What Is Stars and Stripes Newspaper? Trump Administration and Pentagon Order Stars and Stripes Shut Down
Trump orders Stars And Stripes shuttered to stop criticism!
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
The Pentagon has ordered the shuttering of Stars & Stripes for no reason other than "because we can."
By Charles P. Pierce Sep 4, 2020 PhotoQuestGetty Images
I'm not sure what this is all about, but I feel confident that there's something deep and hinky about it. From USA TODAY:
In a heretofore unpublicized recent memo, the Pentagon delivered an order to shutter Stars and Stripes, a newspaper that has been a lifeline and a voice for American troops since the Civil War. The memo orders the publisher of the news organization (which now publishes online as well as in print) to present a plan that "dissolves the Stars and Stripes" by Sept. 15 including "specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide." "The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020," writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo's author.
My guess is that it comes from the same authoritarian impulse that has led Camp Runamuck to attack the independence of the Voice of America, which was handed over to an administration* crony who's already meddling with VOA's political coverage. The president* doesn't approve of an independent private media, so it's logical that he'd move like a bitch on any government media that acts independently. But S&S is an institution dating back to the Civil War.
The first Stars and Stripes rolled off presses Nov. 9, 1861 in Bloomfield, Missouri when forces headed by Ulysses Grant overran the tiny town on the way to Cape Girardeau. [Ed. Note -- hometown of Rush Limbaugh!] A group of Grant's troops who had been pressmen before the war set up shop at a local newspaper office abandoned by its Confederate sympathizer publisher. Since then Stars and Stripes has launched the careers of famous journalists such as cartoonist Bill Mauldin and TV commentator Andy Rooney. And its independence from the Pentagon brass has been guaranteed by such distinguished military leaders at Gens. John G. Pershing, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower. Eisenhower once reprimanded Gen. George Patton for trying to censor Mauldin cartoons he didn't like.
(Let me pause here to say I love the idea of a platoon of pressmen. I know about The Black Hats. Were these guys The Paper Hats?)
Luckily, there might be a constitutional defibrillator available to revive the newspaper.
The memo ordering the publication's dissolution claims the administration has the authority to make this move under the president's fiscal year 2021 defense department budget request. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes. But Congress, which under the Constitution has the power to make decisions about how the public's money is spent, has not yet approved the president's request. In fact, the version the House approved earlier this summer explicitly overruled the decision to pull the plug on Stars and Stripes, restoring funding for the paper.
So, like so many things, the survival of S&S rests at the moment with the invertebrate body that is the Republican majority in the Senate. Maybe.
It also seems unusual. Normally, when Congress has failed to approve a budget for an agency at the end of a fiscal year (an all-too-common occurrence), a "continuing resolution," maintains funding at the past year's levels until the lawmakers act. But the Pentagon memo to Stars and Stripes demands a plan for dissolution anyway and says "the last date of the paper will be determined" once the continuing resolution expires. The eagerness to kill Stars and Stripes is hard to fathom. As the senators note in their letter to Esper, the $15.5 million saved by eliminating the newspaper's subsidy would have a "negligible impact" on the Pentagon's $700 billion budget.
Nothing this administration* does is unfathomable. "Because we can" is very easy to fathom.
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At long last Trump and Cronies really are deplorable...
I loved the movie "Dave". Too bad that couldn't happen in real life. Nobody could double Trump.
WTF, this is beyond belief. A savings of $15.5 million dollars is not the reason this administration is doing this.
The paper was designed to be free of the upper brass controlling it. General Eisenhower reprimanded Geo. Patton when he tried to intervene over a cartoon that Bill Mauldin posted in the paper.
Of course not. That 15 mil is a drop in the bucket of their 700 billion.
That the republican senators would allow this to happen shows me they are no better than donald.
Let's see if any of the brave republican senators have the balls to stop this.
Vietnam and the Stars and Stripes.
Apparently the brave president is stopping it .
But, only after a huge outcry did Trump relent.
So what? That's probably how he heard about it. You really think these line-item budget matters are decisions he made personally? The guy does one little thing you support and you can't even be appreciative of it. That just shows how partisan people are. It's not about the issues. It's about being against a particular person in all things.
Any semi-sentient being had to know that killing S&S would not go over well. A decision like that would be kicked upstairs... all the way to the President's staff.
Trump is quick to fire anyone who puts him in a bad light. No one has been fired over this, so we can be sure that the decision was not made by some low-grade middle-manager.
