In my new book on free speech, I discuss at length how the mainstream media has joined an alliance with the government and corporations in favor of censorship and blacklisting. The Washington Post, however, appears to be taking its anti-free speech campaign to a new level with open calls for a crackdown. The newspaper offered no objection or even qualification after its reporter, Cleve Wootson Jr., appeared to call upon the White House to censor the interview of Elon Musk with former President Donald Trump. Under the guise of a question, Wootson told White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre that censoring its leading political opponent is “an America issue.”
During Monday’s press briefing, the Washington Post’s Cleve Wootson Jr. flagged the interview and said “I think that misinformation on Twitter is not just a campaign issue…it’s an America issue.” After making that affirmative statement, Wootson then asked
“…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?”
Note how his question was really a political statement. Wootson begins by stating as a fact that Musk and X are engaging in disinformation and it is a threat to the country. He then asks a perfunctory softball question at the end to maintain appearances.
Jean-Pierre’s response was equally telling. While noting that this is a private company, she praised the Washington Post for calling for action, saying “[i]t is incredibly important to call that out, as you’re doing. I just don’t have any specifics on what we have been doing internally.”
So let’s recap. The Washington Post used a White House presser to call for censorship of one of the leading candidates for the White House and then demanded to know what the White House would do about it. The censorship was framed as an “America issue.”
There was a time when a reporter calling for censorship of a political opponent would have been a matter for immediate termination in the media. Instead, the newspaper that prides itself on the slogan “Democracy dies in Darkness,” has been entirely silent. No correction. No qualification.
The Washington Post has long run columns supporting censorship of information that it deems disinformation or misinformation. For many of us in the free speech community, it has become one of the most hostile newspapers to free speech values.
Now censorship has become “an America issue” for the Washington Post. The collapse of any semblance of support for free speech is complete.
The call for censorship for disinformation is ironic given the Post’s publication of a series of false stories and conspiracy theories. When confronted about columnists with demonstrably false statements, the Post simply shrugged.
One of the most striking examples was after its columnist Philip Bump had a meltdown in an interview when confronted over past false claims. After I wrote a column about the litany of such false claims, the Post surprised many of us by issuing a statement that they stood by all of Bump’s reporting, including false columns on the Lafayette Park protests, Hunter Biden laptop and other stories. That was long after other media debunked the claims, but the Post stood by the false reporting.
The decline of the Post has followed a familiar pattern. The editors and reporters simply wrote off half of their audience and became a publication for largely liberal and Democratic readers. In these difficult economic times with limited revenue sources, it is a lethal decision.
Robert Lewis, a British media executive who joined the Post earlier this year, reportedly got into a “heated exchange” with a staffer. Lewis explained that, while reporters were protesting measures to expand readership, the very survival of the paper was now at stake:
“We are going to turn this thing around, but let’s not sugarcoat it. It needs turning around,” Lewis said. “We are losing large amounts of money. Your audience has halved in recent years. People are not reading your stuff. Right. I can’t sugarcoat it anymore.”
Other staffers could not get beyond the gender and race of those who would be overseeing them. One staffer complained “we now have four White men running three newsrooms.”
Yet, in this case, a reporter openly advocated for censorship and pushed the White House to take action against X and Trump; to use government authority to “intervene” to stop Trump from being able to make certain claims on social media.
We have previously written how the level of advocacy and bias in the press has created a danger of a de facto state media in the United States. It is possible to have such a system by consent rather than coercion. The Biden White House has become more open in its marching orders to media, including a letter drafted by the Biden White House Legal Counsel’s Office calling for major media to “ramp up their scrutiny” of House Republicans. President Biden has even instructed reporters “[t]hat is not the judgment of the press” when asked tough questions.
To the credit of the Post, it is not killing “democracy in the darkness.” This incident occurred in the light of day for all to see as its reporter pushed the White House for the censoring of political opponents.
