Censorship

Trump’s Justice Dept Threatens Journalists as ‘Treasonous’ for Not Disclosing Sources of Leaks

Posted by on April 26, 2025 at 12:52 pm. 2 Comments :

The authoritarian aspirations of Donald Trump have hardly been kept hidden. To the contrary, he brags about it, even celebrates it, on a daily basis. His brazen attacks on everything from universities, to law firms, to independent federal agencies that he is expressly prohibited from interacting with, are naked attempts to unlawfully expand and abuse his position as president.

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Donald Trump, Censorship

Among the institutions that Trump regularly persecutes is the one profession that is explicitly protected in the Constitution by name: Freedom of the Press. For many years Trump has maligned the media in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” But more recently he has taken to filing ludicrous lawsuits and banishing those who are insufficiently worshipful from presidential events.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Press Secretary Takes Questions From a Russian Funded MAGA Podcaster in the WH Press Room

Trump’s most recent assault on the free press comes on the heels of its abhorrent attack on the judiciary with the arrest of a judge in Wisconsin on phony charges that she helped an undocumented immigrate evade apprehension by Trump’s ICE goons. This escalation of the Trump regime’s demolishing of the Constitution has infuriated even conservatives worried about Trump’s overreaching into totalitarian tactics.

However, if you thought that it couldn’t get any worse, you don’t know Trump. On Friday, Trump assigned his lickspittle Attorney Genuflect, Pam Bondi, to issue an official Justice Department memo aimed at threatening journalists with legal consequences – including arrest and potentially much worse – for merely doing their job.

Journalists have long been shielded from these sort of government threats by the First Amendment of the Constitution, along with Justice Department policy to refrain from imposing pressure on them to disclose their sources or other work product. But now Trump and Bondi are exacerbating their bullying by rescinding a Biden administration policy that prohibited such oppressive conduct.

What follows are a couple of the most harrowing portions of the Bondi memo, wherein she advocates for “the use of subpoenas, court orders, and search warrants to compel production of information and testimony by and relating to members of the news media.” As reported by Ken Dilanian, NBC News justice and intelligence correspondent…

“I have concluded that it is necessary to rescind Merrick Garland’s policies precluding the Department of Justice from seeking records and compelling testimony from members of the news media in order to identify and punish the source of improper leaks.”

Translation: Bondi is permitting Trump’s Justice Department to demand that journalists give up their confidential sources, including personal communications (texts, phone records, emails, etc.), under threat of subpoena, incarceration, and criminal prosecution if they refuse to comply. That is flagrantly unconstitutional. What’s more, it would hamper the ability of reporters to gather information from government sources who would be too afraid to talk if they knew the reporters could be coerced into revealing their identity. And leaks are not “improper” unless they include classified data. The memo continued…

“This Justice Department will not tolerate unauthorized disclosures that undermine President Trump’s policies, victimize government agencies, and cause harm to the American people. ‘Where a Government employee improperly discloses sensitive information for the purposes of personal enrichment and undermining our foreign policy, national security, and Government effectiveness— all ultimately designed to sow chaos and distrust in Government- this conduct could properly be characterized as treasonous.'”

Translation: Bondi is improperly assuming the role of policing the media’s disclosures of presidential activities. That is not remotely within the jurisdiction of the Justice Department. And it is especially improper if the intent is to avoid what it regards as “undermining” the president’s policies. The public has a right to know what the president is up to, whether the president or the Justice Department likes it or not.

Even worse, Bondi is overtly threatening journalists with the capitol crime of treason. She is actually advocating for the execution of a reporter who might tell the truth about some malfeasance by the president. Which the public also has a right to know about.

For the record, that portion of Bondi’s memo was lifted verbatim from Trump’s prior executive order instructing the Justice Department to conduct a punitive investigation of Miles Taylor, the former Chief of Staff to Trump’s Secretary of Homeland Security, whose only crime was writing an honest book about Trump’s scandalous first term in office.

Trump’s fondness for threatening to execute his political foes is well documented. He has made a habit of calling his critics “treasonous.” Some of those he has targeted in the past include, Barack Obama, Liz Cheney, Nancy Pelosi, James Comey, Adam Schiff, the New York Times, and Google.

Now Trump has had his Attorney General codify his bloodlust so that he can begin to carry out his campaign of vengeance. This must not be allowed to proceed. And since his Justice Department cannot be relied on to do the right thing, it is left to Congress to find the courage to impeach him before he gets away with any more of his monarchal madness.

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The Trump Regime Just Purged Nearly 400 Books From the US Naval Academy Because of…DEI?

Posted by on April 5, 2025 at 12:30 pm. 3 Comments :

The determination of Donald Trump and his white-wing MAGA movement to erase any and all evidence of America’s rich medley of humanity and culture has been a key component of its mission from its inception. To describe it as merely racist would be far too inadequate to accurately convey its noxious intent.

