All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[InformationGeek]

Remember, Trump respects our military and our soldiers. He respects them so much that he is getting rid of their newspaper.

Even for those of us who are all too wearily familiar with President Donald Trump’s disdain for journalists, his administration’s latest attack on the free press is a bit of a jaw-dropper.

In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that “dissolves the Stars and Stripes” by Sept. 15 including "specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.”

“The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,” writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo’s author.

Stars and Stripes' long history
The first Stars and Stripes rolled off presses Nov. 9, 1861 in Bloomfield, Missouri when forces headed by Ulysses Grant overran the tiny town on the way to Cape Girardeau. A group of Grant’s troops who had been pressmen before the war set up shop at a local newspaper office abandoned by its Confederate sympathizer publisher. Since then Stars and Stripes has launched the careers of famous journalists such as cartoonist Bill Mauldin and TV commentator Andy Rooney. And its independence from the Pentagon brass has been guaranteed by such distinguished military leaders at Gens. John G. Pershing, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower once reprimanded Gen. George Patton for trying to censor Mauldin cartoons he didn’t like.

Today Stars and Stripes is printed at sites around the world and delivered daily to troops — even those on the front lines, where the internet is spotty or inaccessible. As the “local paper” for the military, it provides intensive and critical coverage of issues that are important to members of the nation’s armed services and “cuts through political and military brass BS talking points,” Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a Marine veteran, told Military.com.

It’s also arguably one of the most powerful weapons our soldiers have carried into battle with them. As a publication that’s underwritten by the military but not answerable to the brass, Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power.

As if an attack on the free press were not enough, the Trump administration’s rush to shutter Stars and Stripes also raises constitutional questions.

The memo ordering the publication’s dissolution claims the administration has the authority to make this move under the president’s fiscal year 2021 defense department budget request. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes. But Congress, which under the Constitution has the power to make decisions about how the public’s money is spent, has not yet approved the president’s request.

In fact, the version the House approved earlier this summer explicitly overruled the decision to pull the plug on Stars and Stripes, restoring funding for the paper.

Pushing back to keep Stars and Stripes
So far, the Senate hasn’t acted. But in a letter released earlier this week, 15 members of the chamber, including combat veteran Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and four Republicans, called on Defense Secretary Mark Esper to “take steps to preserve the funding prerogatives of Congress before allowing any such disruption to take place.”

In a separate letter, Sen. Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, makes a similar request. “As a veteran who has served overseas, I know the value Stars and Stripes brings to its readers,” he wrote, telling Esper that shutting down the paper before the Senate acts would be “premature.”

It also seems unusual. Normally, when Congress has failed to approve a budget for an agency at the end of a fiscal year (an all-too-common occurrence), a “continuing resolution,” maintains funding at the past year’s levels until the lawmakers act. But the Pentagon memo to Stars and Stripes demands a plan for dissolution anyway and says “the last date of the paper will be determined” once the continuing resolution expires.

The eagerness to kill Stars and Stripes is hard to fathom. As the senators note in their letter to Esper, the $15.5 million saved by eliminating the newspaper’s subsidy would have a “negligible impact” on the Pentagon’s $700 billion budget.

But it would have an enormously negative impact on the paper’s more than 1.3 million readers. It would eliminate a symbol of the U.S. commitment to press freedom, flout the judgment of generations of military leaders and usurp the authority that the Constitution gives Congress to make decisions about how the government spends money.

[Kirby101]

I was just going to post that.
How can any person in service or Vet vote for him?

[Mister Mets]

No, it's why do you make an issue of the nothing burger of a Pelosi non story, while you said nothing of the anti-mask antics of the many, many GOP congresspeople or the Pres.
But you can "care" about this nonsense.

I'm generally inclined to post about stuff other people haven't said.

For example, no one mentioned that the guy who wrote about Trump insulting soldiers was close to former Secretary of Defense Mattis, so I wrote about that as an example of something that makes the reporting more credible.

When the first person on the thread to write about Pelosi's salon visit just quoted Pelosi's "bitch set me up" excuse, I'll add a point that no one else in the board had made, that legislators are responsible for being familiar with the law.

People are going to spend more time where there is disagreement, so when the argument shifts to whether anyone should care about Pelosi did, we're going to spend more time talking about Pelosi. It would be one thing if anyone thought she did nothing wrong, and defended her on those grounds, but that's not really the argument.

[Tendrin]

So Biden has to appeal to the independent center AND the progressive left, while also pealing off Trump voters. And Trump just needs his 35% base. I see.
And there is no responsibility for the Bernie voters who know what a danger Trump is.
Sorry, if Biden loses because of Bernie voters, it's on them, not Biden.
And BTW, the current Dem Platform is the most progressive ever.

I mean, there are way too many Bernie voters who are still stuck on 'but he won't say Medicare for all!'.

[Striderblack01]

So Biden has to appeal to the independent center AND the progressive left, while also pealing off Trump voters. And Trump just needs his 35% base. I see.
And there is no responsibility for the Bernie voters who know what a danger Trump is.
Sorry, if Biden loses because of Bernie voters, it's on them, not Biden.
And BTW, the current Dem Platform is the most progressive ever.