What specifically has the new guy at the Post done to turn things around? Because if anything, it seems like they are getting even worse.
Free speech. Yet JT gives not a twit about all the lies trump spews.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/aug/14/trump-harris-election-campaign
Might want to read up on the first amendment, sport. It protects the right to lie. You might not like it, but in the marketplace of ideas, the truth will prevail. Or, in your case, truth will emerge from the barrel of a gun. But thanks for playing, Mao.
James, Bragg, Willis, Austin, Kamala…and now this ‘reporter’. DEI isn’t working as advertised.
Jonathan: There is another “America issue” we need to address. Elon Musk, a transplant from South Africa, is one of the wealthiest people on the planet. He owns the world’s largest social media platform. Is he attempting to promote Democracy world wide? Nope. When not inciting riots in the UK against the Muslim community he is promoting the candidacy of DJT, a deranged lunatic “convicted felon” who wants to be a dictator. Musk has opened X to racist and neo-Nazi adherents because they share his ideology. He set up a special PAC to defraud prospective voters by making them think they were registering to vote. Nothing in his profile indicates Musk believes in Democracy. The interview with DJT proves that! Musk is as much a danger to our Democracy as DJT!
Dennis is WEIRD!
Tom: Sorry. Gov. Walz owns that word–he used it first to describe J.D. Vance.
Not Tom, sorry, Natrasha.
False rank? He was a Command Sergeant Major prior to retirement. He retired but get the retirement pay of a Command Sergeant Major because he did not complete training.
So what part of “False rank” are you talking about?
He retired but not get the retirement pay of a Command Sergeant Major because he did not complete training.
Sorry, corrected the sentence.
What in the world are “Mooselimbs” doing in the UK?
Thou Shalt Not Covet (other people’s success)
Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness (regarding citizenship)
Thou Shalt Not Steal (other people’s money and countries)
If you had ever read a book in your life you would know that Nazis are ideological violent anti-semites, which basically sums up the entire Democrat party
Then there’s that.
Freeom: Democrats are “violent anti-semites? Does that include Governor Josh Shapiro–the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania and Chuck Shumer?
@ Gigi: Being born Jewish doesn’t mean you are a practicing Jew or one that likes their people or religion. There are many leftist Jews who, instead of placing their faith in G-d, have put their faith in leftism. That leftist faith is extreme and fractured in apparent lies that they believe the lies over their eyes and ears.
A decent Jew believes in one G-d, not two, like Chuck Schumer. Schumer places the God of leftism and despotism above the Jewish G-d he was born to.
“A decent Jew…”
And you are the judge of who is or can be a decent jew?
Thank you for showing the racist A hole you are with that statement.
Drunkard, a decent Jew is explained in the Torah and Gemara. You are not fit to be called a decent human. Go back, live and procreate with the sheep.
Where the hell do you get off accusing Shapiro or Schumer of not being “decent” Jews? Who are you to judge–you, who worships a sociopathic, lying malignant narcissist, the very definition of a despot, who has no religion other than self-adulation?
Gigi, we already know your morals are in the toilet. You don’t know much about Judaism, so don’t pretend you do. I don’t think you know much about Christianity, either. You are little more than an ignorant Marxist revolutionary type who, when not lying, is busy making a fool of herself
By the way, I said nothing about Josh Shapiro.
Absolutely. Ask Mark Levin.
Commies gotta commie. Unrealistic to expect otherwise. At least now they’re too stupid to conceal it or even be discreet. The WaPo is a joke.
The commies can’t commie in America.
The Constitution denies and precludes the Communist Manifesto, communism, the principles of communism.
The question is: Why are the Justices of the Supreme Court not supporting the Constitution and fulfilling their sworn oaths?
Karl Marx wrote the Communist Manifesto 59 years after the adoption of the Constitution because none of the principles of the Communist Manifesto were in the Constitution.
