AP's silly gulf war

I hate to say it but the press hates free speech

AP is upset because Trump won’t let its reporters into the Oval Office because AP keeps dead-naming the Gulf of America. Erik Wemple, media critic for the Jeff Bezos Post, wrote a column, “This is a perfectly fine hill for the AP to die on.”

I am not as picky about which hill AP expires on. I’ll take any hill or valley, glen or forest for that matter.

Wemple wrote, “The AP, a world leader in English style and usage, decided not to change its guidance on the matter, citing the facts that the United States and Mexico share gulf borders and that the body of water has maintained its name for more than 400 years.”

Yes, AP has that power and has abused it in many instances calling abortion reproductive health rights and T-girls women. Nothing shows how weird journalists are like reading how a woman used her penis to rape someone.

And of course, the left has changed the name of many other geographical locations. Fort Bragg was demoted to Fort Liberty despite 80 years of calling it Bragg. Pete Hegseth changed it back. Reporters who don’t like it can leave the room.

Wemple said, “Several organizations have issued statements deploring the White House’s actions, including the White House Correspondents’ Association, the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and PEN America. The New York Times has backed the AP in ‘objecting to governmental retribution for editorial decisions that the government disagrees with.’ And a Post spokesperson said the AP’s access is ‘central for all journalistic organizations, including the Washington Post, in serving millions of Americans with fact-based, independent journalism each day.’ ”

If AP is so independent, why has it taken $37.5 million from federal taxpayers? I do caution readers, though, as the source is AP, an organization well-known for spreading false conspiracy theories and misinformation.

Wemple was silent when Twitter and Facebook banned President Trump, who sued and they settled by paying him $10 million and $25 million, respectively. Trump’s presidential library is getting taller by the day.

The American press does not support the First Amendment any more than it does the Second Amendment. Freedom of Religion? Where was the press protest against the arrest of Christian protesters under the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances Act?

Freedom to Protest? The media’s hullabaloo about an alleged insurrection led to draconian sentencing of actually peaceful protesters who killed absolutely no one. They shouldn’t have been in the Capitol but when lefties break that rule, they are caught and released like the catfish they are.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a segment by Sharyn Alfonsi about German prosecutors who arrest and prosecute people for what they say online. The piece was pro-government propaganda that did not include anyone criticizing this abuse of power.

Her piece began, “If you’ve ever dared to read the comments on a social media post, you might start to wonder if civilized discourse is just a myth. Aggressive threats, lies, and harassment have unfortunately become the norm online, where anonymity has emboldened some users to push the limits of civility. In the United States, most of what anyone says, sends, or streams online—even if it's hate-filled or toxic—is protected by the First Amendment as free speech. But Germany is trying to bring some civility to the worldwide web by policing it in a way most Americans could never imagine. In an effort, it says, to protect discourse, German authorities have started prosecuting online trolls. And as we saw, it often begins with a pre-dawn wake-up call from the police.”

CBS then followed a 6:01 AM raid by the polizei.

Now why would CBS not stand up for free speech online? My guess is the online sites are competition. Musk’s declaration that you are the journalists was a truth that the media won’t accept.

Indeed, her piece said, “The European Commission is currently investigating whether Elon Musk's social media company X has breached the EU digital content law. Musk, who has been criticized for using X to promote Germany's far right party ahead of next week's elections, accused the EU of censorship and hating democracy. But in Lower Saxony, prosecutors argue they are protecting democracy and discourse by introducing a touch of German order to the unruly worldwide web.”

Not a single defender of free speech was included in the segment. And I am supposed to care about AP’s butt hurt over being relegated to the children’s table at the White House?

The Germans are doing the dirty work for the American media moguls who are losing customers and advertisers to the Internet. The Trump administration is defending free speech everywhere, including Germany. Chamberlain went to Munich and got peace in our time. Vance went to Munich and made Germans cry.

Breitbart reported:

A German diplomat once best known for laughing at Donald Trump’s warning that Germany’s dependence on Russian energy would become a problem was unable to finish his speech at the Munich Security Conference as he apparently found the implications of emissary JD Vance’s message from the Trump White House too upsetting.

Top German diplomat Christoph Heusgen, infamous for being one of the group of chuckling Germans laughing off Donald Trump at a 2018 United Nations General Assembly broke down in tears on the podium at the Munich Security Conference as he gave the closing speech of the three-day event. Heusgen spoke in a conscious repudiation of U.S. Vice President JD Vance’s Friday speech, a strongly worded warning from the Trump White House that change is on the way and the present European norm of anti-democratic “Soviet” practices and forced mass migration would no longer be accepted.

CBS is miffed.

The Hill reported that Margaret Brennan told Marco Rubio on her little show, “Well, he was standing in a country where free speech was weaponized to conduct genocide, and he met with the head of a political party that has far-right views and some historic ties to extreme groups. The context of that was changing the tone of it. And you know that.”

Rubio replied, “I have to disagree with you. Free speech was not used to conduct a genocide. The genocide was conducted by an authoritarian Nazi regime that happened to also be genocidal because they hated Jews and they hated minorities.”

I am not going to call CBS or any journalists Nazis because if they are, they will come after me. And if they are not Nazis, why lie?

But I do know they are cowards. They did not stand up to Barack Obama when he pushed that Russiagate nonsense. They still won’t. They refuse to admit that they aided and abetted the Watergate on Steroids in which Obama used the FBI to spy on Donald Trump.

American journalists were silent as lambs when the intelligence community cast shade on the even bigger scandal of Hunter Biden being the middleman for his father’s collection of millions in bribes from Ukraine. That cost taxpayers $100 billion or more in aid to Ukraine in its stupid war—money that undoubtedly was kicked back in part to Biden, Harris and every single congressman and senator who supported this raid on our Treasury.

Hamas-shielding AP (no, I won’t forget) is upset because Gulf of America is now the official name of that body of water. Too bad. AP has the right to write what it wants. The president has the right to keep AP out of his hair.

Original poll misspelled Mr. Cronkite’s name. Fixing it lost all the previous votes. Please vote again.