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Donald Trump, MAGA

In the two months since Trump’s reoccupation of the White House, he and his Klan have sought to undermine democracy, cancel the Constitution, and foment hatred and division among the American people, always casting themselves as the victims.

SEE THIS: Trump and MAGA Rep FREAK OUT that ‘Monsters’ at NPR and PBS ‘Hate Christians and America’

High on their list of purely putrid priorities is their campaign against DEI (diversity, equity, and inclusion) programs, whether in government or private enterprise. Because the worst thing that the Trump cult can imagine is a country that honors its diverse population, where all are treated equally, and who can be included in the benefits that a free society provides.

Consequently, the Trump regime has been working overtime to eliminate DEI programs from every government agency, while simultaneously bullying private companies into dropping their programs.

Among the preposterous results of this barrage of bigotry was the deletion of a web page about baseball great and veteran, Jackie Robinson, from the Defense Department website. And then there was the scrapping of info about the plane that dropped the bomb on Hiroshima because its name was “Enola Gay.” Many other examples exist of atrocious cancelations of notable Americans simply because their gender, their religion, or the color of their skin offended the Trumpists.

The latest victim of this censorious purge is the library of the United States Naval Academy. According to Navy spokesman Cmdr. Tim Hawkins, “Nearly 400 books were removed from Nimitz Library to comply with directives outlined in Executive Orders issued by the President.” As reported by CBS News…

“Books on the Holocaust, histories of feminism, civil rights and racism, and Maya Angelou’s famous autobiography, ‘I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings,’ were among the nearly 400 volumes removed from the U.S. Naval Academy’s library this week after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s office ordered the school to get rid of ones that promote diversity, equity and inclusion.” […]

“Other books clearly deal with subjects that have been stridently targeted by the Trump administration, including gender identity, sexuality and transgender issues. A wide array of books on race and gender were targeted, dealing with such topics as African American women poets [and] historical books on racism, the Ku Klux Klan and the treatment of women, gender and race in art and literature.”

There is no justification for this brazenly fascist act of censorship and bigotry. It would be unthinkable for any business or government agency act this way. But it is particularly galling when an honorable institution like the U.S. Naval Academy is being forced to engage in such toxic, unconstitutional misbehavior.

Sadly, this is what it has come to in Trump’s (per)version of America. They simply have zero tolerance for anyone who doesn’t look and act like them. So he orders his utterly unqualified secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, to cleanse the Academy’s library of materials that they find offensive.

Furthermore, there is a repugnant irony in that Hegseth himself is a product of the rankest form of bias in the hiring of blind Trump loyalists with no experience whatsoever for the jobs they’ve been asked to do. What ever happened to merit-based recruiting?

Apparently the Trump regime believes that America’s soldiers are too weak to handle an honest and complete accounting of American history. So they have to sanitize it of any references to heroes who don’t fit their pale-faced, Jesus-fearing, far-right GOP model of supremacy. And that’s supposed to make America great?

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Trump and MAGA Rep FREAK OUT that ‘Monsters’ at NPR and PBS ‘Hate Christians and America’

Posted by on April 2, 2025 at 3:10 pm. 1 Comments :

Conservative Republicans have been trying to kill off NPR and PBS for decades. There is nothing that they hate more than an informed and educated populace. But their obsession with eliminating public broadcasting has never been more pronounced than it is today, during the second coming of Donald Trump, who famously gushed that “I love the poorly educated.”

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Donald Trump, Censorship

It’s no wonder why Trump feels such affinity to those without the basic elements of intellect and critical thinking. Such people are the most easily manipulated and are the best candidates for indoctrination into hive-mind cults where everyone is expected to think alike. Trump’s Chief-of-Staff, Susie Wiles, said so explicitly on a recent episode of Lara Trump’s Fox News program…

SEE THIS: Lara Trump’s Interview of Her Sugardaddy-in-Law’s Chief-of-Staff on Fox News is Pure Cult Dogma

With all of the swirling catastrophes circling the newly minted Trump 2.0 (SignalGate, annexations of Greenland and Canada, inflationary/recessionary Trump Tax/Tariffs, unconstitutional deportations, mass firings of critical federal workers/services, etc.), the regime is desperate to deflect to matters that they think they can spin in a more positive direction.

As usual, Trump’s desperation has led him to yet another fiasco. He has chosen to escalate the war on public broadcasting to an unprecedented level. On Monday Trump posted a comment on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social that raged about the “MONSTERS” at NPR and PBS…

“REPUBLICANS MUST DEFUND AND TOTALLY DISASSOCIATE THEMSELVES FROM NPR & PBS, THE RADICAL LEFT ‘MONSTERS’ THAT SO BADLY HURT OUR COUNTRY!”

The sickness and hatred that is Donald Trump and MAGA…They are OBSESSED with killing the "MONSTERS" – NPR & PBS.

— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) 2025-04-02T19:10:08.508Z

That’s right! It’s about time that somebody fought back against the “monsters” that produce Sesame Street, Antiques Roadshow, All Things Considered, and This Old House. Who can deny that they “so badly hurt our country” and must be defunded? And if that weren’t bad enough, a congressional Trump flunky, Brandon Gill (TX-MAGA), chimed in with the following complaint…

The idea that we’re spending so much of our hard earned tax dollars promoting values that we find repulsive is wrong. We shouldn’t be doing this. Let me remind you that Katherine Maher and the entire staff at NPR, I think it’s worth noting, they don’t just disagree with you. They hate you. They hate Christians. They hate conservatives. They hate this country.”

Rep. Brandon Gill says NPR must be defunded because it is "promoting values that we find repulsive" and everyone who works there hates Christians, conservatives, and America.

— Right Wing Watch (@rightwingwatch.bsky.social) 2025-04-02T17:37:10.037Z

Rep. Gill didn’t bother to provide any examples of the “repulsive” values that have him so worked up. So either they are too repulsive to even discuss, or more likely, they don’t exist anywhere outside of his cartoon brain. And his assertion that the entire staff of NPR hates Christians, conservatives, and America, is straight out of the most perverse dregs of wingnut dystopian dementia.

It is troubling to consider that the likelihood of defunding these American institutions is frighteningly plausible. The Republican majority in Congress is devoted to obeying every command from their Dear Leader Trump. Even if it means canceling treasured programs, maligning honorable people, and trashing the Constitution’s First Amendment protections of freedom of the press.

The hysterical rage mongers of the right care only about retaining their grip on power by any means they deem necessary. And attacking public broadcasting serves a dual purpose for these radical lunatics: It helps them to channel attention away from the even more grotesque endeavors that that they are engaged in, and it leads to a more ignorant, compliant base of cult followers.

The good news is that they cannot possibly succeed. They are weak and witless and far fewer in number. The majority of Americans are not as blind and malleable as the MAGA minions. We will resist their efforts to control and subjugate us. And our resolve will see us through. LFG!

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White House Correspondents Association Axes Comedian Amber Ruffin After Tantrum By Trump Aide

Posted by on March 30, 2025 at 12:58 pm. 1 Comments :

The determination of Donald Trump to put his bone-spur infected boot down on the throats of the free press has been a hallmark of his career in politics. And in his reoccupation of the White House, his animosity toward the media that he repeatedly maligns in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people” has never been more pronounced.

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Amber Ruffin and Donald Trump baby

In recent weeks Trump has escalated his threats toward the press by filing frivolous lawsuits and banning media organizations that don’t worshipfully exalt him. And, unfortunately, the media has not been particularly eager to confront him or to stand up for themselves. To the contrary, they have been letting him get away with some of the most atrocious assaults on the Constitution’s First Amendment by any president in modern times.

SEE THIS: Trump Declares Himself King of the White House Press Corps, Will Now Decide Who Can Question Him

On Saturday the White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) provided another example of the lily-livered behavior that has stained their reputation. Every year the WHCA holds a gala dinner to honor members and raise funds for journalism scholarships. That dinner usually features addresses by the current president and a well known comedian.

This year the WHCA announced that the comic host would be, Amber Ruffin, a popular talent with an extensive and impressive resume. She has been an Emmy winning writer and performer on Late Night with Seth Meyers. She has authored best selling books. She has written Tony Award winning plays. And she is currently a regular on CNN’s comedy news program, “Have I Got News For You.”

But apparently that wasn’t good enough for the WHCA to retain her services after an attack by a bitter and belligerent Trump bulldog. As reported by Variety…

“The White House Correspondents’ Association has canceled plans to have comedian Amber Ruffin perform at its annual dinner on April 26, a new sign of the pressures being brought to bear on news organizations during President Donald Trump’s second term. The journalism group, which has seen its control over interactions with Trump eroded in recent weeks, made the decision after Taylor Budowich, a White House deputy chief of staff, raised comments Ruffin has made in the past that are critical of Trump.”

What Budowich was triggered by was Ruffin’s biting satire and political quips. Which is precisely what the comedian’s role at this dinner has always been about, no matter who was in the White House. Other presidents enjoyed the program with good humor, and even joined in it themselves. But Trump’s massive yet fragile ego couldn’t bear it. He was even too afraid to attend the dinner during his prior occupation of the White House. And he won’t be going this year either. So Budowich went after the WHCA and Ruffin saying that…

This year’s WHCA dinner will be hosted by a 2nd rate comedian…What kind of responsible, sensible journalist would attend something like this? More importantly, what kind of company would sponsor such as hate-filled and violence-inspiring event?

The Trump Doctrine demands that any criticism they make of others cannot be merely an expression of their disagreement. It must be rife with insults and threats. Consequently, Budowich resorts to calling Ruffin a “2nd rate comedian,” and adds some totalitarian-style coercion to sponsors to scare them off of contributing to the charity dinner. And to make matters worse, he inserts a preposterous assertion that Ruffin’s presence is “violence-inspiring.” That’s coming from a top aide to Trump who incited a deadly insurrection and then pardoned the rioters who stormed the Capital and put 140 police officers in the hospital.

