind Bertrand.
READ MORE:'Time for action': Republicans beg Trump to use obscure law to deport Democratic candidate
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terry moran abc fired for saying miller 3 hateful, driving LA ICE home depot raids
PRESS SUPPRESSION
AN 6 25
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt is now being raked over the coals in response to her call for ABC to censor a journalist who criticized President Donald Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller.
In a Sunday tweet, Keavitt posted a screenshot of a now-deleted post by ABC News' Terry Moran — who — and called on his employer to punish him over his "unhinged and unacceptable" critique of the administration. Moran opined in the post that Miller was not "the brains behind Trumpism" but a "world-class hater" whose "bile" is his "spiritual nourishment." He then said that Trump was also a "world-class hater" whose own "spiritual nourishment" was "his own glorification."
"We have reached out to @ABC to inquire about how they plan to hold Terry accountable," Leavitt tweeted, while mentioning the network's official handle on X.
READ MORE:'Destroyed their credibility': MAGA turns on Trump officials unable to prove conspiracies
Leavitt's tweet was quickly met with widespread condemnation, prompting Daily Beast columnist Julia Davis to ask: "What happened to the First Amendment?" Cybersecurity expert Robert Graham opined that Leavitt's call for ABC to "censor" Moran reflected that Trump's second term was "not the 'free speech presidency,' but quite the opposite." And Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) First Amendment litigator J.T. Morris observed that criticizing people in power is "as American as apple pie – and vital for freedom."
"That's why the First Amendment protects it from thin-skinned officials who would shut it down," he added. "Hopefully, ABC responds with 'get bent.'"
"[Moran] shouldn't have taken the post down," tweeted Never Trump conservative attorney George Conway. "He's a reporter. And he was reporting facts."
Former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann also weighed in, saying that Trump and Miller were "everything Moran described." Calling Leavitt "anti-democracy" and "anti-American," Olbermann added that Leavitt "needs to stick to her lane," which he characterized as "covering up the emergence of a dictatorship."
READ MORE:'Not going to buckle': Republican warns Senate he'll tank Trump's bill over this provision
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AN 6 25
...
“Like many autocratic governments, the Trump administration has targeted the media,” they say, referring to Trump suing ABC News, CBS News, Meta, Simon & Schuster and TheDes Moines Register. He’s also “deployed” the Federal Communications Commission to open an investigation of fund-raising practices by PBS and NPR, and reinstating complaints against ABC, CBS and NBC for anti-Trump bias while ignoring complaints against Fox News for promoting lies about the 2020 election.
The writers say “there are signs of an awakening” to the threat in the U.S., particularly with Harvard refusing to install Trump’s commissar to direct school business. It’s also visible in Microsoft recent move to dump the services of a law firm that agreed to do pro bono work for Trump in favor of one that defied the White House.
America’s slide into authoritarianism is reversible, they say, “but no one has ever defeated autocracy from the sidelines.”
Read the full New York Times article here.
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}:
mma BEATS PAXTON MUSK
MMA
U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit rules in Media Matters’ favor on First Amendment grounds: Angelo Carusone statement
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 05/30/25
Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone issued the following statement after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia unanimously upheld the district court’s decision last year to block Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s civil investigative demand of Media Matters on First Amendment grounds.
“Elon Musk encouraged Republican state attorneys general to use their power to harass their critics and stifle reporting about X. Ken Paxton was one of those AGs who took up the call, and his attempt to use his office as an instrument for Musk’s censorship crusade has been defeated. Today's decision is a victory for free speech.
“We are also buoyed that yet another court has seen through the fog of Musk’s ‘thermonuclear’ legal onslaught and recognized it for the meritless attack to silence a critic that it is."
Key takeaways from the ruling:
- The judges ruled that “Media Matters is the target of a government campaign of retaliation” for exercising First Amendment rights, which “reflects concrete and present harm. And as the target of an arguablybad-faith investigation, Appellees are also experiencing special burdens on their newsgathering activities and operation of their media company.”
- “In addition, Paxton’s contention that Appellees’ conduct is not constitutionally protected because their articles were deliberately designed to mislead consumers about X is meritless. The record is utterly devoid of evidence to support such a claim.”
- “As to the first element, Appellees – a media organization and news reporter – are obviously engaged in conduct protected under the First Amendment. Indeed, the underlying incident that precipitated their claim involved their news reporting on a public figure and alleged political extremism on a popular social media platform. Their reporting on public issues are quintessential First Amendment activities."
The same day that X Corp. filed a meritless lawsuit against Media Matters for America for an accurate report on the platform’s extremism, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened a similarly specious investigation into Media Matters under Texas’ Deceptive Trade Practices Act. Paxton subsequently issued an overbroad and invasive civil investigative demand – even though Media Matters has no relevant connection to Texas. The law firm Stone Hilton, led by former Paxton deputies Judd Stone and Chris Hilton, is representing X Corp. in its case against Media Matters. In April of 2024, Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Paxton.
In April 2025, U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria of the Northern District of California ruled that“it seems almost certain that the X entities’ decision to file multiple suits in multiple jurisdictions is designed more to bully Media Matters and inflict financial hardship upon it than to actually vindicate those entities’ rights.”
The nonpartisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which catalogs press freedom violations in the United States, recently added an incident report related to the Texas attorney general's investigation to its database.
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mma
Fox attacks Scott Pelley for accurately describing Trump’s war on the press
Written by Matt Gertz
Research contributions from Alicia Sadowski
Published 05/29/25
Fox News and Fox Business hosts are lashing out at CBS News’ Scott Pelley for criticizing President Donald Trump’s attacks on free speech and civil society, even as his network’s parent company reportedly prepares to capitulate to the president’s assault.
“Journalism is under attack,” the 60 Minutes correspondent said in a May 19 commencement speech at Wake Forest University that went viral over the weekend. “Universities are under attack. Freedom of speech is under attack.”
While Pelley did not mention the president or the White House by name, no one missed the implication — including Fox’s stable of pro-Trump zealots.
- ### Fox on Pelley: “Trump-hating former anchorman” who is “full of rage” should be arrested
The mainstream press’s purported Democratic partisanship and untrustworthiness is one of the pillars of Fox’s programming. On Tuesday and Wednesday, it was Pelley’s turn as the networks’ media hate object of choice.
Sean Hannity, the Trump political operative who also hosts a prime-time Fox News show, denounced Pelley’s address as “full of rage and anti-Trump rhetoric,” adding that the 60 Minutes reporter is not a journalist but a “biased liberal radical talk show host” and “a phony liar.”
Former Trump economic adviser turned Fox Business host Larry Kudlow’s take was that Pelley had “the worst bout of Trump derangement syndrome,” while Harris Faulkner claimed he was “fighting for relevance.”
On The Five, Greg Gutfeld attempted to defuse Pelley's comments about authoritarian attacks on the press by pointing out that the CBS newsman hadn’t been arrested after his speech — only for his co-host, former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany, to respond that “he should have been.”
And Laura Ingraham not only panned Pelley as a “Trump-hating former anchorman” — she used the opportunity to tout the Trump administration’s effort to punish his network.
“There's nothing worse than someone who pretends to be persecuted while ignoring real persecution, or pretends to be the keeper of the truths when associated with a network that did everything it could to protect Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, even editing an interview with the VP to make her look smarter,” Ingraham said.
“So, it was bad timing for Scott's commencement sanctimony about truth and justice when 60 Minutes’ alleged corruption is being now cited as a potential sticking point in Paramount's $8 billion sale to Skydance Media,” she added. “Whoops. But the press has no one to blame but themselves.”
- ### Pelley is right — but his corporate bosses want to fold to Trump’s attacks
Pelley is correct about the Trump administration’s assault on the free press.
The president has long sought to discredit critical journalism. He decries reporting he doesn’t like as “fake news” and tries to chill it through a combination of personal lawsuits, threats of criminal investigations, and the weaponization of federal agencies against news outlets and their owners.
Pelley’s show and network, as Ingraham indicated, are among the biggest targets of this strategy. Trump and his allies claimed during the 2024 election that by airing two different portions of Harris’ response to an interview question — one on 60 Minutes and another in a preview of the interview shown on Face the Nation — CBS News had committed, in the president’s words, “the biggest scandal in broadcast history.” Trump called for CBS to lose its broadcast license and subsequently filed a $20 billion lawsuit against the network and its parent company, Paramount Global.
The only thing more insane than a legal attack over the editing of interview clips is Fox’s willingness to carry water for the argument. First Amendment attorneys told CNN that Trump’s suit was “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.” And in January, then-Federal Communications Commission Chair Jessica Rosenworcel tossed a similar complaint filed by a right-wing group, arguing that it sought “to weaponize the licensing authority of the FCC in a way that is fundamentally at odds with the First Amendment” and turn the agency into “the president’s speech police.”
But while Rosenworcel warned against turning the FCC into “the president’s speech police,” her Trump-appointed replacement, Brendan Carr, apparently sees that as his mission. He said before taking the post that the complaint was “likely to arise” in the agency’s review of Paramount Global’s planned merger with Skydance Media, swiftly revived the probe afterward, and has slow-walked the merger ever since.
When the Trump administration tried a similar tactic in his first term, blocking Time Warner’s purchase by AT&T while the president railed against Time Warner subsidiary CNN, AT&T stood firm, fought it out in court, and won. Several law firms who fought back when Trump targeted them for retribution in his second term have also found success.
But Paramount and its chair, Shari Redstone, who reportedly “stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount,” are apparently setting a different, more craven path. Reports have indicated for months that Paramount executives are eager to settle Trump’s lawsuit in hopes that his administration will then approve their deal. In April, 60 Minutes executive producer Bill Owens stepped down in light of what Pelley suggested was increasing, inappropriate Paramount scrutiny of CBS News reporting. CBS News President Wendy McMahon was forced out in May, saying, “It’s become clear the company and I do not agree on the path forward.”
Paramount’s capitulation appears to be coming to a head. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the company has offered Trump’s lawyers a $15 million settlement, but “Trump’s team wants more than $25 million and is also seeking an apology from CBS News.” The apology, the Journal reported, had been a sticking point for McMahon. Meanwhile, Trump’s legal team reportedly “threatened another lawsuit against CBS related to alleged bias of its news coverage,” while Trump himself responded to a different 60 Minutes broadcast by calling for the network to lose its license and directed Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment.”
If Paramount folds in the face of Trump’s extortion, Redstone may get her big merger payday. But the result will only encourage the president to make more attacks on CBS News and other news outlets. His aim is to quell negative reporting by any means necessary, and his appetite for humiliating and delegitimizing the press cannot be sated without news outlets becoming as servile as his Fox propagandists.
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axios
world Press Freedom Index ranking of the U.S.
Rank out of 180 countries; Annually, 2013 to 2024
A line chart showing how the U.S. ranked in the World Press Freedom Index, released annually by Reporters Without Borders. In 2013, the U.S. ranked 32nd out of 180 countries for press freedom. In the next decade, the country hovered between 40th and 50th place. In 2024, the U.S. dropped to 55th place, the lowest ranking in the time period.
Data: Reporters Without Borders; Chart: Axios Visuals
President Trump, in small and unprecedented ways, is punishing media companies more than any leader since America's founding.
Why it matters: Once considered a bastion for free expression, America's record on press freedoms has fallen to a historic low, according to Reporters Without Borders. Under Trump's second presidency, the press is "under siege," the group argues.
The big picture: Trump is targeting traditional media sources at a moment of tremendous vulnerability for the industry.
- American trust in media has hit an all-time low. Most U.S. counties have little to no local news sources anymore.
In his first four weeks, Trump's administration has:
- Banned the Associated Press: The White House last week said it would bar the AP from future events in the Oval Office and Air Force One over its decision not to directly follow Trump's executive order renaming "Gulf of Mexico" as "Gulf of America" in its style guidance.
- Ended federal news subscriptions: The State Department on Wednesday ordered the cancellation of news subscriptions around the world. The directive came shortly after the executive branch said it will stop spending money on Politico subscriptions after paying the outlet millions last year.
- Reshuffled Pentagon press: The Defense Department informed several outlets, including NPR, NBC News, Politico and CNN that they had to move out of their workspaces at the Correspondents' Corridor in the Pentagon, although their press credentials will remain intact. They will be replaced by mostly conservative outlets such as Washington Examiner, Daily Caller, and Newsmax, and others under a new rotation system.
Zoom in: These moves, while punitive, are temporary and a new president can easily reverse them. Broader efforts to target media companies by Trump, his administration and a Republican-led Congress recently could be harder to unwind.
- Congressional PBS, NPR probe: Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) has called on the CEOs of NPR and PBS to testify at a DOGE subcommittee hearing about what she says is "systemically biased content." It's the first hearing to be announced for the subcommittee. Both broadcasters rely on congressionally appropriated funding to survive.
- FCC PBS, NPR probe: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) is also investigating the two public broadcasters over whether their member stations violated FCC rules around airing commercial ads. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr implied that the investigation could help influence Congress' funding decision.
- FCC Comcast/NBC investigation: Carr informed Comcast he is opening an investigation into the company's diversity, equity and inclusion practices. It marked the first public effort by the new administration to target a private company for its DEI initiatives.
- FCC CBS inquiry: Carr opened an inquiry into CBS News to evaluate whether it violated the FCC's news distortion rules when it edited a "60 Minutes" interview with 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris during the campaign. The inquiry adds pressure to CBS, as it considers whether to settle a separate lawsuit filed against it last year by Trump before he took office.
Reality check:A strong U.S. legal and regulatory framework makes it difficult for Trump and his regulators to go after media companies without likely having to defend at least some of their actions in court.
- Efforts by Trump to block reporters during his first administration didn't pass muster in court, and First Amendment experts believe the principles established by those decisions should apply to the AP's situation if it's litigated.
Zoom out: Bullying and harassment campaigns, which include everything from lawsuits to name-calling, are often easier and more effective than leveraging presidential powers.
- Lawsuits drain media companies of precious time and resources. Public bashing undermines the public's trust in the media, which can have a material impact on business.
- Trump and Elon Musk have both attacked journalists by name on their respective social media platforms in recent weeks.
- Trump unleashed a slew of lawsuits against the media industry last year before he took office. He recently increased his lawsuit claim against CBS from $10 billion when it was initially filed to $20 billion.
- He sued and eventually settled a lawsuit with ABC, even though some legal experts said ABC could've won the case. In December, he filed a lawsuit against the Des Moines Register and its top pollster, while vowing to continue suing news outlets and influencers.
What to watch: Trump on Wednesday signed an executive order that gives him greater power over independent regulatory agencies, including agencies like the FCC that govern media companies.
The bottom line: Trump and his allies have vowed to go after the media if he won reelection. They weren't bluffing.
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AN 5 25
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, who has pledged to do his part in making the Trump administration the most transparent in history, issued a memo Friday imposing tight restrictions on reporters' movements at the Pentagon in an apparent bid to crack down on leaks.
Under the new policy, which takes effect immediately, journalists are prohibited from entering many locations across the Pentagon building unless they're accompanied by Trump administration personnel—restrictions that Hegseth claims are necessary to protect national security.
"If press require access to other areas/offices within the Pentagon for 'in-person' interviews (or other engagements), they are required to be formally escorted to and from those respective offices by authorized DoD personnel from those specific offices/Agencies/Military Departments," Hegseth's two-page memo states.
Reporters covering the Pentagon will also be "required to complete an updated in-briefing form explaining their responsibilities to protect" classified and "sensitive" information.
"Failure by any member of the resident or visiting press to comply with these control measures will result in further restrictions and possibly revocation of press credentials," reads the memo.
"The Pentagon is making it harder for journalists to do their jobs and easier for power to go unchecked."
The restrictions come in the wake of several scandals that have personally implicated Hegseth, including the revelation that he used a private group chat that included members of his family and his personal attorney to discuss plans for a U.S. attack on Yemen. They also come amid a broader Trump administration assault on press freedom.
The Pentagon Press Association (PPA), which represents journalists covering the U.S. military, said in a statement that Hegseth's memo "appears to be a direct attack on the freedom of the press and America's right to know what the military is doing."
Kevin Baron, a founding officer of the PPA, said he is "angry and frustrated—but not surprised—that MAGA propaganda-loving conspiracy theorists like SecDef Hegseth and his team have dropped this JDAM-sized attack on the press."
"It's un-American," Baron added. "It's dangerous."
National Press Club president Mike Balsamo echoed the PPA's criticism of the new policy, which he said represents a "stark departure from longstanding norms that balanced operational security with meaningful press access."
"By blocking access to common areas, restricting movement without escorts, and complicating basic reporting functions," said Balsamo, "the Pentagon is making it harder for journalists to do their jobs and easier for power to go unchecked."
Hegseth announced the press policy changes as the U.S. military is poised to receive a $1 trillion budget for the coming fiscal year despite mountains of evidence of waste, fraud, and abuse of taxpayer dollars to line the pockets of military contractors. Late last year, the Pentagon failed its seventh consecutive audit.
The American military is involved in conflicts around the world, and the Trump administration—with Hegseth's vocal support—has eased restrictions on U.S. airstrikes and raids outside of "conventional war zones."
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an 5 25
President Donald Trump called for an investigation into NBC News and the CEO of its parent company after one of the network’s top reporters pressed him on the Pentagon’s Wednesday afternoon acceptance of a $400 million luxury airliner from Qatar—a gift some legal scholars warn may violate the Constitution without congressional approval.
“The secretary of defense has accepted a Boeing 747 from Qatar in accordance with all federal rules and regulations,” Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said in a statement on Wednesday, as The New York Times reported. “The Department of Defense will work to ensure proper security measures and functional-mission requirements are considered for an aircraft used to transport the president of the United States.”
Estimates range as high as one billion dollars for work that would be required to make the luxury jetliner capable of acting as a mission center to not only transport the President but protect them and other top officials in the event of crisis or war.
Experts “said that accepting the 13-year-old jet would likely cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars over time, noting that refurbishing the commercial plane would exceed its current value of $400 million,” NBC News reported last week. “The project might also not be completed by the end of Trump’s term in 2029, at which time the plane is expected to be handed over to Trump’s presidential library foundation.”
READ MORE: ‘It’s a Nightmare’: Trump’s ‘Beautiful’ Bill Slashes $500B From Medicare, Dems Say
But when confronted with a question about the jet, President Trump appeared combative and visibly angered.
“What are you talking about?” Trump asked NBC News Chief White House Correspondent Peter Alexander during an Oval Office meeting with the President of South Africa. “You know, you ought to get out of here.”
“What does this have to do with the Qatar jet? They’re giving the United States Air Force a jet, okay? And it’s a great thing. We’re talking about a lot of other things. It’s NBC trying to get off the subject of what you just saw. You are a real — You know, you’re a terrible reporter,” Trump charged.
“Number one, you don’t have what it takes to be a reporter. You’re not smart enough, but for you to go into a subject about a jet that was given to the United States Air Force, which is a very nice thing, they also gave $5.1 trillion worth of investment in addition to the jet. Go back, you ought to go back to your studio at NBC because [Comcast CEO] Brian Roberts and the people that run that place, they ought to be investigated.”
“They are so terrible, the way you run that that. And you’re a disgrace. No more questions from you.”
Moments later, the President of South Africa, Cyril Ramaphosa, jokingly remarked, “I’m sorry I don’t have a plane to give you.”
READ MORE: ‘Shameless Liar and Insane Conspiracy Theorist’: RFK Jr. Slammed by Democratic Senator
“I wish you did,” Trump replied, also saying he would accept it.
HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte remarked: “And there you have it. If Palestinians want their own state, they need to come up with a half billion dollar luxury jet to give Trump. Same with Zelenskyy, if he wants US help.”
Before the announcement that the U.S. has formally accepted the jet, U.S. Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former constitutional law professor, wrote: “I’ve introduced an amendment to block Trump from accepting his $400 million Bribe Force One from Qatar, a jumbo global scandal. It’s unconstitutional to take a foreign present ‘of any kind whatever’ from a foreign state, but House Republicans won’t even give me a vote. They don’t give a flying Emolument.”
Critics blasted and mocked the President.
“Someone’s getting testy about his Flying Bribery Palace,” wrote civil liberties and national security journalist Marcy Wheeler.
“Donald Trump has put a ‘for sale’ sign on the White House,” charged U.S. Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA). “He’s accepting a $400 million jet from Qatar – rubber stamped by AG Pam Bondi, a registered foreign agent for Qatar. He’s accepting $300 million from a company tied to the PRC and TikTok. This is corruption, plain and simple.”
[Bondi is a former registered foreign agent for Qatar.]
Watch the video below or at this link.
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AN 525
Whistleblowers and leakers, many constitutional scholars argue, play an important role in safeguarding democracy. When conservative Miles Taylor was serving as chief of staff to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in 2018, he wrote an anonymous op-ed for The New York Times that was famously headlined "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration."
Now, President Donald Trump is calling for the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi to investigate Taylor for potentially "treasonous" conduct. And his defenders are arguing that the ex-DHS official turned Never Trumper did the U.S. a huge favor by anonymously drawing attention to his national security concerns.
Trump and Bondi are also taking aim at journalists and media organizations that use whistleblowers and leakers in their reporting.
READ MORE: 'Blatantly illegal': Two officials push back against new Trump plan
In an article published by Salon on May 12, journalist/historian James Thornton Harris explains why he finds this so disturbing.
Bondi, Harris warns, is making a forceful, if underreported, "effort to suppress reporting by seeking to collect the phone records of reporters and trying to force their testimony in court, all in pursuit of government 'leakers.'"
:{:{"Attorney General Pam Bondi announced (a) new policy which replaces a Biden Administration rule restricting federal agencies from intimidating reporters in this manner,}:
" Harris explains. "In 2021, Biden's Department of Justice revealed that in 2017, the Trump Administration had secretly obtained the phone records of reporters from both the New York Times and Washington Post. It also tried unsuccessfully to obtain the reporters' e-mails. The (DOJ) said no legal action was taken against the reporters."}:
Harris adds, "Trump appears eager to pick up where he left off in his first term. Reporters Without Borders described Trump's current campaign as an attack on 'the credibility, independence, and sustainability of the news media.' Despite this disturbing all-out war on the press, which goes directly against First Amendment protections of freedom of speech, most Americans do not seem to care…. A recent poll by the Pew Research Center found that just 36 percent of Americans reported hearing 'a lot' about the Trump Administration's relationship with the news media."
READ MORE:This is the last thing MAGA wants you to do
Harris notes that according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, Trump's attack on freedom of the press is "happening rapidly, and, apparently, many Americans don't know, haven’t heard, or are choosing to look away."
"Free speech advocates are particularly concerned about Bondi's new policy," the journalist/historian warns. "Her directive states the new measures are needed to protect 'classified, privileged and other sensitive information.' By including the vague term 'sensitive information,' the new policy potentially covers a wide range of government information; it goes far beyond the federal criminal code, which focuses on protecting classified information…. Democratic President, John F. Kennedy, a former journalist, spoke out for press freedom and warned that 'without debate, without criticism, no administration and no country can succeed — and no republic can survive.'"
READ MORE:'Deeply offensive': MSNBC host rips 'gold-plated' Trump for trivializing 'financial hardship'
*James Thornton Harris' full article for Salon is available at this link.
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AN NO LNX
Trump just issued a threat to all of us
Donald Trump gestures at Turning Point USA's AmericaFest in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S., December 22, 2024. REUTERS/Cheney Orr/File Photo
Thom Hartmann May 06, 2025
In the dark corners of America’s halls of power, something sinister is unfolding. Attorney General Pam Bondi has launched an assault on one of the most sacred pillars of our democracy: the freedom of the press. And make no mistake, this isn’t just another policy change. It’s a deliberate strategy straight from the dictator’s playbook.
Late last month, Bondi quietly issued a memo rescinding vital protections for journalists that had prevented the government from forcing reporters to reveal their sources or surrender their notes during leak investigations. This wasn’t just any memo; it was a declaration of war against the very foundation of press freedom in America.
Bondi’s memo, released late on a Friday afternoon (a classic timing choice to minimize media attention), rescinded policies that had limited when and how Justice Department attorneys could pursue records or testimony from journalists, including in cases involving the unauthorized disclosure of government secrets to the press. The implications are chilling and immediate.
The Justice Department will now allow federal investigators to pursue communications from media outlets in government leak investigations, marking a complete reversal of Biden-era (and previous administrations’) policies that protected journalists from becoming targets of government intimidation.
Bondi’s justification? The Justice Department “will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”
Did you catch that? Not disclosures that threaten national security, but those that “undermine President Trump’s policies.” Since when did the President’s policies become sacred and beyond scrutiny? Since when did exposing wrongdoing by our government become a crime against “the American people”?
Throughout our history, ethical government officials who leaked information to the press have been essential to maintaining our democracy. They’ve exposed corruption, illegal wars, and unconstitutional surveillance, and in many cases they’ve paid a heavy price for their courage.
Take my old friend and correspondent Daniel Ellsberg, perhaps America’s most famous whistleblower. In 1971, Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers, exposing how multiple presidents had systematically lied to the American people about the Vietnam War. He believed the documents contained “evidence of a quarter century of aggression, broken treaties, deceptions, stolen elections, lies and murder.” His brave act helped change public opinion and ultimately contributed to ending that disastrous war.
When Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers, the Nixon administration tried to block their publication. The Supreme Court ruling in New York Times Co. v. United States upholding the press’s right to publish has been called one of the “modern pillars” of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.
That same Nixon administration that tried to silence Ellsberg created the infamous “White House Plumbers” unit to stop leaks, which later led directly to the Watergate scandal and Nixon’s downfall.
History shows that when presidents attack whistleblowers and the press, they’re usually trying to hide their own misdeeds. And it sure feels like that’s exactly what Bondi and Trump are now up to.
In more recent history, we’ve seen Edward Snowden expose the NSA’s mass surveillance programs and Chelsea Manning reveal troubling military actions, including the killing of civilians. Both were driven by their conviction that the American people deserved to know about government overreach and misconduct.
The Founders understood that a democracy cannot function without an informed citizenry, and citizens cannot be informed without a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. That’s why they enshrined press freedom in the First Amendment; they knew from bitter experience that power corrupts, and that the powerful will always seek to hide their corruption.
A free press serves as our early warning system against government overreach and abuse. When journalists can protect their sources, those inside the government who witness wrongdoing can come forward without fear of retribution. This critical flow of information is what Bondi is now trying to shut down.
Bondi’s actions come in the midst of an aggressive campaign against unauthorized leaking in Trump’s second administration. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has already referred “two intelligence community leakers” to the Justice Department for potential prosecutions, with a third referral on the way.
What we’re witnessing is step one in the dictator’s playbook: silence those who tell the truth about your regime. We’ve seen this pattern in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, and countless other countries where democracy has withered into authoritarianism. First, attack the press. Then, criminalize dissent. Intimidate lawmakers, lawyers, and judges. Finally, consolidate power in the hands of a single leader.
Bondi’s memo added that there will be procedures in place before members of the media are compelled to testify or their records are seized, but that doesn’t change the fact that the Justice Department is now prepared to compel journalists to testify, and their records will be subject to seizure.
But the most alarming part of all is what Bondi reportedly wants to do next. According to sources close to the Justice Department, she has argued that leakers — or even reporters — who provide information that she doesn’t like could be prosecuted for treason, a crime that carries the death penalty.
Let that sink in: the Attorney General of the United States believes that journalists doing their constitutionally protected job could be subject to execution.
I’ve been covering American politics for five decades, and just to be very clear: This is not normal. This is not just another partisan policy dispute. This is an existential threat to our constitutional system of government.
When a government official can decide that reporting unflattering information is “treason,” we’re no longer living in a democracy. We’re living in an authoritarian state where power flows from the top down, not from the people up.
Bondi’s actions reveal the Trump administration’s true nature. They have no interest in our democratic traditions or constitutional liberties. Their only goal is to consolidate power and silence dissent.
The U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, which documents threats to press freedom, has condemned Bondi’s decision and criticized Republicans in Congress who killed a federal shield law in 2024 that would have protected journalists from such subpoenas.
We’ve seen this before. Nixon’s attacks on the press were a precursor to his abuses of power. The Bush administration’s aggressive prosecutions of leakers after 9/11 helped enable his unconstitutional torture program and illegal surveillance. And Trump’s first term was marked by constant rhetorical attacks on the press as “enemies of the people.”
But this move by Bondi takes things to a new and dangerous level. By institutionalizing the persecution of journalists and their sources, she’s laying the groundwork for a full-scale assault on press freedom.
She claims that “subpoenaed news outlets are to be given advanced notice” and that the subpoenas will be “narrowly drawn,” but these are empty promises from an administration that has repeatedly shown contempt for democratic norms and the rule of law.
The time for polite disagreement or “strongly worded letters” is over. The time for waiting to see what happens next is over. We must act now to protect our democracy before it’s too late.
First, demand that Congress pass a federal shield law to protect journalists from being forced to reveal their sources. This is not a partisan issue; it’s about preserving the basic functioning of our democracy.
Second, support independent journalism with your dollars and your attention. Subscribe to newspapers, donate to nonprofit news organizations like ProPublica, and share important stories with your networks. A robust press is our best defense against tyranny.
Third, contact your representatives and tell them that protecting press freedom must be a top priority. Remind them that their oath is to the Constitution, not to any president or party. The phone number for the congressional switchboard, which can connect you to both your senators and your member of the House, is 202-224-3121.
Fourth, prepare to take to the streets if Bondi follows through on her threat to prosecute journalists for treason. That would be a red line from which there is no return to normal democratic governance.
Finally, remember that the press isn’t perfect — no human institution is — but it’s essential. When governments attack journalists, it’s rarely because they’re telling lies. It’s almost always because they’re telling truths that the powerful don’t want heard.
We stand at a crossroads in American history. Down one path lies a renewed commitment to our democratic values, including a free press that can hold the powerful accountable. Down the other lies authoritarianism, where “truth” is whatever the leader says it is, and those who disagree face persecution or worse.
The choice should be obvious. But making the right choice requires courage, from journalists who continue to do their jobs despite threats, from whistleblowers who risk everything to expose wrongdoing, and from citizens who refuse to be silent in the face of growing tyranny.
Pam Bondi and Donald Trump have shown their true colors. They’ve revealed their contempt for the Constitution and their fear of the truth. They’re trying to create a country where no one can challenge their power or expose their corruption.
We cannot — we must not — let them succeed. Our democracy depends on it.
NOW READ: Democrats need to draw 'political blood': Expert lays out strategy for defeating MAGA
The time to act is now.
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see bukele for anno
an internationally acclaimed digital news outlet in El Salvador said Monday that the administration of Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele is preparing to arrest a number of its journalists following the publication of an interview with two former gang leaders who shed new light on a power-sharing agreement with the U.S.-backed leader and self-described "world's coolest dictator."
"A reliable source in El Salvador told El Faro that the Bukele-controlled Attorney General's Office is preparing at least seven arrest warrants for members of El Faro," the outlet reported. "The source reached out following the publication of an interview with two former leaders of the 18th Street Revolucionarios on Bukele's yearslong relationship to gangs."
"If carried out, the warrants are the first time in decades that prosecutors seek to press charges against individual journalists for their journalistic labors," El Faro added.
Bukele responded to the interview in a Friday evening post on the social media site X that read in part, "It's clear that a country at peace, without deaths, without extortion, without bloodshed, without corpses every day, without mothers mourning their children, is not profitable for human rights NGOs, nor for the globalist media, nor for the elites, nor for [George] Soros."
While the pact between Bukele and gang leaders is well-known in El Salvador, El Faro—which has long been a thorn in the president's side—was the first media outlet to air video of gangsters acknowledging the agreement.
As El Faro reported:
At the heart of the threat of arrests is irony: El Faro was only able to interview the two Revolucionarios because they escaped El Salvador with the complicity of Bukele. One, who goes by "Liro Man," recounts that he was taken to Guatemala, through a blind spot in the Salvadoran border, by Bukele gang negotiator Carlos Marroquín; the other, Carlos Cartagena, or "Charli," was arrested on a warrant in April 2022, early in the state of exception, but quickly released after the police received a call at the station and backed off.
Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Salvadorans were being rounded up without due process, on charges of belonging to gangs.
The video interview explains the dichotomy: For years, Salvadoran gang leaders cut covert deals with the entourage of Nayib Bukele. In their interview with El Faro, the two Revolucionarios say the FMLN party, to which the now-president belonged a decade ago, paid a quarter of a million dollars to the gangs during the 2014 campaign in exchange for vote coercion in gang-controlled communities, on behalf of Bukele for San Salvador mayor and Salvador Sánchez Cerén as president.
"This support, the sources say, was key to Bukele's ascent to power," El Faro noted. "'You're going to tell your mom and your wife's family that they have to vote for Nayib. If you don't do it, we'll kill them,' Liro Man says the gang members told their communities in that election. Of Bukele, he added, 'he knew he had to get to the gangs in order to get to where he is.'"
Part of the deal was a tacit "no body, no crime" policy under which gang leaders agreed to hide their victims' corpses as Bukele boasted of a historic reduction in homicides in a country once known as the world's murder capital.
"We've wanted to talk about this for a long time, for the simple reason that the government beats their chests and says, 'We're anti-gang, we don't want this scourge,'" Liro Man told El Faro. "But they forgot that they made a deal with us, and you were the first to get this out."
In an ironic twist, the Trump administration deported gang members from the U.S. to El Salvador's notorious Terrorism Confinement Center prison who faced federal indictments that could have resulted in their testifying in court about the pact with Bukele.
Responding to the possible arrest warrants for El Faro staffers, Argentinian journalist Eliezer Budasoff said on social media Sunday that "it's clear" that El Salvador's leader "wants to silence" the outlet "because they're shattering the myths of the Bukele administration, simply with more journalism."
The Bukele administration's attacks on El Faro include falsely accusing the outlet of money laundering and tax evasion, banning its reporters from press briefings, and surveilling its staffers with Pegasus spyware. El Faro has remained steadfast in the face of these and other actions.
"Every citizen must decide for themselves whether they want to be informed, or whether they prefer the blind loyalty this administration has demanded of its supporters since its first day in power," the outlet's editors wrote in 2022. "We don't have that choice. Our job is to report. We can't change the news, and we never will."
NOW READ:There's a 'deeper problem' behind Trump's plan to fire top generals: expert
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// take harvard tax status
an 525
U.S. President Donald **Trump on Thursday signed an executive order calling for an end to taxpayer funding for NPR and PBS, an escalation of his assault on the media that could shutter hundreds of local stations across the country.
The president's order, which he signed behind closed doors, echoes a section of Project 2025, a far-right agenda that called for stripping public funding from NPR, PBS, and other broadcasters on the grounds that they "do not even bother to run programming that would attract conservatives."
Trump's order instructs the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB)—a private nonprofit corporation created and funded by Congress—to "cease direct funding to NPR and PBS, consistent with my administration's policy to ensure that federal funding does not support biased and partisan news coverage."
The executive order, which is expected to face legal challenges, also directs all federal agencies to "identify and terminate, to the maximum extent consistent with applicable law, any direct or indirect funding of NPR and PBS."
Trump's move was expected, and it came in the wake of reports that the administration intends to ask Congress to rescind previously approved funding for CPB, which is already engaged in a court fight with the president over his attempt to fire several of the organization's board members. The Associated Pressreported Thursday that the rescission request "has not yet been sent to Capitol Hill."
According to the organizations' estimates, federal funding accounts for roughly 1% of NPR's annual budget and 15% of PBS's yearly revenue.
In a letter to congressional leaders earlier this week, a coalition of civil society groups led by Reporters Without Borders (RSF) warned that, if enacted, Trump's proposed funding cuts for public broadcasting "will result in the shutdown of dozens, if not hundreds, of local, independent radio and television stations serving Americans in every corner of the country."
"As it stands, public media journalists are often the only reporters attending a school board meeting, or a local zoning hearing, or at the scene of a crime," the groups wrote. "They are the journalists most likely to hold local public officials accountable and expose
corruption. Faraway digital media outlets will not replicate this coverage, and the American public will lose out."
Trump's attack on public broadcasters is part of his administration's broader effort to undermine journalism in the United States and around the world.
RSF said in a report published Friday that Trump's "early moves in his second mandate to politicize the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), ban The Associated Press from the White House, or dismantle the U.S. Agency for Global Media, for example, have jeopardized the country's news outlets and indicate that he intends to follow through on his threats, setting up a potential crisis for American journalism."
"After a century of gradual expansion of press rights in the United States," the group said, "the country is experiencing its first significant and prolonged decline in press freedom in modern history, and Donald Trump's return to the presidency is greatly exacerbating the situation."
NOW READ:Trump's top spy chief blasted as her 'crazy' cash grab is exposed
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AN 4 25
In a Monday morning, April 28 post on his Truth Social platform, President Donald Trump — angry over his low approval ratings in recent polls — called for the New York Times, ABC News, the Washington Post and others to be "investigated for election fraud."
The post came three days after ABC News' Katherine Faulders reported that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), under U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi, had "rescinded a policy implemented during the Biden Administration that restricted prosecutors from seizing reporters' records in criminal investigations, according to an internal memo obtained by ABC News."
In an article published by Salon on April 29, Austin Sarat — a professor of jurisprudence and political science at Amherst College in Massachusetts — warns that the Trump Administration and the Trump-era DOJ are quite serious about using the legal system against reporters.
READ MORE:America is first in the global race to the bottom — thanks to Trump
"(The Trump Administration's) latest effort to bring the press to heel came on April 25, when news leaked of the Justice Department's intention to aggressively pursue journalists who receive leaked information from confidential government sources," Sarat explains. "When it is implemented, the policy will give the administration another tool to make the lives of reporters miserable and provide the basis for jailing those who resist."
Sarat continues, "While no journalists are presently in jail in this country for doing their jobs, prosecuting and punishing them is a regular part of the arsenal of repressive regimes around the world. And the atmosphere for the American press is by no means friendly. April alone saw a dramatic escalation of threats."
Sarat stresses that when it comes to reporters, Bondi is a radical departure from former U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland —who spoke of the "crucial role that a free and independent press plays in our democracy."
During Joe Biden's presidency, Garland said, "Because freedom of the press requires that members of the news media have the freedom to investigate and report the news, the new regulations are intended to provide enhanced protection to members of the news media from certain law enforcement tools and actions that might unreasonably impair newsgathering."
READ MORE:Nastiness 'doesn't travel well': Trump ripped after shock election results in Canada
Sarat comments, "How times have changed. Bondi's new memo chastises the news media for publishing leaked material 'that undermine(s) President Trump's policies, victimize(s) government agencies, and cause(s) harm to the American people.' Calling such activity Illegal and immoral, the attorney general said she would be personally responsible for approving 'efforts to question or arrest members of the news media.' There you have it. Journalists are put on notice that if they publish leaked material that 'undermine(s) President Trump's policies,' they may be arrested."
READ MORE:Hitler's first 100 days — and Trump's
*Austin Sarat's full article for Salon is available at this link.
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mma 4 25
President Donald Trump is ramping up his assault on the press, opening new avenues for federal retribution against outlets which displease him as his administration prepares to mark 100 days in office.
Trump has long railed against journalists as the “enemy of the people,” used the power of the state as a cudgel against the industry in his first term, and promised more of the same in his second.
His return to office brought what Columbia Journalism Review’s Jon Allsop described as a “sharp, often contemptuous rupture” between the federal government and the press, with the White House seeking over the last few months to dominate reporters, place new restrictions on critical outlets, and lift up right-wing propagandists in their place.
The president’s threats against news outlets have been so extreme for so many years that by contrast, such moves struck some observers as “small beer” or “trivial nonsense.”
But Trump’s talk is cheap until it isn’t — at any time, on a whim, he or the assortment of ideologues and shills he’s appointed can set the gears of government grinding against his foes. And this weekend brought a sharp escalation and worrying signs for the future.
Justice Department ends restrictions protecting journalists}:
Attorney General Pam Bondi on Friday laid the groundwork for the imprisonment of journalists who produce reporting that damages the president’s interests.
In an internal Justice Department memo, Bondi rescinded Biden-era protections which restricted prosecutors “from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media,” stating this was necessary “in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks” by individuals whose conduct she described as “treasonous.”
Notably, her memo targets not just the leaking of classified information but also “disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people.”
Trump regularly rails against reporting based on anonymous sources. Bondi’s move raises the prospect of the Trump administration responding to such reports by forcing reporters to choose between revealing their sources and going to jail.
Bondi, a Trump loyalist who previously parlayed frequent Fox appearances defending Trump into a post on his first impeachment legal defense team, will apparently be making the call over when the Justice Department uses that legal tool.
Other top prosecutors and investigators who might weigh in include her deputy, Emil Bove, who previously represented Trump in state and federal prosecutions; Ed Martin, the lawyer for January 6 defendant who now serves as interim U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia; FBI Director Kash Patel, who has called for the federal targeting of journalists; and his extremely online deputy, the former Fox host Dan Bongino.
