In the tweet, Herman quoted a nonprofit leader who criticized Trump’s cuts to the U.S. Agency for International Development as making Americans “less safe at home and abroad.” Grenell called Herman’s tweet “treasonous.”
“You don’t get to work against the official U.S. government policies while being paid by US taxpayers,” said Grenell, who is officially the Special Presidential Envoy for Special Missions. “You should be immediately fired.”
And there it is. It is now “treasonous” and a fireable offense for a member of the press to express an opinion critical of the Trump administration. This is where we are now. Freedom of speech, expression, and the press are no longer a thing. You can literally lose your job and be put under criminal investigation for criticizing Donald Trump.
a fireable offense for a member of the press
VOA journalists are anything but. They are not free press.
I’m not sure what you mean by this. They’re state-sponsored, but they are at least supposed to be free, on account of the firewall and the VOA charter.
No no no - only paywalled, ad-supported, doomsday prep and gold bullion-slinging, enshittified news outlets are “free press”. Honestly, if you’re not creating value for shareholders, can you even consider yourself a journalist?
Honestly, if you’re not creating value for shareholders, can you even consider yourself a journalist?
Surely not!
Reminder, it’s pledge week for many public radio stations / NPR affiliates.
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Give whatever you can. This is the time to actually give. These poor journalists are having to pay for legal counsel with a shoe string budget.
As much as I hate Trump, there’s a logic in this. VOA has always been a publicly-funded propaganda mouthpiece. They are NOT an independent media. Independence entails not taking money from people you want to criticize.
If VOA refuses to spew out the latest flavor of propaganda, they’re not doing their job.
The President has plenty of propaganda tools at his disposal without having a “news organization” make shit up.
But what you don’t understand is that VOA is not a news organization. It was created during WW2 by the Office of the Coordinator of Information for the express purpose of spreading pro-American propaganda in Germany and in Japan. And it has kept doing exactly that ever since.
I remember it showering the USSR with pro-American high-power shortwave radio broadcasts in Russian and in English when I was a kid in the 70’s. Everybody knew VOA was America’s response to radio Moscow.
VOA is quite explicitely a propaganda thing. Really! You guys can downvote me all you want, it’s the plain truth. VOA journalists are quite literally paid to spread American propaganda.
His Orangeness has decided to turn the country around 180 degrees and make it a fascist pro-Russia state and I despise him with all my heart. But Trump is right: the VOA has no business not being 100% aligned with him.
That makes the VOA an enemy of freedom, democracy and common decency, just like Trump.
VOA, RFA, RFE, and a shitton of others are nothing but propaganda machines for the US
So you’re going with “freedom of speech doesn’t apply if you work for the government”?
It would be better if it did, but you shouldn’t be surprised if it doesn’t, anymore than you should expect the Washington Post to criticize Bezos or Fox News Rupert Murdoch.
Except for the whole “first amendment” part, remember? Bezos isn’t legally prohibited from infringing on freedom of the press.
The government isn’t allowed to do things an individual might be able to.
You’re literally arguing that the first amendment doesn’t apply to government employees, which is absolute horseshit.
The number of people thinking the AID in USAID implies assistance is insane. The number of media outlets receiving propaganda money from USAID to spread US propaganda is insane.
Bootlicker.
What part of “As much as I hate Trump” don’t you understand?
The part where you then licked the boots, most likely.
“I’m a staunch vegetarian, but even I like a big ribeye once in a while”. You can see why people might disregard the first part.
It’s hard to focus on where you say you dislike trump when the following bit is where you justify calling criticism of him treason.