This.

This attitude is why the Democratic Party will ultimately fail.

[Mister Mets]

I’m glad the mainstream press is picking this story up. I can’t envision Biden and the Dems using this in campaign ads but hopefully they can get it trending on social media for a while. Maybe the Lincoln Project will have a field day with this.

The Biden campaign is doing a press call with Senator Tammy Duckworth, Representative Conor Lamb, and gold star father Khizr Khan in response to the story.

Jennifer Epstein reports on it.

"I am not shocked but I am appalled" by Trump's reported comments, @SenDuckworth says. "Of course he thinks about war selfishly ... because that's how he's viewed his own life. He doesn't understand the people's bravery and courage because he's never had any of his own."

Trump is "incapable -- let me repeat it again -- he is incapable of understanding service, valor and courage. His soul cannot conceive of integrity and honor," Khizr Khan says. "His soul is that of a coward."

[Kirby101]

I mean, there are way too many Bernie voters who are still stuck on 'but he won't say Medicare for all!'.

It's on them for being purest fools. Not Biden for not being everything to everybody.

[Kirby101]

This.

This is why the Democratic Party will ultimately fail.

The Democratic Party won the biggest mid term election in 50 years in 2018. The Democrats have won the popular Presidental vote in every election but one since 1992.
The GOP is an ever shrinking minority party that has retained power by gerrymandering and cheating, and the fortunate circumstance that you can control the Senate while representing 1/3 of the population.

Who is going to fail?

[Striderblack01]

The Democratic Party won the biggest mid term election in 50 years in 2018. The Democrats have won the popular Presidental vote in every election but one since 1992.
The GOP is an ever shrinking minority party that has retained power by gerrymandering and cheating, and the fortunate circumstance that you can control the Senate while representing 1/3 of the population.

Who is going to fail?

The people who constantly and unduly dump on the voters they need.
I mean, how can you not see something so obvious?

[PaulBullion]

The people who constantly and unduly dump on the voters they need.
I mean, how can you not see something so obvious?

We don't need people who will never vote for the candidate who won the primaries anyway. They are just trolling.

[Kirby101]

The people who constantly and unduly dump on the voters they need.
I mean, how can you not see something so obvious?

Biden has reached out to Bernie voters. Bernie has reached out to Bernie voters. It's the Bernie voters dumping on Biden.

Should Biden become Bernie-lite to appease these purest at the expense of mainstream Dems and Independents?

[Striderblack01]

We don't need people who will never vote for the candidate who won the primaries anyway. They are just trolling.

Look at this post again.

So Biden has to appeal to the independent center AND the progressive left, while also pealing off Trump voters. And Trump just needs his 35% base. I see.
And there is no responsibility for the Bernie voters who know what a danger Trump is.
Sorry, if Biden loses because of Bernie voters, it's on them, not Biden.
And BTW, the current Dem Platform is the most progressive ever.

There was no nuance to it.
He's not blaming a sliver of Bernie voters, and there were no other qualifications.
He's blaming all Bernie voters.

[PaulBullion]

Biden has reached out to Bernie voters. Bernie has reached out to Bernie voters. It's the Bernie voters dumping on Biden.

Should Biden become Bernie-lite to appease these purest at the expense of mainstream Dems and Independents?

Bernie Lite won't be enough! He needs to be full on Bernie. Actually, he needs to be like Bernie before Bernie sold out and endorsed Biden. Heck, he should just step back, say he isn't running anymore and announce a true progressive like Johnny Graz as the presidential candidate of the DemoncRAT party.

[Striderblack01]

Bernie Lite won't be enough! He needs to be full on Bernie. Actually, he needs to be like Bernie before Bernie sold out and endorsed Biden. Heck, he should just step back, say he isn't running anymore and announce a true progressive like Johnny Graz as the presidential candidate of the DemoncRAT party.

And now you're doing it too.

This entitlement, this tit-for-tat, this frustration, it's how the DNC fails.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Remember, Trump respects our military and our soldiers. He respects them so much that he is getting rid of their newspaper.

Saw that article on Twitter an hour ago. $15 million for Stars and Stripes from an obscene budget of $700 BILLION doesn't even qualify as a drop in the bucket. This smells of Trump getting rid of the paper for no other reason than because it's a media arm he doesn't like, i.e. CNN or MSNBC. This sentence from the article gave me my clue:

It’s also arguably one of the most powerful weapons our soldiers have carried into battle with them. As a publication that’s underwritten by the military but not answerable to the brass, Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power.

As the President, Trump is the "power", unfortunately, he's also a wannabe authoritarian who brooks no criticism and attacks anyone who dares contradict his views or policies. I don't know if S & S ever posted any articles that criticized Trump, either directly or indirectly, but if they had, he's just vindictive enough to cut off the newspaper at the knees out of simple spite. In addition, it wouldn't surprise me if Trump sees S & S as a threat since he doesn't want our servicemen and servicewomen to have minds of their own, or form opinions he doesn't like. I'm hoping politicians from both sides of the aisle bring heat down on the administration to reverse this foolish course.