How far will they go? Trump wants them to go very far indeed.
- ### Trump calls for investigations of media pollsters
Trump responded on Monday to new surveys which show his approval ratings plunging in light of his catastrophic tariff rollout by calling for investigations into the pollsters and the media outlets which conduct them.
Trump claimed in an early morning post on Truth Social that results from New York Times/Siena and ABC/Washington Post polls were due to the surveys “looking for a negative result.”
“These people should be investigated for ELECTION FRAUD, and add in the FoxNews Pollster while you’re at it,” he wrote. “They are Negative Criminals who apologize to their subscribers and readers after I WIN ELECTIONS BIG, much bigger than their polls showed I would win, loose a lot of credibility, and then go on cheating and lying for the next cycle, only worse.”
Trump regularly accuses his media foes of breaking the law, and in a March speech at the Justice Department headquarters he instructed its employees to “watch for” their “totally illegal” behavior.
The president is currently suing Iowa pollster J. Ann Selzer over the results of one of her presidential campaign surveys.
Trump has personally dictated Justice Department investigations into two former officials from his first administration who became critics, as well as into ActBlue, the hub for Democratic campaign fundraising — and he could launch a similar legal assault on any news outlet which displeases him at any time.
- ### A cry of desperation from CBS News
60 Minutes anchor Scott Pelley Sunday’s broadcast with a blunt explanation for the resignation last week of Bill Owens, a journalist with decades of experience at CBS News and the show’s longtime executive producer.
“Our parent company, Paramount, is trying to complete a merger,” he said. “The Trump administration must approve it. Paramount began to supervise our content in new ways. None of our stories has been blocked, but Bill felt he had lost the independence that honest journalism requires.”
Trump and his administration had targeted CBS News for retribution following a 60 Minutesinterview of Kamala Harris, the editing of which the president alleged had been unfair to him.
Trump launched a lawsuit seeking $10 billion in damages from the network, which First Amendment attorneys described as “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.” Brendan Carr, his handpicked chair of the Federal Communications Commission, is conducting an investigation into the editing that former FCC commissioners have denounced.
Rather than stand firmly behind the company’s journalists, Paramount Chair Shari Redstone is reportedly seeking a settlement with Trump and an agreement with Carr that will allow the company’s merger to go through.
- ### Trump gloats about media owners bowing to his will
Trump thinks he’s winning his battle against the press, as The Atlantic reported in a recent interview with the president:
“Tell the people at The Atlantic, if they’d write good stories and truthful stories, the magazine would be hot,” he said. Perhaps the magazine can risk forgoing hotness, he suggested, because it is owned by Laurene Powell Jobs, which buffers it, he implied, from commercial imperatives. But that doesn’t guarantee anything, he warned. “You know at some point, they give up,” he said, referring to media owners generally and—we suspected—[Washington Post owner Jeff] Bezos specifically. “At some point they say, No más, no más.” He laughed quietly.
Trump understands that many of the news outlets whose work he decries are owned by multinational corporations or wealthy magnates whose business interests make them vulnerable to federal retaliation.
After only a few months in office, he’s seen the pressure he’s exerted on CBS News push it to the breaking point, while the resolve of major newspaper owners is seemingly crumbling. And he has years more time in office to try to break them to his will.
//
02/04/25 9:00 AM EST
10/29/24 9:09 AM EDT
11/30/23
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NO LNX
Only one thing is going to stand in Trump's way — and he knows it
Thom Hartmann April 28, 2025
It didn’t happen in some shadowy back alley or under the cover of night.
It happened in broad daylight — in the heart of an American courthouse.
Federal agents, acting without even the decency of a signed warrant, stormed into Judge Hannah Dugan’s courtroom on Friday morning and dragged her away like a common criminal. No warning. No legal process. No respect for the law she had spent a lifetime upholding.
But they made sure the cameras were there, so America could see what they were doing. Because this was not about justice. This was about terror.
This was a warning shot aimed directly at the beating heart of America’s judiciary:
“Fall in line — or you’re next.”
In that moment, the world’s oldest democracy lurched closer to the edge of authoritarian rule. In that moment, America became a little less free — and a lot more like the nightmare Vladimir Putin always hoped we’d become.
The FBI arrested Judge Hannah Dugan last Friday without even having a legal arrest warrant; this is as outrageous and police-state illegal as an administration can get.
And Pam Bondi’s performance Friday — after her federal agents swarm-raided this county judge — wasn’t staged for the general public.
The real audience was a very small, select group: America’s judges.
Their message is very simple: “P--- us off, judges, and you could end up in prison, too.”
Trump has already pacified the Article I branch of government — Congress — and now he’s in the process of pacifying the Article III branch, the Judiciary.
There are only 3 branches to our government: cowing both Congress and the nation’s Judiciary will leave only the president in charge of the entire country under all circumstances in all ways.
Nothing and nobody else will be able to stop him, short of a military coup (and he’s already decapitated the senior leadership of the military) or unending demonstrations in the streets (demonstrators who may soon face live ammunition).
That is called dictatorship. Real dictatorship. Vladimir Putin-style dictatorship where you are punished for the smallest deviation from orthodoxy and can find yourself in prison or sued into bankruptcy if you dare speak out in public.
It appears more and more every day that Putin is Trump’s mentor, if not his handler. Trump is doing everything he can, with help from a South African billionaire, to destroy the historic American infrastructure (which has been an example for the world for 250 years) and turn us into the newest member of the dictators club, joining Russia, China, Saudi Arabia, Belarus, Hungary, North Korea, and the rest of the fascist and authoritarian world.
To get there, now that they’ve pacified every single Republican member of Congress (most recently, Don Bacon criticized Trump’s schizophrenic tariffs; a day later he started talking about retiring), they only have to seize control of the Judiciary, and then nothing except We The People will stand in their way.
Nothing. Will. Stand. In. Trump’s. Way. Except We The People. And he knows it.
Look at the striking parallels between Putin’s strategies and Trump’s actions:
From installing Trump’s loyalists in the military and the federal police agencies of the Department of Justice and FBI, to his open threats against freedom of the press, to the GOP’s efforts to rig elections and purge voters, Trump’s subversion of US democracy looks eerily familiar.
He’s taking pages directly from the autocrat’s handbook.
Trump has openly quoted and praised autocrats like Putin and Hungarian strongman Viktor Orbán, who has presented his leadership in speeches to the GOP and CPAC as a model of an “illiberal” state.
Trump’s not hiding his admiration for dictators; he’s flaunting it. And now he’s putting the final stages of their script into action.
Trump’s movement toward authoritarianism follows “a known playbook. It’s unfolded in many other countries,” as journalist Anne Applebaum notes. “These are democratically elected leaders who characterize themselves or describe themselves as deserving of no opposition. So I am the true Hungarian, or I am the only real American.”
In a mere matter of weeks into his presidency, Applebaum says, Trump and his allies “have managed to push America into that space somewhere between (no longer) democracy and full-scale autocracy.”
The speed is shocking, but it shouldn’t be surprising. It only took Hitler 53 days to completely end democracy in Germany. Others, like Lukashenko, Orbán, Putin, Mussolini, Duterte, El-Sisi, and Erdoğan took longer (none longer than two years), but you could argue that Trump has been working at this project for 9 years now.
Harvard professor Steven Levitsky, who studies how democracies slip into authoritarianism, warns that we’re heading toward what experts call “competitive authoritarianism”: regimes that “constitutionally continue to be democracies” with regular elections and legal opposition, but where “systematic abuse of power tilts the playing field against the opposition.”
Make no mistake about what’s happening: Trump and his allies are methodically working through a four-step process to establish complete autocratic control, which will turn America into a one-man dictatorship.
- Terrorize Congress: Trump’s already largely succeeded here. Republican lawmakers now march in lockstep with his agenda, afraid to oppose him even when their consciences scream otherwise. The V-Dem Institute already warns that Trump’s actions are “extremely worrying” for American democracy.
- Terrorize the Media: Trump has, as The Washington Post writes, “relentlessly attacked the free press, another pillar that allows democracies to stand above authoritarian regimes,” as political scientists have noted. “He has echoed the worst dictators in history, calling journalists the ‘enemy of the people.’” With help from Elon Musk and other billionaires, he’s creating a media and social media environment where truth itself is under assault. And last week his administration threatened to arrest journalists and charge them with treason, an offense for which they could be executed.
- Terrorize Judges and Lawyers: What we witnessed Friday with the raid on a county judge and the arrest of a retired judge earlier in the week is just the beginning. The final step in this process will be intimidating the Supreme Court, and if Trump’s minions can first terrorize the entire federal judiciary, it will be much easier to terrorize members of the Court itself, just like Putin and Orbán have done. This follows dangerous cracks in democracy’s pillars that experts have been warning about.
- Terrorize Citizens: Once the above institutions are captured and there’s no more Constitutional opposition to Trump, the final phase begins: crushing individual dissent through fear, persecution, and potentially violence. This is the playbook Malcolm Nance detailed in his work analyzing Putin’s strategies to undermine American democracy and has already started against immigrants and student visa holders. If history tells us anything, American citizens will be next.
Most of this is already in place; time is running out fast.
Trump and his fellow fascists know their time is running out because elections are coming in a handful of months and their popularity is already crashing. They are at maximum power right now, and it is already beginning to decline.
This is another reason why they are pushing so hard to frighten judges, so they can implement the final destruction of any Constitutionally-based opposition to Trump’s one-man rule.
If Trump can consolidate authoritarian rule as quickly as some other historical dictators did, the complete (albeit hopefully temporary) end of American democracy could happen very rapidly, possibly even in the next few weeks or months. The window for action is closing fast.
But there’s still hope, because we’re still We The People. As long as our protest movement continues to grow and demand a stop to the damage Trump and Musk are doing to our democratic republic, we may be able to slow or even stop this anti-American cabal and reclaim our republic.
Our protesting in the streets and reaching out to legislators may encourage resistance within the media and courts, and might even inspire a handful of Republicans to stand against this wannabe dictator.
When democratic institutions fail, the last line of defense has always been citizens willing to take to the streets. Ukraine provides the most powerful recent example of how a determined populace can rescue democracy from Russian-inspired authoritarianism.
During Ukraine’s Euromaidan protests in 2014, over half a million people joined demonstrations in Kyiv to defend democracy against creeping authoritarianism. Those protests ultimately ended Viktor Yanukovych’s Russia-backed puppet regime (and kicked out its Russian-funded American advisor, Paul Manafort, who later became Trump’s 2016 campaign manager) and became known as the Revolution of Dignity.
Ukrainians stood firm in the streets despite violence and intimidation, and their courage changed history.
Ukraine’s later Orange Revolution similarly empowered ordinary citizens to engage in mass protests, with some lasting continously more than two weeks. This peaceful revolution successfully defended Ukraine’s democratic aspirations against Russian influence and showed the world that people power can overcome autocratic manipulation.
Putin fears democracy, particularly at his doorstep like in Ukraine and the Baltic states. He knows that democracy is contagious, and any spread near Russia, he believes, poses an existential threat to his autocratic rule. That’s why he invaded Ukraine, and that’s why he spent millions on social media trolls to support Trump’s election and his assault on our democratic institutions.
As Ukrainian historian Hanna Perekhoda warns, “If we let Russian authoritarians win, it will mean that the authoritarian forces also in our countries, in the U.S., for example, will grow stronger.”
If this assault on the Courts (and the implied intimidation of all judges including those on the Supreme Court) succeeds, and the media continues to bow down, the only thing left will be us in the streets.
The time for half-measures, “very strong letters,” and polite political disagreement has passed. We are watching in real-time as our 250-year experiment in democracy is being dismantled by a would-be dictator taking his cues from — or, at least, modeling his presidency on — Vladimir Putin.
This is not hyperbole. This is not partisan exaggeration. This is the stark reality facing our nation today. Fascism and dictatorship are at our doorstep.
Just last week, it was reported that Trump has now deported three American citizens, including a child taking cancer therapy.
Not content to just pull student visas and ask them to leave the country, Trump’s goons have been imprisoning students for writing OpEd articles for weeks. And now they’re show-arresting judges.
The arrest of Judge Dugan is not an isolated incident; it’s part a broader strategy to intimidate the judiciary and consolidate power.
When judges are arrested for upholding the principles of due process, the very foundation of democracy is at risk. This moment demands vigilance and action from all who value the rule of law.
The preservation of our democratic institutions depends on our collective response to such unprecedented challenges.
Buckle up, America. Democracy itself is on the line, and if the courts fall, we’ll be its last defenders.
NOW READ: Behind the 60-year Republican plot to destroy American democracy
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AN 4 25
When the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA) was founded back in 1914 during Democrat Woodrow Wilson's presidency, the idea was to have an organization of journalists who covered the White House but were independent of it. Seven years later, the WHCA's annual dinner was founded, and the first president who attended was Republican Calvin Coolidge in 1924.
After that, every U.S. president from Franklin Delano Roosevelt to Ronald Reagan to Barack Obama attended the dinner — until Donald Trump became the first exception.
:{:{In a biting op-ed published by The Hill on April 25, veteran journalist Owen Ullmann argues that the dinner and the WHCA shouldn't honor Trump in light of his disdain for the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment:}:
READ MORE: 'Selling out': Michigan Dem mocked after claiming voters don't know what 'oligarchy' means
"Now is the time to stop breaking bread with the Trump Administration, starting with tomorrow's White House Correspondents Association dinner," Ullmann writes. "Trump and his administration's acolytes have made clear they have no respect for the First Amendment, traditional news media, fair reporting or the truth these organizations reveal to the American public. Trump, the first president to skip the dinner during his first term, previously labeled mainstream media 'the enemy of the people,' and in February, started barring the Associated Press from attending some White House events, because its influential style book would not officially rename the Gulf of Mexico the 'Gulf of America,' as Trump insists it be called."
The Trump Administration, Ullmann laments, is "borrowing a tactic used by authoritarian leaders in other countries" when it gives preference to "friendly" reporters at the White House.
"In another chilling move against free speech," Ullmann observes, "the (Trump) Administration has detained and is deporting foreign nationals who are in the U.S. legally because it doesn't like their views in support of Palestinians in Gaza or other causes that displease the Trump crowd. In view of such behavior, the White House Correspondents Association would mock the very reason it was established, were it to hold the dinner this spring with Trump enablers in attendance — even if Trump himself boycotts the event again."
READ MORE:How to prepare for the uprising
*Owen Ullmann's full op-ed for The Hill is available at this link.
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ars tech
federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr accused Comcast of "news distortion" because its subsidiary NBC isn't parroting the Trump administration narrative on the deportation of Kilmar Abrego Garcia.
"Comcast knows that federal law requires its licensed operations to serve the public interest. News distortion doesn't cut it," Carr wrote in a post on X yesterday.
Carr's use of the phrase "news distortion" is significant because he has been invoking the FCC's rarely enforced news distortion policy to pressure licensed broadcasters that he perceives as being biased against President Trump. For a detailed look at Carr's fight against media, read our feature: "The speech police: Chairman Brendan Carr and the FCC's news distortion policy."
Carr, who recently wore a pin depicting Trump's head on his lapel, provided no substantive argument that NBC is guilty of news distortion. Historically, the FCC has enforced the policy in only the most extreme cases where there is evidence of misconduct, such as a bribe, or instructions from management to distort the news. As a 1985 ruling from the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said, the FCC policy makes "a crucial distinction between deliberate distortion and mere inaccuracy or difference of opinion."
In his post yesterday, Carr alleged that "Comcast outlets spent days misleading the American public—implying that Abrego Garcia was merely a law abiding US citizen, just a regular 'Maryland man.'" Carr wrote that "Abrego Garcia came to America illegally from El Salvador, was validated as a member of the violent MS-13 gang—a transnational criminal organization—and was denied bond by an immigration court for failure to show he would not pose a danger to others."
"Why does Comcast ignore these facts of obvious public interest?" Carr asked.
SCOTUS ruled US must facilitate man’s release
Abrego Garcia's lawyer said in a lawsuit that he has no affiliation with MS-13. During a 2019 immigration court proceeding, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) "offered a Gang Field Interview Sheet ('GFIS') generated by PGPD [Prince George County Police Department]," the lawsuit said. "The GFIS explained that the only reason to believe Plaintiff Abrego Garcia was a gang member was that he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hat and a hoodie; and that a confidential informant advised that he was an active member of MS-13 with the Westerns clique."
The MS-13 Westerns clique is said to operate in New York, "a state that Plaintiff Abrego Garcia has never lived in," the lawsuit said. The Gang Field Interview Sheet was reportedly filled out by an officer who was later suspended and indicted for providing confidential information to a sex worker.
The Supreme Court last week upheld a key portion of a District Court order on the deportation, saying that the lower court's "order properly requires the Government to 'facilitate' Abrego Garcia's release from custody in El Salvador and to ensure that his case is handled as it would have been had he not been improperly sent to El Salvador."
Carr made his statement on X yesterday while sharing a post by White House Communications Director Steven Cheung, who said it's "SHAMEFUL that CNN and MSNBC refuses to take Angel Mom Patty Morin as she recounts the terrible tragedy of how an illegal killed her sweet daughter, Rachel."
Victor Martinez-Hernandez was convicted of killing Rachel Morin earlier this week. The White House has attempted to link this murder to Abrego Garcia's deportation, but they are entirely separate cases.
Carr’s fight against media
Carr's post yesterday, combined with his recent actions to enforce the news distortion policy, suggest that he is likely to open a proceeding if a formal complaint is lodged against any NBC stations. Carr showed he is willing to investigate news distortion complaints into ordinary editorial decisions when he revived complaints against CBS and ABC that were thrown out under the previous administration.
Carr has focused in particular on the CBS complaint, which concerns the editing of a CBS *60 Minutes* interview with Kamala Harris. The conservative Center for American Rights alleged that CBS distorted the news by airing "two completely different answers" to the same question.
CBS published unedited video and a transcript that shows it simply aired two different sentences from the same response in different segments, but Carr has kept the proceeding open and seems to be using it as a bargaining chip in the FCC review of CBS-owner Paramount's transfer of TV broadcast station licenses to Skydance.
Carr's handling of the CBS complaint has been condemned by both liberal and conservative advocacy groups—and former Democratic and Republican FCC commissioners and chairs—who say the FCC's approach is a threat to the constitutional right to free speech.
Carr has also sent letters to companies—including Comcast—alleging that their diversity policies are "invidious forms of discrimination in violation of FCC regulations and civil rights laws." Carr last month threatened to block mergers pursued by companies that enforce diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies.
We contacted Comcast and NBC today and will update this article if they provide any response to Carr's news distortion allegation.
Jon Brodkin Senior IT Reporter
Jon is a Senior IT Reporter for Ars Technica. He covers the telecom industry, Federal Communications Commission rulemakings, broadband consumer affairs, court cases, and government regulation of the tech industry.
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04/14/2025
by
Kyle Mantyla RWW
- Steve Benen @ The Maddow Blog: Trump leans into the idea of sending American criminals to a Salvadoran prison
Trump has spent months talking about deporting American criminals. The White House has said it’s a real idea. Maybe we should take the threat seriously.
- Hannah Allam @ ProPublica: American Rendition: Rümeysa Öztürk’s Journey From Ph.D. Scholar to Trump Target Languishing in Louisiana Cell
Rümeysa Öztürk’s arrest and detention reveal what President Donald Trump’s deportation campaign looks like on the street level.
- Jonathan Mahler @ The New York Times Magazine: How the G.O.P. Fell in Love With Putin’s Russia
What explains the Trump administration’s radical reversal toward Moscow?
- David Gilmour @ Mediaite: Trump Demands FCC Punish ‘CBS Fake News’ for ‘Out Of Control’ 60 Minutes: ‘They Should Pay a Big Price’
President Donald Trump launched a new attack on 60 Minutes, this time demanding regulatory retribution over recent segments on Ukraine and Greenland — calling on “highly respected” FCC chair Brendan Carr to “impose the maximum fines and punishment” possible on “out of control” network CBS.
- Alex Galbraith @ Salon: "He's going to have a third term": Bannon tells Maher Trump is sticking around in 2028
Bannon's comments come after Trump shared he's "not joking" about an unconstitutional third-term.
- Will Neal @ The Daily Beast: DOJ Wants to Give Capitol Rioters a Refund for Damage They Caused
Court documents filed this week suggest some insurrectionists could receive a check for their troubles.
- Warren Throckmorton @ Telling Jefferson Lies: Mike Johnson's False Jefferson Prayer: The Rest of the Stor
On January 3, 2025, Louisiana Representative Mike Johnson was re-elected to be Speaker of the House. In his acceptance speech, he quoted a prayer that he said Thomas Jefferson said every day during his presidency and every day of his life thereafter. There is a problem with this story. The prayer was written 56 years after Jefferson died. Jefferson never said the prayer even one day of his life.
- John Fea @ The Way of Improvement Leads Home: Expect to see more David Barton in the coming year
This past week David and Tim were invited to the White House as part of a team planning special faith focused events for the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
- Melody Schreiber @ The New Republic: Measles Is Spreading, and RFK Jr. Is Praising Quacks
Last week, an 8-year-old girl became the second child and the third person to die of measles in the current outbreak. But it was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the secretary of health and human services, who dominated the news cycle.
- Phil Williams @ News Channel 5: Men behind Tennessee's Christian nationalist settlement: 'This country belongs to Jesus,' not the Jews
Andrew Isker compares Jews to "foster children," who cannot be trusted with the family credit card. C.Jay Engel argues Jews "have largely operated at odds with the Old American way of life."
- Christine Fernando @ The Associated Press: An emboldened anti-abortion faction wants women who have abortions to face criminal charges
As Kristan Hawkins, president of the national anti-abortion group Students for Life, tours college campuses, she has grown accustomed to counterprotests from abortion rights activists. But more recently, fellow abortion opponents, who call themselves abortion abolitionists, are showing up to her booths with signs, often screaming “baby killer” at her while she speaks with students. Hawkins has had to send alerts to donors asking them to help pay for increased security.
scotus order AP back on?
// rww
- Oliver Darcy @ Status: The Pool Filter
Some White House pool reports are no longer making it to the official distribution list, Status has learned—an unsettling development in the Trump administration's escalating war on the press.
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an 3 25
The new book Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful by The New York Times business investigations editor David Enrich chronicles an ongoing campaign by the wealthy and powerful to overturn the landmark Supreme Court decision New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, which in 1964 established bedrock protections against spurious defamation and libel cases in the U.S. legal system. By “subject[ing] people to this torturous, long-running and extremely expensive legal process,” those who can afford to pay for expensive and threatening defamation lawsuits can silence any public criticism and suppress others’ rights to free speech, says Enrich. “It has huge implications for our democracy and the ability of everyone to speak their mind.”
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
We turn now from attacks on the right to protest to attacks on press freedom. President Trump is escalating his criticism of the news media, claiming many outlets are engaged in illegal activity. This is part of what he said last week during a speech at the Great Hall of the Department of Justice.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I believe that CNN and MSDNC, who literally write 97.6% bad about me, are political arms of the Democrat Party. And in my opinion, they’re really corrupt, and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal. … These networks and these newspapers are really no different than a highly paid political operative. And it has to stop. It has to be illegal. It’s influencing judges, and it’s entered — it’s really changing law, and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal.
AMY GOODMAN: President Trump’s comments come amidst a right-wing push to overturn protections for the press to investigate public figures, a right guaranteed by the landmark 1964 Supreme Court decision New York Times v. Sullivan.
We’re joined now by David Enrich. He’s New York Times’ business investigations editor. His new book is titled Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.
If you can start off — it’s great to have you with us, David — by talking about what this Supreme Court decision, this landmark decision in the 1960s, Sullivan, was all about?
DAVID ENRICH: Well, it was brought on behalf of supporters of Martin Luther King, and it basically detailed this litany of abuses by Southern officials. The gist of it was completely true: Southern officials were trying to preserve white supremacy. Some of the facts were either wrong or exaggerated, and a powerful Southern official named L.B. Sullivan, sued The New York Times and won at trial. And the goal, basically, of Sullivan and his pals was that by filing lawsuits that seized on tiny little inaccuracies, you could punish the media for covering the civil rights movement.
And so, this went up to the Supreme Court, and the Supreme Court ruled, in a unanimous decision in 1964, that in order to preserve free speech and allow people to write and criticize and investigate powerful people and institutions, the media and the public needed breathing room so that if they got a fact wrong by mistake or made an honest error, they would not be sued into oblivion. And so, that Supreme Court ruling has really set the stage for decades of investigative journalism and for normal people, non-journalists, as well, to speak up and kind of reveal abuses and criticize people who hold positions of power, both at the national level or at a community level, as well.
AMY GOODMAN: And what does this mean for the First Amendment?
DAVID ENRICH: And it means that the First Amendment gives everyone the right to speak and to interrogate powerful people, and you do not need to worry about — there should not be a legal cloud hanging over your head when you criticize or investigate someone powerful, and you do not need to worry that an innocent mistake is going to bankrupt you because of litigation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, let’s go back to 2016, Donald Trump vowing to make it easier to sue news organizations.
DONALD TRUMP: I’m going to open up our libel laws, so when they write purposely negative and horrible and false articles, we can sue them and win lots of money. We’re going to open up those libel laws, so that when The New York Times writes a hit piece, which is a total disgrace, or when The Washington Post, which is there for other reasons, writes a hit piece, we can sue them and win money.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that was before Donald Trump became president the first time around. Talk about the significance of what he’s saying and the overall campaign, as in your subtitle, the Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.
DAVID ENRICH: Well, when Donald Trump made those remarks in 2016, it kind of acted as the firing of a starter’s pistol in a race, and it sent a signal to the entire kind of conservative movement, and, in particular, the conservative legal movement, that a race was on to try to dismantle some of the long-standing First Amendment protections for the media and for others. And you can trace very directly back to that speech that he gave in Fort Worth, Texas, in February of 2016 the arrival on the scene of this kind of small cottage industry of high-priced lawyers whose entire practices were devoted to suing and threatening news outlets.
And the more successes they piled up, the more the strategy caught on, so that by the time — and within a couple of years, there was a real grassroots movement, funded and fueled by the likes of the Federalist Society, the Heritage Foundation, the Claremont Institute, to really weaponize defamation laws to make it much, much scarier, really, especially for small and independent news outlets and journalists, to write about powerful people — not just the president of the United States, but across — but in their local communities, a big company, maybe a powerful real estate developer, things like that. And this strategy has now worked its way all the way up to the Supreme Court, where there is increasing support for either doing away with New York Times v. Sullivan altogether, or at least chipping away at it around the edges.
AMY GOODMAN: So, you’re the business investigations editor at The New York Times. What led you to write this book?
DAVID ENRICH: Well, we were getting, and still do get, inundated with legal threats basically every time that we start writing about or investigating someone powerful. And it occurred to me — you know, The New York Times is in a pretty good position to handle that kind of threat, but it occurred to me a few years ago that, you know, the experience might be very different if you worked at a smaller outlet or if you were an independent journalist. And, you know, there are so many independent journalists right now, which I think is a really good thing for the media and a good thing for our democracy. But it’s people with a Substack newsletter or a blog or a podcast who are uniquely vulnerable to these types of threats and these types of litigation, because they are enormously expensive to defend against.
And they’re not always meant to — these challenges are not always meant to win in court. They’re often meant to just subject people to this torturous, long-running and extremely expensive legal process. And a lot of people make the economically rational decision, which is that in the face of those threats and in the face of that litigation, they’re going to back down rather than fight, which is exactly what the people making those threats want you to do.
AMY GOODMAN: So, talk about how Hulk Hogan or, as you point out, much more relevantly, Peter Thiel fit into this story.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, so, Peter Thiel had a long-running grudge against —
AMY GOODMAN: And explain who he is.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, Peter Thiel is one of the most powerful people in Silicon Valley. He was an early supporter of Donald Trump, and he’s very closely aligned with people like Elon Musk. And he —
AMY GOODMAN: Co-founder of PayPal.
DAVID ENRICH: Co-founder of PayPal, yes, and one of the owners of Palantir, as well. And he had a long-running grudge against the website Gawker, because Gawker was really pioneering a form of journalism that was very skeptical of Silicon Valley elites and was kind of puncturing some of the bubble surrounding them. And so he set out in the early 2010s to destroy Gawker. And he went searching. He hired a bunch of people. He put a bunch of money into this. And he eventually settled on a case involving Hulk Hogan. Gawker had published a snippet of a sex tape involving Hulk Hogan.
And so, Peter Thiel secretly financed and organized a multifaceted legal campaign using Hulk Hogan as a vehicle for retribution against Gawker. He won — Hulk Hogan won. Peter Thiel won. Gawker was destroyed. And this became a real blueprint for other billionaires and other powerful people to really attack the media. They saw that they — a well-funded, well-orchestrated, secret legal campaign — had the ability to absolutely destroy a well-established media outlet.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Gawker was destroyed. Now talk about some of the Supreme Court justices’ views. Particularly begin with Clarence Thomas.
DAVID ENRICH: Well, Clarence Thomas, during his confirmation hearings in 1991, expressed real support for New York Times v. Sullivan. He then went through a period where he got some very negative media coverage, and his views seemed to shift. And so, by 2019, Clarence Thomas became the first sitting Supreme Court justice to openly call for the overturning of New York Times v. Sullivan.
His argument originally was grounded in the 45 words of the First Amendment, which do not mention libel or defamation, and therefore should not — he argued that should not be protected under the First Amendment. Really, though, this was a part of a campaign by Thomas and his allies to really erode the powers of the media and the protections for the media and normal people to speak up when they saw abuses and to criticize people like him.
And so, he, now joined by Neil Gorsuch, as well, have really embraced this call and are trying to recruit other justices, I think, and are calling for other people to file lawsuits that might make their way up to the Supreme Court that will challenge these long-standing precedents that protect, again, not just press freedoms, but the right of a person in a community to circulate a petition, for example, or make a comment on Facebook about their mayor, things like that. So this is not just about protecting journalists. It’s really about protecting anyone who wants to stand up and have their voice heard on matters of public importance.
AMY GOODMAN: Where does Neil Gorsuch stand?
DAVID ENRICH: Gorsuch has joined Thomas in wanting to have this overturned. And his views really — and he views Sullivan as protecting all sorts of online defamatory speech. The arguments that he has made — I mean, one of the things I do in this book is really deconstruct those arguments. And it turns out, a lot of them are premised on not just kind of faulty logic, but inaccurate data that he cited, that he got from a law review article that was filled with a lot of false assumptions and kind of misinterpreted data. And so, he has actually had to correct his opinion calling for the overturning of New York Times v. Sullivan, but it is still being cited to this day by the conservative legal movement as one of the real kind of sources of information and authority that should be used to overturn it.
AMY GOODMAN: You begin your book, the prologue, “A Panicked Phone Call.” You tell the story of Guy Larson [sic]. Tell us who he — Guy Lawson — is.
DAVID ENRICH: So, Lawson is an American journalist and author who wrote a book that became the basis for the movie War Dogs, with — starring Jonah Hill. And the book basically tells the story of how these three stoners from Miami Beach become international arms traffickers. It’s kind of a rollicking, really fascinating tale. Some of the action is set in Albania. And there’s a bit part in the book played by the son of Albania’s former prime minister, who is kind of an autocratic strongman. And the details in the book, as far as I’ve been able to determine, were completely accurate. But for argument’s sake, the son of the strongman claims that he was kind of smeared in the book and that some of the facts were wrong, so he filed a lawsuit against Lawson in U.S. court, and it’s worked its way — it’s been kind of years winding its way through the legal process. It got dismissed by multiple courts. But years later, it worked its way up to the Supreme Court, and it became one of the latest vehicles to try and challenge Sullivan.
:{And it was seized on by people who had been inspired by Clarence Thomas, who had basically issued an open invitation to lawyers and, you know, prospective litigants, begging them to bring him a case that he could used to overturn Sullivan. It made its way up to the Supreme Court. They did not get enough votes to actually overturn Sullivan, or even hear the case, but it became another vehicle for Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch to really, you know, bring this issue much more to public light and to argue forcefully that Sullivan should be overturned.
And those calls, while unsuccessful — they did not get the Supreme Court to change the legal standard — they inspired hordes of lawyers, activists and other judges at lower levels across the country to really lean into this argument. And you can look at cases all over the country, and you can see that they are slowing down, they are taking longer, they’re not getting dismissed as quickly. And that creates all sorts of pain and difficulties for — especially for local and independent journalists, who now have much kind of higher odds of being dragged through expensive litigation.}:
AMY GOODMAN: So, you talk about — let’s look a some of the cases that President Trump is involved with right now. He sues ABC. He sues The Des Moines Register. He sues CBS. Is he trying to bring these cases to the Supreme Court? Now, of course, ABC, there was a settlement. Explain what these cases were about and what it means to settle.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, well, first of all, Trump is very much trying to get a case to the Supreme Court that will lead to the overturning of Sullivan. I don’t think any of those three cases you mentioned are the likely vehicles, but there are a bunch of others working their way through the federal appeals system that I think stand a much better chance.
These more recent lawsuits against ABC, CBS and The Des Moines Register are all pretty clearly efforts by Trump and his allies to weaponize the law to get — to kind of punish criticism and to deter others from speaking up and saying critical things. And they involve different legal theories. The ABC case was a straight-up defamation case. The Des Moines Register and the —
AMY GOODMAN: I mean, ABC case, where George Stephanopoulos had said President Trump —
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — was found civilly liable for rape. Now, again —
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: — the judge in the case said, in common parlance, this case would be about rape.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, and even in the technical details, that he was actually found liable by the jury for sexual abuse, not rape. But so, even if you assume, for argument’s sake, that that’s an important difference and that Stephanopoulos got it wrong — and I think Stephanopoulos would say he didn’t get it wrong — but for argument’s sake, let’s say he did get it wrong. That is exactly the type of mistake that is supposed to be protected by New York Times v. Sullivan, because it is an honest, good-faith error, and you should not be held liable. ABC nonetheless decided that it was prudent to settle this case.
AMY GOODMAN: Or Disney did —
DAVID ENRICH: Well, right.
AMY GOODMAN: — which owns ABC.
DAVID ENRICH: Disney, as parent company, did. And, I mean, I think the rationale for that — and we’re seeing this play out in other settings, as well — is that these big multinational companies, that have varied interests, are trying to protect their corporate interests and do not feel like having outstanding litigation against the president of the United States is in their best interest, and so they are, pretty clearly, I think, taking the side of their profits in the long term over the First Amendment concerns that many of their journalists have. And you’re seeing a very similar dynamic playing out with CBS right now.
AMY GOODMAN: And CBS is the case of 60 Minutes.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: And Trump is suing them for $20 billion, I think, at this point, for how they edited a Kamala Harris piece.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah, and this is the very definition of what I think is a meritless lawsuit. And at the time the lawsuit was filed, there were some discrepancies in the way CBS kind of cut or aired parts of Kamala Harris’s interview with 60 Minutes. We now have the full, unedited transcript. We have the full, unedited recordings of those interviews. And it is plainly clear, objectively, that the interview, while edited, was not done so deceptively. There are not material differences between the different things that aired on different CBS shows. And so, the lawsuit, clearly, to me at least, and certainly all the legal observers I’ve spoken to, with the exception of people aligned with Trump, is not a strong legal argument. And yet, CBS’s parent company, which has a multibillion-dollar merger pending, that it needs —
AMY GOODMAN: Paramount.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah — that it needs federal approval for, has started talking with the Trump side about possibly settling this. And the rationale, again, is quite clear: They are concerned, on the Paramount side, that if they do not settle this, that the Trump administration is going to essentially punish them by holding up this multibillion-dollar merger. And so, you have journalists and, I think, media executives at CBS who are apoplectic about the prospect of settling this, because, A, they are on very strong legal footing, and, B, it would set a terrible precedent that the companies are going to cave to this kind of legal extortion. But I think — we’ll see what happens.
AMY GOODMAN: How does protection of the press in the United States compare to other countries? And talk about libel tourism.
DAVID ENRICH: Yeah. So, the U.S. is — the First Amendment is a really special thing in the U.S. It’s one of the things that distinguishes America from many other democracies. So, if you look at countries like the U.K., for example, or Australia, which are, you know, very democratic — small-D democratic countries, it is much harder for journalists and others to write critical things or to investigate powerful people and institutions in those countries, because their libel laws make it much easier to sue, and that also allows you to much more easily and kind of potently threaten people.
And so, you have — in the U.K., for example, we’ve had this phenomenon, as you just said, called libel tourism, where people, rich people, like Russian oligarchs, and big companies file lawsuits against journalists from all over the world in the British court system. And that has created a real chilling effect even for American journalists, who sometimes find themselves getting sued in British courts just because you published something. It goes online. It’s accessible probably everywhere in the world. That can expose you to liability in the British court system.
Now, it’s getting a little bit harder to actually bring those suits right now, but, to me, it’s a really clear reminder of the importance of the protections we have in the U.S. It really does differentiate this country from many others. And it means we have a much more robust and aggressive media. And again, it also means that just normal people who want to circulate a petition online can do so without fear that if they get a fact wrong, they are not going to be bullied and intimidated and potentially sued because of just minor inaccuracies.
AMY GOODMAN: So, finally, after you wrote this book, Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful, were you more or less hopeful?
DAVID ENRICH: Oh my goodness, less hopeful. We have a real problem right now in this country. We have very strong legal protections, and yet people and companies and institutions are, on a daily basis, threatening journalists and threatening normal people, and they are getting their way a lot of the time, and that’s with our legal protections in place. And the assault on these protections is very much underway. It’s a very much alive threat, I think. And we’re seeing the White House engage in this almost on a daily basis, it seems. So I think the threat is growing, and it has huge implications for our democracy and the ability of everyone to speak their mind and criticize powerful people.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to talk about some of the particular cases you look at in the book after the show, and we’ll post it as a web exclusive at democracynow.org. David Enrich, New York Times business investigations editor. His new book, just out, Murder the Truth: Fear, the First Amendment, and a Secret Campaign to Protect the Powerful.
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an 2 25
President Donald Trump's ongoing boxing match with the media is escalating, with his spokesperson announcing a major change to how he'll be covered.
Politico White House bureau chief Desha Burns tweeted Tuesday that White House pool reporters will now no longer be chosen by the White House Correspondents' Association (WHCA). Instead, White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said that the administration's media team will now decide on which reporters will comprise the press pool.
New York Times editor Jonathan Weisman called the announcement "a big deal," explaining that the White House press pool — which normally rotates journalists in and out — is the primary source of coverage for the administration. Now, that's no longer the case, and Trump is presumed to make sure that only friendly reporters are able to ask him questions.
READ MORE:'No one knows who is in charge': White House's HR email is creating 'bedlam' for federal workers
"He can now hand-pick the reporters questioning him," Weisman said.
Other journalists also condemned the decision. New Yorker columnist Susan Glasser — who is married to New York Times chief White House correspondent Peter Baker — said the "Trump White House [is] on the way to establishing its own version of a Kremlin press pool, approved media only." ABC 10 News San Diego reporter Adam Racusin said: "The White House should not be allowed to pick and choose who covers them." And high school journalism teacher Garrett Gordon (also a veteran broadcast journalist) summed up Leavitt's announcement by tweeting that the White House was "incentivizing publishing propaganda."
"When you’re doing loads of corrupt, illegal and unpopular s--- you need to make sure the only journalists who can ask questions are in on the grift," Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) tweeted.
The controversial announcement comes on the heels of the White House banning the Associated Press (AP) from the press pool over the outlet's decision to continue referring to the body of water between Texas and Florida as the Gulf of Mexico, rather than the Trump administration's chosen "Gulf of America" designation. The AP argued that the international body of water is still known as the Gulf of Mexico by the rest of the world. Ed Martin, who is the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, slammed the AP in a tweet from his office's official X account, saying they "refuse to put America first."
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MMA
The stars of Fox News have used their shows to defend President Donald Trump’s banning of Associated Press reporters from the Oval Office and Air Force One because the wire service refuses to adopt the administration’s renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.” They’ve characterized the AP’s actions as “deadnaming” the Gulf and said that “the White House is right” to restrict its access in response.
But Fox has also reportedly signed on to a letter calling on the Trump White House to restore the AP’s access and characterizing the ban as “serious breach” of the First Amendment's protections for the press. So has Newsmax, whose on-air talent praised the White House response while attacking the “Fake News AP” as “Associated Propaganda.”
The disconnect demonstrates how Trumpist propaganda channels like Fox and Newsmax occasionally try to bolster their standing by play-acting as legitimate news channels which share the values of the free press, even as their on-air product plays to their right-wing viewership base.
Oliver Darcy reported Wednesday that “40 news organizations have signed onto a confidential letter circulated by the White House Correspondents’ Association supporting the AP,” including both legitimate news outlets and “the pro-Trump channels Fox News and Newsmax.”
Darcy published the letter, which said in part:
The First Amendment prohibits the government from asserting control over how news organizations make editorial decisions. Any attempt to punish journalists for those decisions is a serious breach of this Constitutional protection.
The decision to exclude The Associated Press from covering the president aboard Air Force One and in the Oval Office is an escalation of a dispute that does not serve the presidency or the public. News organizations must be free to make their own editorial decisions without fear of government intrusion.
...
We once again ask the White House to lift this ban on the AP immediately and to underscore its support for press freedom.
But that sort of defense of the First Amendment principles and repudiation of the Trump White House’s actions is a far cry from what the viewers of Fox and Newsmax have been hearing on those channels.
Indeed, the night before Darcy’s report, Fox star Jesse Watters said of the controversy on his prime-time show: “The Associated Press took Mexico's side. They're deadnaming the Gulf, so they got kicked out of the White House.”
Watters likewise said on his February 12 show, “The Associated Press is sticking with Mexico, and now they are banned from the Oval Office,” adding, “Kick them out. Kick them out, and kick some other people out while you're there. I have a list.”
Video
From the February 12, 2025, edition of Fox News' Jesse Watters Primetime
Watters’ colleagues were similarly blithe about the prospect of the federal government reducing access to reporters due to the editorial decisions of their outlet.
“So-called journalists in the media mob are ramping up their petty anti-Trump reporting,” Jason Chaffetz offered while guest-hosting the February 14 edition of Hannity. “For example, The Associated Press is still refusing to refer to the Gulf of America by its new name, despite recognition from Google, Apple, and other major outlets.”
After reading a quote from a White House official who said the AP’s decision is “not just divisive, but it also exposes The Associated Press' commitment to misinformation,” he commented, “The White House is right.”
Chaffetz later asked Fox contributor Joe Concha for his view of the White House’s restrictions on the AP. “It’s the best unintentional comedy of the week, Jason, hearing how The Associated Press, because they haven't been permitted onto Air Force One, into the Oval Office, that's somehow a threat to free press and a chilling attack on the First Amendment,” Concha said.
Other Fox hosts focused on mocking former CNN anchor Jim Acosta’s call for the press corps to take collective action and stop attending events from which the AP was barred. Greg Gutfeld said on the Wednesday edition of his show that the press would “love any excuse not to cover all of Trump's wins” and commented, “Your scam is up, media, and trust me, the hits are going to keep coming.” And guest-hosting Friday’s edition of The Ingraham Angle, Charles Hurt said of Acosta’s remarks, “I think that this derangement syndrome is in full swing, not just in celebrity la-la land, but also among our press brethren.”
Special Report, the flagship “news” show hosted by Bret Baier, has not addressed the controversy according to a review of its transcripts in the Nexis database.
Likewise, Newsmax hosts Rob Schmitt, Rick Leventhal, and Ed Henry teamed up to mock the AP and any concerns over whether the White House had breached the First Amendment during the February 13 edition of Schmitt’s show.
Video
Citation
From the February 13, 2025, edition of Newsmax's Rob Schmitt Tonight
On-screen text castigated the “fake news AP” and called the outlet “Associated Propaganda” as Schmitt introduced the segment, blaming The Associated Press for “refusing to accept Gulf of America” and said that “the media has no right to be” in the Oval Office.
Henry, a former president of the WHCA, began his response by saying that he would not be a “hypocrite” and “always stand up for the First Amendment.” But he went on to criticize the AP on the grounds that “it’s called the Gulf of America,” adding, “If you are not going to follow the actual name of the body of water, then I can understand why they don't want to give you access. You’re not playing with the basic facts.”
Leventhal also criticized the AP, saying that “they are supposed to be free of bias and opinion” and that by refusing to adopt the Gulf of America moniker, “you're saying you don't agree with the president, you don't like what the president did, and you're not going to play by his rules. That is completely opposite of what The Associated Press is supposed to be.” He added: “You can't make those kinds of unilateral decisions. You report the news, Associated Press.”
“That's exactly right,” Schmitt replied.
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rww Corbin Bolles @ The Daily Beast: Trump’s MAGA Media Enforcer Is Having ‘the Time of His Life’
Donald Trump’s FCC chairman Brendan Carr is boasting to friends that he is having “the time of his life” after launching an all-out attack on the media, the Daily Beast has learned.
ref
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no lnx
Trump’s MAGA Media Enforcer Is Having ‘the Time of His Life’
BITE BACK
FCC chairman Brendan Carr has vowed to target all of Donald Trump’s enemies.
Corbin Bolies
Media Reporter
:{Updated Feb. 10 2025 tdb
Donald Trump’s FCC chairman Brendan Carr is boasting to friends that he is having “the time of his life” after launching an all-out attack on the media, the Daily Beast has learned.
Carr has spread dread through top-ranked media executives since taking office at the same time as Trump. He has opened an investigation into CBS over its 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, threatening to upend its parent company’s merger with Skydance Media; reopened investigations into ABC and NBC over the Trump-Harris presidential debate and her appearance on Saturday Night Live; opened inquiries into NPR and PBS that questioned whether they deserved government funding; and sent a letter to a George Soros-owned California radio station over a report on immigration raids—and vowed not to stop.
Brendan Carr and Donald Trump.
FCC commissioner Brendan Carr has remained laser-focused on President Donald Trump's enemies.
Brandon Bell/Getty
Many of his actions parallel Trump’s own private legal cases—particularly the pursuit of 60 Minutes, which Trump is suing for $20 billion, claiming it “doctored” the Harris interview to help her, which CBS denies—and are amplified by a gleefully pro-Trump personal twitter account.
The dizzying pace since Trump was sworn in has left television and media executives shaken. They fear that the FCC will pounce on minor errors to pursue lengthy and expensive investigations.
“It’s a stressful moment for everybody who’s just trying to do the good work that they’ve always thought they could do by recognizing that, if they do get it wrong, that the implications are—it used to be, you’d be embarrassed about a correction," one media executive told the Beast. “Now it can go into the stratosphere.”
pic.twitter.com/og0VBW0mxR
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) January 22, 2025
There are also fears that the FCC will seek to find ways to target other legacy brands traditionally been part of its remit, said another executive. The FCC regulates outlets that operates on broadcast airwaves, whether on television or radio—not cable.
“We have to see what they end up proposing, but I wouldn’t be surprised if our legal team is looking into it,” they said.
Kamala Harris and Maya Rudolph.
Kamala Harris' pre-election "Saturday Night Live" appearance is the subject of an FCC inquiry.
Amir Hamja/The Washington Post via Getty
The weekslong spree has achieved Trump’s desire to put media outlets on notice, prompting some media executives to work overtime to make sure they don’t become Carr’s next target.
“The change now is, it’s really, really important to, frankly, be near-perfect every day,” one media executive told the Daily Beast. “I think that’s kind of the the burden that exists, that we are under an incredible microscope.”
CBS Reveals Truth About Harris Interview Trump Is Suing Over
DOCTORED? NO
Corbin Bolies
Bill Whitaker and Kamala Harris.
Carr himself—a 46-year-old communications lawyer who has been on the FCC since 2017—has set out his stall in a series of Fox News appearances. The FCC declined a request for comment from the Beast.
Fox & Friends anchor Brian Kilmeade asked Carr last week whether CBS' release of the 60 Minutes interview will prevent news organizations from editing interviews with high-profile figures.
“Are you worried about the precedent of asking for these transcripts?” Kilmeade asked.
“No, not at all,” Carr said. “It’s actually interesting. Here is a precedent we’re following is the precedent that the Democrat FCC set when it came to Fox. There was a complaint lodged against Fox, and so they opened up a public proceeding on that. And we’re simply applying that precedent.”
CBS Reveals Truth About Harris Interview Trump Is Suing Over
DOCTORED? NO
Corbin Bolies
Bill Whitaker and Kamala Harris.
Carr appeared to refer to a 2023 complaint filed by the Media and Democracy Project to prevent Rupert Murdoch’s Fox Corp-owned Philadelphia station from renewing its FCC license.
The complaint, filed alongside ex-Murdoch official Preston Padden, claimed the Murdochs decision to broadcast lies about the 2020 election on Fox News, and the station’s airing of Fox News Sunday, should force it to lose its license. Former FCC chairperson Jessica Rosenworcel dismissed the complaint alongside those against ABC, CBS, and NBC last month.
Padden told the Daily Beast Carr’s claim about applying the law evenly was “bulls---.” He said the only reason Carr did not reinstate his FCC complaint was to appease Trump.
“Brendan Carr has one litmus test for the public interest, and that is whatever the Sun King of Mar-a-Lago wants,” he said. “Any FCC-licensed broadcaster who broadcasts anything that this president doesn’t like is going to be fair game for retribution by Brendan Carr. He is simply an agent of President Trump.”
Padden said a mutual friend told him that Carr was “having the time of his life.”
Perhaps the most pointed of his investigations is not the most high-profile.
Last week, the FCC sent a letter of inquiry to San Francisco radio news station KCBS 740 AM, asking it to justify reporting a statement from a pro-immigrant group that described the cars and locations of supposedly undercover Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers conducting raids in San Jose.
George Soros
George Soros' Soros Fund Management has become one of Audacy's largest shareholders.
Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty
A news host had read out claims by the group, called the Rapid Response Network, saying, “The County’s Response Network says agents in San Jose were in unmarked vehicles,” and describing the color, make and models of the cars and the streets they were seen on. Carr told Fox News it may break the “public interest” test for radio licenses, then tied it to what he claimed were “Democrat leaders in Congress saying it’s time for people to take fights to the street against Trump’s agenda.”
What he did not say—although Kilmeade did mention—was that the station’s owner, Audacy, is majority owned by an investment fund controlled by Soros Fund Management, the investment vehicle for MAGA bogeyman George Soros. Republican senators condemned the FCC last year for approving the purchase.
Carr said in November he intended to “take a very hard look” at the Audacy deal, claiming the FCC “bent over backwards” to give Soros the stations. Last week he echoed another MAGA trope about double standards as he explained his shock and awe attacks on the media.
“There are a lot of people who have been on this sort of upper road of the two-tiered system of government,” Carr told Fox News on Thursday. “And what I’m here to do is apply the law evenly.”
Media Reporter
corbin.bolies@thedailybeast.com
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TENT CT FAIL AN 2 25}:
Without even conducting a hearing, a Mississippi judge ordered a local newspaper to remove an editorial criticizing local officials over a lack of transparency.
The Independent reported Wednesday that the Clarksdale Press-Register in Clarksdale, Mississippi has since deleted the editorial in question following an order handed down by Hinds County Chancery Court Judge Crystal Wise Martin. The editorial called out municipal leaders in Clarksdale for not properly notifying the public about a hearing on proposed tax increases. Judge Martin's order accused the paper of "reckless disregard of the truth," and asserted that the editorial disrupts the local government's "legitimate function to advocate for legislation they believe would help their municipality during this current legislative cycle."
"The notice was posted at city hall as required by law and said stated the city would 'give appropriate notice thereof to the media,'" the editorial read. "This newspaper was never notified. We know of no other media organization that was notified."
READ MORE:'Open season': Experts slam Trump's 'disgusting' lawsuit against Iowa newspaper and pollster
Seth Sterns, who is the director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told the Independent that the case was "uniquely egregious."
"It's hard to imagine a more unconstitutional order than one compelling a newspaper to take down an editorial critical of the government," he said. “And it’s particularly ironic when the editorial in question is about government secrecy undermining the public trust ... If anyone previously trusted the secretive officials involved in this censorship campaign, they shouldn't now.”
Clarksdale Mayor Chuck Espy (the son of former U.S Department of Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy) celebrated Judge Martin's ruling in a Facebook post, exclaiming that "the city of Clarksdale WON today!"
"The judge ruled in our favor that a newspaper cannot tell a malicious lie and not be held liable. The newspaper had to take down a false story that they printed," Espy wrote. "The only thing that I ask, that no matter what you print, just let it be the truth; be it good or bad. Thank you GOD for a judicial system.”
READ MORE:'We're going to go after the people in the media': Trump ally calls for prosecuting journalists
Click here to read the Independent's full report. And click here to read an archived version of the Press-Register's now-deleted editorial.
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DN AN 2 25
:{We look at the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on press freedom, and how the media has responded with bended knee in some cases, with Jameel Jaffer, director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. The Trump administration has threatened journalists and media outlets for their coverage, and the Federal Communications Commission is investigating PBS and NPR over its funding sources. Meanwhile, a number of major news organizations face accusations of surrendering to Trump’s threats.
In December, ABC settled a defamation suit brought by Trump by making a $15 million donation to his future presidential library. CBS’s parent company Paramount is reportedly in talks to settle a multibillion-dollar lawsuit filed by Trump, who accused 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with Kamala Harris. Trump initially sought $10 billion in the lawsuit and is now seeking $20 billion. “What I see here is media organizations that have the power to fight back against Trump but aren’t doing it. I think that’s a failure of courage,” says Jaffer. “Every time one of those media organizations settles a case, the next organization finds it more difficult to resist Trump.}:
AMY GOODMAN: As a constitutional crisis grows in Washington, we begin today’s show looking at the Trump administration’s escalating attacks on press freedom. Last week, the interim U.S. Attorney in Washington Edward Martin threatened to prosecute anyone, including journalists, who, quote, “target” or, quote, “impede” Elon Musk and DOGE — that’s the Department of Government Efficiency. Martin’s letter came a day after Musk claimed it was a crime to identify the young computer engineers who have helped him gain access to highly sensitive information at agencies across Washington.
Meanwhile, the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, has opened an investigation into San Francisco-based KCBS over the radio station’s reporting on recent immigration raids. The FCC has also opened a broader investigation of NPR and PBS and their practice of airing underwriting announcements.
On Friday, Donald Trump openly called for The Washington Post to fire longtime columnist Eugene Robinson after he accused Trump of trampling the Constitution.
Meanwhile, a number of major news organizations face accusations of already bending a knee to Trump. In December, ABC settled a defamation suit brought by Trump by making a $15 million donation to his future presidential library.
CBS’s parent company Paramount Global is reportedly in talks to settle a multibillion-dollar lawsuit filed by Trump, who accused 60 Minutes of deceptively editing an interview with Kamala Harris. Trump initially sought $10 billion in the lawsuit, but he’s upped it now to $20 billion. Last week, CBS took the unusual step of handing over its unedited tapes to the FCC. While the tapes showed no wrongdoing on CBS’s part, many believe Paramount might still settle the lawsuit. This all is happening as Paramount seeks federal approval for its $8 billion merger with Skydance Media.
We’re joined right now by Jameel Jaffer, executive director of the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. His recent New York Timesopinion piece is headlined “This Is Not a Moment to Settle with Trump.”
AMY GOODMAN: So, we just went through some of the cases, but if you can go through them in depth and explain what is happening here? Is the media obeying in advance?
JAMEEL JAFFER: Yeah. I mean, that’s how I see it. I see a kind of failure of courage among the largest and most powerful media organizations in the country. You know, you started with the ABC settlement. This is a case that arose out of George Stephanopoulos saying on TV that President Trump had been found liable for rape, when in fact the jury had found him liable for sexual assault. Trump sued, claiming that he had been defamed. I don’t think that there —
AMY GOODMAN: And let’s be clear: It was the judge who said, in common parlance, this would be rape.
JAMEEL JAFFER: That’s right. That’s right. I don’t think that Trump had any chance of winning that lawsuit. If ABC had contested it, ABC would have been protected by the New York Times v. Sullivan rule. New York Times v. Sullivan is a 60-year-old case that gives citizens broad power to — or, broad latitude to criticize government officials, makes it very difficult for public officials to recover in defamation actions. I don’t think there’s any way that ABC would have lost that case. But they settled the case.
Second one is Meta’s settlement with Trump. This is over Meta’s decision or Facebook and Instagram’s decision to deplatform Trump after January 6th. Trump sued, claiming that his First Amendment rights had been violated. This, I think, is a totally frivolous case. There’s no way that Trump would have won that case against Meta, but Meta settled it, as well, for $25 million — again, all going to Trump’s presidential library.
And then, finally, this reported CBS settlement, or possible CBS settlement, with Trump over the action — over the case that involved the editing of this Kamala Harris interview. I don’t think that CBS edited that interview in any unusual way at all. The kind of editing they did is routine for journalism, for media organizations. Trump knows that. Again, no chance that Trump would have won that case, but CBS is reportedly thinking about settling it.
So, what I see here is media organizations that have the power to fight back against Trump but aren’t doing it. I think that’s a failure of courage, and it has implications for those particular media organizations, because I think it affects their credibility and their prestige. But it has larger press freedom implications, as well, because every time one of those media organizations settles a case, the next organization finds it more difficult to resist Trump. And this is a moment in which we need these organizations to hold the powerful to account, hold Trump to account, and this is exactly what they should not be doing.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, Jameel, what about this latest story this week about the FCC investigating a San Francisco —
JAMEEL JAFFER: Yeah.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: — radio station, KCBS, for its coverage of immigration enforcement in San Jose?
JAMEEL JAFFER: Yeah. I mean, here, too, I think you see the Trump administration trying to use its regulatory authorities in a way that chills press freedom, chills legitimate reporting. No question here that that radio station was within its rights to report what it did. And what Trump is trying to do or what the FCC is trying to do here is chill not just that radio station, but other radio stations and other media organizations, from engaging in reporting that is inconvenient to the administration.
I mean, I mentioned the CBS case. You know, another aspect of that case involves the FCC, with the FCC having demanded from CBS that it turn over unedited transcripts of its interview with Kamala Harris. And I don’t think in another —
AMY GOODMAN: And they released them.
JAMEEL JAFFER: And they released them. And they released them. I don’t think in another — in any other era a news organization would have just turned over those transcripts without at least trying to get a judge to narrow the request or look at the transcripts in camera before turning them over. But CBS just turned them over.
And, you know, I think that there’s a real risk here that, on paper, we’re going to have all the First Amendment rights in the world. The First Amendment is going to look great on paper. But the organizations that we need to assert their First Amendment rights, to defend press freedom, are increasingly just not doing it.
I mean, I’ve named a few of the settlements, but even before we got to the settlements, there were the L.A. Times and The Washington Post, which quashed editorials that would have been — that would have provoked Trump. This happened before the election. Then there were the Big Tech companies that all made million-dollar donations to Trump’s inaugural fund. You know, I think what we’re seeing is media organizations, including social media organizations, lining up to ingratiate themselves with President Trump. And that is an extremely troubling thing at this particular moment.
JUAN GONZÁLEZ: And, of course, it’s not just media organizations. Universities. Talk about the free speech rights that are endangered, increasingly endangered, at universities by the Trump administration, for instance, threatening to deport pro-Palestinian students.
JAMEEL JAFFER: Yeah, I mean, I think this is — it’s a larger issue across society. Many of the institutions that we need to serve as checks on government power at a moment like this are not doing their jobs.
Now, this question about, you know, in what circumstances can the government deport noncitizens for exercising their First Amendment rights, I think, is a hugely significant question. And I want people to understand that the First Amendment protects noncitizen students at American universities just like it protects everybody else. The government cannot constitutionally deport people simply because they have exercised their First Amendment rights, simply because they have criticized a war overseas or criticized our government or criticized another government. Those are not constitutionally permissible justifications for deporting somebody.
So, you know — and you don’t have to take my word for it, because a couple years ago, the Knight Institute, my institute, filed a Freedom of Information Act request with the Biden administration, and we were able to get two memos, two legal memos, in which the Trump administration had considered its authority to engage in these kinds of deportations based on First Amendment activity. And Trump administration lawyers wrote memos that acknowledged that noncitizens at universities in the United States are protected by the First Amendment and that deporting them on the basis of their speech would almost certainly be unconstitutional.
AMY GOODMAN: And then, Jameel Jaffer, talk about what happened Friday night with the casino magnate Steve Wynn asking the Supreme Court to revisit the Times v. Sullivan defamation rule, the Supreme Court decision, one of the two most important press freedom cases.
JAMEEL JAFFER: Yeah, so, I mentioned New York Times v. Sullivan already. This has been a campaign by some conservatives over the last few years to try to get the Supreme Court to narrow or overrule New York Times v. Sullivan, which would be a very big deal because it’s The New York Times v. Sullivan, more than any other case, that protects our ability to criticize government officials, which is core to our democracy. And this —
AMY GOODMAN: What was it established under, New York Times v. Sullivan? What case was that?
JAMEEL JAFFER: So, it’s called New York Times v. Sullivan. It’s a case involving — The New York Times was sued by a Southern police official who was concerned about civil rights activism in the South and complained, in particular, about an ad in The New York Times that he said — he said accurately — was inaccurate. The ad included some inaccuracies in it. And he said, because the ad included inaccuracies, The New York Times was liable. I think it was for $500,000, which at the time would have been crushing liability even for The New York Times. And if he had won that case, other news organizations reporting on the civil rights movement would have been crushed, as well. But the Supreme Court said, if you’re criticizing government officials, you have to have broad latitude, even to get things wrong. So, unless the public official can show what’s called actual malice, so unless the public official can show that the newspaper or the writer recklessly published false information or deliberately published false information, there’s no recovery possible. The First Amendment forecloses recovery.
So, now some conservatives are pushing to get the Supreme Court to overrule that decision. I think it’s a misguided campaign, even, you know, if you want the things that these conservatives want. I think this is going to backfire on them. But this cert petition that was filed on Friday night, this request that the Supreme Court hear the case, is another effort in this longer campaign to get the Supreme Court to either scale back or overrule New York Times v. Sullivan.
AMY GOODMAN: Jameel Jaffer, thanks so much for being with us, director of the Knight —
JAMEEL JAFFER: Thank you.
AMY GOODMAN: — First Amendment Institute at Columbia University. We’ll link to your piece in The New York Times, “This Is Not a Moment to Settle with Trump.”
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an 2 25 thom 3
— “Mass Murderer in Waiting”: Reporter accuses LA Times’ billionaire owner of editing his anti-RFK op-ed to support Kennedy. Eric Reinhart wrote an article for the LA Times about Bob Kennedy’s appearance before the Senate, but is now saying that the paper’s editors — presumably at the behest of the paper’s rightwing billionaire owner — rewrote his article and changed the headline to make it seem like he was endorsing Kennedy when in fact it was the opposite.
“I am the author of this OpEd,” Reinhart wrote on X, “which was given a misleading title and from which key lines were cut—lines that made very clear that RFK Jr is dangerously ignorant, has absolutely no business near HHS, and is effectively a mass murderer in waiting.” What’s the old joke about the Golden Rule? “He who has the gold makes the rules,” as I recall. Certainly seems to be the case here, truth be damned…
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MMA
Trump is trying to throttle the free press — and U.S. moguls are going along with it
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 02/04/25
President Donald Trump is wasting no time in carrying out his goal of throttling the free press. Over the first two weeks of Trump’s presidency, his appointees have wielded federal regulatory authority to punish outlets the president dislikes — and American media moguls are responding with submission.
Trump has turned standard conservative attacks on journalists into one of the hallmarks of his political agenda.
He takes as his model Hungary’s autocrat Viktor Orban, who has “effectively dismantled the news media in his country” as “a central pillar of Orban’s broader project to remake his country as an ‘illiberal democracy,’” as New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger noted in an extraordinary warning last year.
During his first term in office, Trump repeatedly tried to leverage state power against his despised “fake news,” and together with his Project 2025 allies has developed a playbook to attack, defund, and delegitimize news outlets in his second.
Major media companies began signaling before Trump took office that they were willing to play ball with his administration in order to preserve their business interests. But since Inauguration Day, as Trump’s appointees have begun showing their intentions, executives at several news outlets have gone into full retreat.
CBS News preps for a Trump settlement
In the final weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump denounced CBS News’ editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris as “the biggest scandal in broadcast history” and declared that CBS should be stripped of its broadcast license. But in addition to invective and threats, Trump also filed a lawsuit against the outlet for producing journalism which displeased him.
The suit, which alleged that CBS airing different portions of Harris’ answer to a question in different venues constituted “partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference,” drew derision from First Amendment attorneys, who described its legal theory to CNN as “ridiculous junk” and “a frivolous and dangerous attempt by a politician to control the news media.”
But over the past few weeks, reports have indicated that CBS News’ parent company, Paramount, may be preparing to settle the suit with Trump. Such a settlement would be “an extraordinary concession by a major U.S. media company to a sitting president, especially in a case in which there is no evidence that the network got facts wrong or damaged the plaintiff’s reputation,” as The New York Times put it.
But Paramount needs federal approval for its proposed merger with Skydance Media, the production company founded by filmmaker David Ellison, and apparently sees giving the president a payoff as a valid way to smooth the path. Pressure for the settlement is coming from top Paramount shareholder Shari Redstone, the Times reported, who “stands to clear billions of dollars on the sale of Paramount.”
LA Times’ biotech industry owner goes all-in for RFK Jr.}:
Billionaire doctor Patrick Soon-Shiong once drew plaudits for using a small fraction of the vast fortune he made in the biotech industry to purchase and sustain his hometown newspaper, the Los Angeles Times.
But Soon-Shiong’s involvement in the paper’s operations has become more heavy-handed since the final months of the presidential campaign, with the owner repeatedly weighing in on Trump’s behalf. Over the past few weeks, Soon-Shiong, whose medical patents are subject to federal oversight, has begun cheerleading for the confirmation of the anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as secretary of health and human services.
“‘I truly believe [Kennedy] has the American public's best interests at heart,’ Soon-Shiong tweeted Tuesday in a post he pinned to the top of his account on X, formerly Twitter, for much of last week,” NPR reported. “It was one of 18 messages promoting Kennedy that Soon-Shiong — a billionaire surgeon and medical inventor — posted over the course of four days, which included Kennedy's confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill.”
Soon-Shiong’s support for Kennedy appears to have bled into his paper’s operations as well. On Friday, an op-ed contributor accused the paper of deceptively editing the piece he submitted in order to remove his criticisms of Kennedy’s nomination.
- ### CNN tries to move on
Journalists at CNN regularly drew vicious attacks from Trump and his supporters during the president’s first term. During a tone-setting press conference shortly before he took office, Trump lashed out at then-White House correspondent Jim Acosta as “fake news” and “terrible.” And Trump’s salvos at the network went beyond just words — his Justice Department tried to block a merger involving CNN’s then-parent company..
This time, CNN’s corporate leadership appears less willing to leave the network vulnerable to Trumpian retribution. Network chief Mark Thompson led an editorial meeting the day before Inauguration Day in which he instructed CNN talent “to be forward-thinking and to avoid pre-judging Trump” and to avoid “expressing any outrage of their own” or “relitigat[ing] the past,” former CNN reporter Oliver Darcy reported in his Status newsletter.
As for Acosta, he left CNN last week rather than accept Thompson’s offer to anchor the network’s coverage from midnight to 2 a.m. ET.
- ### Trump’s FCC targets ABC, CBS, NBC, NPR, and PBS
The tip of the president’s anti-press spear is Brendan Carr, a Republican member of the Federal Communications Commission whom Trump elevated to chair. Carr authored Project 2025’s chapter on the FCC and has notably refused to reject Trump’s repeated calls for the commission to yank the licenses of broadcast networks whose reporting he dislikes.
Following his promotion, Carr sent a letter to Bob Iger, the CEO of ABC parent company Disney, in which he denounced the network for having “contributed” to the “erosion in public trust” and pointedly referenced the FCC’s regulatory power.
Carr also restored a right-wing group’s bias complaints targeting NBC, CBS, and ABC for purportedly biased coverage of the presidential campaign, which his predecessor had dismissed. In response to the CBS complaint, the FCC demanded that CBS News provide the unedited transcript and tapes of Harris’ 60 Minutes interview, adding government pressure to the benefit of Trump’s private lawsuit. The network ultimately submitted to what one legal expert described as a “highly partisan intervention” with “no historical antecedent.”
And on Wednesday, Carr announced a new FCC probe of underwriting announcements produced by NPR and PBS, “with an eye toward unraveling federal funding for all public broadcasting.”
- ### Defense Department retaliates against news outlets
The Pentagon announced Friday night that the defense correspondents at NBC News, The New York Times, Politico, and National Public Radio are all required to vacate their dedicated workspaces. Their spots will instead go to the right-wing One America News Network, New York Post, and Breitbart — and theoretically to the progressive HuffPost, which does not have a Pentagon reporter and did not request space.
The move came a week after the Senate confirmed former Fox News host Pete Hegseth as defense secretary.
//
Take Trumpist threats to jail journalists seriously
:{09/23/24
Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook to crush the free press in a second term}:
:{10/29/24
“Fake News Networks”: Trump and Project 2025’s goal to attack, defund, and delegitimize the press}:
10/16/24
===
"Trump's threat to defund all US public media has NPR and PBS on the back foot," The Guardian,December 28, 2024
https://act.moveon.org/go/201979?t=11&akid=423224%2E23137266%2EF-eWqS
===
an 1 25
quitting?!
At the end of his show on Tuesday, CNN host Jim Acosta announced he was leaving the network. He used his farewell message to throw a jab at President Donald Trump without mentioning his name, and to urge viewers to take action.
Acosta said in the final minutes of his broadcast that he had given "careful consideration" to his decision, but that he had "decided to move on." He added that he was "grateful" to the network after a career spanning nearly 18 years, but that he would be declining a new role in which he would be moved to Los Angeles to broadcast at midnight Eastern Time. He then pivoted to asking viewers to defend the truth in the future.
"It is never a good time to bow down to a tyrant," Acosta said following a segment about former Cuban leader Raúl Castro. "I've always believed it's the job of the press to hold power to account. I've always done that at CNN and I plan on doing that in the future."
READ MORE:**'Kid gloves': CNN CEO urged reporters to go easy on Trump ahead of inauguration**
"One final message: Don't give in to the lies. Don't give in to the fear. Hold on to truth. And to hope," he said. "Even if you have to get our your phone. Record that message: 'I will not give in to the lies. I will not give in to the fear.' Post it on your social media, so people can hear from you too."
Trump celebrated Acosta being sidelined on his Truth Social platform, calling it "really good news." He wrote that the longtime reporter and anchor (who was a frequent Trump critic) was "dishonest" and a "major sleazebag."
"Word is that he wants to QUIT, and that would be even better," Trump wrote. "Jim is a major loser who will fail no matter where he ends up. Good luck Jim!"
The Associated Press reported that Acosta — who was a former White House correspondent for the network — leaving CNN came in response to the network moving him to a late-night role rather than his weekly morning slot. Acosta's 10 AM morning slot will now be filled by hosts Wolf Blitzer and Pamela Brown. The move to put Acosta in a lower-rated slot was interpreted as a demotion, and came on the heels of the network's CEO, Mark Thompson, telling on-air talent to hold off on criticizing Trump ahead of his second inauguration.
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AN 125
In late 2022, Donald Trump filed a defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board, which, he claimed, defamed him by refusing to retract prizes it gave the New York Times and the Washington Post for their Russiagate reporting.
Trump, in the lawsuit, alleged that the Times and the Post defamed him in their articles and that the Pulitzer Prize Board, by awarding them, defamed him as well. Many Trump critics attacked the lawsuit as frivolous, pointing out that the Pulitzer Prize Board itself didn't write the articles he claimed were defamatory.
Now, according to CNN and Mediaite, the Pulitzer Prize Board is fighting the lawsuit by "using Trump's own legal arguments against him."
READ MORE: 'Stakes really couldn't be higher' as 'tumultuous moment' heads for the Supreme Court
CNN's Hadas Gold reports, "In their motion filed on Monday, (January 27), the Pulitzer Board pointed out that Trump previously sought stays in other civil lawsuits where he was the defendant, saying the suits should be halted while he is in office because of questions of whether the U.S. Constitution bars state courts from exercising jurisdiction over…. a sitting president."
Gold notes that "for years," Trump "demanded the Pulitzer Board rescind the 2018 prize, arguing that he had been exonerated by special counsel Robert Mueller's 2019 report."
"Following Trump’s demands," Gold explains, "the Pulitzer Board commissioned two independent reviews of the awards, issuing a statement in 2022 that read in part: 'No passages or headlines, contentions or assertions in any of the winning submissions were discredited by facts that emerged subsequent to the conferral of the prizes.' It was that statement that prompted Trump to file his defamation suit against the (Pulitzer Prize) Board, choosing to file it in Florida because one member of the Board is a Florida resident."
Mediaite's David Gilmour points out that the Pulitzer Prize Board is "flipping President Donald Trump's own legal arguments on their head in an attempt to pause his defamation lawsuit against them."
READ MORE:[Apocalypse Now: Extreme interpretation of Christian nationalism now guides Pentagon policy
"The Pulitzer Board's argument essentially repurposes Trump's own defense tactics to shield themselves from litigation while his case is active," Gilmour observes. "While federal criminal charges against Trump are on hold due to Justice Department policy against prosecuting sitting presidents, several civil suits are moving forward. These include the $500 million fraud judgment secured by New York Attorney General Letitia James and judgments won by E. Jean Carroll for sexual abuse and defamation."
Gilmour adds, "Whether the legal move will halt Trump’s Pulitzer lawsuit remains to be seen."
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Days before he becomes president of the USA — and minutes after the release of a prosecutor’s bombshell report into the Jan. 6 election interference case — Donald Trumptook to Truth Socialearly Tuesday to attack a comedian.
“How bad is Seth Meyers on NBC?" the president-elect asked at 1:24 a.m.
It came just minutes after special counsel Jack Smith’s report revealed that he believed he had the evidence to convict Trump.
Trump was reacting to a 10-minute segment on Meyers show Monday in which he mocked infighting in the MAGA movement which has seen allies like Steve Bannon and Elon Musk go head to head.
“Trump is caught in the middle between the MAGA diehards and the rich oligarchs who helped him get elected,” Meyers said. “And he doesn’t even really know what the hell they’re talking about.”
Trump hit back that the comedian was a “moron” and that his network, NBC, was “run by a truly bad group of people.”
ALSO READ:Fox News has blood on its hands as Trump twists the knife
“Remember, they also run MSDNC,” he added.
“I got stuck watching Marble Mouth Meyers the other night, the first time in months, and every time I watch this moron I feel an obligation to say how dumb and untalented he is, merely a slot filler for the Scum that runs Comcast.
“These guys should be paying a lot of money for the right to give these “in kind” contributions to the Radical Left Democrat Party. These are not shows or entertainment, they are simply political hits, 100% of the time, to me and the Republican Party. Comcast should pay a BIG price for this!”
Watch the Seth Meyers video below or at this link.
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Misinformer of the Year: Anti-media intimidation
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 12/23/24 mma
The role of the free press, enshrined by the Constitution’s First Amendment, is an essential element of our democracy. The public cannot become informed about the problems facing our country and the efforts to improve or worsen them without robust protections for journalism.
But powerful people hate the light journalism shines on them and the dissent it can spur. A coalition of right-wing billionaires, Republican law enforcement officials, and an authoritarian once and future president are using wealth, lawfare, and government power to silence the press and carry out their political agenda unimpeded. And they are perilously close to succeeding.
Media Matters is naming anti-media intimidation the Misinformer of the Year for 2024 for its chilling effect on essential press freedoms.
ABC News’ agreement to settle Donald Trump’s defamation lawsuit is a foreboding sign of the current media climate and where it may be headed.
Legal experts and executives at ABC News parent company Disney reportedly thought that the outlet would eventually prevail. But its lawyers reportedly feared “litigating against a vindictive sitting president and risking harm to its brand.” They even worried that the suit could “become a vehicle for Mr. Trump and his allies to overturn the landmark First Amendment decision in New York Times v. Sullivan,” The New York Times reported.
If media lawyers are worried that a defamation lawsuit could ultimately demolish the bedrock legal precedent limiting such suits, then that protection functionally no longer applies.
The results of that shift could prove devastating to news outlets large and small and chill speech across the nation.
Trump’s lawyers have already filed a new lawsuit against Iowa pollster Ann Selzer, her polling firm, The Des Moines Register, and the Iowa paper’s parent company Gannett, accusing them of consumer fraud for publishing Selzer’s poll.
Other suits from anyone else who benefits from a cowed press will surely follow.
The purpose of these intimidation tactics — to which we had already been subjected — is to silence adversarial speech. If powerful individuals can force critics to pay a hefty price, they will be much more hesitant to take risks. And those without the financial resources for protracted legal fights will either back down or risk crippling costs. With journalists silenced, crucial stories will go unwritten — and the American public will lose out to right-wing power.
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an 12 24
NOTE DID NOT RETRACT, SAID REGRET THE STATEMENT
ABC shouldn’t have agreed to settle the defamation case Trump brought against it — handing him $15 million for his presidential “library” (whatever monument that turns out to be) and another million for his legal fees, along with an apology.
It shouldn’t have, first, because the standard for defamation of a public figure requires that a plaintiff prove that the defendant acted with “actual malice” — that is, knew their statement was false or acted with reckless disregard for the truth.
But when on March 10, ABC News anchor George Stephanopoulos asserted that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping writer E. Jean Carroll, there’s zero evidence that Stephanopoulos knew it to be false or was acting with reckless disregard for the truth.
At Trump’s civil trial for defaming Carroll, she testified that he pushed her against a dressing room wall, forced his mouth onto hers, yanked down her tights, and shoved his hand and then his penis inside her while she struggled against him. She said she finally kneed him off her and fled.
In upholding the civil judgment for Carroll and against Trump, U.S. District Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote that the unanimous jury verdict was almost entirely in favor of Carroll, except that the jury concluded she had failed to prove that Trump raped her “within the narrow, technical meaning of a particular section of the New York Penal Law,” which requires vaginal penetration by a penis.
The judge said that jury verdict did notmean that Carroll “failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’ Indeed ... the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”
After a federal judge says that the jury under his purview found that Trump “exactly” raped her, as rape is commonly understood, isn’t it understandable that Stephanopoulos concluded that Trump had been found civilly liable for raping her?
By caving into Trump with this $15 million settlement, ABC didn’t just signal that Trump was correct and Stephanopoulos wrong about whether Trump had in fact raped Carroll.
ABC also signaled that Trump might be correct about a lot of other things he has accused ABC and the rest of the mainstream media of reporting falsely about him — that he lied when he said the 2020 election was stolen from him, for example, or that he lied when he claimed he did not provoke the rioters on January 6, 2021, or when he characterized it as a “peaceful” protest, or said President Biden was behind his prosecutions for trying to reverse the outcome of the 2020 election and making off with classified documents.
ABC’s cave to Trump has even larger implications.
Trump has already used legal threats to intimidate the media and anyone brazen enough to criticize or question him — saying he’ll prosecute journalists and their sources, eliminate funding for public radio and television, subpoena news organizations, revoke networks’ broadcast licenses, and use libel lawsuits.
In the wake of ABC’s surrender, Trump is alreadyexpandinghis threats of legal action against the news media, stating he wants to “straighten out the press.”
On Monday, Trump said that “today or tomorrow” he would sue the Des-Moines Registernewspaper over its final poll of Iowa voters that showed him losing the November election to Vice President Kamala Harris, because he believed the poll “was fraud and it was election interference.”
The Register’sfinal poll before Election Day, conducted by legendary pollster J. Ann Selzer, showed Harris leading Trump 47-44 percent among likely voters in the state. The poll was a bombshell that suggested Harris might pull an upset in a state Trump won in 2016 and 2020.
Trump went on to win the state by a 13-point margin.
“She’s a very good pollster,” Trump said of Selzer. “She knows what she was doing.”
Selzer said she was “mystified” by allegations she was politically motivated or had engaged in election interference. “To suggest without a single shred of evidence that I was in cahoots with somebody, that I was being paid by somebody, it’s hard to pay too much attention to it except that they are accusing me of a crime.”
Trump’s comments about the Registerwere in response to a reporter’s question about whether Trump planned to file more lawsuits following the settlement with ABC, including against social media influencers and other independent figures. Trump responded, “I think you have to do it because they’re very dishonest. We need a great media. We need a fair media.”
Some news organizations are already warning their reporters to prepare: Axios recently told its staff to expect an increased number of lawsuits from the Trump administration, Semafor reported.
At one point, Trump suggested that the U.S. government should be taking up these lawsuits against the news media. “I feel I have to do this. I shouldn’t really be the one to do it. It should have been the Justice Department or somebody else. But I have to do it. It costs a lot of money to do it, but we have to straighten out the press.”
So, why didn’t ABC stand by Stephanopoulos and stand up to Trump?
Media lawyers say it’s rare to see a settlement at this stage of a legal dispute.
After Trump filed the lawsuit accusing Stephanopoulos of “actual malice,” ABC filed a motion to dismiss the case, claiming Trump could not prove actual malice. In July, the judge assigned to the case rejected ABC’s motion and allowed the case to move forward. This subjected the network to the pretrial discovery process, meaning that Stephanopoulos would have his emails and other work materials scrutinized.