Had the principles of the Communist Manifesto been in the Constitution, Karl Marx would have had no reason to write the Communist Manifesto.
The principles of the Communist Manifesto were not in the Constitution then and the principles of the Communist Manifesto are not in the Constitution now.
Every time a new bold step is taken on the Marx ladder people ask have we arrived at this point?
As if it might make any difference.
When anyone suggests the unimaginable Americans scurry around with disbelief.
Because, they’re cowards.
So stupid. Go outside. The United States is freer than it ever was. If you can’t go out there and make great money and do basically whatever you set your mind to do, it ain’t the country at fault… it’s that you’re just a loser.
You can pay taxes your entire life to support foreign and domestic leeches and parasites gifting them “free stuff” and “free status.”
Oh, Happy Day!
Except you can’t because social engineering and redistribution of wealth are unconstitutional.
What happened, actual Americans?
Pretty brazen and disgusting. That Walz is openly referencing socialism should be all the writing on the wall anyone needs; for me personally, Obamacare was enough. I voted for Obama in 2008; in 2012 it was clear what he was a part of and what he intended to do. Any fool that thinks this march toward communism/socialism and most definitely fascism will never impact them is exactly that fool. This is reprehensible from a member of the press directly to the representative to the White House, and if it doesn’t wake a person up, I honestly don’t know what will.
There was absolutely nothing conniving about Trump’s X convo with Musk, it is up and free for anyone to listen to, so stop the gaslighting boosheet, none of us believe it having actually listened, and Kamala was extended the same invitation, which the dem regime declined on her behalf. Make no mistake: they want to literally control every aspect of your life, and none of it will be voluntary.
I am voting for the ‘convicted felon’ in 2024. In fact, for the third time in my life as an independent, voting a straight red ticket. And I am most definitely NOT a conservative. I am like Elon; I have been independent my whole life, and have leaned a little left on some issues and a little right on others. There a great many of us that haven’t drunk either party’s Kool-Aid, and we are voting for Trump.
And to the trolls: it just doesn’t work anymore. I know you need a paycheck and can’t manifest that by actually being of useful service to the people around you because you are too prejudiced/lazy/privileged/stoned, but come on. You aren’t fooling anyone anymore, not even a little bit. It’s exhausting, yes, but not exhausting enough to change minds. In fact, it has the opposite effect. But then again, leave it to modern dems to think that money and the presumed pressure of fairy tales will solve all of our problems (which translated means: keep them in power indefinitely, which is what they really want. nothing more or less, and at any cost).
Please cite the Constitution for any power to tax for, regulate, or impose Obamacare.
The pertinent question is:
Where is the Supreme Court of the United States, the Justices of which swore an oath to support the Constitution?
Read it.
The entire communistic American welfare state is unconstitutional including, but not limited to, admissions affirmative action, grade-inflation affirmative action, employment affirmative action, quotas, welfare, food stamps, minimum wage, rent control, social services, forced busing, public housing, utility subsidies, WIC, SNAP, TANF, HAMP, HARP, TARP, Health and Human Services, Housing and Urban Development, Environmental Protection Agency, Agriculture, Education, Labor, Energy, Obamacare, Social Security, Social Security Disability, Social Security Supplemental Income, Medicare, Medicaid, “Fair Housing” laws, “Non-Discrimination” laws, so-called “labor” laws, private property CC&R nullification, etc.
Article 1, Section 8, provides Congress the power to tax for ONLY debt, defense, and “…general (all, the whole) Welfare…,” omitting and, thereby, excluding any power to tax for individual Welfare, specific Welfare, particular Welfare, favor, or charity. The same article enumerates and provides Congress the power to regulate ONLY the Value of money, Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several states, and with the Indian Tribes, and land and naval Forces. Additionally, the 5th Amendment right to private property was initially qualified by the Framers and is, therefore, absolute, allowing no further qualification and allowing ONLY the owner the power to “claim and exercise” dominion over private property.
