The Pentagon has ordered Stars and Stripes to shut down for no good reason

[azgreg]

Trump and Stars and Stripes: attacking an American icon

Even 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.

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. 15 including "specific timeline for vacating government owned/leased space worldwide.”

“The last newspaper publication (in all forms) will be September 30, 2020,” writes Col. Paul Haverstick Jr., the memo’s author

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This sucks. I remember reading the Stars and Stripes while I was in the Army.

 

[Mr Person]

He doesn't like soldiers that get killed.


When President Donald Trump canceled a visit to the Aisne-Marne American Cemetery near Paris in 2018, he blamed rain for the last-minute decision, saying that “the helicopter couldn’t fly” and that the Secret Service wouldn’t drive him there. Neither claim was true. Trump rejected the idea of the visit because he feared his hair would become disheveled in the rain, and because he did not believe it important to honor American war dead, according to four people with firsthand knowledge of the discussion that day. In a conversation with senior staff members on the morning of the scheduled visit, Trump said, “Why should I go to that cemetery? It’s filled with losers.” In a separate conversation on the same trip, Trump referred to the more than 1,800 marines who lost their lives at Belleau Wood as “suckers” for getting killed.

Belleau Wood is a consequential battle in American history, and the ground on which it was fought is venerated by the Marine Corps. America and its allies stopped the German advance toward Paris there in the spring of 1918. But Trump, on that same trip, asked aides, “Who were the good guys in this war?” He also said that he didn’t understand why the United States would intervene on the side of the Allies. Trump’s understanding of concepts such as patriotism, service, and sacrifice has interested me since he expressed contempt for the war record of the late Senator John McCain, who spent more than five years as a prisoner of the North Vietnamese. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said in 2015 while running for the Republican nomination for president. “I like people who weren’t captured.” There was no precedent in American politics for the expression of this sort of contempt, but the performatively patriotic Trump did no damage to his candidacy by attacking McCain in this manner. Nor did he set his campaign back by attacking the parents of Humayun Khan, an Army captain who was killed in Iraq in 2004.


[cont; mentions Trump calling Bush Sr. a "loser" for being shot down, a natural view for a would-be cadet with bone spurs who thinks not getting STDs is equivalent to fighting in Vietnam].

Trump: Americans Who Died in War Are ‘Losers’ and ‘Suckers’ - The Atlantic

Now, let's get the automatic knee-jerk reactions out of the way: anonymous sources are OK when Trumpists say they are and NOT OK when they say they aren't, everything reflecting badly on Trump is the result of existence's conspiracy to victimize him, and I'm a poopyface librul.

“He can’t fathom the idea of doing something for someone other than himself,” one of Kelly’s friends, a retired four-star general, told me. “He just thinks that anyone who does anything when there’s no direct personal gain to be had is a sucker. There’s no money in serving the nation.”

Must an Obama Deep State Plant.







There really is no bottom to this guy's scumbaggery. Truly the worst distillation of human flaw, vice, and sin, even if not the most prolifically evil person to have lived. If those are his views on military service, it's a given that he wouldn't care about the publication in question.

 

[mike2810]

Trump and Stars and Stripes: attacking an American icon

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This sucks. I remember reading the Stars and Stripes while I was in the Army.

I remember reading the Stars and Stripes while growing up and my dad was in the Air Force.
One lame reason is a cost savings measure. With the Pentagon budget that is hard to see. Maybe Trump should give back some of the defense funds he used for the wall.:mrgreen:

 

[CaughtInThe]

the Trump Administration is A mafia.

 

[less right]

Trump wants our serving military to get their news from the "fake news".

That or he couldn't get them to stop telling the truth about him making them fake news too.

 

[Mycroft]

Trump and Stars and Stripes: attacking an American icon

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This sucks. I remember reading the Stars and Stripes while I was in the Army.

Why doesn't that news organization show us the memo?

 

[Guyzilla]

Truth is, right after the polling that showed the military is not liking Trump, he moved to kill it.

 

[RaleBulgarian]

Why doesn't that news organization show us the memo?

Why should they need to? Do you think shutting down Stars and Stripes is a left wing conspiracy to further damage Trump?

 

[CaughtInThe]

Truth is, right after the polling that showed the military is not liking Trump, he moved to kill it.

Trump is a mob boss.

 

[Craig234]

Amazing. I'm not a big fan of the stars and stripes to a point, in that it seems like it risks being a 'bubble' for the military, creating an insulated view that doesn't question the military, when they could use quality independent media, but when I've seen it, it doesn't seem bad, I don't remember much to actually object to.

So, I haven't really minded it continuing. But for trump to shut it down suggests a terrible 'control all the media' agenda, and he didn't find a way to control it - just as he attacked the whole 'Voice of America' type government broadcasts, which I have some similar concerns about as government propaganda, but he attacks it for the wrong reasons. Just as Republicans went to war against PBS/NPR since at least Bush.

 

[Craig234]

Trump is a mob boss.

