If you want to know why I refer to many in the media as “the regime media”, I give you the following as exhibit ‘A’.
At a White House press conference on August 12, the afternoon before Elon Musk’s ‘X’ (formerly Twitter) interview of Donald Trump, a reporter from the Washington Post asked Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre the following question about that Musk/Trump interview.
REPORTER: Elon Musk is slated to interview Donald Trump tonight on X. I don’t know if the President is going to listen? Feel free to say if he is, or not. But I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue, it’s a, you know, it’s an America issue.
What role does the White House or the president have in sort of stopping that or stopping the spread of that or sort of intervening in that? Some of that was about campaign misinformation, but you know, it’s a wider thing, right?
Press Secretary Jean-Pierre didn’t share any information — or misinformation — about what the Biden administration is doing in that regard, although she did note that the big social media companies are “private companies, so we’re also mindful of that, too.”
But as I understand this astounding question, a member of ‘the press’, whose very existence is protected by the First Amendment guarantee, protecting it from censorship by the government, is asking if the Biden White House has plans to censor another media outlet.
I have a question about that reporter. Is he so corrupted by partisan politics that he lacks any self-awareness? In any case, this exchange encapsulates for me what’s wrong with the ‘traditional media’ who have apparently abandoned even a pretense of objectivity.
Let me help to refresh (or educate for the first time?) that particular reporter’s memory about the First Amendment.
It reads, in part:
Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
As I’ve written before, “The United States Supreme Court long ago held “that speakers are protected against all government agencies and officials” — not just Congress, and that First Amendment protections vis-a-vis the government apply to the internet.
As further evidence of attempts at government censorship of media, we now have the chief of the London metropolitan police threatening to charge and extradite American citizens from the US who post things on the internet that he deems illegal, and a French ‘regulator’ for the European Union telling an American citizen (Elon Musk) that the EU has laws about how social media outlets must control their information content.
Apparently the history of the first half of the 20th century isn’t being taught in English and French schools — otherwise these two European officials would know that if wasn’t for U.S. citizens coming to their aid (twice) they’d be speaking German. Perhaps the two of them should take a day-trip to the American Cemetery in Normandy before they start threatening to infringe on the rights of American citizens.
That English official clearly doesn’t know what happened the last time (1776) some Brit tried to tell us what we couldn’t say! We spelled it out for him in plain English in the Declaration of Independence:
The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States…
One of those “injuries and usurpations” enumerated in the Declaration was, “He has combined with others to subject us to jurisdiction foreign to our constitution” by “transporting us beyond the seas to be tried for pretended offenses…”
Perhaps George’s great (x6) grandson King Charles might have a word with that British chief of police to enlighten him about the consequences such threats.
During the American Civil War, France invaded and occupied Mexico with the long-term goal of uniting it with the Confederate States. At the same time, England stationed troops in Canada along our northern border. Their united objective was to bring about a permanent split in the U,S. that they could exploit economically.
That plan was foiled, in part, by the arrival of Russian navy war ships in New York and San Francisco harbors after the Tsar dispatched them to assist the Union side in the Civil War. (Read about it in The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War, by Bruce Catton and Richard Ketchum.)
So at the most critical time in U.S. history, the Russians came to our aid against the Brits and the French. Perhaps that British cop, and French ‘regulator’, would prefer we reciprocate to the Russians for helping the Union in our Civil War, by helping them out in Ukraine?
England, France and the rest of Europe can deal with Ukraine, and the Russians, on their own… if they don’t like our freedom of speech!
Gary Beatty lives between Florida and Pagosa Springs. He retired after 30 years as a prosecutor for the State of Florida, has a doctorate in law, is Board Certified in Criminal Trial law by the Florida Supreme Court, and is now a law professor.