That’s quite an assumption. Is it based on anything real and specific?
It's based on logic.
Trump doesn't like to be made ridiculous. This 180° turnaround makes him look ridiculous. Trump should be firing someone. He isn't.
So the decision must have been made at the highest level, where no one is responsible for anything.
I am thinking he would have let it happen, knowing his disdain for press. Then when there was backlash, he can turn around and pretend he is the hero and saved it.
And the gullible eat it up.
Sounds credible.
I'm old enough to remember Bill Mauldin and respect him just like all soldiers did.
Unbelievable...
Believe It...
Not only is Trump trying to shut down the independent voice of the Stars and Strips newspaper he's also trying to turn the Voice of America into his own "Baghdad Bob" network.
I swear, this President must masturbate to dreams of getting the same control over the news media that a Putin or Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman have.
Voice of America reporters: Trump-backed CEO “is failing” the US
The Trump-aligned head of US broadcasting is facing a revolt from his staff.
By Alex Ward @AlexWardVox alex.ward@vox.com Aug 31, 2020
The tenure of the Steve Bannon ally who President Donald Trump appointed to run the vast global network of news agencies operated by the US government is going about as well you’d expect. That is to say: not well at all, if you ask top reporters at one of the most prestigious outlets he now manages.
On Monday, 14 reporters at Voice of America sent a letter to their acting editor to sharply rebuke Michael Pack , the CEO of the US Agency for Global Media, for his controversial campaign to — as he put it last week — “drain the swamp.”
“We fear that the current USAGM leadership is failing not only the news organizations ... and our audiences, but also our stakeholders, including the American public,” reads the letter , signed by VOA Washington editor Aru Pande, White House bureau chief Steve Herman, Islamabad bureau chief Ayesha Tanzeem, and others. “Michael Pack’s actions risk crippling programs and projects for some countries that are considered national security priorities.”
Pack has made a series of eyebrow-raising moves that have many suspecting he aims to turn the taxpayer-funded USAGM into a pro-Trump shop.
USAGM, which oversees VOA, Middle East Broadcasting, Radio Free Asia, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the Office of Cuba Broadcasting, had its bent before Pack arrived. For instance, those outlets ran many stories that we effectively pro-US propaganda — particularly during World War II and the Cold War — though the news is much more objective now at the whole agency.
But Pack’s moves to reshape the agency have experts — and now his own reporters — worried. Among other things, he replaced the editors of four outlets at the agency within hours of becoming the Senate-confirmed CEO in June and fired senior officials for pointing out possible violations of the “firewall” that protects USAGM reporters from political interference.
All the more reason to make our voices heard Nov 3!
He is pulling out all the stops, trying to establish a police state before the election.
November can't come soon enough.
The paper was important in my day... but that's a long time ago.
Does anyone know how it is perceived by today's soldiers?
Today, Stars and Stripes from the Nam era would incite mass resignations.
We used it to line drip pans to keep oil spills low in the motorpool.
My God, someone please tell me this isn't true. If it is, it's a low blow, even for Trump, Cockwomble in Chief.
So... Trump crapped on live vets... dead vets... and now on active-duty troops.
And still a thunderous silence from our tough-guy loudmouths.
Well... that didn't last very long!
Pretty sure that everything that comes out of the White House these days is a lie.
Trump just can't help himself. He has been a compulsive liar his whole life.
November 3rd can't come soon enough.
I thought that America was the bastion of free speech, and is critical of countries that are not. I guess I was wrong.
Well, Trump is trying his damndest to curtail free speech when it's critical of him, and the right to vote when it looks like it will be against him - Is he trying to be Xi Jinping? He sure is hypocritical to allow his poodle Pompeo to criticize China.
I read Stars & Stripes from Vietnam to the 1st Gulf War in my 20 year military career and always enjoyed it. It was refreshing to read a publication that was geared solely to the military and largely devoid of the political BS found in so many publications today. It is still pretty much so today. I am glad that President Trump reversed his decision to shut it down as a result of the backlash. I still enjoy Stars & Stripes.
I read my BIL's who live around a mile from us. He served for 24 years, US Army Infantry.
I read it in Nam in the '60s and after all these years I still enjoy it.
I used to subscribe to the print version but have since subscribed to the digital online version as It's cheaper and more convenient to me.
My BIL is an old fashioned guy, like me he loves to have the actual paper in his hand.
LOL, some habits you simply can't break.
I hear you.