> Chief Pentagon spokesman Sean Parnell said (...) "This has caused reporters to have a full blown meltdown, crying victim online."
Interesting use of language... seems like the mask is coming off everywhere now, not just where I live (Hungary).
I've been intentionally skipping on a lot of our local political reporting, so I was really quite surprised to see recently how lowbrow the language used by politicians, specifically those in power, has gotten these days. Especially how flagrant they are about it too.
This is a very meta, and to many I'm sure trivial, thing to take issue with, yes, but if those in authority are this unashamedly drunk on power, and look down on those they rule over so openly, I'd really question how fit they are to represent people's collective best interest.
A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like. Watching others they perceive as being on “their side” do it serves as a substitute.
> A lot of people love this. They want to wield power to hurt people they don’t like.
See "The Cruelty is the Point", written during Trump 1.0:
> Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.
I've observed the same, but it's not one sided. Journalism has become decidedly lowbrow as well. Almost every exchange plays out as an attack and a defense rather than a discussion in good faith seeking mutual understanding and compromise.
It's a great thing they are not backing down. Given how many institutions have complied in advance, we need as many exemplars of better behaviour as possible.
Economically this makes sense. Those companies that sign are relegated to essentially just republishing press releases, so there's little value in employing someone just to do that.
Can they sue, and if they do are they likely to win? My laymans gut feeling is they will lose because the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities. However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech? Would be great to hear a more informed take.
Smarter, they just dont cover the propaganda from inside, they dig the truth from those inside.
The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.
There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.
It seems less about access and more about agreeing to the principle that publishing anything unapproved, or even asking anyone for more information than is not approved, is a national security risk and press privileges will be revoked if they do that. It's an attempt by the government to control what the press publishes through coercion, aka chilling.
> the constitution says nothing about the government being required to provide press access to facilities
As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.
They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.
Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.
> they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing)
They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing. The thing doesn't have any legal basis; it was implemented only to create a dichotomy for discrimination.
> However, if they allow access to one organization but not another seems there could be an argument that they're policing speech?
I think they would be allowing access to organizations that accept the procedures. Maybe you don't agree with the procedures, but it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.
If the terms on the product say your access might be revoked because you asked questions about their parent company, that’s illegal and should be contested.
That said, this is entirely different – citizens have the right to know what is happening within all branches of the government, and not only via official press releases. Some level of transparency is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy (I understand the US might be a little past that point).
The only notable outlet that has stated it does intend to sign the new rules is One America News Network, the network for people that think that Fox News has excessive left-wing bias.
It's an assault on the truth and on the citizens. They clearly thought they could just buy the press. This even shows.. they were mostly correct in their assessment.
the press, the proxy of the elite and wealthy have waged an all out war on americans for decades. They've long lost their status as a 4th pillar of government and instead are complicit in a long list of crimes.
by "The Press" we're not talking about newswriters but organizations who are large, evil, and morally bankrupt.
Anyone is free to start up a paper and write what they please
Great example of Newspeak you have there. "the press, the proxy of the elite and wealthy" will have no problem signing this, so this is not an attack on them. You even acknowledge this by saying
> by "The Press" we're not talking about newswriters but organizations who are large, evil, and morally bankrupt
So the logical conclusion must be that the GP meant something else than your self-serving redefinition. Yet, you still choose to attack the post as if it is completely wrong, and the attack on the press is fully justified?
It honestly feels like they're trying to speedrun autocracy, but it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term. They've just weakened oversight and standards of decency that surely they will be crying about later. To be honest it's exhausting just listening to the adults supposedly running the strongest country in the world like a Twitter trolling session.
- they have the voter rolls
- they are normalizing using the military domestically
- they will "secure" the polling places against "voter fraud" and take the ballots to be "counted securely"
This needs to be called out now, because the courts are slow to react and won't have time to do anything once it's happening.
They're trying to wreck as much of the current governmental set us as they can do it'll almost impossible or very difficult to rebuild it. It's almost scorched earth, they think they're killing the "deep state"
I think the "deep state" crusade assumes a sort of good faith that it's obviously lacking in this administration, judging their intent from their behavior and outcomes paints a much scarier picture.
But more than likely they will be. While the Presidency may turn, everything about how the US government works and how the population of the US is geared toward rural America having an outsized say in the federal government.
Let’s start with Senate. Every state regardless of population gets 2 senators where South Dakota and North Dakota hace twice the number of Senators as California.
While the House is not as bad, since left leaning voters are mostly in big cities, it’s easy to gerrymander and dilute their vote.
Dominion voting machines, the company falsely accused of rigging the election that also lead to the court case that got Tucker fired from Fox, were just acquired by a (R). This was to keep the elections Fair and Balanced.
