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Tuesday, February 21, 2017

Such Hypervilation! Mass Hysteria?

Yesterday, this essay by Margaret Sullivan appeared in the Style section of the Washington Post:
Could reporters be hunted down if Trump goes after leakers?

For those who care about press rights in America, President Trump’s words last week were stunning and disturbing.

The news media is not merely “scum,” as he has said many times before, but now “the enemy of the American People.”

This tweeted pronouncement, with its authoritarian echoes, came soon after Trump’s vow to stamp out the unauthorized flow of intelligence-community information to journalists. “I’ve actually called the Justice Department to look into the leaks,” he said. “Those are criminal leaks.”

Add up these two elements and you get a troubling question: Will the Trump administration’s crackdown on leaks include journalists as well as their sources?

Some knowledgeable lawyers and academics say it’s unlikely.


“Right now, it’s a deviant practice, certainly not in the ordinary course of business, to subpoena a journalist,” said David Pozen, a Columbia University law professor who wrote the landmark study “The Leaky Leviathan: Why the Government Condemns and Condones Unlawful Disclosures of Information.”

But, Pozen told me: “If we’re in a new paradigm, that could change.”

That such things are changing already was evident in Trump’s statement, quoted above, about making an assignment for Justice Department officials — who, after all, are supposed to operate with a measure of independence, choosing their own cases, not as corporate functionaries reporting to the chief executive.

As for a new paradigm, it — or something else quite weird — was on full display in that news conference in which Trump hardly stopped attacking the assembled news media.

[...]

And folks, we don’t live in Normal Town any more....
Read the rest HERE.

IF, IF, IF!

MAYBE, MAYBE, MAYBE!

What Donald Trump is calling for — and what WE THE PEOPLE demand — is that the media tell the truth and report facts. There is nothing hateful about a call for the truth.

7 comments:

  1. Tur on NBC asked a very similar question.


    THEY


    ARE


    SERIOUSLY

    DELUSIONAL

    AND MASS HYSTERIA IS EVIDENT

    ReplyDelete
  2. More on the House IT scandal. The MSM seems determined not to cover this in any meaningful way

    http://dailycaller.com/2017/02/20/exclusive-house-dem-it-guys-in-security-probe-secretly-took-100k-in-iraqi-money/

    ReplyDelete
  3. “I Will Not Cover Myself Up”: Le Pen Refuses To Wear Headscarf, Cancels Meeting With Lebanese Cleric
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-21/i-will-not-cover-myself-le-pen-refuses-wear-headscarf-cancels-meeting-lebanese-cleri

    ReplyDelete
  4. Just blistered WaPo in 2 comments on the article

    ReplyDelete
  5. We are not on the precipice of this old Russian political vote. Call me, when journalists are rounded up. Zzzz

    "Comrade Brezhnev, is it true that you collect political jokes?" – "Yes" – "And how many have you collected so far?" – "Three and a half labor camps."

    ReplyDelete
  6. Epa,
    Tur on NBC asked a very similar question.

    Interesting. I didn't know that.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Epa,
    Just blistered WaPo in 2 comments on the article

    Good for you!

    ReplyDelete