That's not fair to mob bosses, and that sounds like a joke, but it's not.

 

[mike2810]

Why doesn't that news organization show us the memo?

You could request a copy from the DOD under the Freedom of Information Act.

Not all memos are published by the media.

 

[CaughtInThe]

we tried to tell the dumb ass Trump voters that he'd try to crush anyone/anything that crossed him.



vote his corrupt ass out of DC.

 

[Craig234]

the Trump Administration is A mafia.

The mafia has never done some of the crimes trump does. Can you show me the mafia abandoning Kurds in Syria and protecting Putin for paying for US soldiers to be killed?

 

[Craig234]

we tried to tell the dumb ass Trump voters that he'd try to crush anyone/anything that crossed him.

trump has been a hell of a lesson for the US in what a dictator looks like. We're just lucky to have strong enough institutions that it's not worse the first term. In a second, it'd be far worse.

 

[CaughtInThe]

trump has been a hell of a lesson for the US in what a dictator looks like. We're just lucky to have strong enough institutions that it's not worse the first term. In a second, it'd be far worse.

yep.

after Trump is gone i bet Democrats and some Republicans come together and put at least some more things in place to keep a dictator in check.

especially after Trump and his family are convicted of crimes.

 

[Mr Person]

Even better,

“I would be willing to swear on anything that I never said that about our fallen heroes,” he said. “There is nobody that respects them more. So, I just think it’s a horrible, horrible thing.”

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...1725cc-ee35-11ea-99a1-71343d03bc29_story.html




Yeah, subhuman ****stain, nobody respects the troops more. Which is why you do things like say war heroes who stay behind for years of torture with their men are the kind of people you don't like because they got captures, and prosecute feuds with gold star families who failed to publicly lick your ass clean.

 

[Mycroft]

Why should they need to?

You could request a copy from the DOD under the Freedom of Information Act.

Not all memos are published by the media.

They tout the memo as the source for what they say in their article. But how do we know they've even seen the memo? If they haven't, are they relying on what someone ELSE told them is in the memo? If so, who told them? How do we know that person isn't lying?

Also, they steer clear of providing an answer to a very important question that is likely included in the memo: Why is the Pentagon shutting down the newspaper? What is the Pentagon's state reason for doing this?

If the actual memo was presented...in its entirety...we would know exactly what it says...instead of having to rely on someone to tell us what's in it.

 

[CaughtInThe]

guys. just remember who actually supported this vile President.


don't ever trust them and don't ever let them get the last word. they're horrible people.

 

[RaleBulgarian]

They tout the memo as the source for what they say in their article. But how do we know they've even seen the memo? If they haven't, are they relying on what someone ELSE told them is in the memo? If so, who told them? How do we know that person isn't lying?

Also, they steer clear of providing an answer to a very important question that is likely included in the memo: Why is the Pentagon shutting down the newspaper? What is the Pentagon's state reason for doing this?

If the actual memo was presented...in its entirety...we would know exactly what it says...instead of having to rely on someone to tell us what's in it.

Your unfounded skepticism is noted.

DOD proposes stripping Stars and Stripes’ funding in 2021 budget request - U.S. - Stripes

 

[less right]

Your unfounded skepticism is noted.

DOD proposes stripping Stars and Stripes’ funding in 2021 budget request - U.S. - Stripes

Providing documentation for a Trump supporter is a waste of time. They'll argue that Trump didn't mean what is in his own tweets.

 

[mike2810]

They tout the memo as the source for what they say in their article. But how do we know they've even seen the memo? If they haven't, are they relying on what someone ELSE told them is in the memo? If so, who told them? How do we know that person isn't lying?

Also, they steer clear of providing an answer to a very important question that is likely included in the memo: Why is the Pentagon shutting down the newspaper? What is the Pentagon's state reason for doing this?

If the actual memo was presented...in its entirety...we would know exactly what it says...instead of having to rely on someone to tell us what's in it.

Do a google search. There are more than one article. I don't see anything from the DOD or the WO stating the story if false.

 

[Checkerboard Strangler]

Trump and Stars and Stripes: attacking an American icon

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This sucks. I remember reading the Stars and Stripes while I was in the Army.

I'd say "sucks" is an understatement.
It is unconscionable and perhaps a final harbinger of the establishment of authoritarian fascism from the Putin playbook.

 

[Mycroft]

Your unfounded skepticism is noted.

DOD proposes stripping Stars and Stripes’ funding in 2021 budget request - U.S. - Stripes

I don't think you understand where my skepticism lies.

I made no judgment about the action to reduce DOD funding for the newspaper. My concern was for the lack of information in the OP's article and the fact that the article neglected to answer a very basic and important question.

I thank you for the link you provided. It gave much more information...from both sides...than the article the OP foisted upon us and your's wasn't all that biased. As they say...just the facts, ma'am.

It's too bad the OP's article wasn't as journalistically honest as the Stars and Stripes is about the issue.

 

[Luce]

So, Trump destroys another American institution, just to watch it burn.