The curious thing here is that when media defendants are unsuccessful at the dismissal stage of a trial, they typically move on to preparing for summary judgment and challenge the legal sufficiency of a plaintiff’s claim. Four media lawyers I checked with told me they didn’t understand why ABC would settle before trying for summary judgment, especially when it had such a strong case.
Conservative radio host Erick Erickson, who used to practice law, says ABC and Stephanopoulos wanted to avoid discovery. The “$15 million settlement is not the cost of doing business. It is avoiding discovery.”
I don’t think it’s a cover-up. I know George Stephanopoulos well (we worked together in the Clinton administration), and I have utter confidence in his integrity.
But I don’t have nearly as much confidence in the Walt Disney Company — which, along with its ownership of ABC, owns the Disney Channel, ESPN Wide World of Sports, Freeform, FX, Hulu, Hotstar, and National Geographic. It also owns the properties Disneyland Resort, Walt Disney World Resort, and Disneyland Paris. It owns the studios Pixar Animation, Marvel Studios, Lucasfilm, and 20th Century Studios. It owns the brands Star Wars, The Muppets, Disney Princesses, Pirates of the Caribbean, and Winnie the Pooh. It owns a publishing company, a cruise line, a venture capital firm, and a host of international media networks.
In other words: A very big corporation with its hands in all sorts of places. A very big corporation that worries about all the ways the upcoming Trump administration might hurt its bottom line.
No large American corporation wants to be actively litigating against a sitting president, especially one as vindictive as Trump. A $15 million settlement is chickenfeed compared to the myriad ways Trump could penalize Disney, a $205.25 billion corporation.
We are beginning to see this all over the American political-economic system — giant corporations and hugely wealthy people going out of their way to appease King Trump even in advance of his coronation. They are paying him off to maintain or enlarge their profits.
Which is why Disney’s control over ABC — like Jeff Bezos’s control over The Washington Post, Elon Musk’s control over what we used to call Twitter, and Patrick Soon-Shiong’s control over the Los Angeles Times— and every other wealthy individual’s or big corporation’s control over the news we get, poses such a challenge to American democracy in the age of Trump.
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an 12 24 yikes
On Saturday, December 14, CNN and other media outlets reported that ABC News had reached a settlement in President-elect Donald Trump's defamation lawsuit against the network and "This Week" host George Stephanopoulos. ABC News agreed to pay $15 million to a "presidential foundation and museum" and pay $1 million for Trump's attorney's fees.
This comes at a time when far-right conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, Trump's nominee for FBI director, is drawing a great deal of scrutiny for threatening legal action — either criminal or civil — against journalists.
Patel, during a 2023 appearance on Steve Bannon's "War Room" vodcast, threatened to "come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections."
READ MORE: Memo to Rupert Murdoch: Now is the time to sell Fox News
Patel has also threatened anti-Trump Republican Olivia Troye, who served as a national security aide to former Vice President Mike Pence, with a defamation lawsuit.
The New York Times' David Enrich, in an article published on December 15, stresses that ABC News isn't the only media outlet that Trump and his allies have threatened with legal action.
"The legal threats have arrived in various forms," Enrich explains. "One aired on CNN. Another came over the phone. More arrived in letters or e-mails. All of them appeared aimed at intimidating news outlets and others who have criticized or questioned President-elect Donald J. Trump and his nominees to run the Pentagon and FBI. The small flurry of threatened defamation lawsuits is the latest sign that the incoming Trump Administration appears poised to do what it can to crack down on unfavorable media coverage."
Enrich adds, "Before and after the election, Mr. Trump and his allies have discussed subpoenaing news organizations, prosecuting journalists and their sources, revoking networks’ broadcast licenses and eliminating funding for public radio and television. Actual or threatened libel lawsuits are another weapon at their disposal — and they are being deployed even before Mr. Trump moves back into the White House."
READ MORE:Why Donald Trump's election could hasten the end of U.S. dollar dominance
Media attorney Elizabeth McNamara, who represented ABC News and Stephanopoulos in the defamation case, didn't discuss the specifics of that case with the Times but did make a general comment.
McNamara warned, "There's been a pattern and practice for the past couple of years of using defamation litigation as a tactic to harass or test the boundary of case law."
Meanwhile, Trump's incoming administration — according to the Washington Post reporters Isaac Arnsdorf and Jeff Stein — is expecting to be the target of lawsuits in 2025 in response to his executive orders.
"Officials in the incoming Trump Administration have an answer for anyone questioning the validity of several policies they plan to implement immediately and unilaterally: Go ahead and sue," Arnsdorf and Stein report in an article published on December 14. "President-elect Donald Trump has long promised to take executive action to withhold birthright citizenship from people born in the United States to parents who are undocumented immigrants, but his advisers now see a court fight as a goal of that effort, rather than an obstacle."
The journalists add, "Similarly, incoming budget officials have said they want to openly defy a 1974 law by refusing to spend money that Congress has authorized, forcing a lawsuit to test the Watergate-era statute's constitutionality. And aides involved in the transition said they'll plow ahead with reviving a policy from late in Trump's first term making it easier to fire tens of thousands of civil servants despite a Biden Administration policy meant to bolster their protections, leaving individual federal workers to fight their own appeals."
Trump's incoming administration, according to Arnsdorf and Stein, "is betting that Democratic lawyers, environmental groups and civil libertarians have less money and appetite for drawn-out court fights than during the earlier days of the anti-Trump 'resistance.'"
But Lee Gelernt, an immigration attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), expects the second Trump Administration to face more than few lawsuits.
Gelernt told the Post, "I suspect they understand they’re going to get sued for just about everything. There are going to be some initial quick fights, but it’s ultimately going to be a marathon."
READ MORE:'The next recession starts here': Trump team weighs abolishing bank regulators
*Read the New York Times' full article at this link (subscription required) and the Washington Post's full article here (subscription required).
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an 12 24
Tom Cotton blocks bill to shield journalists from betraying sources
// TPM
Reporters are used to the two-facedness, particularly in the Trump era: Republicans interact with them in the Capitol hallways, leak them information or spin behind closed doors, then go to the floor or a rally and whip up listeners against these “enemies within.”
Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) did the two-step Tuesday, blocking a federal shield bill that would protect journalists from being forced to reveal confidential sources due, in part, to reporters’ supposed “long record of endangering our troops.”
“Passage of this bill would turn the United Senate into the active accomplice of deep state leakers, traitors and criminals, along with the America-hating and fame-hungry journalists who help them out,” he said on the Senate floor.
He mused that it should be called “The Alexander Vindman Protection Act,” referring to the former NSC employee who testified against Donald Trump during his first impeachment.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), the bill’s primary sponsor, posted on Bluesky: “I’m not taking my foot off the gas. I’ll keep trying to get this bill across the finish line to write much-needed protections for journalists and their sources into black letter law.”
Wyden also introduced the Free Speech Protection Act last week, a parallel press protection bill that would have shielded journalists from frivolous lawsuits. TPM broke the news of the legislation earlier this month.
Both bills face long odds without robust Republican support. But some advocacy groups are calling for creativity — and persistence — in the face of a looming Trump presidency.
“We need more than speeches about the PRESS Act’s importance. We need action,” Freedom of the Press Foundation Director of Advocacy Seth Stern said in a statement after Cotton objected to Wyden’s request to pass the bill via unanimous consent Tuesday. “Senate Democrats had all year to move this bipartisan bill and now time is running out. Leader Schumer needs to get the PRESS Act into law — whether by attaching it to a year-end legislative package or bringing it to the floor on its own — even if it means shortening lawmakers’ holiday break.”
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an 12 24
Tom Cotton blocks bill to shield journalists from betraying sources
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an 12 24
After Vice President Kamala Harris narrowly lost the United States' 2024 presidential election, MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski drew a lot of criticism for
at Mar-a-Lago.
Although Scarborough and Brzezinski have been scathing critics of Trump, they said they went to Mar-a-Lago to reopen communications with him.
Some defenders of the "Morning Joe" hosts have said that their Mar-a-Lago visit was understandable in light of Trump and his followers' threats to retaliate against critics in the media — that they were trying to protect themselves.
READ MORE:**Why Kash Patel is Trump's 'scariest hire yet': report**
Far-right MAGA conspiracy theorist Kash Patel, Trump's pick for FBI director, has even called for criminal prosecutions of journalists who debunked the false claim that the 2020 election was stolen from Trump. Patel has falsely claimed, without evidence, that Trump defeated now-President Joe Biden in 2020.
In an article published by the New Yorker on November 30, journalist David Remnick warns that Trump is getting ready to ramp up his battle against critics in the media.
"Media lawyers now fear that Trump will ramp up the deployment of subpoenas, specious lawsuits, court orders, and search warrants to seize reporters' notes, devices, and source materials," Remnick explains. "They are gravely concerned that reporters and media institutions will be punished for leaking government secrets. The current Justice Department guidelines mandating extra procedural measures for subpoenas directed at journalists are just that: guidelines. They are likely to be shredded."
Remnick continues, "Nearly every state provides journalists with at least a qualified privilege to withhold the identity of confidential sources. But there is no federal privilege, and Trump has opposed a bipartisan congressional bill that would create one, the so-called PRESS Act…. Retribution is in the air."
READ MORE:['Quickly rot from within': Expert reveals 3 traits the US shares with declining empires
Remnick notes that Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation's blueprint for a second Trump Administration, "calls for ending federal funding to NPR and PBS." And he adds that "a longer-range worry is that the Supreme Court may weaken or even overturn the 1964 landmark decision New York Times v. Sullivan."
"Sullivan limits the ability of public officials to sue journalists for defamation, finding that the Constitution guarantees that, at a minimum, journalists can write freely and critically about public officials, as long as they don't publish statements that they know to be false, or probably so," Remnick explains. "(President Richard) Nixon regarded Sullivan as 'virtually a license to lie.' Trump shares the sentiment."
"All these threats and potential actions are hardly the stuff of legal arcana or the frenzied obsessions of self-involved Podsnapian journalists," Remnick argues. "They are the arsenal of a would-be autocrat who seeks to intimidate his critics, protect himself from scrutiny, and go on wearing away at the liberal democratic order."
READ MORE:[Bombshell report details 'dangerous' new allegations against Trump Cabinet nominee
*Read David Remnick's full article for The New Yorker at this link (subscription required).
rww random but //
11/18/2024
by
- Ryan Bort @ Rolling Stone: Oklahoma Superintendent Demands Students Watch Him Pray for Trump
Ryan Walters has already been under fire for using state money to purchase Trump Bibles for classrooms.
- Courtney Kube, Carol E. Lee, Vaughn Hillyard and Mosheh Gains @ NBC News: Trump transition team compiling list of current and former U.S. military officers for possible courts-martial
All of the officers were involved in the chaotic U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan, which independent reviews have blamed on both the Trump and Biden administrations.
- Jennifer Bowers Bahney @ Mediaite: ‘TRUE!!’ Trump Confirms Plans to Declare a National Emergency to Use the US Military For Mass Deportations
Donald Trump has confirmed that he will declare a national emergency and use the US military to carry out mass deportations of undocumented migrants.
- Edith Olmstead @ The New Republic: Trump’s War With the Press Takes a Terrifying Turn
Donald Trump has nominated a Project 2025 author to lead the Federal Communications Commission.
insert
tnr
no lnx pix
Trump’s War With the Press Takes a Terrifying Turn
Donald Trump has nominated a Project 2025 author to lead the Federal Communications Commission.
Donald Trump has announced that the next Federal Communications Commission chair would be Brendan Carr, the senior-most Republican on the FCC and a contributor to Project 2025.
“Commissioner Carr is a warrior for free speech, and has fought against the regulatory lawfare that has stifled Americans’ freedoms, and held back our economy,” Trump said in a statement Sunday. The president-elect did not mention Carr’s involvement in Project 2025.
In his Project 2025 chapter, Carr outlined his agenda for the FCC. Carr wrote that one of the goals for Trump’s administration should be reining in Big Tech’s “attempts to drive diverse political viewpoints from the digital town square,” according to Business Insider. Carr suggested that companies be unable to censor content unless it is illegal, allowing consumers to choose their own content filters and fact-checking services.
Carr’s intentions for social media are perhaps best demonstrated by X, which has been transformed into a MAGA misinformation echo chamber by its owner, Elon Musk, who seems to have permanently attached himself to Trump’s side.
Carr also pushed to ban TikTok if its parent company, ByteDance, does not sell its U.S. operations, warning that Americans were receiving their news and information from China.
In addition to addressing Big Tech, Carr also wrote that the FCC should focus on “promoting national security, unleashing economic prosperity, and ensuring FCC accountability and good governance.”
House Democrats previously called for an investigation into Carr over his partisan activity, but it did not result in formal action, according to NPR. Carr said he received approval from FCC ethics officials to contribute to the right-wing playbook.
Trump spent months on the campaign trail disavowing Project 2025, an authoritarian policy road map cooked up by the right-wing think tank Heritage Foundation, only to now welcome its architects into the fold.
Last month, Carr railed against Kamala Harris’s surprise appearance on NBC’s Saturday Night Live, calling it “a clear and blatant effort to evade the FCC’s Equal Time rule” and “biased and partisan conduct.” Trump was offered equal time on NBC, and the FCC said they had “not made any determination regarding political programming rules, nor have we received a complaint from any interested parties.”
Still, Carr took up the bullhorn on behalf of the president who’d appointed him to the FCC in 2017.
FCC rules dictate that only three commissioners can be affiliated with the same political party at any given time, and none can have a financial interest in any commission-related business. The FCC is responsible for regulating interstate and international communications by radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable. Under Trump’s first administration, the FCC repealed net neutrality rules, which were then reinstated this year.
- Michael Kranish, Josh Dawsey and Jonathan O'Connell @ The Washington Post: Defense pick Hegseth paid accuser but denies sexual assault, attorney says
Documents obtained by The Post provide extensive detail about allegation and the response by Trump’s defense secretary pick.
- Will Steakin and Peter Charalambous @ ABC News: Lawyer tells ABC News his 2 clients told House Ethics Committee that Gaetz paid them for sex
An attorney representing two women who testified before the House Ethics Committee told ABC News in an interview that former Rep. Matt Gaetz paid both his adult clients for sex.
- Phil Williams @ NewsChannel 5: Aiming to 'radicalize Main Street,' Christian nationalists set sights on tiny Jackson County, Tennessee
An exclusive NewsChannel 5 investigation has discovered that those Christian nationalists have set their sights on a remote Middle Tennessee county, hoping to attract hundreds, even thousands, of like-minded people from across the country as part of efforts, in the words of one activist, to “radicalize Main Street.”
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thom
no lnx
alternet-logo
In an authoritarian regime it’s important to control the news — and here we go
Kash Patel, former chief of staff to the defense secretary speaks on the day Republican presidential candidate and Donald Trump holds a campaign rally, in Prescott Valley, Arizona, U.S., October 13, 2024. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File Photo
Kash Patel, former chief of staff to the defense secretary speaks on the day Republican presidential candidate and Donald Trump holds a campaign rally, in Prescott Valley, Arizona, U.S., October 13, 2024. REUTERS/Go Nakamura/File Photo
Thom Hartmann November 16, 2024
— I’ll be on C-SPAN this Sunday morning at 9:15 am ET (6:15 am PT) to discuss the election, the direction of the country and taking questions. It should be interesting; be sure to tune in!
— Is changing the Democratic Party the way to remake our Democracy? Donald Trump only got about a million more votes than he did in 2020, but Kamala Harris appears to have received somewhere between 6 and 10 million fewer votes than Joe Biden did that year. For the over two decades that I’ve been writing and on the radio and TV, I’ve argued that when Bill Clinton embraced Reagan’s neoliberalism in 1992 (and Obama maintained that position) the Democratic Party had taken a fatal turn to the right. I’ve written two books that cover it, in part, as well: The Hidden History of Neoliberalism: How Reaganism Gutted America and The Hidden History of the American Dream. It appears that millions of voters essentially said, “I’m not going to vote for that nutcase Trump, but Harris isn’t speaking to the explosion in my cost-of-living expenses so to hell with her, too.” Joe Biden campaigned with Bernie Sanders and won; Kamala Harris campaigned with Liz Cheney and repeatedly said she wanted to give Republicans “a seat at the table,” which may well have been a fatal error. She thought she could pick up moderate Republicans, but there’s apparently not such a thing anymore since Fox “News” and the massive rightwing media ecosystem has come to dominate the American news and opinion landscape.
Bernie Sanders, Robert Reich, Sherrod Brown, and many other longtime Democrats have been pointing to this pre-1992 truth: if the Democratic Party is to win, it has to go back to its FDR/LBJ roots and become the party of the bottom 90 percent, instead of embracing those with a college education, movie and rock stars, and progressive billionaires like Mark Cuban. God bless them all, but Dems really need to reinvent themselves as the blue-collar party and repudiate much of the Clinton/Obama agenda of low taxes, free trade, and private/public partnerships (like Obamacare).
Amazingly, even The New York Times’ conservative columnist David Brooks agrees, writing: “The Democratic Party has one job: to combat inequality. Here was a great chasm of inequality right before their noses and somehow many Democrats didn’t see it. Many on the left focused on racial inequality, gender inequality and L.G.B.T.Q. inequality. [This is actually an untrue GOP talking point.] … As the left veered toward identitarian performance art, Donald Trump jumped into the class war with both feet. His Queens-born resentment of the Manhattan elites dovetailed magically with the class animosity being felt by rural people across the country. His message was simple: These people have betrayed you, and they are morons to boot.” Amen. Finally, check out this troubling article from data scientist Stephen Spoonamore raising questions about manipulation of vote totals in the swing states in a way that doesn’t appear in the non-swing states. I’m agnostic on this for the moment, but it’s worth reading; he’ll be on my program Monday.
— In an authoritarian regime it’s important to cow and control the news, and here we go. Kash Patel, widely rumored to be Trump’s main pick for FBI director, has a message for reporters and opinion writers who insist on continuing to call Trump a fascist or otherwise slander/defame him and his followers: “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media. Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections – we’re going to come after you... Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out. But yeah, we’re putting you all on notice.”
According to The Columbia Journalism Review, Trump has already sued The New York Times (naming reporters Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig, and Russ Buettner) and Penguin Random House (one of my publishers) and CBS’s 60 Minutes show for $10 billion each.
As I predicted, he appears to be following the Putin/Orbán strategy of bankrupting media outlets and reporters (rather than using cops and billy-clubs), presumably both to cow others into submission and to make the media properties available to be purchased by his allies (sort of like what just happened with The Onion buying Infowars out of bankruptcy).
Steve Bannon added his thoughts, essentially threatening or warning the journalists at MSNBC: “Weissman, you were on TV with MSNBC and all the producers, MSNBC. Preserve your documents. Ari Melber and all you hosts. Preserve your documents. All of it. You better be worried. You better lawyer up. Some of you young producers, you better call mom and dad tonight. Mom and dad, ‘You know a good lawyer?’ Lawyer up. Lawyer up.”
This is a dangerous time for anybody writing about politics. Orbán and Putin even go after random citizens who criticize them on social media; will Trump go that far? And will progressives shut up in the face of this kind of intimidation? Stay tuned…
— Speaking of authoritarianism, Texas Republicans want to outlaw websites that discuss how to get an abortion. Jessica Valenti tells the story at Abortion, Every Dayon Substack about the Republican lawmakers in Texas (and around the country) who are trying to pass legislation that would imprison people who put up websites that can be viewed in Texas (including hers) with information on abortion. They argue that abortion information is not free speech protected by the Constitution. I’d add that if the Comstock Act is enforced by the new Attorney General (as JD Vance has demanded) next year, all sorts of information about abortion will become criminalized, in addition to the devices and drugs that can be used for both abortion and birth control.
— Sarah Hurst’s Russia Report on Tulsi Gabbard will make your toes curl. I’ll let you click on it and read it yourself; it’s all about her repeated embraces of Russia and Putin. Which makes some people wonder out loud why Trump would push such objectionable candidates; surely the Senate will protect us from such people, right?
But if Trump really wants to pull a Hitler and seize absolute control of the nation within a matter of a few months, his first move would be to either negotiate or force a recess of the Senate and simply “recess appoint” all of his cabinet nominees. No hearings, no tough questions, no FBI or other background checks, no Democratic politicians’ input. He has this authority under Article II, Section 3 of the Constitution: if there’s a disagreement between John Thune and Mike Johnson about when to adjourn, “...and in Case of Disagreement between them, with Respect to the Time of Adjournment, he [the president] may adjourn them to such Time as he shall think proper.”
They could agree to disagree; that way they could both evade responsibility. On the other hand, if Thune simply gives in to Trump’s recent demand for recess appointments (as he told reporters yesterday he was considering), Thune can simply adjourn the Senate, something that hasn’t happened in decades; Trump can then simply do his own recess appointments (it could be done in a single hour) under the Constitution’s provision: “The President shall have Power to fill up all Vacancies that may happen during the Recess of the Senate, by granting Commissions which shall expire at the End of their next Session.” or he could just appoint them as “acting“ officials.
He did that during the last year of his presidency, and went way beyond the legal time limit for several; he flagrantly broke the law last time with over 15 cabinet members and Republicans were unwilling to call him on it, although he never started that way. This will be our first clue that the nation is no longer a constitutional republic with anything resembling checks and balances, but has become an oligarchic dictatorship like Hungary.
— Blueprint of destruction: Is Trump following Orbán’s and Putin’s road to power? M. Gessen, an expert on authoritarianism, writes in The New York Times: “When Orban was re-elected, he carried out what Magyar calls an ‘autocratic breakthrough,’ changing laws and practices so that he could not be dislodged again. It helped that he had a supermajority in parliament. Trump, similarly, spent four years attacking the Biden administration, and the vote that brought it to the White House, as fraudulent, and positioning himself as the only true voice of the people. He is also returning with a power trifecta — the presidency and both houses of Congress. He too can quickly reshape American government in his image. … Kamala Harris’s campaign, of course, tried to warn Americans about this and a lot more, labeling Trump a fascist. … It’s not just what the autocrats do to stage their breakthrough, it’s how they do it: passing legislation (or signing executive orders) fast, without any discussion, sometimes late at night, in batches, all the while denigrating and delegitimizing any opposition.”
The article is definitely worth a read, chilling as it is. Gessen even gets into the role of Project 2025 in facilitating the transformation of our American form of government into one with a single strongman president at its pinnacle. This does not bode well for America.
— Former Trump administration officials who turned on him are preparing to flee the country. The Washington Post is reporting: “A retired U.S. Army officer who clashed with senior officials in Donald Trump’s first White House looked into acquiring Italian citizenship in the run-up to this month’s election but wasn’t eligible and instead packeda ‘go bag’ with cash and a list of emergency numbers in case he needs to flee. A member of Trump’s first administration who publicly denounced him is applying for foreign citizenship and weighing whether to watch and wait or leave the country before the Jan. 20 inauguration. And a former U.S. official who signed a notorious October 2020 letter suggesting that emails purportedly taken from a laptop belonging to Hunter Biden could be part of a ‘Russian information operation’is seeking a passport from a European country, uncertain about whether the getaway will prove necessary but concluding, ‘You don’t want to have to scramble.’”
Reports (like this one from the Post) suggest that Trump has an “enemies list” of at least 600 people, much like Nixon’s, and he intends to go after everybody on the list on day one. Will he, like Nixon, just harass people with IRS audits? It seems more likely based on his own words that he’ll launch criminal and civil actions to jail or bankrupt his perceived enemies and those who have written or said things that have offended him.
Along those same lines, Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene wants “justice” against health officials: “Dr. [Anthony] Fauci lied to the American people, abusing his power and position and role, a very powerful role paid for by the American tax people. He lied, and many, many people died. … People that perpetuated and continue to perpetuate these crimes need to be prosecuted, and that needs to be starting in the next administration, and I’m pretty sure our next attorney general will do that, and I look forward to seeing that happen.”
Washington, DC is very, very much on edge right now; I got a call Friday morning at 5:30 in the morning from the CEO of a major DC-based progressive media outlet who’d just gotten off the phone with a Clinton colleague; both are considering leaving the country. This is getting real very, very fast.
— Are Republicans coming for healthcare for both retired and working people?Millions of people signed up for Affordable Care Act insurance policies over the past three years because of hefty subsidies contained in Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act.
Those subsidies expire at the end of this year, and Republicans are signaling that they won’t be renewed, meaning that premiums could go from $200 a month to as much as $2400 a month. Meanwhile, Project 2025 has called for private corporate Medicare Advantage plans to become the default option for people turning 65 and signing up for Medicare. Once a critical threshold is hit (currently more than half of seniors are on the Advantage plans) it’ll be fairly easy for a Republican congress and president to end legacy Medicare; once that happens, Advantage plans, no longer having competition from real Medicare, will almost certainly become more expensive and offer less coverage.
Meanwhile, Raw Story is reporting: “Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas), chairman of the House Budget Committee, told reporters earlier this week that the GOP is looking to use the filibuster-evading reconciliation process to pursue cuts to ‘mandatory programs’—a category that includes Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.” Republicans have been talking about this since the ReaganRevolution, but never actually tried (other than Reagan raising the retirement age from 65 to 67). Get ready.
— State-level authoritarians fall in line with Trump. Oklahoma’s Channel 4 (KFOR) TV News reports: “Oklahoma State Superintendent Ryan Walters emailed leaders in Oklahoma school districts on Thursday telling them they would be required to play their students and parents a video showing Walters blaming the ‘radical left’ and ‘woke teachers unions’ for ‘attacking’ religious liberty, then inviting students to join him as he prays for President-elect Donald Trump.” Walters also reportedly purchased five hundred Trump Bibles for Oklahoma schools. Welcome to the Brave New World. Compounding a religious grift with a financial one; breathtaking.
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Revenge—it’s a big part of Trump’s life,” Mother Jones‘ David Corn (10/19/16) wrote just before Trump was elected to the presidency the first time:
In speeches and public talks, Trump has repeatedly expressed his fondness for retribution. In 2011, he addressed the National Achievers Congress in Sydney, Australia, to explain how he had achieved his success. He noted there were a couple of lessons not taught in business school that successful people must know. At the top of the list was this piece of advice: “Get even with people. If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”
Knowing this about Trump, Democrats and liberals worry that he will use the Department of Justice, especially if Matt Gaetz is confirmed as attorney general, as an unrestrained vehicle to pursue the prosecution of political enemies.
But given Trump’s constant attacks on media—“the opposition party,” as his ally Steve Bannon called the fourth estate (New York Times,1/26/17)—journalists fear that he will use the power of the state to intimidate if not destroy the press.
Defunding public broadcasting
Trump called for defunding NPR (Newsweek, 4/10/24) after a long-time editor accused the radio outlet of liberal bias in the conservative journal Free Press (4/9/24). Rep. Claudia Tenney (R–NY) introduced legislation to defund NPR because “taxpayers should not be forced to fund NPR, which has become a partisan propaganda machine” (Office of Claudia Tenney, 4/19/24). With Republicans also holding both houses of congress, bills like Tenney’s become more viable. Trump has previously supported budget proposals that eliminate funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (Politico, 3/27/19).
The infamous Project 2025, a conservative policy agenda many see as a blueprint for the second Trump term, calls for the end to public broadcasting, because it is viewed as liberal propaganda:
> Every Republican president since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of taxpayer funding. That is significant not just because it means that for half a century, Republican presidents have failed to accomplish what they set out to do, but also because Nixon was the first president in office when National Public Radio (NPR) and the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), which the CPB funds, went on air.
In other words, all Republican presidents have recognized that public funding of domestic broadcasts is a mistake. As a 35-year-old lawyer in the Nixon White House, one Antonin Scalia warned that conservatives were being “confronted with a long-range problem of significant social consequences—that is, the development of a government-funded broadcast system similar to the BBC.”
All of which means that the next conservative president must finally get this done, and do it despite opposition from congressional members of his own party if necessary. To stop public funding is good policy and good politics. The reason is simple: President Lyndon Johnson may have pledged in 1967 that public broadcasting would become “a vital public resource to enrich our homes, educate our families and to provide assistance to our classrooms,” but public broadcasting immediately became a liberal forum for public affairs and journalism.
PBS and NPR, as FAIR (10/24/24) has noted, has for decades caved in to right-wing pressures—PBS by adding conservative programming, NPR by trying to rid itself of political commentary altogether. But the right will never let go of its ideological opposition to media outlets not directly owned by the corporate class.
‘Whether criminally or civilly’
Trump also has a well known track record of revoking the credentials of journalists who produce reporting he doesn’t like (Washington Post, 2/24/17, 5/8/19; New Republic, 11/5/24). It is realistic to assume that a lot more reporters will be barred from White House events in the years ahead.
While a bill that would grant the secretary of the treasury broad authority to revoke nonprofit status to any organization the office deems as a “terrorist” organization has so far failed (Al Jazeera, 11/12/24), it is quite possible that it could come up for a vote again. If this bill were to become law, the Treasury Department could use this ax against a great many progressive nonprofit outlets, like Democracy Now! and the American Prospect, as well as investigative outlets like ProPublica and the Center for Investigative Reporting.
The department could even target the Committee to Protect Journalists, which has already said in response to Trump’s victory, “The fundamental right to a free press, guaranteed by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, must not be impaired” (11/6/24).
Margaret Sullivan (Guardian, 10/27/24), an avid media observer, said there is no reason to think Trump will soften his campaign against the free press. She said:
In 2022, he sued the Pulitzer Prize board after they defended their awards to the New York Times and the Washington Post. Both newspapers had won Pulitzer Prizes for investigating Trump’s ties to Russia.
More recently, Trump sued ABC News and George Stephanopoulos for defamation over the way the anchor characterized the verdict in E. Jean Carroll’s sexual misconduct case against him. Each of those cases is wending its way through the courts.
She added:
There is nothing to suggest that Trump would soften his approach in a second term. If anything, we can expect even more aggression.
Consider what one of Trump’s most loyal lieutenants, Kash Patel, has said.
“We’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections,” Patel threatened during a podcast with Steve Bannon. “Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out.”
Trump has already gone after the New York Times and Penguin Random House since Sullivan wrote this. CJR (11/14/24) said:
The letter, addressed to lawyers at the New York Times and Penguin Random House, arrived a week before the election. Attached was a discursive ten-page legal threat from an attorney for Donald Trump that demanded $10 billion in damages over “false and defamatory statements” contained in articles by Peter Baker, Michael S. Schmidt, Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner.
It singles out two stories coauthored by Buettner and Craig that related to their book on Trump and his financial dealings, Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success, released on September 17. It also highlighted an October 20 story headlined “For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment” by Baker and an October 22 piece by Schmidt, “As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator.”
And just before his victory, Trump sued CBS News, alleging the network’s “deceitful” editing of a recent 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris “misled the public and unfairly disadvantaged him” (CBS News, 10/31/24).
Expect more of this, except this time, Trump will have all the levers of the state on his side. And whatever moves the next Trump administration makes to attack the press will surely have a chilling effect, which will only empower his anti-democratic political agenda.
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“The press freedom fire is at our door step now," saidone Washington Post journalist on Thursday night after news broke that two months before President-elect Donald Trump is set to take office, he has already begun to wage legal warfare against on the news media.
The Columbia Journalism Review (CJR)reported that days before the election, a lawyer for Trump, Edward Andrew Paltzik, sent a letter toThe New York Times and Penguin Random House demanding $10 billion in damages for publishing articles and a book that were critical of the president-elect, who was convicted of 34 felony counts earlier this year.
Trump's legal team took issue with a book by Times journalists Susanne Craig and Russ Buettner titled Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success. They also said they were demanding damages over "false and defamatory statements" in the October 20 article "For Trump, a Lifetime of Scandals Heads Toward a Moment of Judgment" by Peter Baker and the October 22 piece "As Election Nears, Kelly Warns Trump Would Rule Like a Dictator"by Michael Schmidt.
The former article covered numerous wrongdoings by the president-elect and accusations against him, pointing out that he "is the only president in American history impeached twice for high crimes and misdemeanors, the only president ever indicted on criminal charges, and the only president to be convicted of a felony (34, in fact)," and that he has also boasted about sexually assaulting women and spearheaded numerous businesses that went bankrupt.
The latter article detailed comments by Trump's former chief of staff, John Kelly, who told the Times that the definition of fascism accurately describes Trump.
The president-elect himself said while campaigning that he planned to govern as a dictatoronly on "Day One"of his term in office.
"Governments and powerful figures threatening journalists and media outlets with costly legal battles and bankruptcy is a common tactic against press freedom in repressive countries."
Paltzik told the newspaper that the articles demonstrate the Times' "intention of defaming and disparaging the world-renowned Trump brand that consumers have long associated with excellence, luxury, and success in entertainment, hospitality, and real estate, among many other industries, as well as falsely and maliciously defaming and disparaging him as a candidate for the highest office in the United States."
TheCJR reported that theTimes responded to Paltzik's letter, telling him the newspaper stood by its reporting on Trump.
As Barry Malone, deputy editor-in-chief of the Thomson Reuters Foundation,saidon social media on Friday, Trump's legal threats may be designed not to actually win billions of dollars in damages but "to tie the media up with time-consuming and often prohibitively expensive cases."
The Timesand Penguin Random House threats were reported two weeks after Trump suedCBS News for another $10 billion, claiming an interview with Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who lost the November 5 election, was unfairly edited to present her in a positive light and qualified as "election interference."
CBS said it would "vigorously defend" its journalistic practices and called the lawsuit "completely without merit"—a similar response to the one by The Washington Post, which was accused by Trump on the same day of making an illegal in-kind donation to Harris.
Anne Champion, an attorney who has represented several journalists and CNN in legal cases initiated by Trump, told the CJR that the legal threats will likely have "a mental chilling effect" on reporters and news outlets in the United States as Trump prepares to take office.
"It is both conscious and unconscious," said Champion. "Journalists at smaller outlets know very well that the costs for their organization to defend themselves could mean bankruptcy. Even journalists at larger outlets don't want to burden themselves or their employees with lawsuits. It puts another layer of influence into the journalistic process."
Trump has a longstanding disdain for the media, saying numerous times during his first term that journalists were the "enemy of the people." During one campaign rally just before the election he said he wouldn't "mind" if reporters at the event were shot, and he called the media the "enemy camp" during his victory speech last week.
During his first term he also threatened to "take a strong look at our country's libel laws"—which are actually controlled by states, not the federal government—and ensure that "when somebody says something that is false and defamatory about someone, that person will have meaningful recourse in our courts."
The American Civil Liberties Unionpointed outat the time that the First Amendment and the lack of federal libel laws would stand in Trump's way, but on Thursday Lachlan Cartwright wrote atCJR that "the drumbeat of legal threats signals a potentially ominous trend for journalists during Trump's second term in office."
AsWashington Post columnist Karen Attiah noted on the social media platform Bluesky, "governments and powerful figures threatening journalists and media outlets with costly legal battles and bankruptcy is a common tactic against press freedom in repressive countries."
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mma
November 15, 2024 edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
STEVE BANNON (HOST): By the way, a couple of reporters called me last night after a couple of my rants and said, hey we’re getting text messages from a lot of the producers, particularly younger producers at MSNBC and they’re saying is Bannon serious or is he just being Bannon, right?
I am 100 percent serious.
MICHAEL FLYNN (GUEST): I am too.
BANNON: You know what you did with various people out there you had on your shows. You are part of a vast criminal conspiracy against President Trump and that is going to be drilled down.
11/15/24
11/15/24
November 15, 2024, edition of Real America's Voice's War Room
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Donald Trump and his revolution is in charge now. And that revolution is going to make its way from Mar-a-Lago and from every part of the country, like Andrew Jackson, it's going to converge on the imperial capitol in late January. And yes, we're going to burn some of these institutions down to the ground. Because you know why? They need to be burned down to the ground. Metaphorically. As the process of creative destruction. The process of the structure of revolutions, the paradigm shift has impact.
...
We're not going to cave. We're not going to give up on Gaetz. We're not going to give up on Tulsi Gabbard. We're not going to give up on Pete Hegseth. We're not going to give up on RFK Jr. We're not going to give up on anybody. And you know why? If President-elect Donald J. Trump wants them, he's going to get them.
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November 13, 2024 edition of *War Room: Battleground
STEVE BANNON (HOST): Weissmann, you were on TV with MSNBC and all the producers at MSNBC, preserve your documents. Ari Melber and all you hosts, preserve your documents. All of it. You better be worried and you better lawyer up. Some of you young producers, better call mom and dad tonight — hey mom and dad, you know a good lawyer? Lawyer up. Lawyer up.
You tried to destroy Trump, you tried to imprison Trump, you tried to break Trump. He’s not breakable. You couldn’t destroy him and now he is turned on you and he’s put a firebrand in charge of main justice, Department of Justice. And you’re going to have to live it with — Andrew Weissmann and all your kind — McCabe and Comey. Oh my lord.
…
The hunted now become the hunters, yep. With the full apparatus — but here’s the difference, here’s the difference, here’s the difference.
It’s going to be totally transparent. It’s going to start with the mass declassification of all this information we've been keeping back from the American people, shouldn’t keep it back.
American people should understand that, should see it, and see what you’ve done. It’s going to be fully transparent, all of it, and all of the interconnections. Norm Eisen and all these NGOs, and you know, and Reid Hoffman is all worried. You better be worried. You big billionaire donors, you better be worried. You better lawyer up. You should be worried.
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alternet-lno lnx
The list of who Donald Trump has 'pledged to punish' — according to one of his targets
David Badash November 06, 2024
Vice President Kamala Harris, now the former Democratic presidential nominee, frequently said on the campaign trail: “On day one if elected, Donald Trump would walk into that office with an enemy’s list. When elected, I will walk in with it to do list.”
Donald Trump is now President-elect and, according to Politico, he has “a lengthy inventory of people he’s pledged to punish.”
“For years, Trump has peppered his speeches and social media posts with vengeful calls for his political opponents, his critics and members of the media to be prosecuted, locked up, deported and even executed. In the waning weeks of the 2024 campaign, he escalated those promises of retaliation to a fever pitch,” Politico reports Wednesday. “Now that he’s won, he has both a popular mandate — and the power — to begin implementing his platform of punishment.”
Trump “will be emboldened by a Supreme Court ruling that grants presidents broad immunity from criminal accountability after they leave office. And he is expected to be surrounded by aides more willing to dispense with norms to carry out his wishes.”
READ MORE: ‘Be the Guardrails of Democracy’: Liz Cheney and Other Never-Trumpers Suggest Path Forward
Back in March of 2023, Trump declared, “I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed: I am your retribution.”
Who’s on his list? According to Politico, nearly two dozen individuals, largely in the legal and political spectrum, along with dozens of intelligence specialists, and unnamed journalists:
President Joe Biden
Vice President Kamala Harris
Former President Barack Obama
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi
New York Attorney General Letitia James
Manhattan Justice Arthur Engoron
Former U.S. Rep. Liz Cheney
Special Counsel Jack Smith
Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg
Former Chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley
Former FBI Director James Comey
Hunter Biden and the rest of the Biden family
Former FBI special agent Peter Strzok
Former FBI attorney Lisa Page
Rep. Adam Schiff (Now Senator-elect Schiff)
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg
Former Manhattan Assistant District Attorney Mark Pomerantz
Former Trump attorney Michael Cohen
U.S. Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd
Rep. Jamaal Bowman
51 intelligence professionals who signed letter about Hunter Biden laptop
Members of the U.S. House Select Committee on the January 6 Attack
Unspecified people engaged in election fraud
POLITICO reporters, editors and publisher
It’s not just Politico.
Trump has often called the mainstream media, the “enemy of the people.”
In his victory speech early Wednesday morning, Trump referred to the press as, “the enemy camp,” according to The Guardian.
“Introducing his running mate, the Ohio senator JD Vance, Trump said: “I told JD to go into the enemy camp. He just goes: OK. Which one? CNN? MSNBC? He’s like the only guy who looks forward to going on, and then just absolutely obliterates them.”
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Donald Trump’s authoritarian playbook to crush the free press in a second term
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 10/29/24
If Donald Trump returns to the White House, the fate of the U.S. press may rest on whether corporate executives who control mammoth multimedia conglomerates are willing to prioritize the journalistic credibility of the news outlets they oversee over their own business interests.
Trump will put wealthy media magnates to the test, forcing them to decide whether they are willing to suffer painful consequences for keeping their outlets free of influence, or whether they will either compel their journalists to knuckle under or sell their outlets to someone who will.
Trump spent his presidency demanding that his administration target his perceived political enemies with federal pressure — fromregulatory action to criminal investigations — and says he would be even less restrained in enacting “retribution” in a second term.
