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"Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power." Which is the last the thing current administration wants anyone t
by Finnucane 6y ago
"Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power."
Which is the last the thing current administration wants anyone to be able to do.
- Shivetya 6y agoShow me one in the last generation or two that did? Who harassed more journalist and whistle blowers during their time in office, Trump or Obama. Neither was great but the prior administration set new standards for threatening those who would make government justify its actions. The difference is one was a media darling and the other is a media flashpoint
- valuearb 6y agoWhataboutwhat?
- nicwolff 6y agoNo contest: Trump harasses journalists at every rally – by now, hundreds or thousands of them. And whistle blowers? He fired Lt. Colonel Alexander Vindman and his brother after Vindman testified. His lackeys in the House exposed the IRS whistleblower by name.
- ch4s3 6y agoI don't really have a stake here, and voted for Obama but he and his justice department prosecuted a record number of journalists. To quote the Washington Post "Of the 13 people who have" (ever) "been prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking secrets, eight were arrested under Obama's administration"
- slg 6y agoAnyone have a full list of who they are counting as either the 8 or 13 in that quote? According to Wikipedia, the number of people who have been charged under the espionage act is much higher than 13. For example, there are 52 pages of people convicted under the act.[1] I guess it depends on your definition of "leaking". The relevant dictionary definition of leak is "to give out (information) surreptitiously".[2] Giving information to a foreign government should seemingly be classified as leaking so I'm not sure we should necessarily link it to either journalistic endeavors or whistleblowing. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Persons_convicted_under_the_Espionage_Act_of_1917 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Persons_convicted_und... [2] - https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leak https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/leak
- ch4s3 6y ago*For leaking secrets to journalists
- slg 6y agoOk, don't you think that is a pretty big qualifier to leave out? It also leads us to a question of what is a journalist? Reasonable people can look at Assange and see him as either a journalist or an agent of a foreign government.
- ch4s3 6y agoIt’s in the quote, except for “to journalists” which is in the article I pulled the quote from. I suppose I could have included the next two sentences.
- lern_too_spel 6y agoYou're being intentionally misleading. The eight prosecuted are not journalists themselves but government employees who leaked sensitive documents to journalists. http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/5/obama-and-leakerswhoaretheeightchargedunderespionageact.html http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2013/12/5/obama-and-le...
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- Finnucane 6y agoIt’s true that Obama was pretty agressive about prosecuting whistleblowers, but it also true that no president in modern times before the Donald has called the press ‘the enemy of the people’ and calls every criticism of him ‘fake news’.
- liability 6y agoFree speech is a two-way street. Journalists are allowed to criticize politicians, but for the same reason politicians are allowed to criticize journalists. The government prosecuting journalists concerns me more than the government criticizing journalists, though both are concerning. Thankfully Trump is too impotent to make good on most of his juvenile threats, or we'd definitely be in trouble. More than Trump, I fear a hypothetical future president who's competent enough to do more than spout hot air.
- colejohnson66 6y agoI agree he’s mostly empty threats. After all, he’s threatened to revoke social media platforms’ Section 230 protection since before he took office. But when Twitter had the audacity to fact check him, he attempted to make good on his word with an executive order. He thinks he can do a lot more than he can, but we still should be fighting back.
- Finnucane 6y agoAnd in addition, Vindman wasn’t prosecuted for leaking secrets. He was fired in retribution for giving testimony before Congress, a completely legal thing to do.
- NationalPark 6y agoI think you're looking for a "gotcha" to call critics of the Trump administration hypocrites, but you will find that 1. people are never logically or morally consistent so this is a weak point in the first place and 2. A lot of people who oppose Trump from the left share your anger with the Obama administration and see him as someone who ran on progressive values and governed as a center-right neoliberal with a penchant for military adventurism.
- barnesto 6y agoSaid the poster who mostly likely never served a day in the military or read one word from S&S. I've done both. More than once, actually. Both the Military Times and S&S suffer from the same bias as MSM. One down, potentially, and one to go in my mind. I also don't think taxpayer money should be going to VOA or PBS or NPR for the very same reasons. And don't think most of the military doesn't feel the same way. Most people that serve are conservative leaning and can see right through the bs. But orange man bad, I get it.
- sneak 6y agoI think your comment may have been fine without the last line, which discards your cogent and reasonable argument up to that point and invites the world to engage in a culture war brawl that benefits no one.
- barnesto 6y agojust responding to OPs last sentence. two-way street, friend.
- creaghpatr 6y agoA response worthy of OPs comment.
- paulgb 6y agoThanks for your service. Out of curiosity, where do you get your news?
- barnesto 6y agoOut of curiosity? Sounds like you've got your own opinion. A leading question is what they call that, lol. I get my news from MSM, social, and a host of blogs and YouTube channels. Just like everyone else, I imagine. Only difference is I don't limit my sources by their viewpoint or bias. It's rare you find any source of news/information that's not slanted in one way or another. Knowing what everyone has to say about something is how you come to your own conclusions/beliefs. Critical thinking is the most essential skill one needs to read the "news" today.
- disown 6y agoStars and Stripes is a government ( DoD ) newspaper. How does it speak truth to power when it is a pentagon run entity?
- pwinnski 6y agoIt definitely is more pro-military than average, but it has done a surprisingly good job of maintaining editorial independence. It most certainly is independent from White House control, if not DoD control.
- briefcomment 6y agoTrump just tweeted that he won't let this happen. https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1301968873487564802 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/13019688734875648...
- srtjstjsj 6y ago"let" is not accurate word choice, for mukrtiple reasons.