Trump's new executive order is as phony as his Twitter feed (Opinion)
On Thursday President Donald Trump attempted to change the political subject from the news of 100,000 Covid-19 US deaths and the devastation of the American economy. His method of attention misdirection was a televised pronouncement from the Oval Office regarding the signing of an executive order to "defend free speech from one of the gravest dangers it has faced in American history."
One would have thought the US was on the verge of an invasion by North Korean or Chinese hackers hellbent on shutting down the American press. This threat would have to be bigger than the threats faced by Americans in the Revolutionary and Civil wars not to mention our battle with the Nazis and the Japanese in World War II. All these wars constituted truly grave threats to America's press freedom. But Mr. Trump described this one as the "gravest...in American History." Even in the Trumpian world of "truthful hyperbole," this claim deserves a place in the "Guinness Book of Records" for presidential deception. Mr. Trump was issuing an executive order which could restrain freedom of speech under the First Amendment because Twitter flagged two of his tweets for being "potentially misleading."
The need to proffer an executive order, containing a presidential wish list of unconstitutional and unenforceable regulations, curtailing the free speech rights of social media platforms was apparently triggered when Twitter had the audacity to fact check two tweets posted by the President. The tweets touted his claims that the use of mail-in ballots would inevitably lead to voter fraud. Followers of Mr. Trump's Twitter feed for the first time in over 42,000 tweets issued by Mr. Trump between May 2009 and May 29, 2020, were warned that this claim was "potentially misleading." The Twitter chieftains then rubbed salt in the wound by hyperlinking to contrarian articles published by the Washington Post and at CNN, two of the President's most despised media outlets.
A compilation of Trump insults complete with exotic graphs demonstrating the frequent use of insults on multiple targets can be found at the Post. The President's insults directed at the press are so prolific that they have been the subject of many compilations. Ironically the author of undoubtedly the largest collection of presidential insults aimed at the integrity of America's Fourth Estate now seeks the protection of an executive order because Twitter had the audacity to suggest that two of his more than 42,000 tweets contained unsubstantiated claims.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/trump-s-new-executive-order-is-as-phony-as-his-twitter-feed-opinion/ar-BB14LZpr?ocid=msn360
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