![]() ![]() “As a veteran who has served overseas, I know the value Stars and Stripes brings to its readers,” he wrote, telling Esper that shutting down the paper before the Senate acts would be “premature.” Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican and Trump ally, makes a similar request. But in a letter released earlier this week, 15 members of the chamber, including combat veteran Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill., and four Republicans, called on Defense Secretary Mark Esper to “take steps to preserve the funding prerogatives of Congress before allowing any such disruption to take place.” 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. 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. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes. 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. As a publication that’s underwritten by the military but not answerable to the brass, Stars and Stripes embodies that most American of values: the right to speak truth to power.ĬOLUMN: Change Confederate military base names to honor those who fought for AmericaĪs if an attack on the free press were not enough, the Trump administration’s rush to shutter Stars and Stripes also raises constitutional questions. ![]() It’s also arguably one of the most powerful weapons our soldiers have carried into battle with them. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a Marine veteran, told. As the “local paper” for the military, it provides intensive and critical coverage of issues that are important to members of the nation’s armed services and “cuts through political and military brass BS talking points,” Rep. Today Stars and Stripes is printed at sites around the world and delivered daily to troops - even those on the front lines, where the internet is spotty or inaccessible. George Patton for trying to censor Mauldin cartoons he didn’t like. Pershing, George Marshall and Dwight Eisenhower. And its independence from the Pentagon brass has been guaranteed by such distinguished military leaders at Gens. Since then Stars and Stripes has launched the careers of famous journalists such as cartoonist Bill Mauldin and TV commentator Andy Rooney. ![]() 9, 1861 in Bloomfield, Missouri when forces headed by Ulysses Grant overran the tiny town on the way to Cape Girardeau. 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. ![]() The first Stars and Stripes rolled off presses Nov. “The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,” writes Col. 15 including "specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.” 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. (UPDATE: Hours after this column was published, the president announced via Twitter that he's reversing the decision to defund the Stars and Stripes.)Įven for those of us who are all too wearily familiar with President Donald Trump’s disdain for journalists, his administration’s latest attack on the free press is a bit of a jaw-dropper. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |