A tweet from local independent reporter Jason Sandford alerted me Friday to the story that our troop-loathing commander-in-chief was planning to shut down Stars and Stripes, the American military newspaper.
USA Today reported that earlier. The Washington Post followed up on moves afoot to shut down the publication founded by Union troops in 1861:
In an undated memo to its publisher and staff, a Pentagon public-affairs official told the publication to begin vacating its offices next week and to submit a plan that “dissolves” it. “The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,” wrote Col. Paul Haverstick Jr.
Stars and Stripes has an independent streak that surely peeved Acting President Donald Trump. It has run stories unflattering to military brass and Pentagon operations. And on Friday, the Post reports, Stripes.com ran a story on Trump’s denial of reporting in the Atlantic magazine that he thinks U.S. dead and wounded are “losers” and “suckers.”
The ostensible reason for axing the $15.5 million budget for Stars and Stripes was cost-cutting. Defense Secretary Mark T. Esper said in February he intended to zero out funds for the venerable publication, explaining they “would be used for ‘higher-priority issues,’ such as weapons purchases.”
Please. The White House won’t tolerate independent voices under its control.
The Department of Defense’s annual budget is $700 billion-plus — $15.5 million is not even Pentagon pocket lint. Esper’s explanation is as credible as Trump not honoring American war dead buried at the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery adjacent to Belleau Wood outside Paris because his $400 million Marine One helicopter could not fly in the rain.
The intense blowback from the “losers” and “suckers” story knocked the White House back on its heels so far that Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany rushed out of a press briefing Friday afternoon without taking questions after issuing a brief rebuttal. Reporting by the Atlantic was later backed up the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and Fox News.
Minutes later, Trump announced a hasty reversal of the funding cut to Stars and Stripes.
The acting president can play tough guy all he wants, but he is kidding no one.
He’s no Tom Petty.
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