The determination of Donald Trump and his MAGA minions to assume authoritarian style control over the free press is rapidly advancing as he aggressively accelerates his abuse of power to subjugate the media. That abuse takes the form of persecution by his “Justice” Department and overt threats of lawsuits and other forms of illegal punishment for any journalists who dare to report truthfully about him or challenge his MAGA-sty.

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Trump’s efforts to quash the Constitution’s First Amendment protection of the free press have already had some dreadful effects on the media. He has coerced corporations that own news divisions to acquiesce to his demands for more favorable coverage, to pay out settlements for bogus claims of defamation, and to make concessions in order to gain federal approvals for mergers and other business regulatory matters. And Trump is actually proud of that poisoning of the media environment.

SEE THIS: Trump Brags About Getting Fascist Control of the Media in Bonkers Truth Social Post

Trump’s Secretary of War Crimes, Pete Hegseth, has been a faithful partner in his assault on the press. He recently issued orders to ban journalists from the Pentagon who declined to sign loyalty oaths to Trump. That meant that the only officially credentialed reporters allowed access to the Pentagon were Trump-fluffing outlets like One America News.

The latest act of tyrannical propagandism by Hegseth is his edict constraining the reporting of the previously respected military publication, Stars and Stripes. According to NPR (which is one of the news outlets Hegseth banned from the Pentagon)…

“The Defense Department has begun to exert greater control over Stars and Stripes, weeks after a top spokesman accused the independent military newspaper of focusing on ‘woke distractions.’

“The Pentagon announced what it calls ‘modernization’ changes this week, in a memo dated March 9 and effective immediately, according to a copy seen by NPR and first reported by Stars and Stripes on Friday. It’s the latest effort by the Pentagon and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth to apply extraordinary limits on journalists covering the agency.

“The memo says that Stars and Stripes will continue to ‘operate with editorial independence.’ However, it also says that the newspaper must immediately begin implementing the Defense Department’s new interim policies and stop publishing several types of content.”

It is no coincidence that the language used by the DoD spokesman, Sean Parnell, parroted Trump’s rhetoric of “woke” reporters who fail to sufficiently worship Dear Leader. Parnell specifically stated that the purpose of the so-called “modernization” of Stars and Stripes was to “refocus its content away from woke distractions that syphon (sic) morale.”

Parnell also complained about the use of wire services to augment the publication’s content, saying that there would be “No more repurposed DC gossip columns; no more Associated Press reprints.” Therefore, there will no longer be any reporting by credible journalists around the world. There will also no longer be any sports coverage, or entertainment stories, or comic strips. All of which are popular with the troops who are the primary readers of the paper.

More troubling is the fact that this change has been made just as the U.S. has embarked on a war with Iran. So Stars and Stripes readers will now be missing some of the most important stories that in the past would have kept them informed about the state of the world and the American military’s place in it.

It can’t be ignored that Hegseth and Trump are just trying to insure that our troops will never hear important stories, such as the bombing of an Iranian school that killed more than 150 children. Or that the Strait of Hormuz is being shut down by Iran. Or that Trump has declared that the war has already been won, but that he wants to continue the fighting – and the killing, and the placing of American troops in harms way – for fun.

Stars and Stripes itself covered the memo wherein Hegseth’s Pentagon ordered the constraints on the paper. They quoted a spokesman for PEN America, an organization that advocates for the free press, who said that…

“This clearly shows that the Pentagon is trying to increase its influence over content decisions at Stars and Stripes [and that] That’s a threat to the First Amendment.”

What this boils down to is that Trump and Hegseth are terrified of allowing Americas soldiers access to information that directly affects their lives and the lives of their families. It’s a dictator’s approach to free speech and democracy. So naturally Trump has embraced it as his own. Hopefully the reporters at Stars and Stripes – and all other media – will resist such censorship and continue to be faithful to the Constitution, rather to the felonious authoritarian occupying the White House.

RELATED STORIES:

• Trump’s Secretary of Wars, Pete Hegseth, Openly Yearns For Government Control of the Media
• Pete Hegseth, Trump’s Secretary of ‘Wah’ is a Crybaby Who Bans ‘Unflattering’ Photos of Himself
• Pete Hegseth Callously Dismisses American Fatalities as the Press ‘Wanting to Make Trump Look Bad’

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