In response to Budowich’s whining, the WHCA released a pathetic statement saying that…

“The WHCA board has unanimously decided we are no longer featuring a comedic performance this year. At this consequential moment for journalism, I want to ensure the focus is not on the politics of division but entirely on awarding our colleagues for their outstanding work and providing scholarship and mentorship to the next generation of journalists.”

With all due respect…BULLSH*T! Why didn’t the Board make this decision last month before they invited Ruffin to be the host? And what is it about “this consequential moment for journalism” that makes political satire unsuitable? What could be more suitable? And how does Eugene Daniels, the president of the WHCA, explain his remarks when he hired Ruffin saying that…

“Amber’s unique talents are the ideal fit for this current political and cultural climate. Her perspective will fit right in with the dinner’s tradition of honoring the freedom of the press while roasting the most powerful people on all sides of the aisle and the journalists who cover them.”

So what changed in a couple of weeks? Other than the attack by Trump’s flunky? This is another bad omen for the fate of journalism in the Era (Error) of Trump. Daniels and the WHCA are kneeling at the feet of a neo-fascist authoritarian regime. And it’s a bad sign for Daniels, who was recently hired to co-host a weekend program on MSNBC. After this capitulation, how can anyone trust that he will be a reliable journalist who reports without fear or favor?

UPDATE: Seth Meyers and Amber Ruffin respond to her cancelation by the WHCA. Here are three things that Ruffin learned from the experience…

  • “When you watch The Sound of Music, you have to root for the singing children and the other people [e.g. Nazis]”.
  • “We have a free press so that we can be nice to Republicans at fancy dinners. That’s what it says in the First Amendment.
  • “I thought when people take away your rights, erase your history, and deport your friends, you’re supposed to call it out. But I was wrong. Glad to find that out now because if they had let me give that speech, ooh, baby. I would have been so terrifically mean.”

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Trump at the ‘Justice’ Department: CNN, MSNBC, and Other Media are Illegal and ‘It Has to Stop’

Posted by on March 15, 2025 at 12:42 pm. 2 Comments :

This week the parade of perfidy that has characterized the Second Scumming of Donald Trump (and the first one as well) took its roadshow to the hallowed halls of the United States Department of Justice. It was a particularly nauseating spectacle considering the role that those halls have represented in America’s history.

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Donald Trump, Censorship

The purpose of this presidential outing was, according to the White House, to discuss problems related to fentanyl and other drug trafficking related crimes. But as it unfolded it was clear that Trump had an entirely different agenda. Most the time he spoke was allotted to his whining about the results of the 2020 election; to his fixation on getting revenge for being prosecuted for crimes that he actually committed; and to smearing his political opponents for his own failures. It was little more than a repeat of his partisan and hostile speech before the Joint Session of Congress last week.

SEE THIS: Collected Quotes Displaying Trump’s Obsession with Himself In His Pseudo State of the Union Spiel

Crammed into his caterwauling commentary was another example of his hysterical hatred for the free press that he regularly maligns as “the enemy of the people.” Nothing bothers Trump more than hearing the truth be told about him. He raged that…

“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. It makes no difference how big a victory I had. I can have the biggest victory in history. It makes no difference what kind of a failure the other side has. These people are gonna go after me. […]

“These networks and these newspapers are really no different than highly paid political operatives, and it has to stop. It has to be illegal. It’s influencing judges, and it’s really a changing law, and it just cannot be legal. I don’t believe it’s legal. And they do it in total coordination with each other.”

First of all, let’s note that Trump uses the word “literally” when he obviously means “figuratively.” That’s because he literally doesn’t understand the English language. More to the point, his rant should serve as a five-alarm warning to all Americans who cherish the Constitution. His attack on the First Amendment’s protection of freedom of the press is nothing new in his repugnant repertoire, but it remains among the most troubling.

Trump is not joking when he says that, in his opinion, CNN, MSNBC, and other media outlets are “illegal” and that, given the opportunity, he will see to it that they are stopped. He has already banished several news networks from the White House press pool, and he has declared that he will now determine which reporters are allowed to ask him questions, a role that was handled by the independent White House Correspondents Association for decades.

MORE HERE: Trump Declares Himself King of the White House Press Corps, Will Now Decide Who Can Question Him

One of the most egregious inanities in his speech was his assertion that any media that criticizes him is “no different than highly paid political operatives.” You’ll notice that he didn’t mention Fox News, a truly political operation, in his attack. And many of their personnel are literally paid to be political hacks. At least 19 of them have joined the Trump administration.

SEE ALSO: Trump’s Nominees Are Largely Fox News Alum, Mar-a-Lago Patrons, and Billionaires

Trump also claimed, without any evidence whatsoever, that reporting by his media foes was “influencing judges,” and was done “in total coordination with each other.” That’s another example of projection by Trump. He often accuses his critics of the grossly improper behavior that he engages in regularly.