In recent months, prominent commentators have warned that the press could become such a target of Trump, whose own former top aides describe him as a fascist. New York Times Publisher A.G. Sulzberger, in an extraordinary warning in the pages of The Washington Post, wrote last month that Trump takes as his model Hungary’s autocrat Victor Orban, who has “effectively dismantled the news media in his country” as “a central pillar of Orban’s broader project to remake his country as an ‘illiberal democracy.’”
These fears that Trump would use a second term to crack down on the press are rational. The former president demands sycophantic coverage and describes those who do not provide it as the “enemy of the people.” Trump’s rhetoric and record show that he is keenly aware of the vulnerabilities some news outlets have and is eager to exploit them if he returns to the White House.
Corporate media owners are vulnerable to Trump’s pressure — and some are already bending
Trump’s presidency revealed the dark playbook he and his allies use against perceived enemies such as individual journalists. Its potential tactics include publicly denouncing reporters, stripping them of access, inciting supporters to target them with violence, threatening them with investigation, and sending federal agencies like the Justice Department after them. These heinous maneuvers could and likely would be used against journalists in a second Trump term.
But perhaps the greater threat to the free press as an institution comes from Trump’s ability to target for retaliation the corporate barons who control the newspapers, broadcast and cable networks, and other outlets that employ those journalists.
While some publications like the Times are functionally standalone journalism businesses, many others are either small divisions within massive multimedia companies whose executives are ultimately responsible to stockholders or privately held entities that represent a tiny fraction of their owner’s assets.
CNN is part of Warner Bros. Discovery, a publicly traded company that also owns film and TV studios, streaming services, and a host of other businesses.
Comcast provides cable and internet services to consumers and owns and operates broadcast and cable TV channels and a movie studio, in addition to overseeing NBC News and MSNBC.
CBS News is owned by Paramount Global. ABC News is part of the Walt Disney Co.
Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post (where my wife works as letters and community editor) but his billions come from founding Amazon, which is the nation’s second-largest private employer with subsidiaries in industries from online retail to web services, artificial intelligence to groceries. Patrick Soon-Shiong used a fraction of the wealth he earned in biotech to purchase the Los Angeles Times.
Trump understands that those broader corporate structures create a host of potential vulnerabilities an authoritarian president with no interest in preserving the rule of law could utilize against the owners of news outlets that displease him. Individuals and corporations that own major news outlets have other business interests that may rely on government contracts or federal patents or regulators who oversee their mergers and acquisitions and other practices.
The former president knows that even if journalists want to stand up to him, he can force their outlets to change course by threatening corporate executives and owners who have different priorities.
Trump does not just lash out at the Post — he targets the “Amazon Washington Post.” When he goes after NBC and MSNBC, he calls out Comcast’s CEO by name. He shares attacks on Disney’s Bob Iger as part of his war on ABC News.
He is telegraphing the future trouble he may bring down on the corporate owners if they do not bring their news outlets to heel — and forcing those owners to determine how much pain they are willing to endure over a division that likely provides a small fraction of the overall corporation's revenues.
Some media owners seem to be responding to Trump’s authoritarian message in advance of Election Day. Bezos and Soon-Shiong both reportedly overruled the editorial boards of the papers they own and spiked planned editorials endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign in the final weeks of the race, while NBC will not air a documentary about the impact Trump’s administration had on migrant families until December. While all three have offered other explanations for their moves, observers have noted that their other business interests give each extensive exposure to a Trump presidency.
Corporate executives also know that there are rewards for knuckling under and following the paths of avowed pro-Trump figures like Rupert Murdoch, whose multimedia empire includes right-wing fixtures Fox News and the New York Post, and David Smith, whose Sinclair Broadcasting Group is a telecommunications giant that owns and programs scores of TV stations. Both received favorable regulatory treatment during Trump’s presidency.
Case study: How Trump could target CBS News in a second term
Others will come under increasing pressure if Trump returns to the White House. For example, the former president has decried the network’s editing of a 60 Minutes interview with Vice President Kamala Harris as “the biggest scandal in broadcast history” and said that CBS should be stripped of its broadcast license.
While Trump apparently lacks a clear understanding of how the government regulates news networks like CBS, he is making clear that he expects federal retribution against the network — and Paramount Global, its parent company, is acutely vulnerable to such retaliation.
Paramount Global, after a monthslong search for a buyer, agreed in July to a proposed merger with Skydance Media, the production company founded by filmmaker David Ellison. The deal will need to go through Justice Department antitrust regulators who, under a normal administration, are supposed to scrutinize its impact on media consolidation.
But Trump eschews the traditional independence of the Justice Department, seeing it instead as an extension of the president’s personal will. If he returns to the White House, it will be impossible to separate the DOJ’s handling of the Paramount-Skydance merger from his personal grudge with CBS News. And the executives of those companies will be pressed to respond.
What happens if Trump gets elected and the Justice Department derails the merger? If Trump’s associates tell Paramount executives that it might get back on track if CBS News provided more positive coverage of Trump’s administration, how would they respond?
Journalists at CBS News might resist that kind of pressure. But what would happen if Skydance’s Ellison suddenly got a call from Lachlan Murdoch suggesting that CBS News was holding up the deal and offering to buy it? If that hypothetical sounds far-fetched, consider that it is reportedly quite similar to reports about the Trump-era merger featuring the parent company of CNN.
Ellison doesn’t have roots in journalism; he’s a film producer and the son of the billionaire Oracle founder Larry Ellison. Does he — and other corporate owners like him — care more about the preservation of the free press than completing a megamerger?
We may find out.-
mma 10 24 OMG
Project 2025 partner blog advocates for overturning New York Times Co. v. Sullivan
The Claremont Institute's American Mind: “President Trump should make the case for revisiting the Sullivan ruling a more prominent and recurring part of his public rhetoric”
Written by Madeline Peltz
:{Published 10/25/24
The American Mind, a project of Project 2025 partner The Claremont Institute, published a piece on October 23 advocating for a second Trump administration to seek the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, a key decision protecting the First Amendment.
Legal scholars have described the Sullivan decision, which established the “actual malice” standard in libel law, as “one of the Supreme Court’s most significant First Amendment rulings.” As Oyez outlines: “When a statement concerns a public figure, the Court held, it is not enough to show that it is false for the press to be liable for libel. Instead, the target of the statement must show that it was made with knowledge of or reckless disregard for its falsity.”
The Claremont Institute’s Carson Holloway recently argued that “President Trump should seek the reversal of New York Times v. Sullivan,” casting his argument as a continuation of the Dobbs decision that reversed the constitutional right to abortion. Holloway celebrates Trump as singularly responsible for Dobbs, describing it as his “signature accomplishment” in his “already impressive legacy” of the “restoration of self-government.” Continued:
If Trump is elected to a second term, he should build on this legacy by seeking the reversal of another egregious instance of judicial activism that continues to distort the Constitution and our nation’s politics: New York Times v. Sullivan. In this 1964 ruling, the Warren Court imposed a new doctrine of libel and the First Amendment on the nation.
Holloway then lays out a three point plan for how to accomplish this.
First, he suggests, “President Trump should make the case for revisiting the Sullivan ruling a more prominent and recurring part of his public rhetoric.” He has good reason to believe this is viable. In 2016, Trump promised that if he won he would “open up our libel laws” to make it easier to sue the press, singling out The New York Times and The Washington Post. On the Supreme Court, Justices Thomas and Gorsuch have both signaled their openness to reconsidering Sullivan.
More recently, Trump has been ramping up his attacks on journalists, advocating for revoking broadcasting licenses and launching other legal attacks. Brendan Carr, a Trump-appointed member of the Federal Communications Commission that oversees broadcasting licenses, could be a key ally in this threat. Carr wrote the chapter on the FCC in Project 2025’s policy book, Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise.
Holloway’s next suggestion on stripping the press of legal protections is a given: “President Trump should continue his first-term policy of appointing serious constitutionalists to the Supreme Court and, indeed, to all federal judicial vacancies.”
Finally, Holloway states: “President Trump should direct his Department of Justice to seek the reversal of the actual malice doctrine and restore judicial respect for the original meaning of the First Amendment. This policy should include the regular filing, in appropriate cases, of amicus curiae briefs by the Justice Department urging the courts to revisit this question.”
This argument harmonizes with the vision of a weaponized Department of Justice outlined in Mandate. As Gene Hamilton, vice president and general counsel of former Project 2025 partner America First Legal, wrote in his chapter on the Justice Department, DOJ policy “must always be consistent with the President’s policy agenda and the rule of law.” Project 2025 would gut the federal government’s system of checks and balances through a radical consolidation of executive power.
Project 2025’s emphasis on personnel would also bolster a second Trump administration’s attacks on free speech. Through the initiative, The Heritage Foundation has assembled a prevetted database of Trump loyalists, which it calls a “conservative LinkedIn,” of potential administration hires that have taken loyalty tests to prove they’d be willing to stretch or even violate the law in order to enact his agenda. Project 2025 also advocates for the implementation of a policy known as “Schedule F,” which would remove civil service protections for politically neutral career bureaucrats so they could be fired en masse and replaced with pro-MAGA sycophants. Remaking the federal workforce in this way would allow Trump to more easily exercise control over the Department of Justice and enact a retributional, anti-free speech agenda.
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mma
“Fake News Networks”: Trump and Project 2025’s goal to attack, defund, and delegitimize the press
Written by Charis Hoard
Published 10/16/24
Former president and current GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump recently called for CBS’ and ABC’s broadcast licenses to be revoked, a continuation of the kind of adversarial rhetoric he has used against the press since his presidency. Project 2025, the right-wing policy blueprint for the next Republican administration, has also argued for the defunding of public radio and broadcast networks.
- ## Throughout his reelection campaign, Trump has called for broadcast TV licenses to be revoked, promised investigation into media outlets, and painted the media as “so bad for our country”
- Trump called for CBS’ broadcast license to be revoked while accusing the network of editing interview footage to the benefit of Vice President Kamala Harris. In a post on X (formerly Twitter), Trump called for the network’s broadcast license to be revoked and claimed that it is trying to “hide [the] fact” that Harris “is a Moron.” In a later post, Trump claimed that CBS’ 60 Minutes “unscrupulously replaced an answer” that Harris had given during an interview with the program with “another answer that had nothing to do with the question asked,” baselessly calling the action “illegal.” The Hill, [10/10/24; Twitter/X, 10/10/24, 10/14/24; Snopes, 10/11/24]
- In September, Trump called for ABC’s broadcast license to be revoked.The morning after his presidential debate with Harris, Fox News host Ainsley Earhardt asked Trump why the ABC moderators didn’t “correct” Harris during the debate. Trump responded, “They’re dishonest, and because I think ABC took a big hit last night. I mean, to be honest, they're a news organization. They have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that.” Twitter/X, [9/11/24]
- Trump also attacked debate moderators, ABC’s David Muir and Linsey Davis, for fact-checking his lies and described them as “low lives.” During a speech in Arizona, Trump claimed, “The public was not fooled. They saw right through it, Kamala’s lies and unprecedented partisan interference of two low-life anchors. They’re low lives.” The Hill, [9/12/24]
- Trump threatened The New York Times, saying, “Wait until you see what I'm going to do with them.”In an interview, The Daily Wire’s Ben Shapiro asked Trump, “How do you fight a legacy media that is once again rigging the informational environment of the election?” Trump replied, “The New York Times is one of the most dishonest of all. I watched this, New York Times, and it's a classic. Wait until you see what I'm going to do with them, you're going to have so much fun.” The Daily Wire, *The Ben Shapiro Show*, [10/8/24]
- While discussing his live streamed X interview in August, Trump attacked the media, writing, “I absolutely HATE the Fake News Media. So bad for our Country!”Trump: “All the Fake News wants to report is that the servers crashed (because of the tremendous volume!), and the show opened a little late. What they should be reporting was the incredible number of people that were listening. I absolutely HATE the Fake News Media. So bad for our Country!” Truth Social, [8/13/24; The New York Times, 8/13/24]
- During an appearance at the 2024 National Association of Black Journalists Convention, Trump attacked moderator and ABC correspondent Rachel Scott for citing his track record on race.Trump: “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. A first question. You don’t even say, ‘Hello, how are you?’ Are you with ABC? Because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network. And I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirit — I love the Black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country.” The Hill, [7/31/24]
- In October 2023, Trump questioned whether CBS News should be able to access public airwaves after its interview with President Joe Biden. In a post on Truth Social after CBS’ interview with Biden, Trump stated: “The show ‘60 Minutes’ should be ashamed of themselves. They just interviewed Crooked Joe Biden, and led him along like a lost child. … Why should CBS get free public airwaves for this highly partisan ‘show’[?]” MSNBC, [10/17/23]
- In late 2023, Trump accused media outlets such as NBC and MSNBC of “Country Threatening Treason” and asserted that he would investigate them if reelected in November.Trump: “They are almost all dishonest and corrupt, but Comcast, with its one-side and vicious coverage by NBC NEWS, and in particular MSNBC, often and correctly referred to as MSDNC (Democrat National Committee!), should be investigated for its ‘Country Threatening Treason.’” Forbes, [9/24/23]
- ## Trump allies and Project 2025 have also attacked the media, promising investigations and proposing defunding public broadcasting
- Former Trump adviser Steve Bannon threatened “investigations under the Constitution and by the rule of law” into media for supposedly “colluding with the Justice Department.” He added, “It's coming and we're going to be unrelenting in it because you tried to destroy the American republic and you came very close.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [6/12/24]
- Former Trump Department of Defense and National Security Council staffer Kash Patel appeared on Bannon’s podcast and said, “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media.”Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [12/5/23]
- Mike Davis, founder of the right-wing legal advocacy group the Article III Project and a rumored future Trump appointee, “has threatened to indict, detain, denaturalize, and deport a handful of Trump critics,” including former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan. Twitter/X, [11/20/23, 11/16/23; Rolling Stone, 7/9/24]
- Project 2025 includes plans to end public funding for NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. As Media Matters has previously noted, Project 2025 lays out “a plan for how a Republican administration might defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which uses taxpayer dollars to help fund public media institutions like PBS and NPR.” The plan also includes encouraging a future Republican administration to “‘reexamine’ its relationship with media outlets and organizations … and suggests that reporters should not have a ‘permanent space’ in the White House.” Media Matters, [4/26/24, 8/27/24]
- ## Trump also attacked the media and journalists during his presidency
- Throughout his presidency, Trump attacked journalists, referring to one as a “terrible reporter” and their questions as “horrid.”Another reporter received personal attacks for a quickly-corrected mistake, which Trump cited as an example of “how dishonest the media is.” CNN, [3/20/20; The Daily Beast, 4/6/20; The Hill, 1/21/17]
- According to the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, Trump posted at least 2,000 times on social media attacking the press and specific reporting. Between June 2015, when he declared his candidacy for the presidency, and April 2020, Trump “tweeted negatively about the press more than once a day” on average. U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, [4/12/20]
- In a 2018 legal battle over press access, the Trump administration argued that it had “broad discretion” to limit reporter access to White House buildings and events. One journalist also reported there had been a “blackout” on regional media coverage at White House events. CNN, [11/14/18; Media Matters, 2/1/17; Poynter, 1/20/17]
- At the 2017 Conservative Political Action Conference, Trump declared that media outlets are an “enemy of the people” and that he is “fighting the fake news.” Trump has repeatedly espoused similar sentiments, declaring to audiences that “what you’re seeing and what you’re reading” from the “fake news” is “not what’s happening” and that the “totally dishonest TV pundits” need to be held “accountable.” Media Matters, [2/24/17; CNN, 7/25/18; NBC News, 3/29/19]
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press suppr
an 10 24
Donald Trump early Thursday morning amplified his calls to have CBS investigated for its editing choices in an interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, declaring that the development is "totally illegal" and demanding the government "take away the CBS license."
Trump on Wednesday lobbed an unproven accusation against CBS's "60 Minutes" over the program's taped interview with Harris, accusing the show of deceptively editing its interview to present Harris in a better light. Trump was criticized for his response, which was compared to "dictator talk."
The vice president sat down for an interview with correspondent Bill Whitaker, who asked at one point whether Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was listening to the Biden administration's concerns about the war in Gaza, and the Trump campaign pointed out that her answer was different in a promotional clip posted on social media from what she said in the full interview that aired Monday night.
“The work that we have done has resulted in a number of movements in that region by Israel that were very much prompted by or a result of many things," Harris says in the truncated clip, "including our advocacy for what needs to happen in the region.”
However, in the interview, her immediate response to the same question was: “We are not going to stop pursuing what is necessary for the United States to be clear about where we stand on the need for this war to end.”
Trump previously called for an investigation Wednesday, but escalated those calls Thursday, saying Harris should now "concede the election.
"A giant Fake News Scam by CBS & 60 Minutes. Her REAL ANSWER WAS CRAZY, OR DUMB, so they actually REPLACED it with another answer in order to save her or, at least, make her look better," Trump wrote on Truth Social. "A FAKE NEWS SCAM, which is totally illegal."
He continued:
"TAKE AWAY THE CBS LICENSE. Election Interference. She is a Moron, and the Fake News Media wants to hide that fact. An UNPRECEDENTED SCANDAL!!! The Dems got them to do this and should be forced to concede the Election? WOW!"
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an 10 24
former President Donald Trump on Wednesday lobbed a baseless accusation against CBS's "60 Minutes" over the program's taped interview with Vice President Kamala Harris.
Writing on his Truth Social platform, the former president accused "60 Minutes" of deceptively editing its interview to present Harris in a better light.
"I’ve never seen this before, but the producers of 60 Minutes sliced and diced ('cut and pasted') Lyin’ Kamala’s answers to questions, which were virtually incoherent, over and over again, some by as many as four times in a single sentence or thought, all in an effort, possibly illegal as part of the 'News Division,' which must be licensed, to make her look 'more Presidential,' or a least, better," Trump wr
He continued:
"It may also be a major Campaign Finance Violation. This is a stain on the reputation of 60 Minutes that is not recoverable - It will always remain with this once storied brand. I have never heard of such a thing being done in 'News.' It is the very definition of FAKE NEWS! The public is owed a MAJOR AND IMMEDIATE APOLOGY! This is an open and shut case, and must be investigated, starting today!
It is difficult to understand what the former president is talking about given that vid]
and Harris speaks cogently over long periods of time without any apparent edits.
Trump backed out of doing an interview with "60 Minutes" last week after he told the program that he didn't want them to fact check the things that he has been saying on the campaign trail, such as his false claims about Haitian immigrants eating locals' pets in Springfield, Ohio.
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Take Trumpist threats to jail journalists seriously
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 09/23/24 mma
Last year, after I criticized the Republican political operative Mike Davis, he publicly declared that he had added me to a list he maintains of Americans he would imprison if he led the Justice Department. I am far from alone: The former Senate Judiciary Committee staffer has issued similar threats to several of my colleagues as well as journalists at other outlets.
When Davis is challenged about his openly fascistic musings, he retreats to claiming that his deranged threats are only trolling. But two disturbing reports last week show that if Davis is just kidding about punishing the press and other presumed Trump critics, portions of the MAGA movement — including Donald Trump himself — are not in on the joke.
Indeed, Davis’ psychotic behavior helped turn him into a MAGA favorite who gets floated for a high-ranking role in a second Trump administration — perhaps even attorney general. The former president’s most zealous supporters, who frequently call for politicized prosecutions against his foes, can’t get enough of Davis’ authoritarian diatribes.
It’s not just trolling: Trump is an authoritarian leading an authoritarian movement, and if he returns to the White House, he will again try to carry out his authoritarian impulses. And journalists, whom the former president often describes as the “enemy of the people,” will not be spared.
*A Mike Davis post from X/Twitter. Davis claims to have “five lists, ready to go,” if he becomes attorney general; List 2 is people he would indict and List 4 is people he would imprison in the “DC gulag” or Guantanamo Bay.
Davis told a Politico reporter he was trolling. Then MAGA thugs cornered the reporter.
In a profile of Davis published Friday, Politico reporter Adam Wren discussed being accosted by Trumpist goons while he was reporting from the Republican National Convention.
Wren’s piece chronicles how Davis’ star has risen within the MAGA movement due to his willingness to defend Trump in the wake of his indictments on state and federal changes. Wren particularly highlights Davis’ incendiary calls for retaliatory prosecutions if Trump is elected in November, such as his August 2023 statement that he would use a “three-week reign of terror” as attorney general to carry out his “five lists” of people to fire, indict, deport, imprison, and pardon.
But in interviews for the piece, Davis maintained to Wren that his statements about sending people like me to a “gulag” shouldn’t be taken literally. From the profile (emphasis in the original):
Davis will admit to being quite serious about much of what he says in the media, including wanting to dismantle the power of the federal government, an idea he has held onto since his Gingrich days. But he told me he is obviously joking about some of the more inflammatory promises — putting kids in cages and detaining journalists in a gulag. He later told me the sound bite was “a self-inflicted wound,” but also said he “didn’t want to back down from it.”
“It’s hilarious that it’s so easy to trigger these people. I’m obviously trolling them,” Davis told me of Democrats.
Davis’ allies are apparently not quite so sure.
Wren writes that when he accompanied Davis to a ninth-floor hotel bar frequented by the Trump family and their hangers-on during the Republican National Convention, he observed Davis being “greeted by Republican revelers like a caesar” — and overheard Donald Trump Jr. telling the GOP operative, “I want you to be my father’s attorney general for all four years.”
Then a woman “demanded” that Wren either delete his notes of that interaction or hand over his phone, “recruited four men to block the elevators” when he refused, and issued a not-terribly-veiled threat. Unable to access the elevators to leave the bar, Wren wrote that he fled down the stairs, pursued by two of the goons.
Wren further described the incident in an interview with The Bulwark:
Davis, Wren explained in his piece, subsequently “confronted the aide near the elevators and dressed her down” and told the reporter what happened was “fucking shocking.”
The Politico profile concludes with an adviser to Donald Trump Jr. telling Wren that the behavior he had experienced was unacceptable — and also that Don Jr.’s comments to Davis about serving as attorney general were merely “trolling.”
Donald Trump spent his White House years demanding — and receiving — probes of his enemies
In a lengthy investigation published over the weekend, New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt reviewed the cases of 10 individuals who “faced federal pressure of one kind or another” following Trump’s “public or private demands for them to be targeted by the government” during his presidency.
Schmidt revealed:
- In the spring of 2018, Trump told White House counsel Donald McGahn “that he wanted to order” Attorney General Jeff Sessions “to prosecute” Hillary Clinton and former FBI Director James Comey, “and that if Mr. Sessions refused he would take matters into his own hands.”
- Lawyers in the White House counsel’s office subsequently authored a memo to the then-president which “made clear that Mr. Trump did not have the authority ‘to initiate an investigation or prosecution yourself or circumvent the attorney general by directing a different official to pursue a prosecution or investigation,’ as one draft memo put it.”
- Nonetheless, “within a month, Mr. Trump plunged ahead with one of his most successful efforts to have a Democratic critic investigated. He publicly demanded and ultimately got an inquiry by federal prosecutors into” former secretary of state John Kerry.
- “Through the rest of Mr. Trump’s time in office, he never let up on pressuring federal agencies to take action against his perceived enemies even as he was counseled against it by aides like Mr. McGahn and John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff from the middle of 2017 until the beginning of 2019.”
- “In a few of the cases where Mr. Trump wanted investigations, there was legitimate basis for action. But in many others, there was little or no legal justification. None resulted in a criminal conviction.”
- “There is no record of the inquiries and other actions coming about as a result of a formal, signed order from Mr. Trump. Instead, he repeatedly signaled what he wanted, publicly and privately, leaving no doubt among subordinates.”
- “At least two other West Wing officials defied Mr. Trump’s repeated instructions not to take notes and wrote down accounts of Mr. Trump’s eruptions about using the federal government to target his perceived enemies. Those notes were taken from the White House as well to ensure there was documentation.”
Schmidt’s list of investigations Trump demanded into his foes is lengthy but by no means exhaustive. It mentions, for example, that “federal prosecutors and a special counsel examined nearly all the issues and conspiracy theories Mr. Trump raised about Mrs. Clinton, her campaign and the Clinton Foundation,” but it omits the ultimately fruitless two-year review of her role as secretary of state in the sale of the company known as Uranium One that he had sought.
Nor does it reference every instance in which Trump sought government retaliation against his critics. Schmidt’s list notes that “the Justice Department obtained phone and email records for reporters for CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times” as part of leak investigations, but it does not detail Trump’s efforts to use federal regulatory powers to punish news outlets.
Nevertheless, it shows quite clearly that Trump’s impulse to prosecute his political foes found few restraints during his presidency — and could be even more dangerous in a second term.
The staffing plans developed under the auspices of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 are intended to empower loyalists while keeping out people like McGahn, who reportedly tried to prevent Trump from exercising his whims. Meanwhile, presidential efforts to pressure Justice Department officials to take action were specifically rendered immune from federal prosecution thanks to the radical doctrine the Supreme Court enshrined over the summer in Trump v. United States.
Trump, for his part, continues to regularly accuse his political opponents of crimes. That has critics worried he would once again urge the Justice Department to initiate investigations if he returned to office. But Trump’s supporters say such claims are overwrought. “His defenders often seek to explain away Mr. Trump’s threats to take legal action against opponents as campaign trail bluster,” Schmidt wrote.
In other words, they’re claiming that Trump is just trolling.
Related
11/10/23 11:39 AM EST
02/29/24 11:08 AM EST
11/30/23
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OMG
trump in own spin room after fail; next day said polls won 65-95%
The right’s post-debate assault on ABC is a preview of Trump’s authoritarian agenda
Written by Matt Gertz
Published 09/13/24 mma
Donald Trump’s flailing performance at Tuesday night’s debate triggered a multiday right-wing freakout at the ABC News moderators, punctuated by calls from the former president and his allies to target the network and its parent company with a regulatory crackdown, congressional investigation, and even prosecutions. It’s a dark preview of the authoritarian tactics they could use if Trump returns to the White House and carries out his stated desire to retaliate against news outlets whose coverage displeases him.
Trump used Tuesday’s opportunity to address a massive national audience at the debate to spew nonsense incomprehensible to people who aren’t familiar with the deep lore of the right-wing fever swamps and repeatedly take the bait offered by Vice President Kamala Harris. The result was such a disaster for Trump’s campaign that he quickly called off future debates.
Trump’s right-wing media allies reacted to his disastrous performance in real time by lashing out at ABC News moderators David Muir and Linsey Davis, who fact-checked the former president on a handful of occasions. While debate moderators typically come in for criticism from pundits who take issue with how they handled the high-profile job, it is difficult to blame Muir or Davis for a candidate picking up a racist and false fourthhand internet rumor about Haitian immigrants in Ohio and
, [vid]“They’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Moreover, the right’s discussion quickly blew past mere critiques of ABC’s performance to far-reaching conspiracy theories about its purportedly corrupt behavior and calls for government retribution against the network.
“Remove ABC’s broadcast license and criminally charge the moderators and executives for campaign finance fraud,” Sean Davis, CEO of the right-wing digital outlet The Federalist, declared on X the night of the debate.
Trump himself began calling for the stripping of ABC’s broadcast license the following morning.
“ABC took a big hit last night,” he said in an interview on Fox News’ Fox & Friends. “I mean, to be honest, they're a news organization. They have to be licensed to do it. They ought to take away their license for the way they did that.”
Trump’s remarks drew cheers from MAGA figures like Laura Loomer, who posted that “ABC News deserves to be INVESTIGATED.”
Trump reiterated his demand for retaliation in a Thursday night Truth Social post, claiming that “people are saying that Comrade Kamala Harris had the questions from Fake News ABC” and that if “an investigation” determines that that is the case, “ABC’s license should be TERMINATED.”
The former president then reposted a claim that an “ABC whistleblower allegedly will release an affidavit” showing that “the Harris campaign was given sample questions.” That claim originates with a random X poster — whose profile states, “Black Insurrectionist--I FOLLOW BACK TRUE PATRIOTS” — who claimed earlier that day to have received the purported document, which he promised to release ”before the weekend is out.”
Trump’s call for retribution has support from some Republican legislators. Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) said he would demand from ABC News and the Harris campaign “all correspondence, records, and potential coordination between the two parties ahead of Tuesday’s presidential debate,” while Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) is threatening to “re-examine the laws” he claims allow “the left’s near-complete domination of broadcast TV”
Meanwhile, Trumpists like Eric Metaxas and Hugh Hewitt are floating boycotts of ABC parent company Disney, and Mark Penn wants an independent review of ABC’s internal communications to assess whether the network was “rigging the outcome of this debate.”
The credibility of Trump’s call to strip ABC’s license is unclear. The Federal Communications Commission does not license broadcast networks — but it does license individual broadcast stations, including the eight owned and operated directly by ABC and the hundreds of additional affiliates. FCC Chairwoman Jessica Rosenworcel, a Biden appointee, responded to Trump’s call by suggesting it runs afoul of the First Amendment, and Ajit Pai, her Trump-appointed predecessor, offered a similar response when Trump called for retaliation against NBC as president. That said, one of the goals of the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 is to ensure future Trump appointees are willing to prioritize his personal whims.
Moreover, Trump’s eagerness to use such tactics to halt critical coverage — and the right’s support for them — is a dire sign for the future, even if the specific deployment of retaliatory FCC licensing decisions doesn’t work out.
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent has a cover story in its latest issue detailing the possibility that a second Trump administration could be characterized by “slow-burn authoritarianism,” which Sargent describes as “lower-profile” efforts to use state power to create hardships for Trump’s critics and benefits for his allies.
Trump’s attack on the media is likely to follow such a pattern if he returns to the White House, as I told Sargent on The Daily Blast podcast earlier this week. Rather than the high-profile action of stripping broadcast licenses, Trump’s allies could use the threat of adverse regulation or congressional investigations to more quietly encourage corporate owners to clamp down on critical coverage or sell their networks to someone who will.
Indeed, the Trump administration pursued that strategy, albeit largely unsuccessfully, during his presidency. Trump-controlled agencies issued unfavorable regulatory decisions to the corporate owners of disfavored outlets like CNN and The Washington Post, and favorable ones to the Trump-aligned owners of Fox News and Sinclair Broadcast Group.
The owners of CNN and The Washington Post held out against this pressure before but it’s unclear how they would respond to a second Trump term, particularly if the coercion becomes more intense. Nor is it clear what ABC’s Disney ownership — with sprawling business interests that produce numerous bureaucratic pressure points — would do if Trump moved it to the top of the target list.
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September 5, 2024, edition of Fox News' America's Newsroom
TREY GOWDY (FOX NEWS HOST): This is the way I break it down Dana: So it looks like Russia likes Trump and Iran likes Harris, okay? There is a difference between interference and preference. I am more worried about the fact that if you ask most of our fellow citizens what the greatest threat to our democracy is, they wouldn't say Russia or Iran. They would say it is the mainstream media in this country, which you just proved with that previous story you did with Lindsey Graham and Amazon. Those two answers are, are baffling.
Then you combine that with Google or Meta or whatever they call themselves and this -- the Hunter Biden laptop where 50 different so-called intelligence experts countermanded what John Ratcliffe said, which was this was actually not Russian disinformation. So if I'm an American, yeah, I kind of expect Russia and Iran to want to mess with us and sow the seeds of discord. I really don't expect it to be The New York Times and The Washington Post and Politico. But I'll bet you most Americans would say they fear that more than they do foreign interference.
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mma 9 24
Project 2025 contributor asks Trump if the assassination attempt on him could have been an “inside job”
Trump told Monica Crowley: “There's so many things going on here that you do have to wonder. ... I wasn't thinking this way three weeks ago. But the more you see it, the more you start to say there could be something else.”
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 08/30/24
Project 2025 is a massive right-wing plan led by the Heritage Foundation to provide policy and staffing to a future Republican president. Monica Crowley is a former Trump administration official and right-wing media figure touted for a position in a second Trump term; she is listed as a contributor in the Project 2025 policy book, Mandate for Leadership.
On August 29, Crowley interviewed former President Donald Trump on her podcast, with the two discussing the possibility that the assassination attempt was an “inside job.”
Video
CitationFrom the August 29, 2024, edition of The Monica Crowley Podcast, streamed on Rumble
MONICA CROWLEY (HOST): Two final questions for you, Mr. President, with regard to the assassination attempt. The more we see what happened that day, the more suspicious it all looks. It looks like the three-letter agencies are slow walking a lot of this evidence, a lot of the videos, etc. Does it look increasingly to you like this was a suspicious — maybe even inside job?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, it's strange. The father hired the most expensive lawyer, and he lives in the area, supposedly not very much money. He hired the most expensive lawyer. Think of this. Who's paying for this lawyer in Pennsylvania? High end, very, very expensive lawyer, top of the line, right? You know, where does he get the money to hire a lawyer that costs hundreds of thousands of dollars? Is the lawyer doing it for free? I doubt it. Are the Democrats paying for his legal fees? Is Marc Elias involved and that group? Is Weissmann involved? I don't know. Maybe they are. Maybe they're not. But who's paying for this lawyer?
Then you have the case of all of these apps that they can't get open. They can't get his phones open. And, you know, it's very suspicious, very suspicious. Why can't they get the apps open? Why can't the FBI get the apps open? Don't forget the head of the FBI said I may have been hit by shrapnel or some flying glass, OK? And that was even disputed by — all you have to do is take a look at it. They've shown it 50 different ways, 200 different ways, but that was their first — you know, he may have been hit by some shrapnel, you know, to maybe just grazed by a little shrapnel, and they knew that wasn't true.
So you say, why did they say that? Why did the director say that? Because that was so far off. He met with a tremendous — I mean, even his own side said, “You can't say that. There was no glass.” He's — I guess he said maybe the teleprompter. It's not even glass. It's something else. But, it wasn't broken. But, you know, you say, why did he say that?
There's so many things going on here that you do have to wonder. You do have to wonder. But they have apps or they have some things, and they're foreign-based from what I understand. And you say, like, why is it that they can't get them open? Apple should open them easily. You know, when they were going after you and all your friends, they were able to open up their phones very easily, right? But for an assassin, they can't get their phones open. I think those phones ought to be opened by this afternoon because they're foreign based.
And I think they ought to get — and I think they ought to find out who's paying for the lawyer, where's the money coming from, because I wasn't thinking this way three weeks ago. But the more you see it, the more you start to say there could be something else, and that's really dangerous for the country. So, you know, I think they should clear up all that. This shouldn't be like the Kennedy where they're waiting for so many years. I'll be opening that up, like, on my first week, but, you know, they have — everybody waits for it, the Kennedy assassination. This shouldn't be that. They should have all the facts. And, you know, it's harder to get the facts as time goes by, but they ought to get those phones open, and they ought to find out who he's been speaking to. That's what I think.
CROWLEY: Well, you know, 60 years later, we're still talking about the Kennedy assassination, right?
TRUMP: Yeah.
CROWLEY: But you were shot five or six weeks ago, and the imperial media, the regime, they've all buried it. They don't want anybody talking about it, which also lends credence to this idea that this is very suspicious —
TRUMP: Yeah, true.
CROWLEY: — and could have been an inside job. Before —
TRUMP: They don't wanna talk about it.
CROWLEY: No, of course not.
TRUMP: They don't wanna talk about it.
CROWLEY: Of course not. Which also —
TRUMP: Tells you bad things.
CROWLEY: It raises big suspicions.
TRUMP: Well they didn't wanna talk about the election of 2020 either.
CROWLEY: Right.
TRUMP: They just don't wanna talk about it because they know they're guilty as hell. And the only way you can stop it — it's amazing. People that want to have a fair election are indicted. The people that cheated on the election are allowed to keep cheating.
an 8 24
'He’s on our side': Video shows Trump cheering on supporter who attacked press at PA rally
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As key Trump allies advocate for revenge, Project 2025 provides a policy framework to attack the media
Former Trump national security adviser Kash Patel: “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media”
Written by Jack Winstanley
Published 08/27/24
Project 2025, a comprehensive transition plan organized by conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation to staff the next GOP administration with extremists and implement a far-reaching right-wing agenda, proposes that a second Trump presidency should gut funding for public broadcasting and “reexamine” the relationship between the White House and reporters. These policy proposals laying the framework for the next Republican administration to attack the media are especially notable as former President Donald Trump and his allies have a long history of hostility toward the press, including during the 2024 presidential campaign, and some of Trump’s key allies have openly threatened retaliation against specific journalists and outlets if he is reelected.
Project 2025 attacks public broadcasting and suggests a future administration “reexamine” the relationship with the White House press corps, following years of Trump and his allies attacking the media
- Project 2025 demands to end public funding for NPR, PBS, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Project 2025 describes NPR and other public media organizations as “tyrannical,” “leftist broadcasters,” complains that PBS airs “educational endeavors such as ‘Sesame Street’ … that are themselves biased to the Left,” and describes the elimination of federal funding for such outlets as “good policy and good politics.” Noting that “every Republican President since Richard Nixon has tried to strip the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) of taxpayer funding,” the group’s policy book, titled Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise, claims that this “means that the next conservative President must finally get this done and do it despite opposition from congressional members of his own party if necessary.” Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023]
- Project 2025’s calls to pull funding from public broadcasters echo years of conservative attacks on NPR, PBS, and other public media organizations. A 2017 budget proposal from the Trump administration included a proposal to completely defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Heritage Foundation senior fellow Mike Gonzalez, who authored a chapter in Mandate for Leadership advising a future Republican administration on how to defund “woke” public broadcasters, has been calling on Congress to defund those outlets since at least 2017. Media Matters, [5/8/24, 4/26/24, 3/24/17]
- Project 2025 also encourages a potential Trump administration to “reexamine” its relationship with media outlets and organizations, including the White House Correspondents Association, and suggests that reporters should not have a “permanent space” in the White House. The policy book states, “No legal entitlement exists for the provision of permanent space for media on the White House campus, and the next Administration should reexamine the balance between media demands and space constraints on the White House premises.” The document also suggests that a future Republican administration “should examine the nature of the relationship between itself and the White House Correspondents Association and consider whether an alternative coordinating body might be more suitable.” Project 2025, *Mandate for Leadership*, [2023; White House Correspondents Association, accessed 8/20/24]
- Trump and his campaign have deep ties to Project 2025, with a CNN analysis identifying nearly 240 people involved in Project 2025 who worked in either the Trump campaign or his first administration. Several individuals associated with Project 2025 have also spoken about their connections to Trump and his campaign, with Heritage Foundation President Kevin Roberts stating that Trump's staff and Project 2025 “have been in conversation throughout the campaign on the matters of policy.” Media Matters, [8/15/24, 7/11/24, 4/24/24, 3/20/24; CNN, 7/11/24]
- ## Trump and his allies, including Project 2025 affiliates, have continued their hostile posture during the 2024 presidential campaign season
- Trump’s presidential term was marked by repeated clashes with the press, including calling the press the “enemy of the people” in a 2019 social media post, with Trump continuing to attack the press after leaving office.A 2020 analysis by the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker found that Trump made at least 2,000 social media posts attacking the press and specific reporting. Trump also became the first president to not attend the annual White House Correspondents Dinner, claiming that the reporters in attendance were “too negative.” During at least two rallies held during the 2022 midterm campaign season, Trump openly discussed jailing reporters and fantasized about using the threat of imprisonment and rape to force journalists to reveal the identity of sources. U.S. Press Freedom Tracker, [4/12/20; The Hill, 4/5/19, 4/5/19; Rolling Stone, 10/23/22, 11/8/22]
* Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign has denied press credentials to outlets and journalists that have reported critically on the former president. While in office, Trump revoked press passes for dozens of journalists, and his 2020 reelection campaign continued the pattern of denying credentials. Reporters from HuffPost, Vanity Fair, The Washington Post, and Spectrum News have stated that their press access to Trump’s 2024 campaign events has been revoked, assumedly over prior unflattering coverage. Vanity Fair, [4/19/24; Media Matters, 4/22/24; Twitter/X, 8/15/24, 8/14/24, 8/15/24; Columbia Journalism Review, 5/9/19; The Washington Post, 12/2/19]
* Taking issue with a recent report from The New York Times questioning Trump’s claim that he survived a helicopter crash landing with former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, the former president attacked the paper and journalist Maggie Haberman for their “Fake & Fraudulent writing on the Russia, Russia, Russia HOAX.” Trump reportedly called the newspaper and demanded an apology after it debunked his story (which Brown has also denied) and “used ‘a sing-song voice’ to mock the Times’ request for the helicopter flight records.” HuffPost, [8/10/24]
- On several occasions Trump has even lashed out against Fox News — an outlet that has consistently praised the former president — for coverage that he has taken issue with.In one social media post, Trump shared several paragraphs from a Fox News article discussing his Georgia polling lead over Joe Biden but edited out other paragraphs that discussed the current president’s “overwhelming support from liberals, Black voters, voters with college degrees, and suburban women and the reality that voters are split on issues related to health care, election integrity, and abortion, while Biden overwhelmingly comes out on top with voters on the topic of climate change.” In another social media post, Trump ripped Fox News for discussing polling data that showed him losing to Vice President Kamala Harris and for airing footage from her campaign rallies. The New Republic, [2/16/24; The Hill, 7/9/24; Newsweek, 7/29/24]
* Kevin Roberts, president of the Heritage Foundation and the principal architect of Project 2025, attacked the “deceitful ‘journalism’” covering the Trump 2024 campaign. In a separate post, Roberts accused Harris of “dodging tough questions, and the so-called ‘Professional Journalists’ are just fine with it?! It’s a disgrace to real journalism.” Twitter/X, [8/16/24, 8/9/24]
- While attending the 2024 Republican National Convention, Donald Trump Jr. told an MSNBC journalist to “get out of here” and accused the network of lying in its coverage. Trump Jr. also called the network “MSDNC,” suggesting that it is a mouthpiece for the Democratic Party, and called its reporters “clowns.” The Daily Beast, [7/15/24]
- In an earlier social media post, Trump Jr. praised an anti-LGBTQ rant directed at a reporter by right-wing mixed martial arts fighter Sean Strickland, calling it “amazing” and adding, “If there were more people willing to talk to the Press like this, they’re bullshit wouldn’t be nearly as pervasive.”Twitter/X, [1/17/24]
- In July, Project 2025 contributor Rachel Bovard wrote an op-ed for The American Conservative defending former Trump strategist Steve Bannon and accusing the media of participating in a “three-year insurrection against the Constitution and the rule of law.” The American Conservative, [7/8/24]
- ## Other Trump allies have openly threatened investigations and other forms of retaliation against the press during a second Trump term
- Mike Davis, founder of the right-wing legal advocacy group the Article III Project and a rumored Trump appointee, “has threatened to indict, detain, denaturalize, and deport a handful of Trump critics,” including former NBC host Mehdi Hasan. In one post, Davis wrote that Hasan “is now on my Lists 2 (indict), 4 (detain), 6 (denaturalize), and 3 (deport). I already have his spot picked out in the DC gulag.” In a second post, Davis repeated his attack against Hasan, and added that it should be considered his “application to serve” as Trump's next attorney general. Twitter/X, [11/20/23, 11/16/23; Rolling Stone, 7/9/24]
- On Steve Bannon’s War Room podcast, which has been the media hub for Project 2025, former Trump national security adviser Kash Patel confirmed Trump’s plans to retaliate against the press if given a second term: “We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media.” Patel added that “we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections.” Bannon also warned about retribution against the media, stating, “This is just not rhetoric. We are absolutely dead serious.” Media Matters, [12/5/23, 11/9/23; The Associated Press, 12/5/23]
- Bannon, a longtime Trump ally who is currently serving a four-month prison sentence for ignoring a congressional subpoena over the January 6 insurrection, threatened “investigations under the Constitution and by the rule of law” into supposed media “colluding with the Justice Department.” Bannon added, “It's coming and we're gonna be unrelenting in it because you tried to destroy the American republic and you came very close.” Real America’s Voice, *War Room*, [6/12/24; CNN, 7/1/24]
08/26/24
Media Matters statement on winning injunction against Missouri AG Andrew Bailey in federal court
Written by Media Matters Staff
Published 08/26/24
Media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone issued the following statement after Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey.
