For many years, the American government’s broadcast outlet was widely perceived as independent and nonpartisan. Trump has sought to demolish that reputation by putting a loyal Trumper in charge.
The Washington Post editorial board wrote:
THE U.S. government’s international broadcasting has long had one big advantage over its Russian and Chinese competition: a commitment to independent journalism, rather than official propaganda. Voice of America, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty and other outlets are staffed by professionals who deliver unbiased news reports, including about the U.S. government, earning them credibility and influence with audiences around the world — especially in countries that lack free media.
President Trump is bent on destroying that legacy. Last spring, infuriated by VOA’s failure to echo his hyperbolic rhetoric about the “China virus,” he bullied reluctant Republican senators into confirming his highly partisan nominee to head the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), which oversees U.S. broadcasting. That official, Michael Pack, immediately embarked on a purge of the journalistic leadership of the organizations; he also refused to renew visas of dozens of foreign journalists who work for them.
Now Mr. Pack has launched a direct assault on the journalistic code that has been the U.S. calling card. Late Monday night, he unilaterally issued an order he said revoked a USAGM regulation creating a “firewall” between management and the journalism of the networks. His objection is to the rule’s prohibition of “attempts” by USAGM executives “to direct, pressure, coerce, threaten, interfere with, or otherwise impermissibly influence any of the USAGM Networks . . . in the performance of their journalistic and broadcasting duties.” Mr. Pack would like to do all those things in advancement of his aim to repress reporting that might offend the White House. For example, he already ordered an investigation of veteran VOA reporter Steve Herman for supposed anti-Trump bias. Mr. Herman’s sin was to report, accurately, that Vice President Pence had failed to wear a mask during a visit to the Mayo Clinic. The probe was a blatant violation of the firewall that Mr. Pack now says he has dismantled. In a memo to staff, he unabashedly said he acted so that he could “enforce consequences for . . . biased reporting.”
Unfortunately for Mr. Trump’s minion, the independence of VOA’s journalism is guaranteed not just by the regulation he said he repealed but also by a law passed by Congress, which mandates the “professional independence and integrity” of U.S. broadcasting. But Mr. Pack is not much deterred by legal barriers. According to a half-dozen whistleblowers who filed a complaint with the State Department’s inspector general, he has improperly diverted funds, sidelined executives who told him he was violating the law and tried to investigate the voting history of USAGM employees. Mr. Pack has drawn bipartisan criticism from both houses of Congress — which he reacted to by ignoring a subpoena to testify to a House committee.
On Tuesday, the senior Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Michael McCaul (Tex.), tweeted that “it is unclear why CEO Pack is opposed to journalistic objectivity at USAGM and its networks. Without it, the mission and effectiveness of the agency is undermined.” In fact, Mr. Pack’s motives appear perfectly clear: He wishes to turn U.S. broadcasting into a pro-Trump propaganda operation. Unless Mr. Trump is defeated and Mr. Pack removed, the unique power of U.S. foreign broadcasting will likely be destroyed.
I have family in Italy who work for the US Military. VOA provides them with news and other interesting items that they would not otherwise be able to receive. Foreign Nationals have, for decades, dependents upon VOA for the truth about the United States. All other administrations have held VOA as sacred and was totally supported. Not anymore.
Pack, along with Trump, is violating the rights of US citizens who are living, working, and defending our nation who happen to live in a foreign country of their rights to free speech as granted by the First Amendment.
Pack is more worried about Trump then he is about freedom of speech and the rights of all Citizens of this great nation. As many have said in the past, this administration reminds us so much of what happen during the time of Hitler.
I now and then get the feeling XLV (just a chip off the old block DCLXVI) finds it positively amusing how he can bring about the Destruction Of America (DOA) under the banner of MAGA.
MAGA with GAMA (rays)
I used to listen to VOA when I was in the Peace Corps in Borneo.
Trump destroys everything he can. David Brooks was correct when he said “Trump’s Presidency Smashed the ‘Decency Floor”.
This infuriates me. Trump gets away with this because ‘fake news’ NYT is the media reporting.
Imagine being a scared, hungry child who is alone being sent to a poor country where their lives are once again in danger. Trump is a vile creature who is getting worse as his presidency continues. What can Mexico offer these children?
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View in browser | nytimes.com
BREAKING NEWS
Migrant children from other countries have been handed off to authorities in Mexico in an apparent violation of U.S. child welfare policy.
Friday, October 30, 2020 1:11 PM EST
U.S. border authorities have been expelling migrant children from other countries into Mexico, violating a diplomatic agreement with Mexico and testingthe limits of immigration and child welfare laws.
The expulsions, laid out in a sharply critical internal email from a senior Border Patrol official, have taken place under an aggressive border closure policy the Trump administration has said is necessary to prevent the coronavirus from spreading into the UnitedStates. But they conflict with the terms upon which the Mexican government agreed to help implement the order, which were that only Mexican children and others who had adult supervision could be pushed back into Mexico after attempting to cross the border.