When a national leader’s authoritarian rhetoric descends to the depths that Trump is dredging, it is not long before he starts to implement campaigns of brutal censorship and even incarceration of journalists that he opposes. He is executing the playbook for media suppression that he got from Vladimir Putin. And if the media doesn’t take this seriously now, they will later find out that they are unable to do anything about it from their prison cells.

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The Media Must Boycott Trump’s Phony Press Conferences Until He Stops Censoring Journalists

Posted by on February 12, 2025 at 12:32 pm. 2 Comments :

There have been a disturbing amount of firsts achieved by Donald Trump as he commences his second occupation of the White House. None of which would foster pride in any honorable man or woman. They include his being the first president convicted of felonies; the first adjudicated as a rapist; the first barred from running a charity; and the first to openly admire, praise, and seek to emulate vile dictators like Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, and even Adolf Hitler.

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Donald Trump TV Set

Trump is also the first president to hold the free press in such contempt that he repeatedly refers to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” And no American leader before him has sought so aggressively to undermine the constitutional protections of the press provided in the First Amendment. The white hot intensity of Trump’s hostility toward the media is reflected in his nominee for FBI Director, Kash Patel…

SEE THIS: Trump’s Free Press? His FBI Flunky Kash Patel Threatens to ‘Come After the People in the Media’

The latest example of Trump’s anti-press obsession is his response to a perfectly reasonable editorial decision by the Associated Press concerning Trump’s preposterous plan to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the “Gulf of America.” The AP noted that “Trump’s order only carries authority within the United States.” Then they elaborated saying that…

“The Gulf of Mexico has carried that name for more than 400 years. The Associated Press will refer to it by its original name while acknowledging the new name Trump has chosen. As a global news agency that disseminates news around the world, the AP must ensure that place names and geography are easily recognizable to all audiences.”

That decision is entirely within the rights of the AP to make as they see fit, and within the principles of professional journalism. However, in Trump’s egomaniacally twisted view, he imagines that he has the right to punish the media whenever they do something that offends him personally. Consequently, Trump issued an order banning the AP from Oval Office media events. That is pure, unadulterated censorship that violates the Constitution. The AP responded saying that…

“Today we were informed by the White House that if AP did not align its editorial standards with President Donald Trump’s executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America, AP would be barred from accessing an event in the Oval Office. This afternoon AP’s reporter was blocked from attending an executive order signing.

“It is alarming that the Trump administration would punish AP for its independent journalism. Limiting our access to the Oval Office based on the content of AP’s speech not only severely impedes the public’s access to independent news, it plainly violates the First Amendment.”

The AP was not the only media enterprise that was appalled by the tyrannical behavior of Trump. Eugene Daniels, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said that…

“The White House cannot dictate how news organizations report the news, nor should it penalize working journalists because it is unhappy with their editors’ decisions. The move by the administration to bar a reporter from The Associated Press from an official event open to news coverage today is unacceptable.

“The WHCA stands with The Associated Press and calls on the administration to immediately change course.”

Craig Aaron, President and Co-CEO of Free Press Action, testified before Congress Wednesday and enumerated the attacks on the free press by Trump and his administration that “is using the power of the government to shake down the media and quash dissent.” Including…

  • Trump’s FCC chairman (and Project 2025 co-author), Brendan Carr’s threats to revoke broadcast licenses because he doesn’t like the viewpoints he sees on TV.
  • Trump’s lawsuit against CBS News for $20 billion because he didn’t like how 60 Minutes chose to edit an interview with Kamala Harris.
  • Disney/ABC, Meta, maybe now CBS — paying tens of millions of dollars to settle specious lawsuits. They appear to be paying off the president to shield themselves from reprisal or gain regulatory favors.
  • All the billionaire owners of these companies line up on the dais at the president’s inauguration clutching million-dollar checks to show their loyalty.

MORE HERE: Trump Hurls Hate and Fear at All of the Media He’s Suing Following the ABC News Capitulation

Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) also made an impassioned speech defending the free press and condemning Trump’s censorious assault on the AP…

“Yesterday, Donald Trump banned the Associated Press, a 179-year-old newspaper organization, from the White House because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the ‘Gulf of America.’ This is straight up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination. Trump’s DoD kicked out eight newsgroups that had space in the Pentagon, but which asked skeptical questions of the new Secretary. Including the New York Times, NBC News, and the Washington Post. All ousted in favor of outlets willing to faithfully advance the party line of the state, like Breitbart and One America News Network.”

Raskin: "Yesterday, Donald Trump banned the Associated Press, a 179-year-old newspaper organization, from the White House because it declines to call the Gulf of Mexico the "Gulf of America." This is straight up press censorship based on retaliatory viewpoint discrimination."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-02-12T15:24:14.097Z

For these, and so many other reasons, the media needs to stop pussy-footing around with Trump. He is virulently opposed to the mission of the free press in America, and he couldn’t care less about the Constitution’s explicit protections. And now that he has escalated his attacks to actually banning journalists for doing their jobs, the press must stop giving him the attention he craves to disseminate pure propaganda.

