On jawboning – Peter Baker in NYT:
‘As President Trump threatens a wide-ranging crackdown on mainstream media institutions and political opponents, his aides and allies have cast the administration’s moves as critical to stanching misinformation and hate speech that could lead to political violence.
But Mr. Trump himself has repeatedly made clear in recent days that he has a different goal. For him, it’s not about hate speech, but about speech that he hates — namely, speech that is critical of him and his administration.’
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‘“This continues a pattern of Trump being his own lawyers’ worst enemy with his public statements,” Mr. Berry said. “Whereas Carr focused on the alleged falsity of the statement, Trump simply admits that he wants the F.C.C. to go after stations that are unfriendly to him.” Asked about the disparate justifications offered by Mr. Trump and administration officials, Abigail Jackson, a White House spokeswoman, said, “President Trump is a strong supporter of free speech, and he is right — F.C.C. licensed stations have long been required to follow basic standards.” She added that “the Biden administration actually attacked free speech by demanding social media companies take Americans’ posts down.” Vice President JD Vance likewise pointed to allegations of censorship lodged against President Joseph R. Biden Jr. to defend the Trump administration’s actions. “The bellyaching from the left over ‘free speech’ after the Biden years fools precisely no one,” he wrote on social media on Friday.’
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‘Presidents have wrestled with the bounds of free speech since the beginning of the republic. John Adams signed the Sedition Act during what was called the Quasi-War with France, banning “false, scandalous or malicious” criticism that put the government or its leaders “into contempt or disrepute,” a measure that was used to jail prominent journalists.
During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln likewise shut down some antiwar newspapers, detained journalists without trial and censored dispatches. Woodrow Wilson during World War I signed the Espionage Act, which was used to imprison antiwar leaders and stop post office distribution of antiwar publications.’
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‘President George W. Bush’s White House barred The Times from Vice President Dick Cheney’s plane for a time out of pique at a story. President Barack Obama’s administration conducted more leak investigations than all his predecessors combined and once tried to exclude Fox News from a joint interview for television reporters, only to back down when other networks protested.
But Mr. Trump’s campaign against news media outlets has gone far beyond those of his modern-day predecessors, taking form long before the Kirk assassination. Even before his latest lawsuit against The Times, he sued ABC, CBS and The Wall Street Journal. He slashed federal funding for PBS and NPR. He moved to dismantle government broadcasters like Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Martí, Radio Free Asia and the Middle East Broadcasting Networks.’
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‘On Tuesday, Mr. Trump erupted at Jonathan Karl of ABC News for asking about Ms. Bondi’s plan to target “hate speech.” She would “probably go after people like you,” he snapped, “because you treat me so unfairly.” When Mr. Karl revisited the subject in the Oval Office on Friday, Mr. Trump berated him again. “You’re guilty, Jon,” he said.
During his flight home from London on Thursday night, Mr. Trump told reporters on Air Force One that his administration should curtail broadcasters that air coverage that is excessively negative toward him. “I would think maybe their license should be taken away,” he said.’
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‘“But now we see the Trump administration engage in jawboning out in the open, in public interviews, and we mostly see the administration’s allies cheer it on,” he said. “It seems the attitude of most Trump allies is no longer ‘jawboning is wrong,’ but ‘Biden did it first, so two wrongs make a right.’”’
Read the article here.
The shining city on the hill is edging closer to the GDR. All that is missing an army of ‘unofficial collaborators’ but I guess in these days everybody is his own unofficial collaborator. AI does the rest.