Tag Archives: free press

local news, media news

Trump’s mind is officially a goner

You might want to write this down if you’re inclined,  but just keep it in mind as you ponder the future of Donald J. Trump’s political career.

It’s now as clear as it gets that the 45th and 47th POTUS has lost what used to pass as what was left of his mind. Why? Because the dimwit in chief wants to unilaterally pull the broadcast license of ABC News because it has the temerity to broadcast “negative news” about his administration.

Holy … moly, man!

Scott Pelley, a West Texan known as the voice of “60 Minutes,” a CBS News program, spoke recently in quoting one of our nation’s founders, James Madison. The fourth president said in 1800, Pelley recalled, that a “free press guarantees the rights of all the civil liberties we enjoy.” That is why the First Amendment to the Constitution guarantees the existence of a “free press.”

No matter their political party — be they Democratic-Federalist, Whig, Republican, Democrat — every U.S. president has accepted the role of a free press in holding our government accountable to the people they serve.

That’s every president until this one.

No president likes all the coverage they get from the free press. No matter their party affiliation, they hve griped aloud that the media are unfair. One could argue, indeed, that the media went too far in covering President Clinton’s impeachment, or that it labeled President George W. Bush a dim bulb during his time in the White House. Did any of our presidents seek openly to revoke the license of a media outlet just becausse they don’t shade the news coverage to suit their shallow-skinned egos? Nope!

Trump is an idiot disguised as a martyr for the MAGA movement he created and is now leading toward history’s trash heap.

media news

Media war is a loser

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Presidents of the United States, almost to a man, have acknowledged publicly the value that an independent press brings to the world government.

Many of them have not always liked the coverage they get from the media — be it broadcast, cable, print, radio or Internet — but they accept it as part of governance. The media keep the pols on their toes.

In the age of Donald Trump, though, the media have become the “enemy of the people.” They become targets of the president, of the Department of Justice, of politicians at every level. Trump now seeks to ban The Associated Press from White House press briefings because the AP refuses to describe the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America.

Trump also has banned from the White House all media outlets that report issues with a critical eye. He wants to shutter networks such as MSNBC and CNN. He wants the public to receive only coverage he deems favorable to his policies.

This is one of the more frightening aspects of Trump’s return to the pinnacle of power. He is unhinged, unfettered, unbound and unambiguous about his disdain for the media.

The nation’s founders sought to provide press protection among the civil liberties they wrote into the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment guarantees that the government “shall make no law” that impinges on a free and untethered press.

Donald Trump, the ignoramus in chief, needs to understand that a truly conservative government respects what it has identified as the founders’ “original intent.”

And the president should take his lumps just like his predecessors have done. That’s how democracy works.

media news

Profiles in cowardice!

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John F. Kennedy is doing somersaults in his grave at Arlington National Cemetery, given the news that has come out this week about the Washington Post.

The Post has declared that it will not issue an endorsement in this year’s presidential election. That’s right, the newspaper that once exposed the Watergate scandal to the world and which has prided itself on providing editorial page leadership on key issues and the people who make policy decisions has decided to sit this election out.

JFK, who wrote “Profiles in Courage” — and was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work — would be a profoundly unhappy man.

The Post has just become a poster child for a profile in cowardice.

The Post isn’t alone. The New York Times is turning its back on this formerly essential duty that print journalists used to cherish. And … I am sure that there are many others out there that have been cowed by the blathering of Donald Trump and other blowhards who have persuaded millions of gullible Americans that the free press is the “enemy of the people.”

It isn’t. A free press keeps its eye on those who make policy decisions for all Americans. It serves as a watchdog on the alert for corruption. It also helps provide leadership in recommending who it believes is best suited to seize the reins of power.

No one really believes editorial endorsements determine electoral outcomes these days … if they ever have. What they do is put newspapers’ thoughts on the record and they leaven the discourse.

This election in particular cries out for leadership and for leading newspaper editorials to forgo that responsibility is an act of cowardice.

media news

Free press is ‘essential’

President Joe Biden stood at the podium this weekend at the White House Correspondents Dinner and made a stern and steadfast declaration about the value of a free press.

“A free press is essential to a democratic society,” he said, “and it is not the enemy.”

I want to offer a brief endorsement of the president’s statement, as it reflects the kind of understanding that a free, aggressive and unfettered press brings to those in power and to those who make decisions that affect our lives each day.

