CLEVELAND, Ohio — In silencing the voices of Senator Elizabeth Warren and the late Coretta Scott King, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell was just following the lead of the Trump administration.
President Trump has all but issued an Executive Order making the First Amendment the Last Amendment and rewriting it to simply say “Shut Up!”
In January, Chief White House Strategist Steve Bannon told The New York Times that the media “should keep its mouth shut.” “I want you to quote this,” Bannon added, “the media here is the opposition party.”
Trump has said he is in a “running war” with the media. He has called journalists “among the most dishonest people on earth.” He dismisses nearly all news coverage of his administration as ‘fake news’, even as he and his aides routinely foist fake news on the American public, like the phony “Bowling Green Massacre”, 3 to 4 million illegals voting, highest murder rates in history, unreported terror attacks, the largest Inauguration crowd in history….
Last month, Kellyanne Conway complained to Chris Wallace on Fox News, that not enough journalists were being fired for being critical of Trump.
“Not one network person has been let go. Not one silly political analyst and pundit who talked smack all day long about Donald Trump has been let go. They are on panels every Sunday, they are on cable news everyday. Who is the first editorial writer? Who is the first blogger that will be left out, that embarrassed him at outlets? I’m too polite to mention their names, But they know who they are, and they are all wondering who will be the first to go.
Here are some names Conway won’t mention. George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson and the other founding fathers who enshrined Freedom of Speech in the U.S. Constitution, in part, as a check against Authoritarians like Trump, Bannon and Conway.
After calling for mass firings, Conway lied to three separate news outlets about there having been a massacre in Bowling Green, Kentucky, carried out by two Iraqi nationals.
On January 29, Conway told Cosmopolitan magazine that President Obama banned refugees from Iraq “because two Iraqi nationals came to this country,joined ISIS, traveled back to the Middle East to get trained and refine their terrorism skills and come back here, and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre of taking innocent soldiers’ lives away.”
Later the same day, Conway told TMZ, “there were two Iraqis who came here, got radicalized, joined ISIS, and then were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green attack on our brave soldiers.”
Finally, on “Hardball” Conway said, “I bet it’s brand new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
Conway claims she just misspoke. She just misspoke three different times in the exact same manner.
McConnell cited a seldom used Senate rule in silencing Warren as she read a letter from Coretta Scott King. King’s letter accused Jeff Sessions of using “the awesome power of his office to chill the free exercise of the vote by black citizens.”
McConnell used the awesome power of his office to silence opposition to Jeff Sessions confirmation by an elected U.S. Senator and a civil rights icon. McConnell’s move backfired. As a result of his censorship, millions more heard Warren’s speech and King’s letter because of the coverage the controversy generated.
Even worse for McConnell and Republicans, McConnell handed Warren and the women’s protest movement a slogan. McConnell said of Warren, “She was warned. she was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted” You will be hearing and seeing the phrase “she persisted” from now until the 2020 presidential election.
The attacks on freedom of speech could be worse, of course. Trump’s political idol, Vladimir Putin jails, poisons and kills journalists and political opposition, like Senator Warren.
Did voters elect Trump to undercut the CIA, FBI, State Department, the Judiciary, the free press and the U.S. Constitution? Did voters want an Authoritarian, or a populist who would fight for jobs and lower healthcare costs? When is that populist president going to be back on the job?
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