"serve the governed, not the governors."

I saw the movie, The Post, and highly recommend it. This Steven Spielberg film, starring Meryl Streep (Kathryn Graham) and Tom Hanks (Ben Bradlee), is a fascinating tale of the right of the people to know what its government has done. Graham and Bradlee put their careers on the line and faced possible prison time.

In 1971, The New York Times and The Washington Post were publishing the Pentagon Papers, a massive cover-up of government secrets that spanned three decades and four U.S. Presidents. The study, commissioned by the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, conducted by the Department of Defense, covered thirty years of history about how we got involved and what we had done in Vietnam. The study was classified Top Secret. Daniel Ellsberg worked on the study and ultimately leaked it to the newspapers.

The Nixon administration citing national security sought and got injunctions in lower courts against publication. The U.S. Supreme Court in a 6-3 decision ruled otherwise. 

Justice Hugo Black, often regarded as a leading defender of First Amendment rights such as the freedom of speech and of the press, refused to accept the doctrine that the freedom of speech could be curtailed on national security grounds. Thus, in New York Times Co. v. United States (1971), he voted to allow newspapers to publish the Pentagon Papers despite the Nixon Administration's contention that publication would have security implications. In his concurring opinion, Black stated,

In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government. The press was protected so that it could bare the secrets of government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose deception in government. [...] The word 'security' is a broad, vague generality whose contours should not be invoked to abrogate the fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment.

— New York Times Co. v. United States, 403 U.S. 713, 717 (1971).

Harper's Review of the Week

I am tweeting this for the record in the sure and certain knowledge that even the smallest detail of our American experience should be recorded and remembered. 

Hope you enjoy. 

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May 2, 2017 By Joe Kloc          U.S. president Donald Trump, who once hosted a radio show on which he discussed how there was "no question about it" that Britney Spears had "gone down" in sexiness because she got married, gave himself an "A" for his performance in his first 100 days in office, a time period during which he implied Frederick Douglass was still alive at a breakfast celebrating the start of Black History Month; said on the eve of Martin Luther King, Jr., Day that Georgia representative and Freedom Rider John Lewis was "all talk"; commented at the National Prayer Breakfast that he wanted to "pray for" Arnold Schwarzenegger's "poor ratings" on The Celebrity Apprentice; accused former president Barack Obama of "wiretapping" Trump Tower in Manhattan, which the FBI had legally surveilled for two years as part of an investigation into the money-laundering ring of a Russian mafia boss known as "Little Taiwanese"; ordered the launching of 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles valued at $60 million at an airfield in Syria, which he described as an attack on Iraq that he carried out while eating "the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake" and which his secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, referred to as "after-dinner entertainment" that "didn't cost the president anything"; and played golf more than twice as often as the previous three presidents combined, despite having once criticizing Obama for golfing "while America goes down the drain." "I don't stand by anything," Trump said. Trump told interviewers that he thought being president "would be easier," and that the constitutional system of checks and balances is "a really bad thing for the country." Reince Priebus, Trump's chief of staff, said that Trump, who has tweeted that the media is "the enemy of the American people," was considering abolishing the First Amendment. Trump, a former casino owner who once paid $1 million for an ad campaign alleging that the Mohawk people were cocaine traffickers and on another occasion claimed he "might have more Indian blood than a lot of the so-called Indians," said that his campaign for president was "most like" the "very mean and nasty campaign" of former president Andrew Jackson, a slave owner and frequent cockfighting gambler who signed legislation that forcibly removed indigenous tribes from the southeastern United States. Trump praised as a "smart cookie" North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, who has executed hundreds of people for offenses such as slouching and having a bad attitude, and invited to the White House Philippines president Rodrigo Duterte, who has been accused of ordering the extrajudicial killings of 8,000 people. "I am tied up," responded Duterte, who added that he had already made plans to visit Russia, the government of which the FBI and both houses of Congress are currently investigating for interfering in the 2016 presidential race in order to elect Trump, whose Las Vegas steakhouse was once shut down for serving customers two-week-old tomato sauce and a five-month-old duck. "We," said Press Secretary Sean Spicer, "want to start talking about the next 100 days."  Sources are footnoted at the permanent URL  for this Weekly Review. Comments, clarifications, and corrections are always welcome at harpers-weekly@harpers.org. Please note that your letter may be included in next week's mailing and on Harpers.org. © 2017 Harper's Magazine Foundation

After the first 100 days

The first 100 days of the President Trump administration has gone by. Nothing spectacular has been accomplished, although much was promised. The Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare as its detractors like to call it, is still with us. 