I feel the need to offer this endorsement because of the pummeling the press has been taking during the past, oh, six or seven years. As a member of what the right wingers and the MAGA crowd calls the “mainstream media,” I have taken great personal offense at the epithets being hurled at hardworking, dedicated reporters who signed on to report truthfully and fairly.

Presidents of both political parties, with one notable exception, have understood the role that a free press plays in holding government officials accountable. Does anyone in power like negative reporting on his or her activities? Of course not! However, to a person — again, except one — acknowledge that criticism simply goes with the territory.

Donald J. Trump launched the war against the media with his proclamation that the media are “the enemy of the people.” He turned “fake news” into a cliche that his followers picked up. I won’t belabor the obvious hypocrisy in that label coming from the godfather of fake news and outright lies. I do, though, want to suggest that news that runs counter to officials’ point of view isn’t “fake”; it is the truth that officials just don’t always want to hear.

President Biden’s inherent understanding of the media’s role in keeping him and the government he inherited accountable for their actions is a welcome return to what has been the standard since the beginning of the Republic.

May the press always remain free of government interference … and able to keep our government’s feet to the fire.

johnkanelis_92@hotmail.com

media news, national news

Kitchen is getting too hot for Trump

It’s a cliché, but it’s worth noting: If you can’t stand the heat, then get the hell out of the kitchen.

Donald John “Wartime President” Trump says he’s being treated worse by the media than any president in history. That includes Abraham Lincoln, a real wartime president who fought like the dickens to preserve the Union.

He succeeded. The fight cost him his life when a gunman killed him at Ford Theater in Washington, D.C.

Now, though, for Donald Trump to suggest the media treat him worse than what the press did to President Lincoln simply is beyond the pale.

Trump doesn’t get it. He doesn’t understand the media’s role in protecting us against government that is capable at times of reaching too far and, yes, of making egregious mistakes.

Do you think Trump has made any such mistakes during his three years as president? I most assuredly believe that’s the case.

Trump spoke at a Fox News town hall. A woman asked him why he doesn’t answer reporters’ direct questions on the coronavirus pandemic. According to The Hill: “I am greeted with a hostile press, the likes of which no president has ever seen,” Trump said, sitting in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial. “The closest would be that gentleman right up there. They said Lincoln, nobody got treated worse than Lincoln. I believe I am treated worse.” 

Cry me a bleeping river, Mr. President.

The media are doing what the Constitution allows them to do. No amount of bullying, intimidation, coercion or threats from the president or his lackeys should throw them off their mission.

Every presidential predecessor — all of whom had to endure negative coverage — has understood that it all goes with the job to which they were elected.

Until this clown.

national news

Praising a system that allows bloggers to rant

I want to say a word of high praise to the greatest political system ever created. Yes, it’s a mess at times, but as Winston Churchill noted, it is far better than any other system ever conceived.

The United States is in the midst of an impeachment battle. The House of Representatives is going to impeach Donald John Trump Sr. It will be sloppy and messy, perhaps bloody in a political sense.

Through it all, this system of government of ours allows folks like me to continue to rant over the performance of the president, who I believe should be impeached. The House will do as I wish, albeit my journey to this point took me some time to get here.

I watched a clip of a young Illinois state senator speaking to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Barack Obama saluted a system of government that allowed dissent “without a sudden knock on our door.” Amen to that. The young senator would be elected to the U.S. Senate and then, four years later, would become the nation’s 44th president of the United States.

Donald Trump calls the press the “enemy of the people.” He couldn’t possibly be any more wrong. The Constitution protects the press against government coercion and interference. Yet the president sees the press only through the eyes of someone who lusts for positive coverage of his words and deeds, no matter what! It does not work that way, Mr. President. If this man had any understanding of what the nation’s founders intended when they established the First Amendment to the Constitution, he might comprehend the press’s role in ensuring the freedoms we all enjoy.

Accordingly, that role extends to folks like me. I no longer work full time for a formal media organization. I’m out here in Flyover Country sharing my views with the world through this blog. High Plains Blogger is my therapy, my release and my vehicle to vent my frustration with government. I also offer praise now and then.

As I continue to write critically of Congress, the president and even the courts, I do so with the knowledge that I can speak my mind freely without concern for the knock on the door that will not come.

Trump wants to “make American great again”? Hah! Our system of government crafted by those wise men at the founding of this nation ensured our ongoing greatness. It will last for as long as there is a United States of America.

media news

Stop shifting the blame, Mr. POTUS

For crying out loud, Mr. President. You deliver a decent talk this morning about the need to condemn “white supremacy” and to battle the scourge of hate across the land.