“A federal judge has clearly seen this coordinated effort by state attorneys general for what it is – sucking up to Elon Musk and abusing the power of their offices to intimidate researchers and stifle accurate reporting by Musk's critics. Andrew Bailey was one of those AGs that took up the call and he was defeated.
“The judge’s decision is a victory for free speech and a warning to other AGs and like-minded bad actors that the constitution does not allow for this type of meritless, retaliatory, harassing effort to suppress free speech.”
Key takeaways from the order:
- As Judge Mehta noted, Media Matters was the target of politically motivated “retaliation” by law enforcement that “chilled” our “protected expression” and First Amendment rights.
* The U.S. District Court also affirmed that Media Matters’ reporting is “protected speech” and has been corroborated by other media outlets and even X Corp.
- According to Judge Mehta “‘the most heinous act in which a democratic government can engage is to use its law enforcement machinery for political ends.’ … That apparently is what has occurred here.”
* The U.S. District Court affirmed that AG Bailey’s own “public statements are direct evidence of retaliatory intent” against Media Matters, and “retaliation for protected expression was likely his true motive for investigating Media Matters.”
The same day that X Corp. filed a meritless lawsuit against Media Matters for America for an accurate report on the platform’s extremism, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened a similarly specious investigation into MMFA under Texas’ deceptive trade practices act. Paxton subsequently issued an overbroad and invasive civil investigative demand – despite the fact that Media Matters has no relevant connection to Texas. On April 12, 2024, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Weeks after Paxton issued his demand, Missouri AG Andrew Bailey claimed to open his own investigation into Media Matters. Bailey ultimately filed a Civil Investigative Demand against the organization on March 25, 2024 – despite the fact that Media Matters has no relevant connection to Missouri. According to Bailey himself, he is coordinating with Paxton in his “war” against Media Matters and his Missouri Demand is “virtually identical” to Paxton’s Texas Demand. On April 24, 2024, Judge Mehta permitted Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to be a defendant in Media Matters’ suit against Paxton.
The nonpartisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker which catalogs press freedom violations in the United States recently recorded incident reports related to the Texas attorney general's investigation and the Missouri attorney general’s investigation in their database.
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an
May 23, 2024
US Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) was one of the 17 Texas Republicans who refused to certify the 2020 election results, according to the Texas Tribune.
During a Wednesday night interview with the GOP senator, CNN's Kaitlan Collins noted Cruz's refusal to acknowledge President Joe Biden win over Donald Trump in 2020, and asked whether the Texas leader plans to accept the November election results in the case Biden wins again.
"Do you plan to object or will you accept the results regardless of who wins the election?" Collins asked.
READ MORE:**Ted Cruz slapped with campaign finance laws violation complaint**
"Kaitlan, I got to say, I think that's actually a ridiculous question," Cruz replied.
"It's a yes or no question," Collins insisted.
"Let me explain why it's ridiculous question," the Texas leader said, asking, "Have you've ever asked a Democrat that?"
Collins replied, "Have you ever had a sitting president who refused to facilitate the peaceful transition of power, refused to acknowledge that his successor won the presidency?
Cruz claimed, "We had peaceful transfer of power, I was there on January 20."
"Barely," Collins replied, before noting that in 2016, when Biden was vice president, "he went to the Senate floor and certified the votes."
READ MORE:**'Ted Cruz isn’t fooling anyone': Texas senator slammed over outreach to Democrats**
Cruz said, "You only ask Republicans" this question.
Collins replied, "Because it was Republicans who tried to block the transition of power. You have to acknowledge that. We've never seen it on a scale of what happened in 2020. And We've never seen the president refuse. He wouldn't even let Joe Biden get classified briefings at the beginning.I recall that. So my question for you again: Free and fair election, will you accept the results regardless of who wins?"
The senator replied, "If the Democrats win, I will accept the result, but I'm not going to ignore fraud," before claiming there was voter fraud in 2020. Collins replied, "No there wasn't, and you still objected."
"Oh you know, for a fact, there were zero voter-fraud?" Cruz asked. "What's your basis for that? Show me your evidence.'
Collins said, "We've spoken with [Georgia Republican] Governor [Brian] Kemp. They did three hand recounts in the state of Georgia. the director of CISA [Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency] said that this was one of the safest most legitimate elections."
READ MORE:['Taking a lot of ribbing': Ted Cruz now the butt of senators’ jokes amid FAA bill markup
The CNN host emphasized, "Republicans are twisting themselves in knots."
Cruz claimed Collins never asks Hillary Clinton, Stacey Abrams, or Al Gore whether they will certify election results.
"I haven't had any of them on my show," Collins said. "We'll talk to them, but I don't remember there being a president who was refusing to turn over the transition of power."
Watch the video below or at this link.
7 24 RNC? press blamed for spreading biden dem vitriol --> trump assass
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kpfa event? w/ arundati roy update 6 24 modi govt up on treason charges for 2014 comments on Kashir
https://kpfa.org/episode/a-rude-awakening-july-31-2020/
no shock absorbers, redundant resilience vs nature "efficiency"= systems // noam c crit analysis on how neo-lib cap'l system can't deal w/ covid
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Bannon: “We're going to take power and then there's going to be a season of accountability”
06/13/24
mma
:{06/12/24
SO MUCH FOR FREE SPEECH ABSOLUTISM
OMFG
mma 4 24
media Matters President and CEO Angelo Carusone issued the following statement after Judge Amit Mehta of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia granted Media Matters a preliminary injunction against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.
Elon Musk encouraged Republican state attorneys general to use their power to harass their critics and stifle reporting about X. Ken Paxton was one of those AGs that took up the call and he was defeated. Today's decision is a victory for free speech.
Key takeaways from the order:
- As Judge Mehta noted, Media Matters’ investigative journalism and reporting “are core First Amendment activities,” and any “loss of First Amendment freedoms, for even minimal periods of time, unquestionably constitutes irreparable injury.”
- Judge Mehta prohibited Paxton from taking any steps to enforce his unlawful demand to rifle through Media Matters’ confidential documents.
The same day that X Corp. filed a meritless lawsuit against Media Matters for America for an accurate report on the platform’s extremism, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton opened a similarly specious investigation into MMFA under Texas’ deceptive trade practices act. Paxton subsequently issued an overbroad and invasive civil investigative demand – despite the fact that Media Matters has no relevant connection to Texas. The nonpartisan U.S. Press Freedom Tracker which catalogs press freedom violations in the United States recently recorded an incident report related to the Texas attorney general's investigation in their database.
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press suppress 1 24 mma
- former President Donald Trump’s campaign appears to have blocked NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard from covering New Hampshire primary events. This latest attempt to remove a reporter from his campaign trail is just one of many such incidents in Trump’s legacy of bullying and attacking members of the press.
- ## Trump has a long history of bashing journalists, and 2024 appears to be no different
- After questioning Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) on her thoughts regarding Trump’s alleged assault of E. Jean Carroll, NBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard was reprimanded by the Trump campaign and told he would not be allowed to travel with the campaign to New Hampshire primary events.Trump and Hillyard clashed in March 2023 as well when Hillyard attempted to question Trump on the ongoing Manhattan criminal investigation, spurring Trump to angrily demand the reporter be removed from the interview. The Guardian, [1/22/24; The Washington Post, 5/2/23
- Over the course of Trump’s first campaign and presidency, he became notorious for his spiteful attacks against members of the press and “fake news.” A CNN montage of such attacks shows Trump labeling the media as “absolute scum,” the “enemy of the people,” and “disgusting,” among other insults. A study from the Committee to Protect Journalists showed that these sorts of attacks have had wide-ranging consequences, including emboldening foreign leaders to restrict media rights. The Hill, [6/30/18; VOA, 4/17/20]
- ## Trump has subjected journalists to a myriad of insults, calling them “dumb,” “slimeballs,” and “horrid”
- Trump referred to former CNN political analyst April Ryan as a “loser” and “nasty” after she questioned him regarding claims of voter suppression.He also told her “repeatedly” to sit down and refused to respond to the question. The Baltimore Sun, [11/9/18]
- Trump launched a series of personal attacks against MSNBC host Joy Reid, saying that she has “no talent” and “truly doesn’t have the ‘it’ factor needed for success in showbiz.” Mother Jones, [9/14/19]
- Trump labeled NBC’s Peter Alexander a “terrible reporter” when Alexander questioned whether he was giving Americans “false hope” by promoting unproven medications for COVID-19.Trump ranted that Alexander was “doing sensationalism” and asked a “nasty question.” CNN, [3/20/20]
- Fox News reporter Kristen Fox was ridiculed by Trump for “being so horrid in the way” she asked a question after bringing up lagging COVID-19 test results.Trump instructed Fox that she should say “congratulations, great job” instead. The Daily Beast, [4/6/20]
- Trump celebrated when MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi was struck by a rubber bullet while reporting on George Floyd protests, calling it the “most beautiful thing.” The New York Times, [9/23/20]
- After an Atlantic piece alleged Trump had cancelled a trip to the WWI Aisne-Marne American Cemetery in Paris because it was filled with “losers” and “suckers,” Trump referred to the report’s author Jeffrey Goldberg as a “slimeball.” BBC, [9/5/20]
- Trump gleefully implied that journalists who published the Supreme Court’s leaked decision to overturn Roe v. Wade should be subject to incarceration and sexual violence. Attendees at the campaign event cheered as Trump mentioned that these journalists could become the “the bride of another prisoner.” Rolling Stone, [10/23/22]
- New York Magazine’s Olivia Nuzzi was denounced by Trump as being a “shaky & unattractive wack job” after she wrote that members of his inner circle were hesitant about his re-election chances. Trump also called her “dumb as a rock.” The Independent, [12/27/22]
- ## Trump has also prevented journalists from attending events over personal vendettas
- Over the course of Trump’s presidency, he repeatedly pressed for “retaliatory action” to be taken against journalists for “shouting questions” at him and bringing up topics he didn’t approve of. For instance, CNN reporter Kaitlan Collins was banned from a White House event after she questioned the president on his relationship with former attorney Michael Cohen. The Washington Post, [7/25/18, 7/27/18]
- CNN sued the Trump administration after its White House correspondent Jim Acosta’s press credentials were removed over accusations that he had placed his hands on a White House intern who attempted to take away his microphone.Although the administration eventually backed down and reinstated Acosta’s credentials, Trump moved to implement a series of “regulations” for reporters to follow. The New York Times, [11/13/18, 11/19/18]
- Trump’s re-election campaign refused to credential Bloomberg reporters after the outlet said it would not “investigate” Michael Bloomberg or other 2020 Democratic candidates. Then-campaign manager Brad Parscale said this would be the policy until Bloomberg News “publicly rescind[ed]” its decision to not investigate. NBC News, [12/2/19]
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12 23 an
Kash Patel, who was a counterterrorism official on former President Donald Trump's National Security Council, made a pledge to lead a "bench" of "all-America patriots" to prosecute journalists if his former boss wins a second term in the White House.
"We will go out and find the conspirators, not just in government but in the media," Patel said in a recent appearance on former Trump adviser Steve Bannon's podcast. "Yes, we’re going to come after the people in the media who lied about American citizens, who helped Joe Biden rig presidential elections — we’re going to come after you. Whether it’s criminally or civilly, we’ll figure that out."
When the New York Times reached out to Patel to clarify his remarks, his spokeswoman, Erica Knight, sent the Times a statement from Patel: "When President Trump takes office in 2025, we will prosecute anyone that broke the law and end the weaponized, two tier system of justice."
Patel's remarks about prosecuting journalists are in line with the former president's statements about media networks critical of his policies. In a November post to his Truth Social account, Trump said the "government should come down hard" on MSNBC and "make them pay" for the network's reporting on the ex-president.
"MSNBC (MSDNC) uses FREE government approved airwaves, and yet it is nothing but a 24 hour hit job on Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party for purposes of ELECTION INTERFERENCE," Trump wrote. "Brian Roberts, its Chairman and CEO, is a slimeball who has been able to get away with these constant attacks for years. It is the world’s biggest political contribution to the Radical Left Democrats who, by the way, are destroying our Country."
Trump has routinely targeted the media, and has referred to journalists as the "enemy of the people" since 2018. That same year, Florida man Cesar Sayoc, who was described as a "Donald Trump superfan," sent 16 pipe bombs to CNN's offices along with multiple prominent Democrats. He was ultimately sentenced to 20 years in prison.
In addition to the media, Trump himself has vowed to weaponize the machinery of the federal government against his political enemies if given a second term. The Times reported that Trump particularly wants to direct the Department of Justice to prosecute opponents like President Joe Biden, even promising to appoint a special prosecutor to hound both the president and his family.
also legal supp?
ymail 11 23
stephen Miller, the notorious advisor to former president Donald Trump, suggested on X yesterday that a "conservative state Attorney[] General" should pursue civil and criminal charges against Media Matters. Miller claims that Media Matters committed "fraud" by reporting that X was displaying ads from major brands next to white nationalist and neo-Nazi posts. X has accused Media Matters of "completely misrepresent[ing] the real user experience on X." But, according to X's own statement, all Media Matters did was create an account, follow some users, and observe what ads were displayed.
Musk, a self-described "free speech absolutist," responded favorably to Miller's proposal to subject journalists to criminal prosecution, declaring it "interesting." But the idea that Media Matters' conduct is legally actionable is absurd, especially since X has already admitted that ads were displayed next to the posts identified by Media Matters.
Nevertheless, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (R) took Miller up on his suggestion. "My team is looking into this matter," Bailey posted in response to Musk.
Bailey expanded on his investigation of Media Matters' reporting in an interview on Newsmax, a far-right cable channel:
The Missouri Attorney General's Office is tasked in statute with protecting Missouri consumers. That means consumers that participate on social media platforms as well. And so if we have an instance where there was a deceptive or fraudulent business practice where Media Matters was using some sort of coercive or fraudulent algorithms or advertising, that's going to be problematic on the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act.
It does not appear that Bailey gave this "investigation" much thought. Media Matters’ conduct did not involve "fraudulent algorithms" or "advertising." And the Missouri Merchandising Practices Act only applies to "the sale or advertisement of any merchandise in trade or commerce." Media Matters was not selling anything.
But Bailey's announcement should not come as a surprise. Bailey has never been elected by the people of Missouri. He was appointed to his position in January by Missouri Governor Mike Parson (R). Since then, Bailey has brazenly exceeded the legal authority of his office to grab headlines. Bailey is running for a full term in 2024 and is seeking to make sure he is not outflanked from the right in the Republican primary.
Bailey circumvents legislature, announces "emergency" rule on trans medical care
In March 2023, Bailey announced that he was unilaterally implementing emergency regulations that would impose severe restrictions on transgender hormone therapy for children and adults. What authority did Bailey cite to justify circumventing the legislature? The Missouri Merchandising Practices Act. Bailey's actions were condemned by Democrats and Republicans.
Bailey proposed requiring 15 hourly therapy sessions over 18 months before any person could receive hormone therapy. Doctors would also need to certify that "for at least the 3 most recent consecutive years, the patient has exhibited a medically documented, long-lasting, persistent and intense pattern of gender dysphoria" and "any existing mental health comorbidities of the patient have been treated and resolved." Further, doctors would need to have in place a system to monitor "all patients beginning the first day of intervention and continuing for a period of not fewer than 15 years."
Bailey claimed he had the authority to issue these rules — the first in the country limiting hormone therapy for adults — because "gender transition interventions are experimental and have significant side effects." But hormone therapy and other gender-affirming treatments are not experimental. They have existed for decades and are supported as medically necessary by the American Medical Association, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American Psychiatric Association.
Prominent Missouri Republicans harshly criticized Bailey's efforts. Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft (R) blasted Bailey for exceeding his authority. "If you're an adult, you have the capacity to make your own decisions," Ashcroft said. "I don't believe it's the role of [the] government to forbid it."
Trans advocates sued to block Bailey's rule, and it was temporarily blocked by a state judge. In May, the Missouri legislature then passed a bill banning gender-affirming care for minors. Shortly thereafter, facing increasing criticism from all sides, Bailey withdrew the rule.
Bailey claimed protecting reproductive rights in Missouri would cost taxpayers $50 billion
Reproductive rights supporters are seeking to put the Missouri Right to Reproductive Freedom Amendment on the state ballot in 2024. (Missouri banned most abortions after the Supreme Court overturned Roe). The amendment would enshrine "the right to make and carry out decisions about all matters relating to reproductive health care," including abortion, in the Missouri Constitution. Reasonable restrictions on abortions after "fetal viability" would be permitted.
Bailey's role in this matter is very limited. Before the organizers can collect signatures, Bailey must certify that "the proposed ballot language isn't more than 50 words, and that it includes the auditor's cost estimate." Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick (R), an abortion opponent, estimated that the amendment would cost the state about $51,000 annually.
"Even though I would prefer to be able to say these initiative petitions will cost the state billions of dollars, I have a responsibility to the people of Missouri to not allow my personal beliefs to prevent the Auditor’s office from providing a fair cost estimate based on facts," Fitzpatrick said.
Bailey, however, refused to certify the amendment because he claimed the real cost was not $51,000, but over $50 billion. According to Bailey, if the state protected abortion rights, it would lose $12.5 billion in Medicaid funding. (This is not true.) Bailey also claimed that the amendment would "cost the state billions more in lost revenue because future taxpayers wouldn't be born." A state judge rejected both of those arguments.
Undeterred, Bailey then claimed the cost of another proposed constitutional amendment protecting reproductive rights was $21 million. Bailey said that, as an opponent of abortion rights, he could not in good conscience defend the amendment as Missouri's Attorney General. Therefore, he would have to hire outside counsel to do his job. Those lawyers, Bailey claimed, would cost $21 million annually. That figure was included in the descriptions of the amendment for voters drafted by Secretary of State Ashcroft.
Bailey's unprecedented effort to overturn a manslaughter conviction
Earlier this summer, Bailey asked a judge to throw out the conviction of a white police officer who killed a 26-year-old Black man outside his home in 2019. The former detective, Eric DeValkenaere, was found guilty of “second-degree manslaughter and armed criminal action” in the death of Cameron Lamb. DeValkenaere claimed that he fired his gun after Lamb pointed a gun at his partner, Troy Schwalm. But a judge rejected this defense, arguing that the officers “had no probable cause to believe [Lamb] had committed a crime, had no warrant for Lamb’s arrest and had no search warrant or consent to be on the property,” the AP reported. Prosecutors also claimed that the officers planted a gun on Lamb after the shooting.
Bailey, however, insists the conviction was based on insufficient evidence. “DeValkenaere’s use of force was reasonable in light of Mr. Lamb’s use of deadly force against Schwalm, and the court erred as a matter of fact and law in determining that Schwalm and DeValkenaere were the initial aggressors,” Bailey’s office argued.
But experts say that Bailey’s move is unusual. As the Kansas City Star wrote, the state’s Attorney General office “has historically fought to defend convictions.” Jean Peters Baker, the prosecutor whose office secured the conviction, called the reversal “unprecedented” and “disappointing.”
“I’ve been doing this work for 40 years. And I can just say, I’ve not been involved — in the scores and scores and scores of murder cases I’ve tried — where the attorney general came in and filed a brief seeking to reverse a conviction I obtained,” Tim Dollar, a private attorney who assisted with the prosecution, said.
In October, a three-judge panel rejected Bailey's position and "ruled unanimously that there had been enough evidence" for a conviction. DeValkenaere began serving his six-year sentence that month after spending two years free on bond while his appeal was pending.
---
//
10 23 an
in a now-viral video, Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) — the fourth speaker designate from the House Republican Conference since the ouster of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-California) — declined to answer a question about his refusal to certify the results of the 2020 election on January 6, 2021. Perhaps more alarmingly, his Republican colleagues booed the reporter who asked the question and even told her to "shut up."
"Mr. Johnson, you helped lead the efforts to overturn the 2020 election," the reporter said before being drowned out by the House Republican Conference's boos and jeers. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-Louisiana), who himself dropped out of the speaker's race after failing to capture 217 Republican votes, can be seen saying "next question."
"Shut up! Shut up!" Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) yelled at the reporter.
According to NBC News, staffers for former Congresswoman Liz Cheney (R-Wyoming) on Tuesday circulated a New York Times article about Johnson's role as "the most important architect of the Electoral College objections." The article described Johnson as not only one of the 139 members of the House of Representatives who voted against certifying the results of the election, but as someone who created an argument that allowed Trump loyalists to cloak their objection to Biden's victory in legal pedantry.
"On the eve of the Jan. 6 votes, [Johnson] presented colleagues with what he called a 'third option.' He faulted the way some states had changed voting procedures during the pandemic, saying it was unconstitutional, without supporting the outlandish claims of Mr. Trump’s most vocal supporters," the article read. "His Republican critics called it a Trojan horse that allowed lawmakers to vote with the president while hiding behind a more defensible case."
Johnson's refusal to answer the reporter's question about his objection to the 2020 election, and his colleagues' shouting down of the question, prompted disgust from prominent journalists on X (formerly Twitter).
"This clip should haunt your dreams," USA TODAY columnist Rex Huppke tweeted. "It's a political party gleefully hitting rock bottom without the slightest regard for democracy."
READ MORE:House Republicans so frustrated with lack of leadership that some are threatening to quit
"They're mad at the journalist for asking because they know the answer makes them look bad," tweeted Vanity Fair special correspondent Molly Jong-Fast.
"Boos and jeers don't make questions suddenly disappear," CBS News' Robert Costa said.
"Great time capsule stuff," tweeted Politico columnist Jonathan Martin.
Watch the video below, or via this link.
https://www.alternet.org/clarence-thomas-2665874908/
huh?
https://www.alternet.org/police-raid/ kansas 8 23
https://www.alternet.org/russian-officials-charge-wsj-reporter/
enemy of the ppl?!
an 4 23 // alt rt macho shitposting? newspaper editor and son; i know 3 hit men
https://www.alternet.org/appalled-and-disheartened-oklahoma-governor-demands-resignation-of-officials-who-condoned-and-lynching/
===
https://www.alternet.org/mercenary-boss-reporter-disturbing-message/
an 3 23 no lnx
no lnx
'Check the torture cellar': Russian mercenary boss leaves U.S. reporter disturbing message about a 'corpse'
Maya Boddie March 30, 2023
Russian mercenary leader and Vladimir Putin's "chef", Yevgeny Prigozhin, sent a disturbing audio message Thursday, in response to The Daily Beast reporter, Allison Quinn's, question regarding the Russian Wagner Group.
:{
"Dear Allison, baby, you are asking too many questions today," the private military company boss said in the message. "I am busy searching my garden plot for the corpse of your colleague, and you are asking me about some new events."}:
The Daily Beast reports:
Prigozhin's ominous statement about corpse-hunting in his garden is likely a reference to an earlier message the mercenary boss provided to The Daily Beast, when asked about the arrest of Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich.
READ MORE: Vladimir Putin's 'chef' says his mercenaries 'will take Bakhmut anyway' despite Kremlin's 'envy'
:{Prigozhin told The Daily Beast he would "check the torture cellar in my house to see if he's there" – referring to Gershkovich.
"At first glance, I didn't see him among the American journalists I keep there by the dozens. I can, if you want, also look at the fresh graves of foreign journalists on my house plot. But if I’m not mistaken, we didn’t bury him there either," he said.
U.S citizen Gershkovich, according to The Daily Beast, was arrested and "detained in the west-central city of Yekaterinburg," Thursday, "the Federal Security Service confirmed to state media." The reporter was "suspected of spying in the interests of the U.S. government."}:
The Wall Street Journal reports President Joe Biden "was briefed on the detention of Mr. Gershkovich, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters," and "she reiterated earlier State Department warnings that Americans are urged to avoid traveling to Russia."
READ MORE: Why Putin may be trying to 'weaken' a 'paramilitary mercenary' group he hired to fight in Ukraine: report
"We've been very clear about Americans not going to Russia. It is not safe," Jean-Pierre said.
Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, said, "In the strongest possible terms, we condemn the Kremlin’s continued attempts to intimidate, repress, and punish journalists and civil society voices."
READ MORE: 'Carefully, precisely, surgically': Russian oligarch tied to Putin admits to interfering in US elections
The Daily Beast's full report is available at this link (subscription required). The Wall Street Journal's full report is here (subscription required).
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Why Putin may be trying to 'weaken' a 'paramilitary mercenary' group he hired to fight in Ukraine: report ›
Vladimir Putin's 'chef' says his mercenaries 'will take Bakhmut anyway' despite Kremlin's 'envy' ›
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an 3 23
no lnx
reporter has been terminated from Axios after describing Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis' (R) recent event as "propaganda."
According to The Washington Post, Ben Montgomery issued a response to an email where he was asked about DeSantis' recent roundtable discussion "exposing the diversity equity and inclusion scam in higher education."
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DeSantis also released a statement saying, "We will expose the scams they are trying to push onto students across the country."
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READ MORE: Florida teacher who posted empty library shelves fired day after DeSantis claimed it was a 'fake narrative'
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Responding to the email, Montgomery described the event as "propaganda" in a statement to the press office for the U.S. Department of Education.
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"This is propaganda, not a press release," Montgomery said.
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Per the news outlet, Montgomery also said the news release had "'no substance,' adding that he 'read the whole thing and it was just a series of quotes about how bad DEI was.'"
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Speaking about the incident, Montgomery weighed in with his reaction to the termination saying, "It's incredibly important that their organizations stand up on their behalf and realize that this is nothing but a political tactic to gain right-wing votes and disrupt the lives of hard-working journalists."
READ MORE: How a determined Ron DeSantis is trying to 'seize ideological control' of education in Florida: journalist
He also shared his co-workers' reactions to his abrupt termination.
"It might seem like a little thing for a guy in Tampa, Fla., to be out of a job for a minute," Montgomery said. "But this has ripple effects for an administration that's really had their way with the press and run roughshod over a lot of people — good people."
READ MORE: 'Makes him look very small': GOP strategists question DeSantis’ 'ridiculous' anti-woke campaign against the NHL
The Washinton Post's full report is available here (subscription required).
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an 3 23
https://www.alternet.org/ron-desantis-2659533898/
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2023/1316
no lnx
How DeSantis declared war on the last century’s 'most important 1st Amendment decision': legal analyst
Alex Henderson March 08, 2023
Gov. Ron DeSantis and his MAGA Republican allies in the Florida State Legislature have made no secret of their disdain for the mainstream media. During a roundtable discussion that he hosted in February, DeSantis argued that it should be easier to sue journalists for defamation. And a Republican ally, Florida State Rep. Alex Andrade, later proposed a bill that would do exactly that: Florida House Bill 951.
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Andrade's bill would be a blatant violation of New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court decision that set a tough standard for proving defamation. Under Sullivan, defamation must involve "actual malice," which is very difficult to prove. Dominion Voting Systems is trying to show "actual malice" in its $1.6 billion defamation lawsuit against right-wing Fox News, and ironically, the voting technology company would have an easier time proving its case if the High Court overturned Sullivan and agreed with Andrade's bill. Andrade and DeSantis believe that Sullivan was wrongly decided.
Meanwhile, Florida State Sen. Jason Brodeur (another Republican DeSantis ally) has proposed a bill that would require bloggers who write about state officials to register with the state government and file regular reports on their activities. Even former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Georgia) has slammed the Brodeur-sponsored Florida Senate Bill 1316 as unconstitutional, tweeting, "The idea that bloggers criticizing a politician should register with the government is insane. It is an embarrassment that it is a Republican state legislator in Florida who introduced a bill to that effect. He should withdraw it immediately."
READ MORE: Civil libertarians slam Ron DeSantis’ 'brazen and blatantly unconstitutional' war on press freedom
In a scathing op-ed published by The Guardian on March 7, journalist Trevor Timm — executive director and co-founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation — warns that DeSantis and his allies have declared an all-out war on the U.S. Constitution's 1st Amendment. And Timm is as critical of Andrade's bill as he is of Brodeur's.
"Ron DeSantis, the Florida governor, and his cronies, not content with destroying free speech in public schools, have set for themselves a new target: destroying press freedom and every Floridian's right to criticize public officials," Timm argues. "Along the way, they aim to overturn the most important 1st Amendment U.S. Supreme Court decision of the 20th Century."
The decision that Timm is referring to is, of course, New York Times v. Sullivan. Timm notes that DeSantis and his allies are hoping to "weaken the 'actual malice' standard from Sullivan, to make it easier for public officials to sue newspapers or critics."
"Now, can states just pass laws that blatantly ignore Supreme Court precedent? Of course not," Timm explains. "Any responsible judge would strike this down as unconstitutional right away. But DeSantis may be hoping for a friendly appeals court ruling from a Trump-appointed judge or Supreme Court showdown to revisit the Sullivan ruling — following the same decades-long Republican strategy that finally overturned Roe v. Wade. And in the meantime, DeSantis can burnish his anti-media bona fides for his presidential run, and Republican legislatures around the country can use the opportunity to copy the bill or one-up him."
READ MORE: FL GOP bill would 'allow government officials to harass and bankrupt' opposers with defamation lawsuits
Timm points out that "many legal scholars consider" Sullivan the greatest 1st Amendment victory of "the last century" — a victory that DeSantis and his allies would like to roll back.
"It is one of the primary reasons newspapers in the U.S. can aggressively report on public officials and powerful wealthy individuals without the constant fear that they are going to be sued out of existence," Timm observes. "And up until a few years ago, when Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch started criticizing it, everyone assumed it was settled law."
Timm compares Brodeur's blogger bill to a draconian law that was passed under President Vladimir Putin in Russia in 2014.
"The proposed law, authored by state legislator Jason Brodeur, would — I kid you not — compel 'bloggers' who criticize the governor, other officers of the executive branch, or members of the legislature to register with the State of Florida," Timm observes. "Under the bill, anyone paid to write on the internet would have to file monthly reports every time they utter a government official's name in a critical manner. If not, they'd face potentially thousands of dollars in fines. It's a policy so chilling that it would make Vladimir Putin proud, and I wish that was hyperbole."
Timm continues, "In 2014, Russia's autocratic leader signed a very similar provision, then known as the 'blogger’s law.' As The Verge explained at the time, 'under it, any blogger with more than 3000 readers is required to register with the Roskomnadzor, Russia’s media oversight agency."
The agency that Brodeur has proposed would be similar to the pro-Putin Roskomnadzor, Timm argues.
"DeSantis has turned Florida into a national laboratory for speech suppression," the journalist warns. "And every American, Republican or Democrat, should be horrified."
READ MORE: How an overtly 'authoritarian' Florida GOP bill is designed to silence anti-DeSantis bloggers: journalist
Read Trevor Timm’s full op-ed for The Guardian at this link.
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press suppress
https://www.alternet.org/afraid-of-press**-ron-desantis/**
biz insider
no pix lnx twt
'You are a scumbag': Marjorie Taylor Greene's closest confidante believes tormenting the media is part of the gig
Warren Rojas May 27, 2021,
Nick Dyer with Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. Win McNamee/Getty Images
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene's spokesman has worked in politics for nearly a decade.
Nick Dyer's recent spat with Rep. Eric Swalwell thrust the Texas native into the spotlight.
Tormenting the media is part of the gig.
Boundaries mean little to the self-styled iconoclast Nick Dyer.
The communications director for Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the loose cannon whom disaffected Georgians entrusted with representing them in Washington, recently took it upon himself to confront Rep. Eric Swalwell about the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's sudden about-face on pandemic-related mask-wearing requirements.
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"You don't tell me what to f---ing do," said Swalwell, a California Democrat who served as an impeachment manager earlier this year during the House's historic second rebuke of then-President Donald Trump.
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Some might find midday shouting matches in the halls of Congress disheartening.
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It was just another day in the social-media-content mines for Team Greene, which immediately ran to Twitter to discredit every account of the exchange but its own.
Much like his boss, Dyer uses social media to lash out at all types of enemies. He probably devotes more time to it now via @RealNickDyer than he did on a since deleted account (@MrNickDyer) from a decade ago. But it's hard to tell for sure since only snippets of that past online persona — a big part of which was hyping Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul really hard — are still floating around.
Rand Paul flags
Sen. Rand Paul. Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images
All in a day's work
Dyer's first brush with Congress came via his work on Ted Cruz's debut campaign. A legislative biography lists Dyer, a Texas native, as the deputy state field director for the now two-term Texas Republican's initial bid for higher office in 2012.
After that Dyer took on a new challenge: Dr. Greg Brannon, a tea-party challenger who ran for House and Senate seats in North Carolina, losing three primaries from 2014 to 2016. Archived tweets from that era display myriad interests. Short-term distractions include a History Channel miniseries about the American Revolution and Super Bowl 49, while his hero worship of Paul and aversion to Hillary Clinton emerge as recurring themes.
The last snapshot of the now defunct account shows it was locked, meaning closed off from public inspection, when August 2017 rolled around. By then, the bio info had been changed to: "WE DID IT! #MAGA." In April 2015, it led with "Ted Cruz Alum."
How he filled this time between then and now is an open question.
Dyer did not respond to a request for comment about how he came to work for Greene or the scope of his duties in her congressional office as the Georgia Republican quickly rises to celebrity status far beyond Washington.
What he's up to these days is somewhat part of the public records, though holes still exist.
Dyer has issued 35 press releases on Greene's behalf since the 117th Congress got underway, averaging about two a week since the nascent pol was sworn in in January.
Those missives have included highlights from floor speeches, redirects to Greene-related videos, and one-liners about general housekeeping issues. Still, Dyer's well ahead of the exclusively press-focused shop supporting Greene's fellow freshmanRep. Madison Cawthorn, a Republican of North Carolina who prioritizes "comms rather than legislation," Time magazine first reported. Cawthorn's flacks have produced 17 press releases so far this year.
By comparison, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has pumped out 80 press releases (and counting) during the latest session — some of which were mandated by Greene-sparked scandals past and present. In February, McCarthy attempted to smooth over her penchant for conspiracy theories.
Kevin McCarthy down
This week, the California Republican had to weigh in on Greene equating COVID-19-related safety protocols to the Holocaust.
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"Marjorie is wrong, and her intentional decision to compare the horrors of the Holocaust with wearing masks is appalling. The Holocaust is the greatest atrocity committed in history," McCarthy said in an official statement. "The fact that this needs to be stated today is deeply troubling."
Never one to take criticism lightly, Greene via Dyer blasted out a response plucked straight from Trump's punch-back-harder playbook: deflect blame, denounce socialism, and duck responsibility.
"I'm sorry some of my words make people uncomfortable, but this is what the American left is all about," Greene said in a release lumping congressional Democrats in with "the great tyrants of history."
Knives out
Dyer's dealings with the press have been adversarial, to say the least.
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In January, a television crew from WRCB, a Chattanooga, Tennessee, NBC affiliate that broadcasts in Greene's northwest Georgia district, was barred from asking questions of Greene or her constituents.It was also threatened with arrest at the invite-only town hall the reporters had been credentialed for.
"This was a town hall for constituents. Not a press conference," Dyer told the Associated Press by email. "Every attendee (besides media) was allowed to ask a question and Congresswoman Greene answered every question."
Dyer did not respond to Insider's request for comment about whether restricting media access was his idea or the brainchild of Greene's like-minded chief of staff, Patrick Parsons.
A month later, the Politico writer Michael Kruse published a story tracing Greene's meandering journey from disillusioned suburban mom to conservative bomb thrower.
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"You are a scumbag, Michael," was Dyer's only contribution to the nearly 6,700-word opus.
The animosity carries over to his Twitter feed. That's where Dyer curates a personal-enemies list in real time.
One of his most frequent targets in the news business is theCNN anchor Jake Tapper.
Jake Tapper debate
But Dyer will, from time to time, go after the biggest newspaper in Greene's home state or the media in general.
Dyer roasts foes from either side of the aisle, appearing to derive no less pleasure from trumpeting Rep. Liz Cheney's ouster from House Republican leadership for unapologetically bad-mouthing Trump than he does from talking down to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a Democrat of New York.
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The connective tissue between his deleted Twitter account and his current soapbox? Reveling in others' misery.
In June 2014, Dyer managed to swipe at two leading Republican figures. In a comment captured by Talking Points Memo, he took digs at both South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, who had just pulled out a GOP primary win over more conservative challengers, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, who'd just been picked off by the tea-party poster boy Dave Brat.
"Much more important that Cantor lost than Graham winning," he wrote on that now defunct Twitter account.
an ah 2 23
During his four years in the White House, former President Donald Trump repeatedly attacked the mainstream media as "the enemy of the people" and dismissed any reporting he didn’t like as "fake news." And others in the MAGA movement haven’t been shy about echoing that type of rhetoric.
Kari Lake, the far-right MAGA Republican who lost to Democratic now-Arizona Gov. Katie Hobbs in the 2022 midterms, described the mainstream media as "evil bastards" during a Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) speech. And she vowed to be the mainstream media's "worst freaking nightmare" when she was campaigning for governor. Lake’s critics responded that her willingness to threaten journalists underscored her authoritarian mindset.
Now, another MAGA Republican, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, and his GOP allies in the Florida State Legislature — including State Rep. Alex Andrade — are hoping to make it easier to sue journalists for defamation. Andrade has sponsored a bill that, according to Politico’s Matt Dixon, would "weaken state laws that have long protected journalists against defamation suits and frivolous lawsuits."
READ MORE: 'I struck a nerve': Robert Reich lays out a case for calling Ron DeSantis a 'fascist'
In an article published by Politico on February 23, Dixon reports that Andrade's bill — which he has been discussing with DeSantis’ office — is "being positioned to spark a larger legal battle with the goal of eventually overturning New York Times v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that limits public officials' ability to sue publishers for defamation."