I don't understand why Americans require machines to count. Dumping the ballots into a room and having dozens of people counting them while under the watch of all sorts of interested parties scales perfectly well.
For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on. You don't even have ranked voting.
Mark an X next to one and put it in a ballot box. Works fine everywhere else.
> it's not clear to me the game plan here. Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever
I mean, they are in office right now, even though they already quite egregiously violated most laws in existence. It seems completely obvious to me there will be some kind of takeover for the next elections. Some new rules will be set in place that favor the current government.
And the current US track record seems to prove that it'll work. There will be outraged news articles and comments on the internet, some protests, but ultimately it'll pass.
I remember a Cyberpunk setting where basically a corp bought the voting machines in a country, and suddenly all presidents of said country were top level executives of that corp. Which is why I smiled a little when 'Liberty vote' was announced.
>Assuming the voting and election situation doesn't change, they won't be in office forever, possibly even the next term.
Trump pardoned all of the Jan 6th putchists.
Trump ordered full military honor for Ashley Babbitt.
Trump put openly said after meeting Putin that more than ever, he believes the 2020 elections were rigged.
Trump appointed an election denier as the secretary for "Election Integrity".
Trump appointed pure servile hacks as heads of FBI, CIA and Justice (I mean, Kash write a book with Trump as a king).
Trump ordered 800 military brass to come to Quantico to be lectured about the "Enemy from within", turn American cities into military training grounds and that anyone that disappoints him will lose everything.
I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
> I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be done if it was possible, but I am working off the current status quoa that exists now. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback if something like cancelling national elections was called.
Does anyone have a link to the actual rules/document they are asked to sign? I clicked on the "new rules" link in the article linked here, and it doesn't actually show all the rules.
While it's nice to see the reaction from one side, I'd like to be able to balance that against the actual text of the document myself.
The most draconian new rule is that it bars the press from reporting any information unless they get it approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official. This would basically turn the press into a PR mouthpiece for the Dept of War.
>> it bars the press from reporting any information unless they get it approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official
No, the rules don't pertain to reporting any information, they pertain to unauthorized reporting of two specific classifications of information, "CNSI" (Classified National Security Information) and "CUI" (Controlled Unclassified Information). And they don't bar reporting the information, they say that someone who reports the information could lose their access to the Pentagon.
CNSI is "information on the national defense and foreign relations of the United States, including information relating to defense against transnational terrorism, that has been determined pursuant to Executive Order 13526, or any predecessor order, to require protection against unauthorized disclosure and is marked to indicate its classified status when in documentary form".
CUI is "unclassified information the United States Government creates or possesses that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls limiting its distribution to those with a lawful government purpose. CUI may not be released to the public absent further review.
The DoD CUI Program, established through Executive Order 13556, standardizes the safeguarding of information across multiple categories. For example, CUI categories exist to protect Privacy Act information, attorney-client privileged information, and controlled technical information, among many others."
aka the entire point of the exercise. The innocuous components are there so that the Dept of Defense can claim that it's those minor items the press is objecting to, without having to defend the actual substantive policy change.
Readit News
Interesting use of language... seems like the mask is coming off everywhere now, not just where I live (Hungary).
I've been intentionally skipping on a lot of our local political reporting, so I was really quite surprised to see recently how lowbrow the language used by politicians, specifically those in power, has gotten these days. Especially how flagrant they are about it too.
This is a very meta, and to many I'm sure trivial, thing to take issue with, yes, but if those in authority are this unashamedly drunk on power, and look down on those they rule over so openly, I'd really question how fit they are to represent people's collective best interest.
See "The Cruelty is the Point", written during Trump 1.0:
> Taking joy in that suffering is more human than most would like to admit. Somewhere on the wide spectrum between adolescent teasing and the smiling white men in the lynching photographs are the Trump supporters whose community is built by rejoicing in the anguish of those they see as unlike them, who have found in their shared cruelty an answer to the loneliness and atomization of modern life.
* https://archive.is/NjiSx
* https://archive.is/https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive...
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The media has been too lazy for too long printing press release from the government. This government has nothing to say but propaganda - I don’t even bother reading the government quotes any more. They are content free and self aggrandizing at a level of absurdity that would put North Korea to shame.
There have been governments hostile to journalists in the past, and those are the governments with the most to lose when journalists dig into their work. I look forward to the investigative journalism of the next three years.
So, who is owning the media publishing the investigative journalism? Will they risk shaking the grass, considering the powers that be?
As with anything regarding the first amendment it's very fuzzy, which the administration is taking advantage of here.
