President Trump continues his unrelenting attack on the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees a free press, the latest example being the revoking of CNN correspondent Jim Acosta's press pass after he asked a question Trump didn't like at a White House news conference yesterday.
And, to make matters worse, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders posted on social media a video, apparently doctored by the right-wing conspiracy theory outlet Infowars, sped up in an effort to show that Acosta put his hands on a female White House intern who was trying to take the microphone out of Acosta's hands.
The actual footage shows that Acosta did no such thing. He blocked the intern's effort with his arm, and then said " Pardon me, ma'am." He called Sanders' charge "a lie."
Touching the intern was only an excuse used by the White House to ban Acosta and attempt to further intimidate the news media. Trump was rude and insulting to him, as well as other reporters who asked pointed questions to which he objected. Acosta has been on Trump's enemies list for a while now because of his fearless reporting.
The incident follows a campaign appearance the other night when Fox News commentator Sean Hannity appeared on stage with Trump at a campaign style rally, summoned by Trump who commended Fox for doing a great job of covering him. That's because Hannity sucks up to Trump every chance he gets and has echoed Trump's labeling of the mainstream news media -- especially CNN -- as being "fake news."
Trump, in his retort to Acosta, called him directly "the enemy of the people," a hateful, dangerous label that he has applied to journalists who report the facts, not the made-up BS Trump would have you believe.
All of this also happened just minutes before it was announced that Trump had kicked out Attorney General Jeff Sessions because he recused himself from the Mueller Russia investigation, an act that came just one day after the mid-term elections on Tuesday. Trump wanted to can Sessions much earlier, but was persuaded by his advisors to wait until after the election for fear of turning off voters.
He then replaced Sessions with Matthew Whitaker who has already written that the Mueller investigation needs to be curtailed, a decision that threatens the special counsel probe that could well be Trump's undoing.
Never was a free press more needed than it is today. The media is not the enemy of the people. That would be the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.