Government exists under the Constitution and Bill of Rights to provide maximal freedom to individuals, while government is severely limited and restricted to merely facilitating that maximal freedom of individuals through the provision of security and infrastructure only.
The only place this total and complete taxation and regulation is licit and legal is the Communist Manifesto.
The effects of Karl Marx’s slogan, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs,” are immutably illicit and unconstitutional in the once-free United States of America.
If it weren’t for Obamacare, the core MAGAs who primarily a paycheck away from the street would be royally screwed. United Health Care doesn’t give a sh!t about you, only the bottom line. But hey, you need something to whine about.
Read.
The Constitution holds dominion.
Obamacare is unconstitutional.
Congress may NOT tax for Obamacare.
Congress may NOT regulate healthcare.
Please cite the Constitution for any power to tax for, regulate, or impose Obamacare.
Well said!
James,
Well said.
I, like you, have always been a registered Independent.
This election cycle, I am voting straight red.
The leftists that have highjacked the Democrat party, need to go. Sane, normal Democrats like Musk, the good professor and my own sister need to show the leftists the door.
” I am voting straight red.”
Excellent.
Based on the Stalinist actions of today’s Democrats that is the only way to go.
S. Meyer,
It is the only sane way to go.
Upstate, I have been registered IND for decades too but I have only voted straight red for all of those decades. 1976 is the last time I voted for a Democrat.
And to the trolls: it just doesn’t work anymore. I know you need a paycheck and can’t manifest that by actually being of useful service to the people around you because you are too prejudiced/lazy/privileged/stoned…
😍
I’m an affluent neocon. I hate populists far more than I hate liberals.
“Misinformation”, “disinformation”, “malinformation”, etc. are they not but rallying calls for illiberal progressive collectivists to discourage members of their herd and other beguiled persons from wandering off the feedlot and perhaps rationalizing for themselves what is true and what is not? Those who hide their nondemocratic practices never want to risk people thinking and analyzing for themselves. It’s always best when they are kept within the confines of what nondemocrats want them to know and not know. They should always be given to blindly accept as truth what it is they are told is not true.
KNOW THE ENEMY
_______________________
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
– Sun Tzu, The Art of War
_____________________________
Cleve Wootson Jr. and the Washington Post are direct and mortal enemies of the American thesis of Freedom and Self-Reliance, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, actual Americans, and America.
Cleve Wootson Jr. and the Washington Post are communists (liberals, progressives, socialists, democrats, RINOs, AINOs) who support the nullification of the Constitution and the overthrow and extirpation of the America of the American Founders.
Cleve Wootson Jr. and the Washington Post endeavor to engage in “fundamentally transforming the United States of America” into a s—hole third-world banana republic and communist sump by imposing the principles of communism and the Communist Manifesto of Karl Marx.
Know the enemy.
You are succumbing.
No surprise here — it’s the Washington COMpost!
Just a week ago there were a lot of comments on how the polls show trump is going to win.
How come nobody talks about polls anymore?
There’s a piece of Serbian wisdom that puts a censor in its place. “There are always three sides to the truth: what you say happened, what l say happened, and what really happened. “ There is no getting to the truth if a censor is put in charge of “say”.
Sweet desperation!
*
Elon Musk is dubbed—> Ben Franklin
*SENATOR KEELEY
It’s a simple minded narrative of good guys, bad guys. The bunk happens on both sides.
Censor? Skip the bunk that obviously is created to cause anxiety and fear. Words such as scary, unhinged, terrifying, and any other emotional content are bunk perpetrated by sadists.
If there are facts state them. If it’s an opinion say it is.
Twisted words in the mouths of knaves do much damage.
Whatever happened to decency.
I saw that conference yesterday and was amazing that a reporter could even ask such a question! He is useless as a reporter and an American — but typical for people who think they are better than the ‘common man’! This man needs a civic lesson — or many of them!