His press conferences are nothing more than staged photo-ops where he badgers and bullies reporters without answering their questions. Instead he replies with known lies, infantile insults, and noxious self-exaltation. Then he filibusters until his nannies usher the reporters out of the room.

News outlets don’t need to be present to suffer that disrespect and abuse. They can send interns to record the nonsense that he spews, and then report on it later with proper context and fact-checking. That will surely drive Trump crazy(er), as he seethes in an empty room yearning for the adulation he covets to satisfy his narcissistic lust.

UPDATE 2/14/2025: Trump has escalated his war on the AP. They have now been banned indefinitely from the Oval Office and Air Force One.

UPDATE 2/22/2025: The AP is suing the Trump administration to rescind its unconstitutional ban on their reporters.

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Trump is Busy Doing the People’s Work: Pushing for Plastic Straws and Firing Journalists?

Posted by on February 7, 2025 at 1:04 pm. 3 Comments :

It’s good to know that Donald Trump isn’t just playing golf, proposing hostile takeovers of U.S. allies (Canada, Mexico, Greenland, etc.), nominating unqualified and anti-American Cabinet secretaries, terminating career prosecutors and FBI agents, and masterminding fascist coups of government agencies in order to sabotage their work.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

Trump is also steadfastly applying himself to his obligations as president to achieve the goals of the American people that he has pledged to serve. The citizens of this nation should be comforted knowing that they have a leader who is spending his time on critical initiatives like policing who uses which bathrooms, flooding California farmlands, and pitching cheesy merchandise and self-exalting books…

SEE THIS: Trump Wants to Run America Like his Businesses – Trump Media and Crypto – That are Crashing

On Friday morning Trump added to his list of priorities a couple of long-festering problems that have been in dire need of solutions. He posted his intentions on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, to let everyone know just how focused he is on America’s most urgent issues.

Trump’s first message made plain his determination to resolve a matter that surely takes precedence over immigration, school shootings, drug trafficking, homelessness, wars in Ukraine and Gaza, climate change, and the high price of eggs and gas. Trump wrote that…

“I will be signing an Executive Order next week ending the ridiculous Biden push for Paper Straws, which don’t work. BACK TO PLASTIC!”

Thank God! We absatively have to drop everything else and ban those horrible paper straws and return to the plastic variety that are known for “releasing chemicals into the soil, air, and water that are harmful to animals, plants, people, and the environment.” Why hasn’t anyone sought to do this before?

Trump’s next message sought to further his long battle against the free press that he refers to in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” He wrote that…

“Eugene Robinson of the Washington Post is INCOMPETENT! So sad to see him trying to justify the waste, fraud, and corruption at USAID with his pathetic Radical Left SPIN. He should be fired immediately!!!”

It’s about time that the U.S. government clamp down on wayward reporters who have the audacity to exercise their rights under the Constitution’s First Amendment. Especially Pulitzer Prize-winning columnists like Robinson. And leave it Trump, who regularly castigates the press and calls for censorship by the government, to lash out at a journalist and demand that he be fired.

It’s unclear what Trump was specifically referring to in his harangue. However, it is likely that he watched Robinson on MSNBC offering well-deserved criticism of Trump’s assault on the USAID program that “is the principal U.S. agency to extend assistance to countries recovering from disaster, trying to escape poverty, and engaging in democratic reforms.” How dare they?

What probably triggered Trump was Robinson speculating that Trump and Musk were using USAID “as kind of a demonstration project, just to see how we can destroy an agency and demoralize the rest of the federal workforce.” Which would perfectly align with the behavior of the MAGA boys and their orchestrated coup.

UPDATE: Trump added another comment announcing that he is appointing himself as the chair of the Kennedy Center Board of Trustees, and terminating the current chair and “multiple individuals” from the Board. Why? Because he has nothing better to do (Elon’s running everything), and what the Center has been missing is a clod who has no relationship with modern culture? So look for future inductees like Kid Rock, Scott Baio, Roseanne Barr, and even Ivanka.

Sadly, there will be more of this sort of bullshittery to come, until they can be stopped by an uprising of protest among the masses, the Democrats in Congress, and the courts.

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Trump Kicks Reporters Out of Pentagon Offices, Replaces Them with MAGA Media Mouthpieces

Posted by on February 1, 2025 at 11:49 am. 0 Comments :

One thing you can say about Donald Trump is that he is working furiously to assure his place in American history as the nation’s first tyrannical despot. No American leader has ever been more hostile to the U.S. Constitution and its democratic principles, or more determined to destroy it.