The expulsions put children from countries such as Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador at risk by sending them with no accompanying adult into a country where they have no family connections.
Trump will do anything to try limit any messages that are critical of him or his enablers. That is why he has the never ending designation of investigative reporting as “fake news” and condemns interviewers if they ask “nasty questions.” Below is a link to the VOA charter. Just north of Cincinnati there is VOA museum, the former cite of a major VOA relay station in the US. The VOA museum has a detailed history of the development of VOA, Joseph McCarthy’s attempt to close it down, and the many channels and formats now used to broadcast content in 45 languages. Of course the criticism of VOA by Trump and enablers is intended to shore up his international reputation–a lost cause because he is an international laughing stock.
https://www.usagm.gov/who-we-are/oversight/legislation/voa-charter/
I doubt if there is any federal agency that has escaped Trump’s attempt to turn it into a loyalist faction of the fascist government he has been building.
The VA medical system is my health provider but I no longer trust the VA’s ability to do its job because of Trump and the loyalists he has appointed or forced on the VA.
Trump destroyed the CDC, too. Until Trump, the CDC was the most respected health care agency in the world. No longer.
Trump hollowed out the State Department.
Trump has destroyed the agencies that were created to protect the environment, et al.
Trump also signed a recent executive order that was designed to keep his loyalist in charge of those federal agencies even if he loses the election and is forced to leave the White House on January 20, 2021.
That executive order will be challenged all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and if Trump’ bogus order stands, then he will continue to attempt ruling the country through his loyalists even with Biden in the White House as president.
Trump has attempted to do the same with the DOD, but I think the Joint Chiefs of Staff (four-star generals and admirals of the Army, Airforce, Navy, Coast Guard, and US Marines) seem to be somehow holding back Trump’s loyalists there or maybe scaring them enough that they are too afraid to do what Trump ordered them to do, turn the US military into Trump’s personal military.
This is so awful to hear.
Let’s hope we can get rid of the Orange Virus and his supporting Republicans.
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Trump faces an existential risk: Slipping Catholic support
The state of the Catholic vote underscores Trump’s challenge in winning over religious voters who appear inclined to support Biden — despite approving of the president’s job performance.
10/30/2020 06:55 PM EDT
…Only 29 percent of non-Protestant/Catholic voters said they somewhat or strongly agree that Trump “keeps his promises,” according to a POLITICO-Morning Consult survey conducted after the final presidential debate in Nashville, Tenn., last Thursday. The same survey also found that Catholic voters trust Biden more on the economy, jobs, health care, the coronavirus, race relations and public safety — suggesting the president’s opposition to coronavirus-related church lockdowns, which he and his campaign have billed as a threat to religious freedom, and his law-and-order message have failed to attract Catholic voters as much as Biden’s approach. In Wisconsin alone, a state where one in four religious adults identify as Catholic, 53 percent of Catholic voters disapprove of his response to the coronavirus outbreak, according to the Marquette Law School poll…
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/30/trump-catholic-support-2020-elections-433722
The Miracles of Technology
Voice of America
Now overdubbed
With Voice of the Donald
Duck, rub a dub
I do not believe Trump ever had COVID-19. Nobody who eats junk food, never exercises and can’t even walk down a ramp can do 14 rallies in 3 days while recovering from COVID-19.
Trump mocked Laura Ingraham’s face mask during his rally in Michigan. [People were in the audience not wearing masks.] President Trump called Laura Ingraham, a Fox News host, “politically correct” for wearing a mask during his rally in Michigan on Friday.
How many Americans would not have died if anyone else had been president?
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Trump to hold 14 rallies in final three days of campaign
BY BRETT SAMUELS
President Trump will hold 14 rallies in the three days before Election Day, focusing a final blitz of appearances on Pennsylvania and the Midwest.
“How many Americans would not have died if anyone else had been president?”
That’s really hard to estimate but we can probably say with fairly high confidence that the number is greater than zero and most likely significantly greater, though by how much is probably well high impossible to say.
Far easier to say how many ended up in the emergency room from drinking disinfectant.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/infectiousdisease/covid19/86094
We can also say with certainty the number of Americans who died in military actions under Trump, of course, but even then it’s difficult to attribute directly to Trump because the Afghan war was not started on Trump’s watch, for example.
Although he also did not get the US out like he promised
It’s actually easier to say how many Americans died because George W. Bush was President, as just one example.
If we had not started the war in Iraq to topple Saddam Hussein, 4,229 US troops who died in Iraq (and well over 100 thousand Iraqis) would most likely not have died.
Of course, there is no guarantee that Trump would not have later invaded Iraq, but at least it is unlikely that Obama would have, given his vote in the Senate against the war.