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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsBoehlert: Trump's war on the media descends into murder claim, threat to "close down" Twitter
Eric Boehlert
Trump is this close to demanding a show trial of MSNBC's Joe Scarborough.
Wallowing into the depths of the paranoid swamp that now surrounds the West Wing, Trump continues to try to politicize the death of a young Capitol Hill staffer who died from a heart attack 19 years ago in the office of then-Congressman Scarborough. Lobbying baseless claims about the cable TV host, Trump is barreling towards new lows this week, while simultaneously lashing out at Twitter, threatening to "close" down the social media giant after it finally fact-checked one of his ceaselessly false tweets. (Twitter needs to ban Trump outright.)
As for Scarborough, Trump has stressed that the statute of limitations on the case has not expired, suggesting he'd welcome his corrupt Department of Justice to launch an outlandish, partisan murder investigation in the middle of a presidential campaign. For anyone who scoffs at the idea of the president orchestrating a murder charge against a journalist as being out of the realm of possibility, consider that six months ago nobody thought the President of the United States would be using Twitter to accuse a TV host of killing someone, and doing it over the loud, public objections of the dead woman's family.
Yet here we are, and there's no telling where we're headed in terms of Trump adopting shocking, gutter tactics. On Thursday, hes expected to sign an executive order that would unleash the federal government on Twitter, Facebook and Google for the supposed sin of silencing conservative voices.
The sad part is, all of this was inevitable because this is how authoritarians treat the press. They do everything in their power to destroy the power of the news media by relentlessly attacking its worth and undercutting journalists with assaults and insults. Unequivocally targeting reporters as the enemy of the people, Trump has signaled to the GOP and to the larger conservative movement that its open season on the news media.
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He's announcing some sort of an executive order today.
On edit: Jim Acosta reporting:
Link to tweet
Jim Acosta @Acosta
WH draft of Executive Order expected to be signed by Trump today is aimed at some of the legal protections for social media companies under Section 230 of Communications Decency Act, CNN has confirmed. The WH has examined ways to target this provision in the past.
7:38 AM · May 28, 2020
(Boehlert does an excellent job covering media - here's a link to donate to PressRun: https://pressrun.media/subscribe )
dewsgirl
(14,964 posts)UpInArms
(51,852 posts)Boehlert definitely understands the Dotard ...
I wonder if Scarborough has figured out that under-the-Barr has a warrant with his name on it?
Hermit-The-Prog
(36,602 posts)So much of this could have been prevented if we had a president who listened to someone other than himself. - Joe Biden
SWBTATTReg
(24,260 posts)telecommunications act of 1996. Here's some language of this act...notice, this protects all carriers which is needed when one has 100s of millions of users on their networks. Trump is a joke. Way too much money invested by the industry on every facet of this act.
Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act (CDA) of 1996 (a common name for Title V of the Telecommunications Act of 1996) is a landmark piece of Internet legislation in the United States, codified at 47 U.S.C. § 230. Section 230(c)(1) provides immunity from liability for providers and users of an "interactive computer service" who publish information provided by third-party users:
No provider or user of an interactive computer service shall be treated as the publisher or speaker of an
Wikipedia · Text under CC-BY-SA license
Dennis Donovan
(26,846 posts)Unfortunately, both are more than willing to find ways to help Trump facilitate his whims.
SWBTATTReg
(24,260 posts)spends 10s of $billions to protect their interests. There's a reason why these provisions are in the Telecommunications act.
Iliyah
(25,111 posts)corrupt DOJ and ICs in his pocket.
empedocles
(15,751 posts)Soxfan58
(3,479 posts)Is picking up steam.
cbdo2007
(9,213 posts)Really, I'm sure they reserve the right to terminate anyone's account for ANY reason, like all private businesses would.
wnylib
(24,552 posts)Twitter will be able to cut him off without retaliation. Until then, he has leveredge.
So much hinges on Trump being removed, but that will not be easily done. Fasten your seatbelts. Very rough ride ahead.
johnthewoodworker
(694 posts)against the wall and see if it sticks.
Alex4Martinez
(2,906 posts)The Orange Troll is building his own gallows here.
machoneman
(4,125 posts)action in a heartbeat. Besides, even if Trump's acolytes succeed, it would likely take months to enact and have limited effect for say on;y 1-2 months, getting us much closer to Inauguration Day and the repeal of this senseless garbage.
Oh, and I await the day Kellyskank, McInanyinsane, Stephen Miller and all those camp followers like Q-Tip, Repubuliscum governors and the entire stupid Cabinet like DeVoid, Carson, Pompousass and the like turn in their resignations or get fired, in public. Then our new AG can start serious investigations into all the graft, lying, cheating, etc. they have done with Federal tax evasion, Covid-19 money, student loan kickbacks, Saudi money (to Trumpy and Pompous) and far more. Heck, the investigations into Jr., Ivankaupyournose, her idiot total failure of a husband Kushner and even the dumb son will take years of work by multiple investigators. Unlike Trump who will be dead by then, the AG can have a ball over many years investigating and charging these relatively young folks. Yes, I can see years and years of jail for them all!
Bring it on!
NewJeffCT
(56,840 posts)but, the people around him know better
They're doing it for 2 reasons:
1) It's throwing red meat to the base, like the 40+ votes to repeal Obamacare
2) It's "working the refs" to cry bias in hopes that Twitter may relax some standards on suspending hateful RW accounts.
malaise
(278,485 posts)but no one has the right to call him on his fucking lies and conspiracy theories.
He has a seriously exaggerated sense of self importance