Oddjob Swings His Balls, Gloats After ABC Fires Reporter To Please Trump

The Rubicon has been crossed so many times since the reappearance of Donald Trump in office that it must feel like a ten-lane freeway at this point. The social and cultural outrages pile up daily. And the cowardice of the owners and operators of legacy media outlets also manifests on a regular basis, making it blindingly clear how much freedom of the press is merely an antiquated concept. ABC News fired Terry Moran today. He posted a comment about Donald Trump and Stephen Miller, calling them “haters.” Yes, they are haters. That is the truth. But even if it was only an opinion, unsubstantiated by fact, the First Amendment does protect government interference for expressing a political opinion. And if you work for a media outlet, or don’t, you are still entitled to express yourself on social media.

At least it used to be that way. Now, if you’re a working journalist you best not speak your mind about anything, because if you do and you work for ABC News, they will can you. This issue is a lot bigger than it might seem at face value. ABC News already showed what it was made of recently when it opted to settle an easily won defamation case brought by Donald Trump for $15 million. That was considered a terrible precedent to set but set it they did. And now ABC News has gone one step further in the terrible precedent category by firing a senior correspondent for stating an opinion on social media.

This is kowtowing to a dictator. That’s not a good move in any event, but in a situation where the party kowtowing is supposed to be the same one that is speaking truth to power, it is a horrific move. Here’s Stephen Cheung, one of Trump’s henchmen, gloating about the termination of the reporter.

“Talk shit get hit.” Wow, is that mob speak enough for you? And this is a senior aide to the sitting president of these United States, ladies and gents. He’s swinging his balls and gloating because this is a power trip. Terry Moran had the hubris to criticize the Mango Messiah and Stephen Miller and now he’s out of a job — for the moment. Meidas Touch has already publicly offered the man a job and I’m willing to bet that this won’t be the only offer.

Look at the principle of this situation: ABC News is clearly afraid of Trump. They go out of their way to placate him at every turn. That’s bad enough. But then for a senior aide, Cheung, to gloat about how all powerful the administration is, that they can control the press, is nothing we’ve ever seen before in this nation.

This is autocracy. This is authoritarianism. Let’s call it what it is. Trump is a tin pot dictator just like the ones he enjoys entertaining in the Oval Office. He’s a thug — just like the ones he’s had visit him at Mar-a-Lago or whom he has visited in Moscow.

America didn’t used to run this way. Freedom of the press was important in this country. Now we see Jeff Bezos dismantling the venerated Washington Post and Patrick Soon-Shiong endeavoring to make the Los Angeles Times into Fox News Lite.

This is nothing short of horrifying. I am hopeful that people will boycott ABC. I personally won’t promote any ABC News story on this blog. We may be tiny but at least we’re ethical. If a story is important, we’ll get it elsewhere. ABC News isn’t worthy of anybody’s traffic or patronage.

I don’t know whether this attitude will bleed over into ABC entertainment. I would expect Jimmy Kimmel to riff on a story like this, but they may have him cowed. He may not be able to talk about the havoc his corporate overlords are wreaking without putting his own livelihood in danger. I would hate to see Jimmy Kimmel silenced because his is a valid voice for our cause.

That would be a shame if Kimmel is kowed into silence by his ABC bosses, if it’s true. I guess we’re going to find out. The firing of Terry Moran is not about the firing of one journalist. It is yet another cobblestone on the road to Hell, where money interests supersede journalistic integrity and the legacy media is muted in deference to a budding dictator. And who knows where it’s all going to end? Maybe late night comedians will be next.

You remember the old saying, “First they came for the socialists, but I was not a socialist and so I did nothing.” Change it to “I was not a reporter” and you’ve got the flavor of the times in which we live.

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