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In the weeks before President Trump announced the shutdown of Voice of America, I did some reporting on its destructive impact. Now, former VOA employees are suing the administration claiming that they have a First Amendment right to their jobs.
The lawsuit against the United States comes from Reporters Without Borders, a Soros-funded leftist activist group, “the VOA Journalists, and other employees represented by the Plaintiff Federal Employee Unions and NG-CWA, have suffered and continue to suffer irreparable harm as a result of Defendants’ conduct, including—in derogation of their rights under the First Amendment.”
The lawsuit contends that, “what is happening to the VOA Journalists is not just the chilling of First Amendment speech; it is a government shutdown of journalism, a prior restraint that kills content before it can be created.”
“VOA cannot continue to function as required by law when placed under these types of pressures. And its reporters, facing serious and personal risks to their future—and for some foreign correspondents, their safety—have been and unquestionably will be chilled in their news coverage. This is the very type of irreparable harm that the First Amendment and the statutory firewall are meant to protect against.”
The Founding Fathers would have considered a government media outlet to be an absolute First Amendment horror show. The idea of such a thing is actually outlawed and was unacceptable until Obama tore down the firewall allowing VOA to push leftist agitprop to Americans.
There is a First Amendment right to a free press. A government press is not a free press. It’s the opposite of a free press.
Dismantling government media is in the best tradition of the First Amendment.
The only 3 named reporters in this lawsuit are Patsy Widakuswara, (pictured above) an Indonesian on the White House beat who had become notorious for her tantrums, and a poster girl for shutting down VOA, Jessica Jerreat and Kate Neeper, who isn’t even a reporter but a director of strategy at VOA’s parent, the US Agency for Global Media.
The lawsuit was also filed, for entirely unclear reasons, in Manhattan, even though the VOA is headquartered in D.C.
Will a federal judge decide that government employees have First Amendment rights to their jobs? I wouldn’t rule it out. These same folks who claimed that the First Amendment doesn’t protect conservative journalists from being censored through government ‘jawboning’ will also claim that Freedom of the Press really means Employment of the Press.
Should have known that VOA would be a perfect place for stowing away leftist lunatics scraped from the bottom of the barrel by the Democrats.
You have a right to have a job. No one is taking that right from them. Employers also have a right to terminate your employment. Your organization has lost it’s revenue stream. It is bankrupt and just like the real.world, you can be terminated. Let them find another radio station to work for. Alternatively, get your over paid broadcaster buddies to jointly fund purchasing a radio station.
Government workers have a very bold and deeply ingrained of sense of. entitlement. This is because they have been completley insulated from economic realities for a very long time. A good recent example is the Covid-Scam government mandated shut downs of businesses that destroying people lives. Fed and State “workers” lives were not affected the slightest, the pay checks kept coming in, “work” from home etc…… Must be nice. Well there is a new Boss in town and he is sending a shock wave through the system and it is long over due. All Federal employees are being paid with borrowed money and that is not sustainable. All Federal employees need a severe dose of reality. The party is over.
Exactly right, the courts had no problem with journalists being censored by the government, or even spied on by the FBI, just as Chief Justice Roberts had no problem with Biden blatantly ignoring Supreme Court rulings or elected Democrats encouraging their supporters to assault justices at their homes. Unfortunately, our elected representatives in the congress are waiting to see which way the wind blows before backing up Trump with legislative action. Coup part II was game planned out well in advance. The difference this time is Trump and company also have it game planned and are in a much stronger position.
Below are the “rights” concocted out of thin air by FDR in what is sometimes referred to as “The Second Bill of Rights”: Critical thinkers, e.g. those who recognize tariffs are intended to raise the price of imports, should be able to spot the problem with these “positive” rights. When I spoke at a Tea Party rally, those who claimed to want smaller government weren’t pleased when I stated it is not a proper role of government to provide for my retirement and health care. Anyone surprised Social Security and Medicare have large unfunded liabilities needs to consider a politician’s most important goal is a short-term one: getting re-elected. Here are FDR’s “rights”:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education.
Was FDR marketing his beloved central government to have them empowered to provide all that utopianism? To each according to their needs, eh?
What crept into VOA during the Bush to Obama and later of course the despicable illegitimate Biden years is a complete horror show and if I was someone in another nation listening to VOA with these anti-American antisemitic ass wipes I would imagine the world as a hopeless place and why not side with the lunatic fringe and terrorists?
I think about Kari Lake, who was appointed by President Trump to head VOA.
Kari had the 2022 governor’s race in Arizona rigged and stolen from her the same way they stole 2020 from President Trump.
But now those who were never Trumpers saw the difference and voted a landslide for Trump!
The demons are at the gate and many are in the USA and all over the mid-east. They are definitely the deep state oligarchs that installed Biden in a coup d’etat of rigged and stolen election.
They are not done.
Defeated in some points but still conspiring how to get control of the USA –
As USA goes so goes the world.
Their 1A right does give them the right to speak. That doesn’t give them a right to our taxpayer money. There are tens of thousands of radio stations in the world. Let them form their own.
VOA sounds less like America and more like leftists Propaganda they would get from the USSR Cuba and China
So go start your own business and exercise your 1A rights. Get all the backing you need from George Soros– he’s into that lefty disinformation s–t.
It’s an interesting take on rights. If they have a free speech right to a position (and voice) on VOA ( or any other platform), the. It must follow that conservative journalists also have a 1st Amendment right to a position and voice on VOA. Any denial of a conservative being employed by VOA would ipso facto be a denial of their 1st Amendment rights also. If this case isn’t thrown out immediately by the court, then anyone and everyone who was denied a position at VOA should sue for discrimination on the same grounds.