Tax reform is promised for this week, although many in Congress are skeptical until President Trump releases his earlier tax returns and legislators can see how and if he will benefit from proposed tax code changes. And, everyone should be concerned about who will benefit from proposed changes - the top 1 or 2 percent, the middle class or even those lower on the economic ladder.

I had a discussion last week with a lady who is a Trump supporter and who believes the news media has been too critical of the new president. There is no doubt the media has been robust and reporting on the flaws and goofs coming out of the administration. But better a free and reliable media with its criticisms than a cheering section for ignorance and stupidity. 

One action, in particular, disturbs me: the Attorney General’s decision to stop looking at police departments across the country when citizens and groups file protests. AG Sessions tried to delay implementation of a continuing review of the Baltimore police but a court ordered it to go forward. The majority of American police departments are stacked with good men and women and conduct themselves in the ritual of Preserve and Protect. But when citizen complaints are made they need to be looked into, and this has been the responsibility of the Justice Department. This must continue.

It appears that Steve Bannon’s role as chief strategist to President Trump is a thing of the past. His “America first” ideas are ill-advised and out of touch with reality. Since World War II, America and the American President have been at the forefront of world leadership and we cannot neglect, ignore or discard that duty. The world is too big and volatile for the number one super power to step aside and let things sort themselves out. I told a friend a couple of weeks ago that Bannon will be gone by Labor Day. I stand by that statement. 

Global warming, terrorism around the world, security of nuclear weapons, world trade and finance, poverty, refugees, roads and bridges in America, are all calling for leadership and action. 

New jobs must be created and an aging workforce assisted with training to fill those jobs. Opening up the mines and other industries will not automatically result in more jobs. Robots and automation are always going to cut into what were once good jobs for men (and women). 

There is not much to show for the first 100 days of this Presidency, but we can hope that the administration ship will be righted to an even keel and sail on to better days for the U.S. and the world. 

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Defend Freedom of the Press

Last fall when the Green Bay Packers won and lost record was 4 and 6, their outstanding quarterback Arron Rodgers told everyone to relax and said the team could run the table. Under his leadership, they did exactly that. They won the final six games of the regular season and the first two games of the playoffs until they lost to Atlanta in the NFL championship game.

As thrilling as this epic sports story may be, it is not a guide as to how everyone should react to the threat facing freedom of the press at this moment in the history of our country.

President Donald J. Trump labels the press the enemy of the people. His outrageous and inaccurate public statements, ridiculous and sometimes insulting late night twits, along with denying accredited reporters access to press conferences in the White House are all part of the same objective: to weaken the confidence of the American people in the press and news media. The goal is to manipulate public opinion to his interests. Throughout history, people like President Trump and members of his White House staff believe if a statement, “alternative fact” or absolutely stupid utterance, whether true or not, is said frequently enough people will sooner or later believe it.

As Americans, regardless of how we voted, we cannot just sit back and hope the U.S. Supreme Court will come to the aid of freedom of the press as they did on June 30, 1971, when it overturned the Nixon administration’s effort to restrain The New York Times and The Washington Post from publishing a top-secret history of the Vietnam War called the Pentagon Papers.

We must be proactive. Freedom of the press depends on every citizen in every walk of life, What can Mr. & Mrs. Average America do? First and foremost: stay informed. Subscribe and read a variety of news publications, e.g. dailies, weeklies, and monthly magazines. Another good way is to watch a variety of news broadcasts and talk shows as time permits. Do not be taken in by glib statements about promises kept.

Thomas Jefferson said a lot of things; the one I remember the most is that given a choice of government without a free press or a free press without government, he would choose the latter. I side with Jefferson. 

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