Star & Stripes ordered to be shuttered

Why?

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.

[...]

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. 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. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., a Marine veteran, told Military.com.

[...]

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.

[...]

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. It zeroed out the $15.5 million annual subsidy for Stars and Stripes. 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.

  USA Today

Why the hell did he request it in the first 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.

So far, the Senate hasn’t acted. 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.”

[...]

Normally, when Congress has failed to approve a budget for an agency at the end of a fiscal year (an all-too-common occurrence), a “continuing resolution,” maintains funding at the past year’s levels until the lawmakers act. But the Pentagon memo to Stars and Stripes demands a plan for dissolution anyway and says “the last date of the paper will be determined” once the continuing resolution expires.

[...]

The eagerness to kill Stars and Stripes is hard to fathom.

So....why?

Defense Department officials have tried to portray the cuts as a money-saving initiative. Please. The Pentagon’s budget is $705 billion, of which $15.5 million goes to Stars and Stripes.

[...]



  WaPo

Why then?

Stars and Stripes traces its origins to Bloomfield, Missouri, in November 1861, when troops under the future president Ulysses S Grant took over the printing press of a Confederate sympathiser.

It has traditionally provided news free of government censorship, often critical of military and civilian commanders, and is delivered daily to troops around the world, even on frontlines.

Moves to close the paper began in February, when the Pentagon announced plans to reallocate funding to projects including the Space Force, a much-maligned and satirised pet project of Donald Trump.

  Guardian

I'm still not getting an answer, but this ought to increase Trump's popularity with the troops, eh?

My guess is it's because Stars and Stripes is telling soldiers just how things are.

And this won't have helped...

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE 9/5:  Suddenly, Trump claims a rescue.



It couldn't possibly be an attempt to counter that Atlantic story, could it?

UPDATE 9/11:

The Pentagon will rescind its order for Stars and Stripes to cease publication by Sept. 30, according to an email sent to the news organization Thursday.

The Pentagon was also working Thursday to withdraw its request that Congress not fund Stars and Stripes in fiscal year 2021, according to the email from the acting director of the Pentagon’s Defense Media Activity to Stars and Stripes ombudsman Ernie Gates.

  Stars and Stripes

Thanks to everyone who raised their voices in opposition to Trump's attempt to destroy Stars and Stripes.