Then you put something like this out there. The Twitter message blames the media, “fake news,” for contributing “greatly to the anger and rage that has built up over many years.”

C’mon! Knock it the hell off, Mr. President!

The media have reported your words, your fiery rhetoric, your declarations that “Mexicans bring crime” to the United States, your insistence on banning entry into the country from residents of certain Muslim countries, your declaration that Africa and parts of Latin America comprise “sh**hole” countries.

Are you saying the media should ignore these things? That the media shouldn’t do its job and report on what flies out of your mouth, or circulates through the Twitterverse?

Mr. President, you do not appreciate a single thing about what makes America great. One symbol of our nation’s greatness, sir, is the existence of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution that guarantees a free press should be free of government interference or coercion or, dare I say it … bullying from the president of the United States.

media news

Actually, Mr. POTUS, it’s all ‘legal’

Donald J. Trump continues to fly off the rails with his ongoing assault on the media.

Here is what he posted this morning on Twitter: A REAL scandal is the one sided coverage, hour by hour, of networks like NBC & Democrat spin machines like Saturday Night Live. It is all nothing less than unfair news coverage and Dem commercials. Should be tested in courts, can’t be legal? Only defame & belittle! Collusion?

If you can past the mangled syntax of this tweet, I’ll provide a simple explanation of why the president — as usual — is dead wrong.

Mr. President, it’s all “legal.” It’s protected by the U.S. Constitution. The First Amendment says the government cannot interfere with what a “free press” reports. It says media freedom shall not be “abridged.”

How in the world do the courts rule on the accuracy of media reports? There is no defamation here. There is no slander. No libel.

I get that the president is uncomfortable with the tone of much of the media coverage.

One more time — but most certainly not the final time: It goes with the territory, Mr. President. The media are on duty to do precisely what they are doing at this moment. They are seeking to hold you and your administration accountable for your actions, your rhetoric and the myriad promises you make.

media news

Hey, POTUS already has his media lapdogs!

Donald J. Trump has expressed a desire for the federal government to create a TV network that would report favorably on his exploits as president of the United States.

It’s a preposterous notion on at least one level: My reading of the U.S. Constitution prohibits such a thing in this country. A “free press” is supposed to operate without government interference or influence.

Trump, though, has expressed envy over the love and kisses heaped on his boyfriend, North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, by TV anchors in that reclusive nation. Well, that is laughable on its face. Those TV anchors are employed by a murderer — Kim — and they would be killed if they didn’t say what he demanded of them.

Now, as for Trump’s desire for favorable TV coverage, he already has a major cable “news” network in his hip pocket. Fox News — aka Faux News — is chock full of talking heads who suck up to the president daily. Sean Hannity, Tucker Carlson, the trio on “Fox & Friends,” all are loath to say anything critical of Trump. So, they don’t. Plus, the network brings on an array of “contributors,” the vast majority of whom follow the lead of the network’s staff of anchors and correspondents.

Which brings me to my question of the day: Why does Donald Trump want to create a TV network that slobbers all over him when he already has one doing his bidding?

Bizarre.

media news

Mitt takes up cudgel for a ‘free press’

U.S. Sen.-elect Mitt Romney is filling me with hope that he might become a Republican who actually is willing to challenge the nation’s demonizer in chief.

The media, according to Mitt, aren’t the “enemy of the people.” Even a “biased” media, the new senator from Utah writes in an op-ed for USA Today, are essential to the nation.

I agree with him. So do all of Donald J. Trump’s predecessors. So should most of the congressional Republicans who will take office in January along with their Democratic colleagues.

Sen.-elect Romney says categorically that Trump is wrong to vilify the media. He writes: America is indebted as a democratic nation to the free press for truths it has uncovered, for truth it has disseminated, and for falsehoods it has repudiated. The press uncovered the government’s lies about the war in Vietnam; it exposed Watergate; it opened our eyes to the sexual abuse of children by priests; and, most recently, it shed a light on the sexual assault by numerous men in power. The free press dispelled the false conspiracies about the 9/11 attacks, President Obama’s birth, and Joe McCarthy’s lurking communists. The work of a free press is essential.

The president doesn’t see it that way. He says the media that report on issues he deems critical are disseminating “fake news,” which of course is the ultimate irony given his own lying about so many issues, so many individuals. He has defamed seemingly countless public figures with lies.

But I’ll leave it to Mitt Romney and perhaps a few other brave souls in public life to try to hold the president accountable for his continuing attacks on the media.

Donald Trump could not be more wrong. Mitt Romney couldn’t be more correct.