They got in hot water earlier this year because they explicitly denied the AP access to some White House event because of AP's editorial refusal to refer to the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America. That sort of singling out is definitely prohibited when it comes to restricting press access.
Now they're learning a bit, and they're treating everyone the same (everyone has to sign the same thing). They're heating the frog more slowly.
They're treating people who didn't sign the thing differently from people who did sign the thing. The thing doesn't have any legal basis; it was implemented only to create a dichotomy for discrimination.
I think they would be allowing access to organizations that accept the procedures. Maybe you don't agree with the procedures, but it's no different than "I agree to the terms" required on pretty much every product you use.
That said, this is entirely different – citizens have the right to know what is happening within all branches of the government, and not only via official press releases. Some level of transparency is a critical requirement for a functioning democracy (I understand the US might be a little past that point).
And I'd have hoped that by now, consumers have learned that being in the ToS does not make something legal, let alone enforcable
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(I keep joking that other countries have state controlled media, but in the West we have media-controlled states)
by "The Press" we're not talking about newswriters but organizations who are large, evil, and morally bankrupt.
Anyone is free to start up a paper and write what they please
> by "The Press" we're not talking about newswriters but organizations who are large, evil, and morally bankrupt
So the logical conclusion must be that the GP meant something else than your self-serving redefinition. Yet, you still choose to attack the post as if it is completely wrong, and the attack on the press is fully justified?
- they have the voter rolls - they are normalizing using the military domestically - they will "secure" the polling places against "voter fraud" and take the ballots to be "counted securely"
This needs to be called out now, because the courts are slow to react and won't have time to do anything once it's happening.
Let’s start with Senate. Every state regardless of population gets 2 senators where South Dakota and North Dakota hace twice the number of Senators as California.
While the House is not as bad, since left leaning voters are mostly in big cities, it’s easy to gerrymander and dilute their vote.
For president you have a piece of paper with two boxes on. You don't even have ranked voting.
Mark an X next to one and put it in a ballot box. Works fine everywhere else.
I mean, they are in office right now, even though they already quite egregiously violated most laws in existence. It seems completely obvious to me there will be some kind of takeover for the next elections. Some new rules will be set in place that favor the current government.
And the current US track record seems to prove that it'll work. There will be outraged news articles and comments on the internet, some protests, but ultimately it'll pass.
Trump pardoned all of the Jan 6th putchists.
Trump ordered full military honor for Ashley Babbitt.
Trump put openly said after meeting Putin that more than ever, he believes the 2020 elections were rigged.
Trump appointed an election denier as the secretary for "Election Integrity".
Trump appointed pure servile hacks as heads of FBI, CIA and Justice (I mean, Kash write a book with Trump as a king).
Trump ordered 800 military brass to come to Quantico to be lectured about the "Enemy from within", turn American cities into military training grounds and that anyone that disappoints him will lose everything.
I mean, how many more clues do you need, to admit the next election will be cancelled as soon as they lose? He literally said what he was going to do. And there has been no pushback, neither from the military nor parliamentarians.
I'm not saying it wouldn't be done if it was possible, but I am working off the current status quoa that exists now. And I wouldn't be so sure about a lack of military pushback if something like cancelling national elections was called.
https://lite.cnn.com/2025/10/14/politics/voting-rights-act-s...
While it's nice to see the reaction from one side, I'd like to be able to balance that against the actual text of the document myself.
The most draconian new rule is that it bars the press from reporting any information unless they get it approved for public release by an appropriate authorizing official. This would basically turn the press into a PR mouthpiece for the Dept of War.
No, the rules don't pertain to reporting any information, they pertain to unauthorized reporting of two specific classifications of information, "CNSI" (Classified National Security Information) and "CUI" (Controlled Unclassified Information). And they don't bar reporting the information, they say that someone who reports the information could lose their access to the Pentagon.
CNSI is "information on the national defense and foreign relations of the United States, including information relating to defense against transnational terrorism, that has been determined pursuant to Executive Order 13526, or any predecessor order, to require protection against unauthorized disclosure and is marked to indicate its classified status when in documentary form".
CUI is "unclassified information the United States Government creates or possesses that requires safeguarding or dissemination controls limiting its distribution to those with a lawful government purpose. CUI may not be released to the public absent further review.
The DoD CUI Program, established through Executive Order 13556, standardizes the safeguarding of information across multiple categories. For example, CUI categories exist to protect Privacy Act information, attorney-client privileged information, and controlled technical information, among many others."
aka the entire point of the exercise. The innocuous components are there so that the Dept of Defense can claim that it's those minor items the press is objecting to, without having to defend the actual substantive policy change.