We are familiar with the term “low information voters”. Wootson and The Post are now schooling us in the meaning of the “low information journalist”.
Communist Propagandist Unleashed on Communist Leeches, Parasites, and Idiots!
Finally, I got “The Indispensible Right” (audiobook). It’s very interesting, and very well articulated. I’m hoping this website and comment section can be a place for taking up discussion on the core issues JT delves into. I’m hopeful for the impact of this book.
What do I know(?),
I’m fed up and tired of it,
The World doesn’t think rational anymore.
It’s no longer a ‘brave new world’,
It’s a mixed up ‘tragedy of wasted time’.
Money is worthless, when it doesn’t do anything for you.
We work to live and live to consume.
Slaves to the supply-chains, the cancer eating the planet.
The future is gone, consumed before it got here, and like Time, there’s no end to it.
You can be too Honest for this World. As I watched Tucker’s interview of Geoff Shepard and thought of how and what They have done,
it is obvious that – that wasn’t for me, nor in the cards. Honesty is not always the best policy, not if you want to get ahead in this world
Just look at Them. Hillary, Kamal, The Bidens, Bush’s, Cheney’s, Obama, ……… the whole rotten network of the lot.
What do I know(?).
Geoff Shepard: New Proof that Watergate Was A Scam
By Tucker Carlson – The Tucker Carlson Show ~ August 8th 2024
https://tuckercarlson.com/tucker-show-geoff-shepard
Video:
https://iframe.cloudflarestream.com/aa647446d9d1aa8b525916482d877f93?preload=metadata&autoplay=true
Watergate was bunk and Woodward and Bernstein played like fiddles.
At least no one was murdered, huh?
Mark Felt was the perfidious slighted “Karen” of the FBI.
Mark Felt was Woodward and Bernstein in disguise.
Woodward and Bernstein were NOTHING, are NOTHING and always have been NOTHING.
“The Whole World doesn’t think rational(e) anymore”… Pragmatism is too short of a rationale to be anything else than the expression of Putativeness. For anyone with memory, it was something to view the CNBC cast the day after the 2008 Obama victory celebrating his “Pragmatism”. What did it mean? probably that the Kenyan prophet<s hope suddenly simply became an exercise in Peripatetism.
2018
The Pragmatism of Interpretation: A Review of Richard A. Posner,
The Federal Judiciary
Amul R. Thapar
United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit
Katherine Graham is spinning in her grave!
The American Founders are spinning in their graves over the 19th Amendment.
The 18th was repealed by the 21st after only 14 years.
It is long past time for the demise of the 19th.
It is long past time for the demise of one-man, one-vote democrazy, aka the “dictatorship of the proletariat (hired help).”
The reprise of the rational restricted-vote American republic and the dominion of the Constitution and Bill of Rights is in order, nay, imperative.
Censorship is only part of it. The constitution has a method to remove an incapacitated president. But the democrats went around Article 25.
Why?
The fact is, they did not trust Harris with the independence the presidency comes with.
To prevent her having freedom of action, Schumer, Pelosi, and Obama kicked Art 25 to the curb to prevent her from becoming President.
The press has censored itself. Questions not asked are as dangerous as those that are. It is a shame that truth cannot sue!
The problem in invocation of the 25th Amendment is that it cannot be accomplished without the vice-president participating. but as the vice-president in this case would become the Presidential Candidate it would create an apparent catastrophic conflict of interest situation. The 25th amendment was added after the Kennedy assassination as to take away the confusion of any potential transfer of power, it was created for clear emergency situations, where the conflict of interest of a vice-president would not be perceived as an impediment…due to the emergency. While Democrats were apparently panicking about a potential victory slipping through their hands, no argument for urgency could be made as Biden kept his Presidential tenure after retiring from the race… it was purely a political play of peer pressure.
No. The FF’s knew that.
Shallow oppo-branding (waged anonymously).