Andrade, a critic of the New York Times v. Sullivan decision, told Politico, "There is a strong argument to be made that the Supreme Court overreached. This is not the government shutting down free speech. This is a private cause of action."
Handed down by Warren Court 59 years ago, Sullivan was very clear about what does and doesn’t constitute defamation. According to Sullivan, defamation must involve "actual malice" — which isn’t easy to prove. Dominion Voting Systems is trying to prove "actual malice" in its defamation lawsuits against Fox News, Newsmax TV and others who, in 2020, promoted the false, thoroughly debunked conspiracy theory that Dominion’s voting equipment was used to help now-President Joe Biden steal the election from Trump.
Sullivan, a unanimous 9-0 ruling by the late Chief Justice Earl Warren and his colleagues, doesn’t offer protections for outright lies, but it offers considerable protections for edgy commentary — including the type of incendiary comments that are common at right-wing media outlets. Warren was a Republican appointee of GOP President Dwight D. Eisenhower, but his views are detested by today’s MAGA Republicans, social conservatives and far-right white evangelical Christian fundamentalists.
READ MORE:Florida judge rules against Ron DeSantis in firing of state attorney
Seth Stern, who serves as director of advocacy for the Freedom of the Press Foundation, views Andrade's bill as overtly authoritarian.
Stern told Politico, "I have never seen anything remotely like this legislation. I can't say I have seen every bill ever introduced, but I’d be quite surprised if any state legislature had seriously considered such a brazen and blatantly unconstitutional attack on speech and press freedoms…. This bill is particularly remarkable since its provisions have the vocal support of a governor and likely presidential candidate."
On Tuesday, February 7, Florida's governor held a roundtable discussion where he railed against the mainstream media and argued that it should be easier to sue publications for defamation.
Dixon notes, "Andrade’s proposal incorporates many of the elements DeSantis called for during the roundtable, including allowing plaintiffs who sue media outlets for defamation to collect attorneys' fees; adding a provision to state law specifying that comments made by anonymous sources are presumed false for the purposes of defamation lawsuits; lowering the legal threshold for a 'public figure' to successfully sue for defamation; repealing the 'journalist’s privilege' section of state law, which protects journalists from being compelled to do things likereveal the identity of sources in court."
READ MORE: Ron DeSantis' huge step toward academic control
Read Politico’s full report at this link.
Gross and shady' firing of West Virginia reporter sparks bipartisan condemnation: report
Leaders from both political parties expressed outrage over the weekend following the "disturbing" December 20th firing of West Virginia Public Radio correspondent Amelia Ferrell...
IV. BIG OIL HAS TRIED TO AVOID ACCOUNTABILITY BY BULLYING
JOURNALISTS AND OBSTRUCTING THE COMMITTEE’S INVESTIGATION
A. Bullying Journalists Who Expose the Truth
:{
}:
Emails obtained by the Committee show Exxon privately pressured journalists about
unfavorable news stories implicating the industry. In October 2015, the Los Angeles Times
published two articles written by students as part of the Energy and Environmental Reporting
Project at the Columbia Journalism School. The articles, which drew on historic documents and
more recent interviews and statements from current and former Exxon employees, showed that
Exxon’s work to prepare its facilities for climate change belied its public statements
downplaying or denying climate science.89
Documents uncovered by the Committee suggest that Exxon baselessly accused a
Columbia Journalism instructor and a post-graduate fellow of wrongdoing in connection with
these stories. On November 20, 2015, Exxon sent a letter to Columbia University’s President
Lee Bollinger, criticizing the articles and alleging ethics violations by the students and the
instructor. Exxon claimed that the journalists were made aware of “significant factual errors” in
the articles and gave the company “less than 24 hours” to respond to a request to comment on the
second story, published on October 23, 2015. 90
The letter singled out the team’s instructor
Susanne Rust for alleged inaccuracies and for not giving the company ample time to respond.
91
However, internal emails indicate that Exxon was given approximately a month to
comment on essential questions and facts of the story prior to the October 23, 2015, publication,
and that the company had resisted multiple requests by the team of journalists to provide detailed
responses.
92
Exxon also accused a post-graduate fellow, Sara Jerving, of “misrepresenting herself as a
Columbia Arctic researcher and [making] no mention of the fact that she was affiliated with the
89 Columbia Journalism School, Two-Year Long Investigation: What Exxon Knew About Climate Change
(online at https://journalism.columbia.edu/two-year-long-investigation-what-exxon-knew-about-climate-change)
(accessed Nov. 22, 2022). The first two articles in the series were published in October 2015. The first article,
What Exxon Knew About the Earth’s Melting Arctic, details how between 1986 and 1992 Exxon was already
planning for the impacts that global warming would have on its operations in the Artic, for example by hardening
infrastructure. The second article, How Exxon Went from Leader to Skeptic on Climate Change Research, reveals
how the company, contrary to its own research, “poured millions” into a public messaging campaign to sow doubt
about the science of climate change. The article asserted that, despite being a leader in climate research, the
company was publicly skeptical of climate change because it “feared a growing public consensus would lead to
financially burdensome policies.”
School of Journalism or that the research might eventually be published in a newspaper.”93
Internal Exxon emails contradict these claims as well. These emails show that the company
knew that Ms. Jerving had represented herself accurately as a journalism student at Columbia
University to the people she interviewed for the stories. 94
These exchanges also show industry insiders communicating with Exxon employees
about their skepticism and denial of the science of climate change. For example, Peter Noble, a
longtime oil and gas industry executive and consultant, wrote to Ken Croasdale, a former Exxon
employee and then-consultant for Exxon:
I see nothing inconsistent twitch [sic] your quote from 1991 when we didn’t knw [sic]
much about global climate change to Exxon’s current position in 2015 when we still
don’t know much about climate change even if our politicians claim it is “settled
science.” This is a cross we have to bear for our oil industry connections I guess? 95
Another oil and gas industry insider,Dan Masterson wrote to Mr. Croasdale:
The murky part of global warming and climate change seems to be whether it is
anthropogenic or related to other very long term [sic] changes not related to human
activity. I think the latter is the case and that the Exxon executives were correct in stating
that the science was “murky.”96
Shell’s internal documents similarly display a marked discomfort with press inquiries
into the company’s past and present climate efforts, even with journalists from whom they
expect positive coverage. In October 2016, David Hone, Shell’s Chief Climate Change Adviser,
and Curtis Smith, Media Manager for Shell, discussed how to deal with a damaging story about
climate denialism in the oil industry. Mr. Smith suggested reaching out to Paul Barrett from
Bloomberg Businessweek, describing him as “the fellow who wanted to do a deep dive in our
archives to prove Shell was a good actor in the climate space for a long time.” However, Mr.
93 Letter from Mr. Kenneth Cohen, Vice President, ExxonMobil, to Lee Bollinger, President, Columbia
University (Nov. 20, 2015) (online at www.politico.com/f/?id=00000151-5a8a-d6a2-a155-dbca213c0000).
94 In a series of emails, Exxon consultant Ken Croasdale asked his contacts about their interactions with
Ms. Jerving. In response, his contacts indicated they knew she was a journalist. For example, in an email from
Peter Noble to Ken Croasdale on October 14, 2015, Mr. Noble confirmed meeting with Ms. Jerving and that she
“[s]eemed like a nice young lady, a student of journalism at Columbia, I think she said but that just shows that I am
a poor predictor of character?” EM-HCOR3-00943385-90. Moreover, in emails from October 15, 2015, from Anne
Barker and Bob Frederking, a current employee and retired employee at the National Research Council of Canada,
both acknowledged they knew Ms. Jerving was affiliated with Columbia and that their interviews with her came
through the National Research Council’s communications group. EM-HCOR3-00943393-94. In an email from
October 15, 2015, Dan Masterson, another oil and gas industry contact of Mr. Croasdale’s, wrote that, according to
his diary entry, he “Met with Sara Jerving, a post-grad student in journalism at Colombia [sic] University. We
talked for about 1.5 hours re what I did in my career and what took place in the 1970’s, 1980’s and thru the 90’s to
now.” EM-HCOR3-00943410-11.
95 EM-HCOR3-00943388.
96 EM-HCOR3-00943411; see also BPA_HCOR_00029193-94 for BP’s treatment of later reporting from
the Energy and Environmental Reporting Project.
Smith ultimately explained that the deep dive never happened because “we sort of chickened
out” and chose not to give him access. 97
Despite an extensive public relations campaign detailing their clean energy strategy, Shell
executives were reluctant to engage with press questions comparing their investments in clean
energy to continued investments in fossil fuels. On October 8, 2021, Mr. Smith received an
inquiry from a Teen Vogue reporter who asked for comment on an op-ed “criticizing
publications for working with fossil fuel companies and lobbying groups.” The journalist
explained the disconnect between marketing and the fact that “fossil fuel companies’ clean
energy investments account for a small percentage of their total capital expenditure, compared to
investments into finding new pockets of oil and gas.” Mr. Smith responded internally to other
Shell employees, “Not with a ten foot pole.”98
B. Obstructing the Committee’s Investigation
The Committee launched its investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long
climate disinformation and greenwashing campaign in September 2021, requesting documents
from Exxon, Chevron, BP, Shell, API, and the Chamber of Commerce.99
an me 10 22
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is facing scrutiny for his latest attempt to criticize Democrats. Although he claimed "The Left is beyond parody," his attack fell flat when he was slammed for sharing a fake article that was photoshopped with reporter Abby Ohlheiser's old byline.
Blogger Parker Molloy has taken to Twitter with a series of fiery arguments laying out the case against Cruz and offering the Republican lawmaker a timeline for Ohlheiser, who is currently with The Washington Post — not The Atlantic.
"So, someone created a fake story, slapped [Abby Ohlheiser]'s byline on it even though they haven't worked at The Atlantic since 2014, which has led to a bombardment of harassment, and now a U.S. Senator is sharing said fake article," Molloy tweeted.
The write went on to further expound on the context of the fake story. "And when I say 'fake story,' I mean that the story literally does not exist," Molloy explained. It's just a mock-up that some right-wing troll made, and now these f°cking ghouls and liars like Ted Cruz are spreading it. 'Beyond parody,' Cruz says about something that isn't even real."
The writer added added, "Before Cruz tweeted it out, [Abby Ohlheiser] was already being smeared with antisemitic, transphobic BS from people insisting that the article was real. Cruz (who had FINALLY deleted his tweet) is only making it worse."
"One thing that's interesting, however: in their attempts to find a "real" article to smear [Abby Ohlheiser] with, they DID find a real headline... but because it was written by Conor [Friedersdorf] their conservative buddy, they changed the byline in their photo edits," Molloy also tweeted.
READ MORE: Ted Cruz says Obergefell was 'wrong when it was decided'
"Also, this isn't even necessarily photoshop," the writer explained. "Anyone can go in and create mock-ups of articles in their own browser, with the correct fonts and everything. Look, I did this on my phone. It's easy. It's fake."
Although Cruz appears to have removed his tweet, screenshots are still circulating.
READ MORE: 'Lacks principle': Liz Cheney torches 'chameleon' Ted Cruz over his attack on the FBI
see BORTAC
Operation Whistle Pig
In 2017, Jeffrey Rambo, a U.S. Customs and Border Protection agent working for the National Targeting Center, investigated Watkins, other journalistsincluding Martha Mendoza, and NGOs while on an assignment to combat forced labor in the Congo. The operation was called "Whistle Pig" and in addition to its own database trawling[46] it got the CBP’s Counter Network Division to provide information about Watkins' mother and brother and links to their public profiles, as well as details of Watkin's domestic and international travel. Rambo met Watkins under the fictitious name Jack Bentley, but Watkins obtained his real name from a credit card receipt. Watkins perceived Rambo's approach as a threat.[47]
In 2021, Watkins said: “I’m deeply troubled at the lengths CBP and DHS personnel apparently went to try and identify journalistic sources and dig into my personal life.”[48] A few days later, CBP launched an investigation.[49]
wiki 7 22
The National Targeting Center (NTC) is a division of U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP). It is based in Sterling, Virginia.[1] The NTC observes air traffic and trade activities,[2] gathers and vets intelligence, and is empowered to send e-mails requesting that U.S. citizens be detained and questioned.[3]
The National Targeting Center includes several divisions, including: NTC-Cargo, NTC-Passenger, Counter-Network, and National Targeting Center – Investigations (NTC-I). The latter was established in 2013.[4]
The NTC was initially established in 2001; its original name was Office of Border Security.[5]
In 2017, the NTC approached journalists "as part of a broader effort to get reporters to write about forced labor around the world as a national security issue." The journalists included Ali Watkins and Martha Mendoza.[6]
In 2021, CBP launched an investigation of the NTC's targeting of journalists, members of Congress, and others.[7]
https://progressive.org/magazine/how-the-biotech-industry-cultivates-positive-media/
july 2017
flaking for gmo's
On April 2016, Monica Eng of WBEZ, Chicago’s NPR station, published a critical story revealing that the agrichemical giant Monsanto had quietly paid a professor at the University of Illinois to travel, write, and speak about genetically modified organisms (GMOs), and even to lobby federal officials to halt further GMO regulation. In a grueling, year-long reporting project, Eng uncovered documents proving that Monsanto made the payments to University of Illinois professor Bruce Chassy, and that he advised Monsanto to deposit money in the university’s foundation, where records are shielded from public disclosure.
What she didn’t expect was the massive blowback: The university accused her of being an activist, not a journalist, and she was hounded by Twitter trolls who jumped on her story and waged a campaign to discredit her personally.“I knew that this would be a big story,” Eng says.
“I’ve worked as a professional journalist in Chicago for more than three decades,” Eng says. “I’ve uncovered questionable activity in government groups, nonprofits, and private companies. But I don’t think I have ever seen a group so intent on trying to personally attack the journalist covering the issue.”
Eng’s experience is just one example of a strategy first invented by Big Tobacco to smear critics, spin reporters, and tamp down information that could damage the industry’s image.
“I don’t think I have ever seen a group so intent on trying to personally attack the journalist covering the issue.”
—Monica Eng
In recent months, media outlets have reported on a disturbing trend of corporate-sponsored journalism. The British Medical Journal exposed a multiyear campaign by Coca-Cola to influence reporters covering obesity by secretly funding journalism conferences at the University of Colorado. The watchdog group Health News Review reported that two journalism professors at the University of Kansas asked more than 1,100 health-care reporters about their views on opioids in a survey that was funded, in part, by the Center for Practical Bioethics, a group the U.S. Senate Finance Committee investigated for its ties to opioid manufacturers.
The biotech industry is particularly focused on taming controversies surrounding GMOs and the chemicals that are used on genetically modified crops, including Monsanto’s weedkiller glyphosate. The world’s most widely used herbicide, glyphosate is critical for the successful cultivation of GMO corn and soybeans. A recent study found that the chemical’s use by farmers has jumped fifteen-fold since 1996. The World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has identified glyphosate as “probably carcinogenic to humans.”
In January, a judge overruled Monsanto’s objections, and the state of California will add a label with a cancer warning to the popular glyphosate-based weed killer RoundUp. The Inspector General for the Environmental Protection Agency just announced he is investigating whether a former high-ranking EPA official colluded with Monsanto. In addition to filing lawsuits and hiring lobbyists, the chemical industry is deploying industry-allied scientists and using pro-GMO websites to discredit journalists covering glyphosate and GMOs.
New York Times investigative reporter Danny Hakim has dealt with online abuse in recent months for writing articles critical of the agrichemical industry. Google Hakim’s name and you find little mention of seventeen years at the Times, during which time he won a Pulitzer Prize. Instead, you’ll find articles criticizing his reporting at sites like the American Council on Science and Health (“Glyphosate: NYT’s Danny Hakim Is Lying to You”) and the Genetic Literacy Project (“Why Danny Hakim’s New York Times GMO exposé misleads”).
“The industry’s PR campaign to reframe the GMO debate and intimidate journalists through harassment and name-calling has been remarkably successful in my view,” says food author and journalism professor Michael Pollan. “I think this is partly a function of the political and public relations naiveté of many of my fellow science writers.”
One tactic industry allies employ to discredit questions about GMOs is to narrow the discussion to food safety. Pro-GMO scientists and writers mock experts and critics, by portraying them as loonies who think eating a bag of corn chips is akin to ingesting a bottle of arsenic. But this is a misleading line of attack, since GMO concerns are wide-ranging, including how well they are tested for safety, their impact on agriculture and the ecosystem, and the toxicity of glyphosate.
“The industry’s PR campaign to reframe the GMO debate and intimidate journalists through harassment and name-calling has been remarkably successful in my view...”
—Michael Pollan.
Most of all, there is legitimate debate about whether industry should be engineering a crop that requires the heavy use of pesticides. Industry and its allies attempt to discredit such questions by comparing GMO critics to climate denialists and vaccine safety denialists.
Hints of the biotech industry’s media tactics have leaked from court cases filed against Monsanto alleging glyphosate causes cancer. Several filings reference internal Monsanto documents that describe the company’s social media strategy called “Let Nothing Go”—a program in which individuals who appear to have no connection to the industry rapidly respond to negative social media posts regarding Monsanto, GMOs, and agrichemicals.
Lawyers in one case told a judge that documents show Monsanto funnels money to the Genetic Literacy Project and the American Council on Science and Health in order to “shame scientists and highlight information helpful to Monsanto and other chemical producers.”
Industry has also secretly funded a series of conferences to train scientists and journalists to frame the debate over GMOs and the toxicity of glyphosate. The most widely attended of these events happened in 2014 at the University of Florida and in 2015 at University of California-Davis. In emails, organizers referred to these conferences as biotech literacy bootcamps, and journalists are described as “partners.” Organizers included the chairman of the horticultural sciences department at the University of Florida, Kevin Folta, the Genetic Literacy Project’s Jon Entine, University of Illinois’s Bruce Chassy, and consultant Cami Ryan.
While claiming to be “independent” of industry influence, Folta was exposed in The New York Times for taking money from Monsanto to promote GMOs. Shortly before the Timesarticle reported on his connection to Monsanto, Folta’s university declared its intention to donate these undisclosed payments to charity.
Entine was affiliated with a now-defunct group called STATS, which promoted positive messages about chemicals and provided communications support for tobacco companies. Last year, Entine wrote an article attacking professors at Columbia Journalism School for their investigationsof ExxonMobil’s involvement in climate change denial. Years ago, an article in *The New Yorker* reported on Entine’s apparent involvement in the industry’s coordinated condemnation of a professor at University of California-Berkeley, whose research is critical of pesticides.
Besides receiving money to help Monsanto, Chassy runs Academics Review,a site suggested to him by an executive at Monsanto who emailed, “The key will be keeping Monsanto in the background so as not to harm the credibility of the information.”
After helping plan the first conference, Cami Ryan later took a job with Monsanto.
“These are distressing materials,” says Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, after reviewing documents and emails about the conferences. Oreskes says the involvement of the American Council on Science and Health is especially problematic, given its long history of undermining the science on chemical safety and pesticides. She added: “It is clearly intended to persuade people that GMO crops are beneficial, needed, and not sufficiently risky to justify labeling.”
After early discussions in 2013, Entine later emailed Folta, Chassy, and Ryan noting that the conferences needed to include people “strategically located” in key states where political battles over GMO foods were occurring. Entine added that once the program is figured out, “I’ll take on proposing the handful of journalists and media experts that we would hope to bring on board.”
When a journalist asked who was behind the 2015 conference at UC-Davis, Entine wrote that the biotech literacy events had university sponsorship, as well as support from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the State Department, and Academics Review, which gets some industry support. In an email to several scientists, Chassy also claimed that universities and U.S. federal agencies were funding the literacy bootcamp conferences, and said the honoraria for presenters would be $2,500. Chassy added, “Journalists aren’t inexpensive.”
But both the University of Florida and UC-Davis denied financially supporting these conferences. A spokesperson from the State Department said the agency merely sent a speaker to the 2014 conference at the University of Florida. After weeks of repeated requests, a spokesperson for the U.S. Department of Agriculture was unable to find evidence of the federal agency’s financial support for the conferences.
So where did the cash come from? It’s a twisted money trail.
An agreement signed by Entine states that the literacy bootcamp at UC-Davis anticipated having many expenses paid by the Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO). When contacted, BIO confirmed that it gave Academics Review $175,000 for the 2014 conference at the University of Florida and $165,000 for the 2015 conference at UC-Davis. But BIO added that the money was cycled through a nonprofit it operates called the Council on Biotechnology Information (CBI).In fact, the tax forms for CBI state that it gave a total of $300,000 to Academics Review in both 2014 and 2015. And tax forms for Academics Review, which Chassy runs with his wife, note that the group spent more than $160,000 on the UC-Davis conference in 2015.
In short, the only traceable money source is the biotech industry. So, what did industry money buy?
A flyer for the 2015 event at UC-Davis lists more than a dozen faculty, including Jay Byrne, a former public relations officer at Monsanto who now runs a PR firm that promotes GMOs. Also listed as faculty is Nina Fedoroff, a professor at Penn State, who also serves as a science adviser, and resident media critic, for a law firm that represents the biotech industry.
Among the attendees at the UC-Davis conference listed as “journalists” were Hank Campbell of the website Science 2.0, which regularly posts pro-GMO propaganda. Campbell is now president of the American Council on Science and Health, which attacks reporters for exposing scientists’ hidden ties to industry and the potential dangers of pesticides.
After reviewing conference documents, Marion Nestle, professor of nutrition, food studies, and public health at New York University, said, “If journalists attend conferences that they are paid to attend, they need to be deeply suspicious from the get-go.” She added that the conference organizers were likely trying to convince journalists that anyone questioning the safety of GMOs “is anti-science and in the same category as climate change deniers.”
Gary Schwitzer, who is the publisher of HealthNewsReview and an adjunct associate professor at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, is also concerned.
“Far too many journalists are sliding down the slippery slope of attending conferences that are sponsored by entities with financial interests,” he said. “This practice changes journalism [into] another form of pay-for-play.”
When asked about the funding for the bootcamps and the financial support from industry to his organization, Entine responded, “Sorry, I’ve never heard of you. I don’t respond to activists with no history of credible reporting.”
Folta said he understands the conferences were funded by BIO and he organized the events outside of work hours. “All of my funding, as always, is and has been fully disclosed in accordance with university policy,” he added.
In a statement to The Progressive, Monsanto wrote that the company collaborates with multiple organizations and provides financial support in a transparent manner to many industry organizations including CBI, of which the American Council on Science and Health is a supporting partner. Monsanto added that it does not provide funding to the Genetic Literacy Project, but ignored repeated questions about their financial support for the American Council on Science and Health.
Chassy did not respond to queries about funding for Academics Review and the biotech conferences. But he did join Entine and Folta in sending a letter to The Progressiveaccusing the author of unspecified “bias and harassment tactics” and “multiple false and potentially libelous insinuations and claims.”
“Many reporters are simply too intimidated and afraid to report on the health and environmental effects of the agrichemical industry and its products.”
Gary Ruskin is codirector of U.S. Right to Know, a nonprofit that works on transparency in the food industry and receives some funding from the Organic Consumers Association. His group first got public records of industry-supported conferences.“Many reporters are simply too intimidated and afraid to report on the health and environmental effects of the agrichemical industry and its products,” he says.
Industry tars public health advocates and reporters as anti-science for raising issues the public needs to understand. That should worry us all.
https://www.alternet.org/2021/05/customs-and-border-protection/ lawyer mex
pri pub
Taylor Levy couldn't understand why she'd been held for hours by Customs and Border Protection officials when crossing back into El Paso, Texas, after getting dinner with friends in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in January 2019. And she didn't know why she was being questioned by an agent who'd introduced himself as a counterterrorism specialist.
Levy was part of the legal team representing the father of a girl who'd died the previous month in the custody of the Border Patrol, which is part of CBP. “There was so much hate for immigration lawyers at that time," she recalled. “I thought that somebody had put in an anonymous tip that I was a terrorist."
The truth was more troubling. Newly released records show that Levy was swept up as part of a broader than previously known push by the administration of President Donald Trump to use the federal government's expansive powers at the border to stop and question journalists, lawyers and activists.
The records reveal that Levy and attorney Héctor Ruiz were interrogated by members of CBP's secretive Tactical Terrorism Response Team. The lawyers were suspected of “providing assistance" to the migrant caravan that was then the focus of significant attention by the administration and right-wing media. Officials speculated in later reports that immigration lawyers were seeking to profit by moving migrants through Mexico, and that “Antifa" may have been involved.
The records were provided to ProPublica by the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, a public interest law firm and advocacy group that received them after filing a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about the stops of Levy and Ruiz at the border in El Paso.
Following revelations two years ago by NBC 7 San Diego that some journalists and others were targeted for questioning when crossing from Tijuana, Mexico, the Trump administration maintained that the incidents were limited to San Diego and a handful of U.S. citizens. But the new documents prove the operation went further — and raise questions about how many others were targeted.
While the records are heavily redacted, they provide a window into exactly how the targeting worked. They also show that the push was based in part on claims that were simply wrong — for example, that Levy met with members of the caravan in Mexico while they were traveling towards the border.
“This whole thing is COINTELPRO for dummies," said Mohammad Tajsar, an attorney at the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to a notorious domestic spying program from decades ago. Tajsar is representing some of the San Diego activists who were stopped. An “intel-gathering apparatus was shared and deployed through a number of different agencies and resulted in a dragnet that ensnared a whole bunch of people."
Responding to questions from ProPublica, a CBP spokesperson said in a statement: “In response to incidents in November 2018 and January 2019, which included assaults against Border Patrol Agents, CBP identified individuals who may have information relating to the instigators and/or organizers of these attacks. Efforts to gather this type of information are a standard law enforcement practice." The statement does not address the targeting of Levy and Ruiz or what role investigators suspected two lawyers in El Paso of playing in attacks on federal agents that were in San Diego.
The administration of President Joe Biden is continuing to fight several lawsuits filed against the Trump administration over the operation. The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general promised to investigate the allegations in 2019, as the CBP spokesperson noted to ProPublica, but it has not published its findings. The current head of U.S. Border Patrol is a career agent who was in charge of the San Diego sector when agents there were helping lead the surveillance effort.
Neither Levy nor Ruiz were told why they were being questioned. What they were asked about didn't give them many clues. Both were questioned about their activities in Mexico — specifically, if they had been to Tijuana recently. They were questioned about their jobs and educational backgrounds; Ruiz was asked about the funding of the Santa Fe Dreamers Project, where they work as an attorney.
Both lawyers also recall being asked about their beliefs. Levy remembers an agent asking her why she worked for a Catholic aid organization if she didn't believe in God, while Ruiz told ProPublica they were asked about their opinions of the Trump administration and the economy. Government notes of their interviews provided as part of the suit don't reference those questions, but they do cite comments from both Levy and Ruiz criticizing Trump's border policies.
Ruiz ultimately agreed to a phone search, despite their concerns about agents reading privileged attorney-client communications, which is exactly what the agents did. The records note the use of WhatsApp to communicate with people described as “foreign national" — Ruiz's clients.
Ruiz didn't tell anyone about their late-night interrogation for weeks after it happened. When they learned the same thing had happened to Levy, and when the NBC 7 story appeared two months later showing that similar episodes in San Diego had been part of a deliberate targeting effort, the El Paso lawyers sought to find out if they had been on the same watchlist. So Ruiz's then-colleague Allegra Love filed a Freedom of Information Act request followed by a lawsuit.
This spring, they finally got a complete-enough set of documents to piece the truth together.
In late November 2018, writing up an interview with a migrant who'd traveled with the “caravan," San Diego-area border agents identified Levy and Ruiz as two of “three attorneys/legal assistants that most likely traveled to meet with the caravan." The redacted notes leave it unclear whether the migrant identified the two by name, or whether agents made the connection on their own. Either way, by the time that email was forwarded to San Diego's Border Intelligence Center, the two were identified as “ASSOCIATED TO THE MIGRANT CARAVAN DEC 2018."
In fact, Levy had not only never met with people in the caravan, colleagues recall she'd vocally criticized the caravan at the time. Ruiz had conducted some legal workshops for caravan migrants weeks before their arrival in Tijuana, when they'd been staying in a soccer stadium in Mexico City. Ruiz and Love told ProPublica they had encouraged migrants with tenuous asylum claims not to attempt to come to the U.S. and didn't have any further involvement with the group.
According to emails obtained in the lawsuit, agents were instructed to flag Levy and Ruiz (as well as three others whose information is redacted) in the system for screening people coming through U.S. ports of entry.
When Ruiz came back to El Paso after a night out in Ciudad Juarez in December, and when Levy returned from that January dinner, the port officer checking their passports saw an alert that they should be interrogated by a member of CBP's Tactical Terrorism Response Team.
The team's stated mission is to stop suspected foreign terrorists from entering the country. But the government has expanded powers at the border that allow it to stop and question civilians entering the U.S. Records produced in an ongoing ACLU Freedom of Information Act lawsuit about the unit have shown that its members frequently question American citizens. (CBP did not respond to questions about the role of the terrorism teams.)
What exactly the interrogations of Levy and Ruiz were trying to uncover still isn't clear. Levy and Ruiz both got the impression that they were being accused of “coaching" asylum-seekers to lie to border agents. The newly disclosed records don't include anything about that, at least not in the unredacted text, but they do say that Ruiz “admitted to facilitating the migrant caravan by providing legal guidance free of charge and educate the migrant's with the Asylum process."
The accusation that telling asylum-seekers about how U.S. law works is “facilitating" their entry reflected a broader suspicion that asylum-seekers were trying to subvert U.S. law rather than accessing a legal right. One Border Patrol email from the San Diego side of the targeting operation, obtained in a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit by NBC 7 and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and shared with ProPublica, referred to crossing the border to claim asylum as exploiting “a loophole."
A Border Patrol intelligence report from El Paso, written several months after Levy and Ruiz were interrogated and included in the newly released documents, cast further aspersions on asylum lawyers. The report states, “Mass migration from South America into the United States is said to be coordinated at some level by non profit organizations who wish to line their pockets with proceeds deriving from migrants transportation feesup to the U.S Mexico border, and ultimately proceeds deriving from the migrants paying for their asylum case lawyers once they have arrived to the United States." It goes on to associate this effort with “other groups such as Antifa."
The report also asserts, inaccurately, that Levy and Ruiz were “seen in Tijuana assisting with the migrant caravan."
Now that the lawyers know more about why they were stopped — and by whom — they are all the more concerned it could happen again. Levy has since moved to California but told ProPublica she fears retaliation for this article.
Ruiz still crosses the border multiple times a week for work. “I'm still super fearful," they told ProPublica. “I don't know if this is the day they're going to detain me again." The caravans and Trump are both gone, but “I'm still doing this work. And I don't know what sort of false accusations they can throw going forward."
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/nbc-news-fires-back-at-tucker-carlson-for-dangerously-and-dishonestly-attacking-a-journalist/
on Wednesday night, Fox News' Tucker Carlson brought on a guest, Darren Beattie — a former speechwriter for the president — to slam NBC News reporter Brandy Zadrozny for her story on harassment campaigns that Donald Trump supporters have conducted online. And NBC News, in an official statement issued on Thursday, struck out to "vigorously" defend Zadrozny.
NBC News said, "Over the past several years, journalists from news organizations around the world have put themselves at risk in order to shine a light in the dark corners of society and the internet — specifically, in the realm of conspiracy theories and online extremism. Last night on Fox News Channel, Tucker Carlson dangerously and dishonestly targeted one of those journalists: Brandy Zadrozny. Brandy represents the best of investigative journalism and of NBC News. She is relentlessly well-researched and sophisticated in her understanding of disinformation and conspiracy theories on the internet and within some social media communities."
NBC News went on to say, "Fox News has chosen to smear Brandy. In doing so, they have shamefully encouraged harassment and worse. Fortunately, any effort to intimidate Brandy is doomed to failure. NBC News couldn't be prouder of Brandy, and we will continue to vigorously support her work."
Beattie left the White House in 2018 after CNN reported that in 2016, he had attended an event that included white nationalists. The former Trump speechwriter has accused Zadrozny of using "data search engines to dox the personal information of anonymous Trump supporters online." But Ben Collins, one of Zadrozny's colleagues at NBC News, tweeted that Beattie seriously distorted Zadrozny's reporting.
On Wednesday night, Collins tweeted, "Tucker Carlson is devoting an entire segment to attacking my colleague, Brandy Zadrozny, for doing actual reporting, like using public records to confirm identities of people who create harassment campaigns. It's disgraceful. She's the best reporter I know. I'm with her 1000%."
Collins, in a Twitter thread, went on to say, "That was a hideously unethical segment by Tucker Carlson, framing using basic reporting tools like public records searches as some sort of evil act. To do it to a mom, and one of the best people I know, is disgusting. I won't forget it."
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/julian-assange-press-shows-little-interest-in-media-trial-of-century/
no lnx pix guk
Julian Assange: Press shows little interest in media ‘Trial of Century’
Alan MacLeod and FAIR September 26, 2020
Labeled the media "trial of the century," WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange's extradition hearing is currently taking place in London—although you might not have heard if you're relying solely on corporate media for news. If extradited, Assange faces 175 years in a Colorado supermax prison, often described as a "black site" on US soil.
The United States government is asking Britain to send the Australian publisher to the US to face charges under the 1917 Espionage Act. He is accused of aiding and encouraging Chelsea Manning to hack a US government computer in order to publish hundreds of thousands of documents detailing American war crimes, particularly in Afghanistan and Iraq. The extradition, widely viewed as politically motivated, has profound consequences for journalists worldwide, as the ruling could effectively criminalize the possession of leaked documents, which are an indispensable part of investigative reporting.
WikiLeaks has entered into partnership with five high-profile outlets around the world: the New York Times, Guardian (UK), Le Monde (France), Der Spiegel (Germany) and El País (Spain). Yet those publications have provided relatively little coverage of the hearing.
Since the hearing began on September 7, the Times, for instance, has published only two bland news articles (9/7/20, 9/16/20)—one of them purely about the technical difficulties in the courtroom—along with a short rehosted AP video (9/7/20). There have been no editorials and no commentary on what the case means for journalism. The Times also appears to be distancing itself from Assange, with neither article noting that it was one of WikiLeaks' five major partners in leaking information that became known as the CableGate scandal.
Guardian: 'Politicising' and 'weaponising' are becoming rather convenient arguments
Guardian columnist Hadley Freeman (9/9/20) turned a reader's question about "liv[ing] in a time of so much insecurity" into a bizarre rant against Julian Assange and his partner, Stella Moris.
The Guardian, whose headquarters are less than two miles from the Old Bailey courthouse where Assange's hearing is being held, fared slightly better in terms of quantity, publishing eight articles since September 7. However, perhaps the most notable content came from columnist Hadley Freedman (9/9/20).
When asked in an advice article: "We live in a time of so much insecurity. But is there anything we can expect from this increasingly ominous-looking winter with any certainty?" she went on a bizarre tangential rant ridiculing the idea that Assange's trial could possibly be "politicized," also crassly brushing off the idea that his young children would never see their father again, and never answering anything like the question she was asked. Holding people to account "for a mess they could have avoided," she notes, "is not 'weaponizing' anything — it is just asking them to do their jobs properly." She also claimed that believing Assange's trial was politicized was as ridiculous as thinking antisemitism claims were cynically weaponized against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, which, she meant to suggest, was a preposterous idea. This was not an off-the-cuff remark transcribed and published, but a written piece that somehow made it past at least one editor.
Like the Times, the Guardian appeared to be hoping to let people forget the fact it built its worldwide brand off its partnership with WikiLeaks; it was only mentioned in a forthright op-ed by former Brazilian president Lula da Silva (9/21/20), an outlier piece.
The Guardian should be taking a particularly keen role in the affair, seeing that two of its journalists are alleged by WikiLeaks to have recklessly and knowingly disclosed the password to an encrypted file containing a quarter-million unredacted WikiLeaks documents, allowing anyone—including every security agency in the world—to see an unredacted iteration of the leak. In 2018, the Guardian also falsely reported that Trump campaign chief Paul Manafort had conducted a meeting with Assange and unnamed "Russians" at the Ecuadorian embassy (FAIR.org, 12/3/18). And, as former employee Jonathan Cook noted, the newspaper is continually being cited by the prosecution inside the courtroom.
Der Spiegel: Mögliche Höchststrafe: 175 Jahre Knast
Der Speigel's headline (9/7/20) reads: "Maximum Sentence: 175 Years in Prison."
There were only two articles in the English or French versions of Le Monde (9/7/20, 9/18/20) and only one in either of Der Spiegel's English or German websites (9/7/20), although the German paper did at least acknowledge its own partnership with Assange. There was no coverage of the hearings in El País, in English or Spanish, though there was a piece (9/10/20) about the US government thwarting a Spanish investigation into the CIA spying on Assange at the Ecuadorian embassy in London—accompanied by a photo of a protester against his extradition.
The rest of corporate media showed as little interest in covering a defining moment in press freedom. There was nothing at all from CNN. CBS's two articles (9/7/20, 9/22/20) were copied and pasted from news agencies AP and AFP, respectively. Meanwhile, the entire sum of MSNBC's coverage amounted to one unclear sentence in a mini news roundup article (9/18/20).
Virtually every relevant human rights and press freedom organization is sounding the alarm about the incendiary precedent this case sets for the media. The Columbia Journalism Review (4/18/19), Human Rights Watch and the Electronic Frontier Foundation note that the government includes in its indictment regular journalistic procedures, such as protecting sources' names and using encrypted files—meaning that this "hacking" charge could easily be extended to other journalists. Trevor Timm, founder of the Freedom of the Press Foundation, told the court this week that if the US prosecutes Assange, every journalist who has possessed a secret file can be criminalized. Thus, it essentially gives a carte blanche to those in power to prosecute whomever they want, whenever they want, even foreigners living halfway around the world.
The United Nations has condemned his persecution, with Amnesty International describing the case as a "full-scale assault on the right to freedom of expression." Virtually every story of national significance includes secret or leaked material; they could all be in jeopardy under this new prosecutorial theory.
President Donald Trump has continually fanned the flames, demonizing the media as the "enemy of the people." Already 26% of the country (including 43% of Republicans) believe the president should have the power to shut down outlets engaging in "bad behavior." A successful Assange prosecution could be the legal spark for future anti-journalistic actions.
Yet the case has been met with indifference from the corporate press. Even as their house is burning down, media are insisting it is just the Northern Lights.
https://www.propublica.org/article/2020-trump-inc-podcast-the-trump-campaigns-legal-strategy-includes-suing-a-tiny-tv-station-in-northern-wisconsin
no lnx
this year, President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign filed defamation lawsuits against three of the country’s most prominent news outlets: The New York Times, The Washington Post and CNN. Then it filed another suit against a somewhat lower-profile news organization: northern Wisconsin’s WJFW-TV, which serves the 134th-largest market in the country.
The Trump campaign sued the station over what it claims is a false and defamatory ad WJFW aired that showed Trump downplaying the threat of the coronavirus as a line tracking new COVID-19 infections ticks up and up on the screen.
Dozens of stations ran the ad. But the Trump campaign chose to sue just NBC-affiliate WJFW, which is owned by a relatively small company that only has two other local TV stations, both in Bangor, Maine. The campaign did not initially sue the political organization that produced the ad. That group later joined the case as a defendant.
The curious lawsuit is part of a larger, aggressive and exceedingly expensive legal operation by the Trump campaign that’s the focus of our latest “Trump, Inc.” podcast.
Listen to the Episode]
The campaign has spent over $16 million on litigation and other legal costs — more than any past presidential campaign and more than 10 times what presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has spent on legal services, according to disclosures.
Trump has long boasted about his penchant for filing lawsuits. The president and his businesses have reportedly filed over 2,000 lawsuits. After losing a 2006 defamation lawsuit against the journalist Tim O’Brien, Trump told the Post that he knew he couldn’t win, but he sued anyway. “I spent a couple of bucks on legal fees, and they spent a whole lot more,” Trump said. “I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about.”
As with other areas, Trump has taken his approach to running his personal life and business to the presidency.
Multiple media law experts told us that the suit against tiny WJFW has little chance of succeeding. Susan Seager, a media defense lawyer and adjunct professor at The University of California, Irvine, School of Law, said, “The courts are very deferential and very protective of opinions about public figures and political issues.”
So if Trump isn’t likely to win, what might he be trying to do? Matthew Sanderson, who served as counsel for Sens. John McCain and Mitt Romney, said he thinks the Trump campaign is “engaging in scare tactics.”
“The reason in my opinion that the Trump campaign is filing these types of lawsuits is not necessarily to punish the Wisconsin station — they’re not going to be successful,” Sanderson said. “The reason they’re doing this is to send a message to the rest of the stations to be careful” about running anti-Trump ads.
Unlike many other states, Wisconsin doesn’t have a law that makes complainants pay for defendants’ legal costs if a defamation suit ends up being dismissed as frivolous.
