Pub Note: Update! The Open Technology Fund has filed a lawsuit claiming that Michael Pack did not have the legal authority to conduct the wholesale housecleaning of the U.S. Agency for Global Media described below. Please be sure to answer the question that follows the three links at the end of the column!
By Rick Stanton
The U.S. Senate’s oath of office reads as follow:
“I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I take this obligation freely, without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; and that I will well and faithfully discharge the duties of the office on which I am about to enter: So help me God.”
Apparently, this oath has been amended recently to include: “And I will shackle free speech upon the bidding of Sen. Mitch McConnell and his henchmen to muzzle that freedom and the free press—if it helps Donald Trump.”
Michael Pack, the new chief of the U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), whose confirmation Sen. McConnell slipped quietly through the Senate recently, describes Steve Bannon as his “mentor.” Remember him?
Independent global radio (and now multiple media) have been highjacked by the Trump administration and his cronies, with a wholesale housecleaning of the boards and key personnel at USAGM—including flagship VOA, Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and Middle East Broadcasting. It makes Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre” look like child’s play.
In other parts of the world, efforts like this usually result in political assassination or the sudden disappearance of certain dissenters. In the United States, it’s resulting in the rapid and alarming erosion of our democracy.
I used to believe that it was a right and a responsibility to disagree.
Rights are legal, social or ethical principles of freedom. Rights are the fundamental rules allowed or owed to people, legally and ethically—unless you take over independent global radio and fire everyone who stands in the way of your political agenda.
Enough is enough. Trump is dismantling our democracy in his efforts to join the ranks of those dictators he so admires. John Bolton (whom I never thought I’d support) says, “He’s not fit” for the office of president.
Way to go America; you elected Nero.
And finally, for those of my readers who think I should stick to advertising, I am.
I’m using my freedom of speech (while I still have it) to promote a brand called The U.S. Constitution and the oath that the gutless Senate refuses to protect—even after they promised God they would do so.
I want “W” back.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-53111704
https://www.dw.com/en/voice-of-america-top-directors-resign-amid-trump-clash/a-53822111
[polldaddy poll=10570905]
Rick nailed it.
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