Thursday, January 18, 2018



Trump for free speech

From the very moment Trump won the election, much of the mainstream media began spearheading the #Resistance effort against his presidency. Recall that much of the MSM believed it had helped Trump win the Republican primary, and in so doing presumed to have provided Hillary Clinton with the easiest opponent to beat. Trump has been feuding with the MSM ever since.

On Monday, retiring Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) announced that he would be giving a speech prior to Trump's Fake News awards. In released excerpts of his planned speech, Flake states, "It is a testament to the condition of our democracy that our own president uses words infamously spoken by Josef Stalin to describe his enemies. It bears noting that so fraught with malice was the phrase 'enemy of the people,' that even Nikita Khrushchev forbade its use, telling the Soviet Communist Party that he phrase had been introduced by Stalin for the purpose of 'annihilating such individuals' who disagreed with the supreme leader."

Flake's assertion that Trump is essentially Stalinist due to using the phrase "enemy of the people" when referencing grossly biased news reporting is simply asinine. Even though this is the age of snowflakes, the fact still remains that hurting people's feelings is not equivalent to killing (millions of) them. Flake, of course, knows this, but he's after his 15 minutes of fame — ingratiating himself with the Leftmedia — on the way out the door.

Other than call out the press for dispensing fake news, when has Trump engaged in any real suppression of speech? The answer is never. In fact, when compared with his predecessor, Trump has been downright congenial.

Even though most of the MSM were sycophants of Barack Obama, with the exception of Fox News, they learned quickly his vindictive distain for bad press. Indeed, Obama was a far greater threat to freedom of the press than Trump has ever dreamed of being. As The New York Times noted in December 2016, "If Donald J. Trump decides as president to throw a whistle-blower in jail for trying to talk to a reporter, or gets the FBI to spy on a journalist, he will have one man to thank for bequeathing him such expansive power: Barack Obama."

Recall that it was Obama who had his "Justice" Department spy on reporters. The DOJ went after Fox News' James Rosen, targeting and labeling him as a co-conspirator in a criminal case simply for doing his job. In a 2013 report, Leonard Downie, a former executive editor of The Washington Post, called Obama's war on journalism "the most aggressive I've seen since the Nixon administration, when I was one of the editors involved in The Washington Post's investigation of Watergate."

One of Obama's favored tools in his battle against the press was the Espionage Act of 1917. Between 1917 and 2009 only one person had ever been convicted under the act for leaking information to a news organization. Obama changed that by directing then-Attorney General Eric Holder to aggressively prosecute government employees who leaked information to the press. In so doing, the Espionage Act, originally designed to prosecute those acting against the United States, was regularly applied, resulting in a record number of reporters' sources being jailed.

As The Washington Post noted last June, "Trump rages about leakers. Obama quietly prosecuted them."

But Obama's war against the media really wasn't all that quiet. While it is obvious that Trump's favorite media whipping boy is CNN, and deservedly so, Obama aggressively and regularly derided Fox News. Starting back in the 2008 election, Obama said that if it wasn't for Fox he might be two or three points higher in the polls. Throughout his time in office, he regularly attacked the news organization, and even sought to have Fox excluded from the press pool coverage of interviews with key officials.

And just days ago, on a newly premiered David Letterman show on Netflix, Obama ripped Fox News and its viewers, saying, "If you watch Fox News, you are living on a different planet." Clearly, Obama's animosity for the news network hasn't abated, nor has his disdain for anyone who disagrees with his "right side of history" condescension.

What is actually ironic about Flake's faulty and childish comparison of Trump to Stalin is the fact that the mainstream media is far from being silenced; indeed, it is thriving. Trump has proven to be a windfall for the major news media outlets, and none more so than The New York Times, which has witnessed its digital subscriptions explode from fewer than a million before the election to 2.5 million since. And much of this new growth can be attributed to the MSM self-designated resistance to Trump. In other words, "democracy" in America is far from "dying in darkness."

Flake is doing nothing more than expressing sour grapes for a man he clearly doesn't like. This amounts to one last spiteful parting swing as he leaves office, and it's a far cry from any thoughtful contribution to the party or the conversation.

SOURCE


7 comments:

Anonymous said...

It was clear to anyone paying attention that Obama was not competent to be President before he was nominated.
Trump is doing excellent work while hampered by the Democrats !

Unknown said...

This speech by Flake is nothing more than an audition for a job at MSNBC.

Bird of Paradise said...

Flake is a Fake Flake is a Fake Flake is a Fake RRaawwwkkk Squawk Squawk kraaaww Skreet,Skreee

Anonymous said...

Whoever wrote this piece is terribly ignorant.

Trump has a history - a well documented history - of threatening to sue people (which is a suppression of speech) or actually suing people for things they said.

Just recently Trump and his lawyers sent a "cease and desist" order over the publication of a book critical of him. In the real world, that's an attack on free speech.

During the campaign, Trump and his lawyers sent a "cease and desist" letter to the Cruz campaign over a political ad which quoted Trump.

Trump lawyers sent a legal demand that a tee shirt company stop selling shirts with the message "Stop Trump" because of the use of his name.

Trump University countersued people who spoke out against the company.

Trump sued an author for writing a book that Trump agreed to, but questioned Trump's overall worth. The case was settled and Trump lost, but not after Trump bragged that he caused the author years of hell.

Trump sued a financial analyst and a newspaper over the prediction of Trump's Taj Mahal. The analyst was let go to end the lawsuit but the casino eventually failed.

Trump sued and lost over an article in the Chicago Tribune concerning a negative architectural review of a proposed building design.

Trump wants to roll back libel laws against celebrities (such as himself) who feel libeled by a media outlet or others.

Trump often threatens (but doesn't follow up with) lawsuits over things people say all the time. That alone has a chilling effect on speech.

It can be argued that Obama used his office in a much more aggressive manner against speech, but it cannot be argued that Trump has not sued, threatened to sue, or use the power of the government to suppress protected speech.

Trump is as much of a threat to free speech as was Obama.

Anonymous said...

Obama was 1/2 black, so anything he did was OK. If anyone complained, they were a "RACIST"!

Anonymous said...

I don't think anyone disagrees with you Anon 5:42.
The point isn't that the current idiot-in-chief does not have his own free speech issues.
The issue is that people carry on like this is the first time in history a sitting president had animosity with the press.
Turns out that the O-bomb was just as much a threat to speech - but most people heard almost nothing about that.

Anonymous said...

Anon 8:52.

I don't think anyone disagrees with you Anon 5:42.

The author of the cited article disagrees:

Other than call out the press for dispensing fake news, when has Trump engaged in any real suppression of speech? The answer is never.

The author has his head in the sand.