Seager estimates that fighting a defamation lawsuit brought by a high-profile group like the Trump campaign could cost anywhere from $100,000 to $250,000, just to go through the process of getting it dismissed.
We asked the Trump campaign and its lawyers about the suit and why they chose WJFW. They did not respond.
The TV station commented, through a lawyer, that “WJFW has no choice but to fight the Trump campaign’s attempt to bully a small-market broadcaster into surrendering its First Amendment rights. The public counts on local broadcasters, especially in an election year, to remain free to air criticisms of public officials.”
Of course, one critical difference between lawsuits Trump used to file in his business dealings and the ones his campaign is filing is that Trump no longer has to use his own money. His donors are picking up the tab.
Trump’s disclosures show his campaign has paid about $200,000 to the firm handling the Wisconsin case.
The campaign has also paid $3.3 million to the firm of attorney Charles Harder, who specializes in high-profile reputation defense lawsuits. Harder is representing the Trump campaign in the three other defamation suits against media organizations. Harder is perhaps best known as the lawyer who successfully sued Gawker into bankruptcy on Hulk Hogan’s behalf while being surreptitiously funded by venture capitalist Peter Thiel.
Another set of expenses in the disclosures is also interesting. It shows the Trump campaign spent $95,161 on “legal & IT consulting” paid to … “The Trump Corporation.” Neither the campaign nor Trump’s company responded to questions about those charges.
https://www.alternet.org/2020/09/media-critic-fox-news-is-bigger-than-trump-if-he-fights-the-network-hell-lose
do executives at Fox News secretly hope that Donald Trump loses this November because that would be good for the network’s ratings? Before you dismiss that as crazy talk, given the record ratings Fox News has seen during Trump’s presidency, realize that Fox could see even higher ratings when it no longer has to defend Trump’s unpredictable words and deeds and can solely focus on what Brian Stelter calls its “secret sauce”: attacking Democrats and liberals.
Stelter, the host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” and author of the new book, “Hoax: Donald Trump, Fox News, and the Dangerous Distortion of Truth,” raised that very scenario during our “Salon Talks” conversation. As he explains it, Fox News has always been more comfortable attacking Democratic administrations, which traditionally has yielded a ratings boon for the network. “The network in a Biden presidency is almost a situation where tails you win and heads you win,” he said. Fox News might face other problems with Trump as a former president, however. Stelter describes Trump as the Frankenstein monster that Fox News helped create, and as in the tale of Frankenstein, he could end up turning against his creator and starting a competing right-wing network.
In our recent conversation, Stelter also addressed Trump’s nonstop attacks on the media, which Stelter says have taken a toll on the credibility of the Fourth Estate: “He has said ‘fake news’ and ‘hoax’ so many times that it has poisoned the public discourse. It’s like a slow-acting poison that kind of gradually moves to the veins of the American body. And we can’t fully know what the impacts are of that yet.”
Watch my “Salon Talks” interview with Brian Stelter below or read the following transcript of our conversation — lightly edited for length and clarity — to learn more about “Hoax,” his harsh words on the Fox News obsession with ratings and his blunt advice for how larger media outlets can rehabilitate their credibility in a post-Trump America.
Your book “Hoax” is like a feedback loop. Does Trump drive Fox News, does Fox News drive Trump, or does it move back and forth all the time?
It is hard to tell where Fox ends and Trump begins. But if I had to choose one side of this, I would say Fox drives Trump more than Trump drives Fox. Fox has more of an agenda setting role than the President does,which is an astonishing thing to say. But when you look at the power of “Fox & Friends,” when you look at the power of Sean Hannity and recently Tucker Carlson, who is achieving policy goals based on segments he produces on his show. I think it’s clear that Trump is usually in a reactive mode, reacting to what he sees and hears on Fox.
Just this morning Trump was tweeting again about what was going on on “Fox & Friends.” It really is his morning briefing. You mention in the book that Fox News does not have a traditional standards-and-practices department like other news organizations do. Even I have encountered this as a columnist for CNN Opinion. Just this past weekend, the standards department made me rework an op-ed. I was like, “But it’s an opinion piece!” They still had issues because they had our common best interests in mind. Could you share with people what standards and practices do traditionally? And by contrast what is going on at Fox News?
Fox is described as a news operation, a news network, but it’s also a political operation. And right now the propaganda is winning and the news is losing. I had staffers at the network say to me that it’s like working at a place that’s anti-journalism. So you’re trying to produce journalism at a place that’s anti-journalism. I’m wearing my CNN hoodie right now. It says “The World Needs Journalists.” The sense that the world needs journalists, that should be a pretty basic concept. It’s hard to disagree with that idea. However, at Fox, there is disagreement. So Sean Hannity says journalism is dead. You’ve got all these folks on Fox denigrating the media every single day and saying the world doesn’t need these journalists.
That creates a real hostile environment for the actual reporters who do still work at Fox. I point out in “Hoax” that many have left. And I have a lot of stories about people that have left for various reasons, including Shep Smith, but a lot of other names you might not know. For the journalists who remain there, it’s this really awkward, tough, sometimes hostile environment. I think the lack of standards and practices speaks to this problem. There is not a unit, a desk or a division that’s charged with vetting news before it gets onto the air. There are some informal processes, but there’s not that official checks and balances system that CNN has. And every other outlet has — forget about CNN — at the New York Times or Washington Post, there are reasons why there are editors and vetters and researchers. That structure just doesn’t exist at Fox.
You make the point that at Fox, ratings are everything. Everyone is profoundly afraid of losing the audience. Does that then mean that the people bringing in a lot of money, Hannity or Tucker Carlson or Laura Ingraham, can literally say anything they want on air, as long as it feeds the audience? Is there no one at Fox News who will say, hey, that’s beyond the pale of what’s acceptable?
There are some exceptions, but what you just said is broadly correct, broadly true and really problematic. There is not this kind of follow-through or accountability that I know happens at other networks and should happen everywhere. This is really most clear in primetime with Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham. When something really bad happens, when something really outrageous or racist happens on the air, there’s finger-pointing that goes on inside Fox. Some people will point the finger at the head of the network, Suzanne Scott. Others will point at a woman named Meade Cooper, who’s the executive vice president of primetime. Others will point at the executive producers for those specific shows, right? So they’ll shift the blame, no one agrees on who’s responsible or who’s at fault. And then there’s an attempt to move on and pretend that these embarrassing episodes didn’t happen.
That’s when they go on vacation, right. All of a sudden Tucker Carlson is on a pre-planned vacation?
Sometimes. Although I promise some of these vacations are actually scheduled, they’re just at bad times. Bill O’Reilly truly was always going to go to Italy when the scandal erupted about his secret settlements with women that accused him of harassment. So he decided to go on the vacation that he already scheduled, and then of course, he never came back. He was forced out when he was in Italy. But there are other times, yes, where Fox uses this vacation illusion where they’ll say someone’s going on vacation to let the noise subside around their program and try to preserve their advertisers.
One of the really interesting things in the book are the little details. You mention Bill O’Reilly going to Italy and meeting with the pope. It seemed like, at least the way you were shaping it, that perhaps the pope could save his job. Even that didn’t work out.
I think there’s so many stories about the last five years, these big stars at Fox, who thought they were kings of the world, who thought they were bigger than the network. And it turns out no, Fox is the star, not these individuals. No matter who’s on at 8 p.m. or 9 p.m., Fox’s ratings are going to remain really high. It speaks to the fact that Fox has a monopoly position in this area of the media.
You write about how Fox got sued because of what some people viewed as misinformation regarding COVID-19 by some of the hosts. When it comes to Fox News and the misinformation that it has shared about COVID, do you feel that the network has responsibility for misleading Americans?
I think there’s a lot of blame and a lot of responsibility to go around about the pandemic, but Fox had the biggest platform on cable and President Trump had the biggest platform in the country. He has the loudest megaphone and he knows how to use it. So the failures of Trump and his media allies to warn the country and prepare the country for what was coming were absolutely shameful. That’s why we called the book “Hoax.” We were originally going to call it “Wingman.” But when Trump came out and said, “These Democrats, they tried to impeach me, now they’re hyping coronavirus, they’re politicizing the virus. It’s their new hoax.” And Sean Hannity said something very similar a week and a half later. They were viewing this as politics, not as a medical emergency. That was the fundamental problem.
And they were always two or three weeks too late, meaning that when Trump finally took action involving flights from Europe, the virus had already gotten in and it was spreading silently across New York City and several other states. And of course, when he announced the European restrictions, there were these long lines of people all shoved together at airports. Fox, to its credit, had a reporter who called that out and criticized the government for it. There were these moments on Fox where there was great reporting, excellent medical advice, excellent segments with doctors. But I think those segments were drowned out by the downplaying of the disease, by the attempts to politicize this and downplay it.
I’ve never seen a president make life and death a partisan issue. And it’s not over. In North Carolina, he and his supporters were not wearing masks. Donald Trump Jr. has been out there attacking the media saying that it’s a lie, that people were wearing masks. Last week, Trump made fun of Joe Biden for wearing a mask. If you take a step back and look at this is, does it feel surreal that you have a president dealing with a life-and-death pandemic in this way, where it’s all about him? Everyone’s doing things to hurt him as opposed to wanting to simply save lives.
It’s embarrassing. And sometimes you need a little bit of perspective, you need to zoom out a little bit. You need to think back six months — it’s been about exactly six months since all our lives changed and these lockdowns began. Now we’re slowly coming out of it and looking around and seeing what the world is like. And the words from the president six months ago sound even worse now, right? We had a sense when he was contradicting his science experts and health experts that he was doing damage. We had a sense when he was downplaying the disease that it was dangerous. We know now, much more clearly, how dangerous and damaging it was.
This is true for his media allies as well. His pro-Trump propagandists. Trump was calling up Hannity at the end of March and saying, “How are my ratings? How do we rate? I called into your show, Sean, how did I rate?” A good friend would have said to him, “Donald, don’t ever ask about that again, we’re in the middle of a crisis. We’ve got hospitals overwhelmed by the surge, we’re trying to order body bags. Don’t ask about your ratings. Please don’t tweet about your ratings again. Please don’t do it, it’s bad for you.” But instead, his so-called friends feed his ego rather than trying to actually help him. I would argue that they actually hurt him when they claim to help him by telling him about his ratings.
The book could have been called “Ratings, Ratings, Ratings” because that’s what Fox News is moved by. It’s a profit machine. When your only touchstone as a news outlet is ratings, what compromises do you end up seeing on screen?
Let me be clear, I’m in television, I’m on CNN. I care about ratings. I care about my show doing well. I look at the ratings every day. But there’s much more of a fixation at Fox on winning because this network’s been No. 1 for 18 years. Everybody knows what’s at stake and what’s on the line, and there’s this intense desire to feed the audience what it wants and keep the audience at all costs. I had producers at Fox describe this as a really unhealthy relationship, where sometimes they fear the audience. Sometimes they don’t respect the audience, but they’re desperate to keep the audience’s attention. What that leads to is Trumpier and Trumpier segments. Segments that are unhinged from reality, that are based in conspiracy theory, that are feeding the audience’s wants and desires and not what they need. And again, this is the problem across television. It is much more severe at Fox.
As you mentioned, at CNN, MSNBC and all the big media outlets, ratings are important. They are connected to profits. But when your only goal is ratings, it’s going to cause massive compromises. Shep Smith and others behind the scenes at Fox News understood that they were putting their careers on the line given that ratings are everything.
Well, also, the ratings also tell you what the audience wants, what the audience expects. Shep Smith’s show at 3 p.m. was the lowest-rated show in daytime, the lowest-rated hour of the day on Fox. It meant that viewers were turning the channel actively when he came on. They did not want to hear him with his corrections to what was aired earlier in the day and his fact checks of the president’s lies.
In the ratings for notable Democratic events, like Joe Biden’s speech or the funeral of John Lewis, you see dramatic declines in Fox’s ratings. Viewers turn it off when the Democrats are speaking and they turn it back on when the rebuttal from the Republicans is starting. So you end up thinking that the audience has been radicalized. What else can you say?
They’ve been served a diet of red meat. Fox News should come with a warning: It serves so much red meat that it’s not healthy. I mean, look, Chris Wallace, Bret Baier, they’re more news journalists. On some level, though, they’re part of the Fox News machine. Is it fair to say they’re also complicit in what is going on?
Well, that’s certainly what some of their friends say, or their former friends. The Trump era has done damage to those kind of gentlemanly, old-fashioned, courteous relationships that you see between television anchors and rivals and all that. And certainly throughout my reporting, talking to dozens of people that were complicit that came up a lot, this sense that the news anchors there are like fig leaves of respectability. One person once said to Chris Wallace at a Columbia event, “Do you think you are there to truth-wash primetime?” That was an interesting term, “truth-wash.” Wallace is on one hour a week, Sean Hannity’s on one hour, five nights a week, in a much, much higher-rated program. You’ve got to look at Fox and say that the identity of Fox is Hannity and “Fox & Friends,” these bigger shows.
But I still think the journalists there do serve important purposes. I understand why they stay. They want to be there for big events. They want to provide a reality check, a fact check to the rest of the programming. But let’s say Bret Baier’s show, for example, is on at 6 p.m. “The Five” is much higher rated at 5 p.m., and then the ratings drop at 6. Not everybody wants to see a newscast, but even his newscast is tilted to the right toward Trump. His panels, for example, in the back half of the show, are tilted to the right. Sometimes the lefty will be a journalist and then he’ll have a pro-Trump person and another right-wing figure.
He tells people that he does this because he wants to have left, right and Trump. And I get it that sometimes “right” and “Trump” are not the same thing, but those panels are not balanced. Those panels are not representative of where the country is, right? If you want to have a panel that represented the country, that’s not how it would look. My point is, even on the newscasts, these programs are tilted in Trump’s favor.
Clearly, Trump has had an impact on Fox News. You’ve mentioned that Trump is their Frankenstein monster, but I want to get a sense from you on how the rest of the media is doing. Do you think the media is better at covering Trump this time, in terms of using the right language? For a long time, people didn’t want to call him a liar, you probably remember that. Now we’re beyond that. We’re two months out from 2020, using terms like “white supremacist” about Donald Trump, using the term “fascist” in an academic sense, not a hyperbolic sense. Are we at the point where the media can speak bluntly about it? ...
Pentagon is now training the military to view protestors and journalists as a ‘threat’: report
David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement
Former Pentagon press secretary and CIA spokesperson George Little calls it “appalling and dangerous.”
an 720
https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/here-are-7-disturbing-revelations-from-a-national-guard-officer-about-trumps-lafayette-square-disaster/
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ref 9/19?
https://www.axios.com/2020-presidential-campaign-trump-allies-journalists-6733432f-b008-45d3-99c2-9dca7931faff.html
Trump's political allies are trying to raise at least $2 million to investigate reporters and editors of the New York Times, Washington Post and other outlets, according to a 3-page fundraising pitch reviewed by Axios.
Why it matters: Trump’s war on the media is expanding. This group will target reporters and editors, while other GOP 2020 entities go after the social media platforms, alleging bias, officials tell us.
- The group claims it will slip damaging information about reporters and editors to "friendly media outlets," such as Breitbart, and traditional media, if possible.
- People involved in raising the funds includeGOP consultant Arthur Schwartzand the "loose network" that the NY Times reported last week is targeting journalists. The operations are to be run by undisclosed others.
- The prospectus for the new project says it's "targeting the people producing the news."
The irony: The New York Times exposed an extremely improvisational effort that had outed a Times editor for past anti-Semitic tweets. This new group is now using the exposure to try to formalize and fund the operation.
- Organizers joke that their slogan should be: "Brought to you by the New York Times."
Under "Primary Targets," the pitch lists:
- "CNN, MSNBC, all broadcast networks, NY Times, Washington Post, BuzzFeed, Huffington Post, and all others that routinely incorporate bias and misinformation in to their coverage. We will also track the reporters and editors of these organizations."
This isn't an entirely new concept. The liberal group Media Matters monitors journalists and publications and goes public with complaints of bias. But being this blatant and specific about trying to discredit individual reporters is new.
Go deeper: Trump allies plot new war on social media
ref
https://www.axios.com/trump-2020-campaign-social-media-bias-41bbed1e-0bd3-445d-bf6f-195b5c3e65a6.html
Trump's campaign and key allies plan to make allegations of bias by social media platforms a core part of their 2020 strategy, officials tell Axios.
The big picture: Look for ads, speeches and sustained attacks on Facebook and Twitter in particular, the sources say. The irony: The social platforms are created and staffed largely by liberals — but often used most effectively in politics by conservatives, the data shows.
Why it matters: Trump successfully turned the vast majority of his supporters against traditional media, and he hopes to do the same against the social media companies.
- Republicans' internal data shows it stirs up the base like few other topics.
- "In the same way we've seen trust in legacy media organizations deteriorate over the past year, there are similarities with social media companies," a top Republican operative involved in the effort told me.
Between the lines: The charges of overt bias by social media platforms are way overblown, several studies have found. But, if the exaggerated claims stick, it could increase the chances of regulatory action by Republicans.
- "People feel they’re being manipulated, whether it's by what they're being shown in their feeds or actions the companies have taken against conservatives," the operative said.
- "It's easy for people to understand how these giant corporations could influence them and direct them toward a certain favored candidate."
How tech execs see it: They know the escalation is coming, so they are cranking up outreach to leading conservatives and trying to push hard on data showing that conservative voices often outperform liberal ones.
Reality check, from Axios chief tech correspondent Ina Fried: What is real is that most of the platforms have policies against bias that some conservative figures have run afoul of.
- Managing editor Scott Rosenberg notes that Twitter is Trump's megaphone, while Facebook is often his favorite place to run ads.
What's next: By the time 2020 is over, trust in all sources of information will be low, and perhaps unrecoverable.
- A nation without shared truth will be hard-to-impossible to govern.
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ref
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/25/us/politics/trump-allies-news-media.html
no lnx
Trump Allies Target Journalists Over Coverage Deemed Hostile to White House
The operation has compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at prominent news organizations.
The operation has compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at prominent news organizations.
By Kenneth P. Vogel and Jeremy W. Peters
Published Aug. 25, 2019
Updated Aug. 26, 2019
WASHINGTON — A loose network of conservative operatives allied with the White House is pursuing what they say will be an aggressive operation to discredit news organizations deemed hostile to President Trump by publicizing damaging information about journalists.
It is the latest step in a long-running effort by Mr. Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting. Four people familiar with the operation described how it works, asserting that it has compiled dossiers of potentially embarrassing social media posts and other public statements by hundreds of people who work at some of the country’s most prominent news organizations.
The group has already released information about journalists at CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times — three outlets that have aggressively investigated Mr. Trump — in response to reporting or commentary that the White House’s allies consider unfair to Mr. Trump and his team or harmful to his re-election prospects.
Operatives have closely examined more than a decade’s worth of public posts and statements by journalists, the people familiar with the operation said. Only a fraction of what the network claims to have uncovered has been made public, the people said, with more to be disclosed as the 2020 election heats up. The research is said to extend to members of journalists’ families who are active in politics, as well as liberal activists and other political opponents of the president.
It is not possible to independently assess the claims about the quantity or potential significance of the material the pro-Trump network has assembled. Some involved in the operation have histories of bluster and exaggeration. And those willing to describe its techniques and goals may be trying to intimidate journalists or their employers.
But the material publicized so far, while in some cases stripped of context or presented in misleading ways, has proved authentic, and much of it has been professionally harmful to its targets.
It is clear from the cases to date that among the central players in the operation is Arthur Schwartz, a combative 47-year-old conservative consultant who is a friend and informal adviser to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. Mr. Schwartz has worked with some of the right’s most aggressive operatives, including the former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon.
“If the @nytimes thinks this settles the matter we can expose a few of their other bigots,” Mr. Schwartz tweeted on Thursday in response to an apologetic tweet from a Times journalist whose anti-Semitic social media posts had just been revealed by the operation. “Lots more where this came from.”
The operation is the latest step in a long-running effort by President Trump and his allies to undercut the influence of legitimate news reporting.
The information unearthed by the operation has been commented on and spread by officials inside the Trump administration and re-election campaign, as well as conservative activists and right-wing news outlets such as Breitbart News. In the case of the Times editor, the news was first published by Breitbart, immediately amplified on Twitter by Donald Trump Jr. and, among others, Katrina Pierson, a senior adviser to the Trump campaign, and quickly became the subject of a Breitbart interview with Stephanie Grisham, the White House press secretary and communications director.
The White House press office said that neither the president nor anyone in the White House was involved in or aware of the operation, and that neither the White House nor the Republican National Committee was involved in funding it.
The Trump campaign said it was unaware of, and not involved in, the effort, but suggested that it served a worthy purpose. “We know nothing about this, but it’s clear that the media has a lot of work to do to clean up its own house,” said Tim Murtaugh, the campaign’s communications director.
The campaign is consistent with Mr. Trump’s long-running effort to delegitimize critical reporting and brand the news media as an “enemy of the people.” The president has relentlessly sought to diminish the credibility of news organizations and cast them as politically motivated opponents.
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Journalism, he said in a tweet last week, is “nothing more than an evil propaganda machine for the Democrat Party.”
The operation has compiled social media posts from Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, and stored images of the posts that can be publicized even if the user deletes them, said the people familiar with the effort. One claimed that the operation had unearthed potentially “fireable” information on “several hundred” people.
“I am sure there will be more scalps,” said Sam Nunberg, a former aide to Mr. Trump who is a friend of Mr. Schwartz.
Mr. Nunberg and others who are familiar with the campaign described it as meant to expose what they see as the hypocrisy of mainstream news outlets that have reported on the president’s inflammatory language regarding race.
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Arthur Schwartz, a conservative consultant who is a friend and informal adviser to the president’s eldest son.]
“Two can play at this game,” he said. “The media has long targeted Republicans with deep dives into their social media, looking to caricature all conservatives and Trump voters as racists.”
But using journalistic techniques to target journalists and news organizations as retribution for — or as a warning not to pursue — coverage critical of the president is fundamentally different from the well-established role of the news media in scrutinizing people in positions of power.
“If it’s clearly retaliatory, it’s clearly an attack, it’s clearly not journalism,” said Leonard Downie Jr., who was the executive editor of The Post from 1991 to 2008. Tension between a president and the news media that covers him is nothing new, Mr. Downie added. But an organized, wide-scale political effort to intentionally humiliate journalists and others who work for media outlets is.
“It’s one thing for Spiro Agnew to call everyone in the press ‘nattering nabobs of negativism,’” he said, referring to the former vice president’s famous critique of how journalists covered President Richard M. Nixon. “And another thing to investigate individuals in order to embarrass them publicly and jeopardize their employment.”
A. G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The Times, said in a statement that such tactics were taking the president’s campaign against a free press to a new level.
“They are seeking to harass and embarrass anyone affiliated with the leading news organizations that are asking tough questions and bringing uncomfortable truths to light,” Mr. Sulzberger said. “The goal of this campaign is clearly to intimidate journalists from doing their job, which includes serving as a check on power and exposing wrongdoing when it occurs. The Times will not be intimidated or silenced.”
In a statement, a CNN spokesman said that when government officials, “and those working on their behalf, threaten and retaliate against reporters as a means of suppression, it’s a clear abandonment of democracy for something very dangerous.”
The operation is targeting the news media by using one of the most effective weapons of political combat — deep and laborious research into the public records of opponents to find contradictions, controversial opinions or toxic affiliations. The liberal group Media Matters for America helped pioneer close scrutiny of public statements by conservative media personalities.
Those familiar with the campaign described it as meant to expose what they see as the hypocrisy of mainstream news outlets that have covered the president’s inflammatory language regarding race.Credit...George Etheredge/The New York Times]
The conservative operative James O’Keefe has twisted that concept in ways inconsistent with traditional journalistic ethics, using false identities, elaborate cover stories and undercover videos to entrap journalists and publicize embarrassing statements, often in misleading ways, to undercut the credibility of what he considers news media biased in favor of liberals.
In the case of the pro-Trump network, research into journalists is being deployed for the political benefit of the White House. It is targeting not only high-profile journalists who challenge the administration, but also anyone who works for any news organization that members of the network see as hostile to Mr. Trump, no matter how tangential that job may be to the coverage of his presidency. And it is being used explicitly as retribution for coverage.
Some reporters have been warned that they or their news organizations could be targets, creating the impression that the campaign is intended in part to deter them from aggressive coverage as well as to inflict punishment after an article has been published.
Trained as a lawyer, Mr. Schwartz has endeared himself to members of the president’s family by becoming one of their most aggressive defenders, known for badgering and threatening reporters and others he believes have wronged the Trumps.
He has publicly gone after Republicans he views as disloyal, including the former White House chief of staff Reince Priebus, about whom he admitted spreading an unsubstantiated rumor.He has called himself a “troll on Twitter,” which is where he has boasted of being aware of, or having access to, damaging information on dozens of journalists at CNN and The Times that could be deployed if those outlets ran afoul of Mr. Trump or his allies.
The operation’s tactics were on display last week, seemingly in response to two pieces in The Times that angered Mr. Trump’s allies. The paper’s editorial board published an editorial on Wednesday accusing Mr. Trump of fomenting anti-Semitism, and the newsroom published a profile on Thursday morning of Ms. Grisham, the new White House press secretary, which included unflattering details about her employment history.
One person involved in the effort said the pro-Trump forces, aware ahead of time about the coverage of Ms. Grisham, were prepared to respond. Early Thursday morning, soon after the profile appeared online, Breitbart News published an article that documented anti-Semitic andracist tweets written a decade ago by Tom Wright-Piersanti, who was in college at the time and has since become an editor on the Times’ politics desk. The Times said it was reviewing the matter and considered the posts “a clear violation of our standards.”
Mr. Schwartz tweeted a link to the Breitbart piece before 7 a.m., which Donald Trump Jr. retweeted to his 3.8 million followers— the first of about two dozen times that the president’s son shared the article or its contents.Other prominent Republicans, including Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, joined in highlighting the report.
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Mr. Schwartz is a friend and informal adviser to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times]
Breitbart’s article quoted several people or groups with close ties to Mr. Schwartz, including Richard Grenell, Mr. Trump’s ambassador to Germany, and the Zionist Organization of America. It was written by the site’s Washington political editor, Matthew Boyle, whose relationship with Mr. Schwartz started when Mr. Bannon ran the website.
Mr. Boyle’s article included a reference to the Times profile of Ms. Grisham, which it characterized as “attacking White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.” Mr. Wright-Piersanti was uninvolved in the editing of the article about Ms. Grisham.
The tweets revealed in the Breitbart article quickly spread to other conservative outlets favored by the president and his allies, including the radio shows of Rush Limbaugh and Mark Levin.
Mr. Wright-Piersanti apologized on Twitter on Thursday morning and deleted offensive tweets. Mr. Schwartz then issued his warning that he had further damaging information about Times employees.
Mr. Wright-Piersanti, 32, said the tweets, posted when he was a college student with a Twitter following consisting mostly of personal acquaintances, were “my lame attempts at edgy humor to try to get a rise out of my friends.”
But he said “they’re not funny, they’re clearly offensive,” adding, “I feel deep shame for them, and I am truly, honestly sorry that I wrote these.”
He said he had forgotten about the tweets as he started a career in journalism.
“For my generation, the generation that came of age in the internet, all the youthful mistakes that you made get preserved in digital amber, and no matter how much you change and mature and grow up, it’s always out there, waiting to be discovered,” Mr. Wright-Piersanti said.
Like Mr. Wright-Piersanti, other targets of the pro-Trump network have been young people who grew up with social media and wrote the posts in question when they were in their teens or early 20s, in most cases before they became professional journalists.
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The photojournalist Mohammed Elshamy in 2014 in South Sudan. Tweets he wrote in his teens became the basis for articles in conservative news outlets.Credit...Andrei Pungovschi]
A week after a White House reporter for CNN sparred with Mr. Trump during a news conference, Mr. Schwartz highlighted a tweet by the reporter from 2011, when the reporter was in college, that used an anti-gay slur. Other similar tweets quickly surfaced, and the reporter apologized, though Mr. Schwartz has continued to antagonize the reporter on Twitter.
In recent months, Mr. Schwartz highlighted a nearly decade-old tweet in which a reporter for The Post had repeated in an ambiguous manner a slur used by a politician.
In March, Mr. Schwartz tweeted a link to an article from Breitbart, written by Mr. Boyle, about a reporter from Business Insider whose Instagram account included anti-Trump references and a photograph of the reporter demonstrating against the president.
In July, around the time CNN published an article exposing old posts by a Trump appointee spreading suggestions that Barack Obama was a Muslim whose loyalty to the United States was in question, Mr. Schwartz resurfaced anti-Semitic tweets from 2011 by a CNN photo editor. Mr. Schwartz suggested that a CNN reporter who specializes in unearthing problematic archival content should “look into the social media activities of your employees.”
The tweets became the basis for several articles in conservative news outlets and hundreds of tweets from conservatives targeting the photo editor, Mohammed Elshamy, which did not stop even after he resigned under pressure from CNN and apologized.
“It felt like a coordinated attack,” said Mr. Elshamy, who said he had received death threats. “It was overwhelming.”
Mr. Elshamy, who is now 25, said he posted the tweets when he was 15 and 16 years old, growing up in Egypt, when he was still learning English and did not fully grasp the meaning of the words.
“I was repeating slogans heard on the streets during a highly emotional time in my nation’s history,” he said. “I believe that my subsequent work and views over the years redeems for the mistakes I made as a kid.”
While he said he understands “the severity and harm of my comments,” he questioned the motivation of the campaign that cost him his job. “It is a very dirty tactic that they are using to cause as much harm as they can to anyone who is affiliated with these media outlets,” he said. “It actually feels like a competition and every termination or vilification is a point for them.”
Mr. Bannon, at the time the head of Breitbart, oversaw the site’s efforts in 2015 to attack Megyn Kelly, then of Fox News, after she called out Mr. Trump for tweets disparaging women as “fat pigs,” “dogs” and “slobs.” In an interview, he said the work that Mr. Schwartz was undertaking should be seen as a sign that Mr. Trump’s supporters were committed to executing a frontal assault on news media they considered adversarial.
“A culture war is a war,” he said. “There are casualties in war. And that’s what you’re seeing.”
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/detroit-police-officer-accused-of-firing-rubber-bullets-at-3-journalists-for-no-explicable-reason-charged-with-multiple-counts-of-felony-assault-prosecutor/
From Washington, D.C. to Minneapolis, journalists covering the George Floyd protests have been the targets of police abuse. And in Detroit, a police officer who, according to prosecutors, fired rubber bullets at three journalists during a protest in late May is now facing felony assault charges.
The Detroit Free Press’ Frank Witsil reports that on Monday, July 20, 32-year-old Detroit police officer Daniel Debono was charged with multiple accounts of felony assault. Debono is facing nine counts altogether: three accounts per journalist.
According to prosecutor Kym Worthy, “The evidence shows that these three journalists were leaving the protest area and that there was almost no one else on the street where they were. They were a threat to no one. There are simply no explicable reasons why the alleged actions of this officer were taken.”
Debono, who is presently suspended with pay, could be sentenced to up to four years in prison if convicted. The journalists Debono is accused of assaulting with rubber bullets are 30-year-old Nicole Hester, 29-year-old Matthew Hatcher and 28-year-old Seth Herald — all of whom, according to Worthy, wore press credentials.
Witsil reports, “They identified themselves as members of the press, had their hands up and asked to cross the street. As the three began to cross, Debono is accused of firing his weapon at them, striking all of three with rubber pellets. The shooting, Worthy said, was unprovoked.”
According to Worthy, Herald suffered a wrist injury — while Hester suffered face, neck, arm and leg injuries. And Hatcher’s face was bruised.
The injuries that Hester, Hatcher and Herald suffered in Detroit are not the first time police have drawn criticism for their abusive treatment of journalists who were covering the Floyd protests. At a protest in Louisville, Kentucky, journalist Kaitlin Rust and her cameraman were shot with rubber bullets by police, according to CNN. And in Minneapolis, CNN correspondent Omar Jimenez — along with a producer and a photographer — were arrested and handcuffed by police but later released.
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https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the-federalist-publisher-calls-on-republicans-to-get-physically-involved-against-blm-protesters/
ben Domenech, publisher of the right-wing outlet The Federalist, called on Republican Party leaders to “physically take part” in defending the nation’s statues honoring Confederate leaders, slave-holding men, and brutal colonizers from protesters who are calling for the statues’ removal.
In a June 23 article titled “Where Are Conservative Leaders In This Moment?,” Domenech laments that Republican leadership has seemingly done little to defend the monuments from protesters across the nation, despite running campaigns with messages doused in American nostalgia. Domenech writes:
Wrapping themselves in the language of the Founding Fathers, filling their buildings with quotes, books, busts, statues, and artist’s renderings, conservatives have thrived by making themselves the defenders of American history against a verbally iconoclastic left. But in practice, they spent more time advocating for lower taxes, feel-good donor interests, and pro-business regulatory reforms than the cultural defense they used to make the money roll in.
For Domenech, Republicans’ lip service is not enough. Instead, he wants to see GOP leaders take to the front lines of opposition:
Now that the left has become not just verbally iconoclastic, not just changing the names of streets or buildings but physically assaulting the past, why have conservatives gone quiet? Why are they standing back instead of standing up to defend our history? Why is it that a bunch of South Philly Italian bros have more gumption about a statue of Columbus than the people who have spent decades invoking Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln, and more to raise money for their causes and win elections?
The “South Philly Italian bros” that Domenech contrasts with Republicans leaders were a roving assemblage of vigilante white men in Philadelphia’s Fishtown neighborhood who threatened and intimidated Black Lives Matter protesters with bats and makeshift weapons early in June, all with the tacit approval of the local police officers. Members of the group ended up assaulting a local news producer who was documenting the group’s ground presence, leaving him bloodied.Billy Penn reports that the men were alerted by police officers that “looting” could happen in their area, which the men interpreted it as a call-to-arms.
Last week, a similar crowd of vigilante white men assembled in front of a statue of Christopher Columbus again in Philadelphia on June 14. They were reportedly greeted with handshakes by police officers, who later allowed the group to assault people protesting at the statue.
Domenech called on Republican leaders to stand arm-in-arm with police officers and to fight protesters trying to remove statues.
What I want to see right now more than anything is elected officials and community leaders who are willing and ready to link arms with these cops and physically take part in cleaning up this mess and defying the mob.
Tags: Ben DomenechBlack Lives MatterGeorge Floydviolent rhetoricThe Federalist
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When President Donald Trump held his nightly White House press briefing on the coronavirus pandemic on Friday, April 24, a White House staffer was determined to micromanage which journalists would be seated where — and Washington Post media critic Erik Wemble offers a scathing analysis in a video posted on Twitter and YouTube, explaining why the staffer’s actions were so egregious.
“The White House is invoking the Secret Service and using cheap intimidation tactics to scare reporters into other seats,” Wemple asserts in the video. And the Post media critic goes on to say, “They’re using these seats to accomplish a change in tone in the briefing room. The president doesn’t want to answer — or even face — the sort of questions that CNN and other outlets are asking in that briefing room. It doesn’t matter where you put the reporters; those questions have to be answered.”
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tRUMP INSISTS REPORTERS RETURN 'NOBLE' PRIZES:{ Trump launched another Twitter tirade against the media Sunday, slamming a days-old story about his lax work habits. Trump also called on reporters who wrote about Russia’s interference in the U.S. presidential election to return their “Noble” prizes. There are no Noble prizes for reported stories, nor are there Nobel Prizes. There are Pulitzer Prizes for journalism; there is a Nobel Prize for literature. That particular rant subsequently vanished. But hours later, Trump called his comments “sarcasm.” :(style="background-color:#ffffff;"):}:[HuffPost:{]}:
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/trump-offers-a-sarcastic-apology-when-a-reporter-catches-him-in-a-lie/
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[https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/trump-team-ramps-up-smear-campaign-on-obamas-ebola-czar-for-exposing-the-presidents-covid-19-bumbling-report/](===
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https://www.alternet.org/2020/03/trump-team-ramps-up-smear-campaign-on-obamas-ebola-czar-for-exposing-the-presidents-covid-19-bumbling-report/)
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| Pro-Trump OAN pushes wild conspiracy theory that novel coronavirus was created in a North Carolina lab |
Pro-Trump cable news network OAN aired a special "investigative" look into the novel coronavirus and COVID-19. The network’s chief White House correspondent, Chanel Rion, suggested that the novel coronavirus responsible for the current pandemic may have originated in a North Carolina laboratory. As support, Rion cited Greg Rubini, whom she described in the special as “a citizen investigator and monitored source amongst a certain set in the D.C. intelligence community.” There is no evidence that Rubini is a “monitored source” for anyone but Rion. He has pushed QAnon conspiracy theories about the “deep state” on Twitter. Rubini also preposterously suggested that Dr. Anthony Fauci funded the creation of the novel coronavirus and that Trump's political opponents spread it around the world, from China to Italy to back to the United States. This is obviously a totally bananas conspiracy theory -- but it's one the network fell for. This would be bad enough, but the Trump White House has credentialed the networked as well. And on Wednesday, Trump called on Rion during a White House briefing, where she asked if the phrase "Chinese food" was racist, and accused the rest of the media of “siding with foreign state propaganda, Islamic radicals, and Latin gangs and cartels.” Shortly after making a mockery of a public briefing in the middle of a pandemic that could kill millions, Rion said that China was making an "odd" accusation that the novel coronavirus was created in the United States -- the same conspiracy theory that Rion herself had endorsed just days earlier. This isn't going to end, either: On Saturday, Trump again called on OAN and used its question to attack The Washington Post. |
| mma |
Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story March 21, 2020
‘A weak man with delusions of competence’: Trump buried for lying his way through the daily pandemic press conferences
Written by Tom Boggioni / Raw Story March 21, 2020
In a brutally blunt piece for the New York Times, columnist Jennifer Senior went scorched earth on Donald Trump for his lie-filled performances in the now daily press briefings on the coronavirus pandemic — suggesting the media call them what they are: presidential “propaganda.”
Following a day when the combative Trump attacked NBC reporter Peter Alexander for merely asking what he could say to the public that is living in fear of the pandemic, Senior said enough is enough.
“In a time of global emergency, we need calm, directness and, above all, hard facts. Only the opposite is on offer from the Trump White House. It is therefore time to call the president’s news conferences for what they are: propaganda,” she wrote. “We may as well be watching newsreels approved by the Soviet Politburo. We’re witnessing the falsification of history in real time. When Donald Trump, under the guise of social distancing, told the White House press corps on Thursday that he ought to get rid of 75 to 80 percent of them — reserving the privilege only for those he liked — it may have been chilling, but it wasn’t surprising. He wants to thin out their ranks until there’s only Pravda in the room.”
According to the columnist, Trump’s press conferences are full of bluster and lies and stand in stark contrast with those being held by Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY).
For many, Friday’s contentious press conference should be the tipping point for most journalists.
“At his Thursday news conference, a discussion of chloroquine and other experimental therapies formed the core of his remarks, when those drugs and therapies are untested and unproven and, in some cases, won’t be ready for several months, as NBC’s Peter Alexander pointed out the following day,” she recalled. “‘What do you say to Americans who are scared?’ Alexander pressed. ‘I say that you’re a terrible reporter,’ Trump answered. Only a liar — and a weak man with delusions of competence — would be so unnerved by the facts.”
“Most dangerous of all is Trump’s insistence that things are fine, or will be shortly, that they’ll be stronger and better and greater than ever. We don’t have any evidence that this is true, and the president finds any suggestion to the contrary quite rude. When a journalist pointed out to him on Thursday that the economy had all but ground to halt, Trump cut him off,” she explained. “Here’s the truth: Things might be hard — unfathomably hard — for months, perhaps even north of a year. Anyone who’s reading or listening to other sources of news besides the president knows that. It takes sensitivity and strength and intelligence to speak truthfully to the public about imminent hardship, the prospect of enduring pain.”
Then came the Cuomo comparison.
“I listen to Cuomo, who says the same thing. His news conference on Friday was about the practical things, knowing the entire state — country, globe — had just taken a precipitous slide down Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with food, shelter and safety now topmost on many people’s minds. No one can evict you for 90 days. We’re getting hospital beds. We’re recruiting doctors and nurses in training to fight this fight, and we’re coaxing medical professionals out of retirement,” she wrote. “Then he spoke from the heart. One of his daughters was in quarantine. ‘To tell you the truth, I had some of the best conversations with her that I’ve ever had,’ Cuomo said. She was alone for two weeks. ‘We talked about things in depth that we didn’t have time to talk about in the past,’ he continued, ‘or we didn’t have the courage or the strength to talk about in the past — feelings I had, about mistakes I had made along the way that I wanted to express my regret and talk through with her.'”
“He was expressing fallibility. Imagine that,” she concluded.
You can read the whole piece here.