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Donald Trump

Trump spends most of his time disparaging American institutions and the patriots who serve them. He despises the justice system, the military, free enterprise, academia, science, and even unbiased practices of faith. But perhaps the liberties that he is most averse to are those specifically cited in the First Amendment that protect freedom of the press. He is laser focused on turning the whole of government into a propaganda factory to attack his foes and exalt himself.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Press Secretary Pledges to Plant Pro-Trump Crackpots in the White House Press Room

On Friday Trump issued a new decree to banish several media organizations from offices that they have occupied in the Pentagon for decades. The Department of Defense provided the office space to facilitate access for journalists to the stewards of the nation’s military. However, the message sent by Trump’s DoD is an unmistakable threat to press freedom, and an embrace of shameless propaganda. NBC News, one of the news outlets ousted reports that…

“NBC News, The New York Times, NPR and Politico must vacate their office spaces in two weeks for other news organizations — including at least one that did not request to be added.”

[And that…]

“The new outlets rotating in are One America News Network — which will take NBC News’s spot — the New York Post, Breitbart News Network and HuffPost.”

Needless to say, the Trump-fluffing One America News, Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, and MAGA’s own Breitbart News, are not exactly paragons of journalistic integrity. But that’s who is moving into the office space previously reserved for more mainstream media sources that, even with their own imperfect records, are at least not brazenly sycophantic toadies who exist only to kiss Trump’s…let’s say ring. The NBC report added that the Pentagon…

“…did not include further details about the process of the new ‘rotation program,’ including how officials chose which outlets needed to vacate office space first, how the new outlets were chosen and which are next.”

Based on the disreputable outlets that are moving in, we hardly need much elaboration as to how they were chosen. And this is one of the first command decisions of Trump’s new Defense Secretary, Pete Hegseth, whose confirmation squeaked by in the Senate, despite his history of abusing women and alcohol, and his woeful lack of relevant experience.

This assault on freedom of the press is consistent with Trump’s long held belief that the media is “the enemy of people.” However, it is not the only assault he has made targeting a variety of American liberties. In the short time since he has reoccupied the White House, Trump has…

And this is only the beginning. He is dead set on transforming America into the sort of totalitarian dystopia that his heroes – Vladimir Putin, Xi Jinping, Kim Jong Un, etc. – are lording over. But he isn’t going to have a clear path to his dictatorial dreams. The American people are not going to sit still while he dismantles democracy. And they already have a decidedly negative opinion him…

MORE HERE: Trump 2.0 Begins with Approval Ratings that Rank Below Every Other President Dating Back to 1953

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Tyrant Trump Decrees that it is Verboten for Government to Call Out Mis- and Disinformation

Posted by on January 23, 2025 at 1:30 pm. 1 Comments :

For as long as Donald Trump has been a political figure, he has expressed his animosity toward the free press, regularly referring to it in Stalinist terms as “the enemy of the people.” Despite his dependence on the media to disseminate his lies and propaganda, he can’t seem to refrain from lambasting journalists and news organizations in the most vile manner.

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Donald Trump, Constitution

Among the most disconcerting prospects of the new Trump administration is his intention to clamp down on the media and impose the sort censorship that is explicitly prohibited by the First Amendment to the Constitution. It’s a core principle of his authoritarian aspirations. During his campaign he made his intentions known in a commentary calling for the revocation of broadcast licenses for all TV news networks. No, really…

SEE THIS: Tyrant Trump Demands ALL TV News Licenses Be Revoked

On Thursday Trump spoke to the global elites gathered at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland. And nestled into a long and rambling speech filled with his hallmark lies, threats, and self-exaltations, was a hidden gem of despotic dreamers everywhere. He bragged about his executive order banning misinformation and disinformation as subjects that could not be discussed by government. In other words, he could now spew all the blatantly false propaganda he wants and no person in any official capacity would be permitted to criticize it for being mis- or disinformation, even though that’s exactly what it is.

“I’m pleased to report that America is also a free nation once again. On day one, I signed an executive order to stop all government censorship. No longer will our government label the speech of our own citizens as misinformation or disinformation, which are the favorite words of censors and those who wish to stop the free exchange of ideas.”

Apparently Trump’s idea of a “free nation” is one that allows him to lie with impunity, while prohibiting any speech that he doesn’t like. Furthermore, in Trump’s Orwellian speak, accurately identifying something as disinformation is itself censorship and must be…well…censored. And you’ll never guess who Trump thinks is one of the main the offenders of his censorial edict. Just one day prior to his diatribe at Davos, Trump whined on his failing Twitter ripoff, Truth Social, that CNN and MSNBC should be barred from the air…

WHAT 1st AMENDMENT?Wannabe dictator Trump posts comment whining that CNN and MSNBC "shouldn't even have a right to broadcast."

— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) 2025-01-23T09:54:37.215Z

And that wasn’t the only time. Nearly a year ago he wailed that…

SEE ALSO: THEY’RE EVIL! Wannabe Dictator Trump Says MSNBC ‘Shouldn’t Even Be Allowed’ to Be On the Air

In addition to Trump’s remarks at Davos, he also announced that he will be appointing L. Brent Bozell III to run the United States Agency for Global Media. Among other things, the USAGM oversees Voice of America, for which Trump has named failed MAGA governor and senator candidate, Kari Lake, as its new director. Bozell is the far-right extremist who ran the pure propaganda purveyor, Media Research Center. His son is a convicted felon who was sentenced to nearly four years for his role in the January 6th insurrection, for which he was just pardoned by Trump.

All of this is consistent with Trump’s mission to kneecap the press and turn its hobbled remains into an outlet for MAGA lies and propaganda. And in the early days of Trump 2.0 the media has not demonstrated much courage in resisting Trump’s bullying tactics.

So it will up to patriotic citizens to make their views known and to influence the cowardly elements in the media to do their damn jobs and report honestly about the nefarious acts being proposed and carried out by the felonious occupant of the White House.

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REALLY? Trump Proposes Allowing the US Government (and China?) to ‘Police’ Americans on TikTok

Posted by on January 21, 2025 at 2:11 pm. 0 Comments :

On Monday, January 20, 2025, Donald Trump was sworn into office as the 47th president of the United States of America. It was a day that will live in infamy because he’s also the first convicted felon and adjudicated rapist to occupy the White House.

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Fox News, Maria Bartiromo, Donald Trump

Trump lived up to his criminal inclinations by issuing a tsunami of execrable executive orders, including one that granted pardons to the more than 1,500 January 6th insurrections who stormed the Capitol, assaulted police officers, and threatened members of Congress, in order to help Trump undermine democracy. His inauguration address, and subsequent speech to his cult followers, were testimony to his tyrannical aspirations, and were riddled with lies.

SEE THIS: Trump’s Inauguration Day Rants Affirm that He is a Wannabe Dictator and a Pathological Liar

Further evidence of Trump’s anti-American leanings were revealed during his executive disorder signing ceremony in the Oval Office. There were innumerable comments that exposed his malice and ignorance. But when he was presented with the order to delay the banning of TikTok – as required by law – he volunteered a statement that confirms his aversion to the Constitution…

Passed in Congress, it gives the president the right to make a deal or to close it. And we have 90 days to make that decision. But I could see making a deal where the U.S. gets 50% of TikTok. Polices it a little bit, or a lot. Depends on them.

There’s a lot of derp to unravel in that drivel. Let’s start with the fact that the law does not “give the president the right to make a deal or to close it.” The law requires that TikTok be sold or blocked from U.S. users. There is a 90 period within which a challenge may be filed, but that’s a legal challenge, not the prerogative of the president.

Furthermore, there is nothing in the law that allows the U.S. government to own 50% of the social media app. That would be blatantly improper and illegal. This was previously spelled out when Trump first floated his proposal for “saving” TikTok from the evil American “communists” who seek to prohibit the app run by “friendly” Chinese communists….

Trump seems to think that the U.S. government can be a business partner with a Chinese social media company that is suspected of improperly utilizing data collected from American users. That is wrong on many levels. First of all, it puts the U.S. in the position of collaborating with China to “spy” on American citizens. Secondly, it makes the U.S. government a profit partner in an otherwise private business. And thirdly, it violates the First Amendment by putting the U.S. government in a position to moderate (i.e. approve and/or censor) the speech of U.S. citizens.

The last item in that analysis has now been affirmed by Trump who says that it would be okay if his unlawful joint venture with China “Polices it a little bit, or a lot.” That could not be a more flagrant breach of the First Amendment. It puts the U.S. government in the position of censoring free speech. Even worse, it could also give China the same power over the speech of Americans. But Trump wasn’t through parading his recklessness and ignorance. He also said that…

“I may not do the deal or I may do the deal. TikTok is worthless. Worthless, if I don’t approve it. […] If I do the deal it’s worth maybe a trillion dollars. […] If I do the deal for the United States, then I think we should get half.”

True to form, Trump is making up preposterous numbers to validate his delusional thinking. For one thing, TikTok has value that transcends its U.S. user base. In fact, TikTok has about a billion users worldwide. About 170 million of them (17%) are in the U.S. So while the loss of that audience would be significant, TikTok would still have 83% of its current users.

Also, what the heck does Trump mean by “we should get half.” Who is “we”? What part of the U.S. government would the ownership of TikTok fall into? Would it be run by the White House? The Treasury Department? The Agency for Global Media that oversees the Voice of America? Who knows? And Trump doesn’t say. Also, where does the money go?

These are just some of the questions raised by Trump’s nonsensical meanderings. And finally, it’s notable that Trump’s current support for TikTok is a flagrant flip-flop from his prior position…

As Trump tries to take credit for "saving" TikTok, remember he was the instigator of the ban & bragged about it 2 years ago. The bill he advocated was introduced by Rep. Michael McCaul (R-TX). Democrats opposed it."Right about everything"? More like right-wing about everything.

— News Corpse (@newscorpse.bsky.social) 2025-01-19T21:06:04.990Z

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