Capital Journal, Pierre, Feb. 26
When press freedom is attacked, all of our freedoms are attacked
The American people, it seems, are forgetting what made their country great in the first place.
We don’t usually like to give commentary on national politics but there is a disturbing trend emerging that we feel should concern every red-blooded American. That being the demonization of the one independent institution charged with holding government accountable to its actions.
We write, of course, about the Trump administration’s treatment of the news media and the President’s own attacks on the first amendment protections for a free press. President Trump has waged an open war of words against the news media. Denouncing stories in such famed American institutions as the New York Times and Washington Post as fake news because those stories painted his administration in a negative light.
On Friday, Trump’s press secretary barred reporters from the New York Times, CNN and Politico, among others from a daily press briefing.
To be fair, many of the stories Trump has denounced relied on unnamed sources. That’s a practice that most reporters avoid because we believe sources should be willing to stand behind the information they’re giving us. If they’re not willing to stand behind the information, we have to question their motives and credibility.
Still, using unnamed sources is sometimes the only way to get important information out to our readers.
In truth, President Trump’s attacks on the news media aren’t entirely new. Powerful people have always treated the press as a double-edged sword praising us when the story aligns with their views and denouncing us when it doesn’t. It’s a fault that can be found on both sides of the aisle.
Still, Trump’s attacks on the news media are something darker than we’ve seen before. Not content with simply treating the press as an adversary, Trump has accused the news media of being an enemy of the American people. Largely, he’s done this because the press has refused to simply go along with his version of events.
The political press corps owns a portion of the blame for this state of affairs, to be sure. They’ve let previous administrations get away with a lot. The Obama administration, for example, was rated by the Associated Press in 2014 as one of the most secretive Presidential administrations ever. That didn’t get a whole lot of ink. Certainly not nearly as much as Trump’s actions have.
Maybe Trump expected the same level of deference that Obama got.
What makes all this so scary is that when Trump overtly attacks the press or when Obama covertly pressured reporters to give up their sources, the highest levels of government are attacking one the American people’s most fundamental rights - a free press.
Press freedom is one of the five freedoms the federal government is expressly forbidden from meddling with by the first amendment to our constitution. The first amendment, like all of the original 10 amendments, was considered so important that many states would have refused to ratify the constitution if they weren’t included in it.
To put this in perspective, what would be the reaction in South Dakota if Trump was out there attacking the second amendment?
The first and second amendments as well as the other eight amendments included in the bill of rights all are equally important to the maintenance of the individual freedoms we are granted by virtue of our birth. Freedoms we formed our government itself to protect. A threat to one of our freedoms is a threat to all of them.
It is the news media’s job to hold government accountable, even to be adversarial when necessary. That’s how we maintain a free and open society. It’s how we prevent ourselves from being bamboozled into totalitarianism.
Cheering a government official’s threats to “rein in” press freedoms undermines our own freedom more than it undermines the other side of the political aisle, whether you’re on the right or the left.
All Americans should stand in support of a free press.
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Yankton Daily Press & Dakotan, Yankton, Feb. 28
It Turns Out Health Issues Are Hard …
Everything that President Donald Trump says or tweets keeps news cycles churning, which is not out of the norm for any president. But in Trump’s case, he regularly says things that are, in turns, either provocative, exhilarating, self-congratulatory, potent or pungent. That’s what he was as a businessman, then as a candidate for office. Nothing has changed since November, and almost nothing he says seems to surprise us anymore - for better or for worse.
However, an exception to this may have occurred Monday. When speaking to the National Governors Association about his plans to do away with the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, he acknowledged that pulling the plug on this national health program has been more difficult than he imagined.
“Nobody knew that health care could be so complicated,” Trump declared.
Well, maybe that’s not a surprise. Perhaps nobody really did know that the health care issue could be so complicated .
Nobody, that is, except the lawmakers currently in Congress who’ve had to wrestle with ACA, either as proponents or opponents, for years.
Nobody, that is, except those lawmakers who were around before Obamacare came along, and who had to cope with complex health issues, which included skyrocketing rates and ruined lives, long before this century even dawned.
Nobody, that is, except generations of lawmakers who have been coping with health care issues literally for decades. Such concerns brought things like Medicare and Medicaid into our lives. Those were not simple programs created to address simple problems.
Nobody, that is, except everyday people who worry about finding adequate health coverage, and fear what a catastrophic illness could do to their finances. These people have had to confront what their insurance does or doesn’t cover, and sometimes figure out how they’re going to pay for their care. Even with ACA, wading into this matter has been extraordinarily complicated.
Nobody, that is, except for anyone who has had problems with health insurance and tried to resolve the matter. It’s a staggeringly complex business. And the problem that any one person has in coping with health insurance issues is magnified exponentially when you talk in macro terms about risk pools, pre-existing conditions and other health care matters .
So, in fact, most everyone who has been paying attention to the monumental intricacies of the health care issue knew how complex it is, has always been and always will be.
Trump’s comment may reveal a flawed belief that the way to kill Obamacare is to just pull the plug and start over. It all seems so easy when vague campaign rhetoric serves as an IOU for actual policy.
However, the president - and some lawmakers, as well - have discovered that pulling the plug on Obamacare (remember, ACA was one of those things that was going to be scrapped on day one of the Trump presidency) is far easier derided and threatened than done. The same goes with practically any piece of health care-related policy that changes how health providers and health insurers do business and impacts Americans’ lives.
So, while the president claims “nobody knew” about the complexity of the matter, it’s clear that lawmakers, industry officials, providers, patients and others have always realized, to varying degrees, what a complicated monster the health care issue is. And most of them realize there is no easy fix, no matter what course is pursued.
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The Daily Republic, Mitchell, Feb. 28
Road work will be worth the headaches
Road construction.
No one likes it, but for the upkeep and safety of our city we all need it.
In April, a major project to rebuild Burr Street in Mitchell gets underway. It’s a three-year project expected to cost about $15 million. And while that project would be enough of a hassle for most cities our size, we’ll likely have another large-scale renovation kick off in 2018 when Sanborn Boulevard is reconstructed for about $9 million.
That sounds like headaches for the next two-plus years of driving in Mitchell, but we’re rather optimistic about both projects. And the safety improvements provided by the Burr project, which will eliminate the dangerous intersection of service roads at Burr and Norway Avenue, will bring an added benefit after years of construction.
Patience will be key while these roads are being torn up and replaced, because they’re both worth the investment. By late 2019, two of Mitchell’s major roads that hold several businesses will be essentially brand new.
Look at two recent road construction projects, Spruce Street in 2015 and Fifth Avenue in 2016, which both went smooth. Despite the frustrations at the time of construction, those two projects turned out great for Mitchell motorists.
We also appreciate Mitchell City Council members thinking about rerouting tourists to alternative routes while Burr and Sanborn are under work. Since both roads are heavily traveled by tourists, we need to give people visiting our city the best possible picture we can - even during road construction.
While it’s not ideal in the summer of 2018 to have both Burr and Sanborn both getting work, we’re looking at it like ripping a Band-Aid off quickly.
So, gear up, Mitchell drivers.
The next few years are going to be anything but ideal for driving in our city. But we all need to remember to be patient and know the headaches will be worth the work.
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