Now here’s an interesting idea. On Saturdays, letters to the editor take up about two-thirds of The Boston Globe’s op-ed page. And today, those letters are from readers of La Presse, a Montreal paper, about the state of U.S.-Canadian relations under Donald Trump.
The letters are running in La Presse as well, writes the Globe’s letters editor, Matthew Bernstein — and Globe readers are being invited to write letters to their Québécois neighbors as well. The letters were written in French and translated into English. Bernstein explains:
Simon Chabot, director of the Dialogue section for La Presse in Montreal, invited readers of the French-language news outlet to share messages to their American neighbors. Chabot reminded them that not all Americans share President Trump’s point of view, especially in New England, which has maintained close ties with Quebec for centuries. He asked his readers: “Are these ties important to you? Would you like to tell our neighbors?”
So what do La Presse readers have to say? “It pains me to be unable to visit you, and the thought of enduring this for the next four years saddens me,” writes Nathalie Perreault of Sherbrooke. “I cherished my time in your country, where I completed my postdoctoral studies and embraced your culture for five wonderful years.”
Adds Jocelyne Kucharski of Bromont: “May I say that I found you very naive to have elected a criminal to head your country? The fact that you ignored all the red lights warning you of his duplicity arouses total incomprehension on my part…. How could you not hear and understand that he doesn’t give a damn about the average American? That his real friends are the ultrarich?”
Unfortunately, the letters are behind the Globe’s unforgiving paywall. But La Presse allows a few free clicks per month, and you can find the same letters here. When I accessed the page using Chrome, a button popped up giving me the option of using Google Translate. It looks pretty good to me, but caveat emptor.
The late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, left, and Iran’s current supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Photo of mural in the city of Qom (cc) 2013 by David Stanley.
I think the most rational response to President Trump’s bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities is to hang back a bit — that is, to acknowledge that he’s the wrong leader to do this, that he was more likely acting on ego and personal pique than out of any strategic vision, but that it’s too soon to tell whether this will be a disaster or might actually accomplish some good.
One starting point is that Iran shouldn’t be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. Another starting point is to understand that what led to this really is all Trump’s fault. President Barack Obama painstakingly negotiated an agreement with Iran that significantly slowed Iran’s race to get a nuclear bomb, and Trump undid that in his first term for no discernible reason other than to disrespect Obama.
Terry Moran, right, interviews Donald Trump in April 2025. Public domain photo by Joyce N. Boghosian via the White House.
How to behave on social media has bedeviled journalists and confounded editors for years. Marty Baron clashed with reporters Wesley Lowery and Felicia Sonmez over their provocative Twitter comments back when he was executive editor of The Washington Post, and those are just two well-known examples.
The latest journalist to run afoul of his news organization’s social-media standards is Terry Moran, who was, until Tuesday, employed by ABC News. Moran was suspended on Sunday after he tweeted that White House official Stephen Miller and President Trump is each a “world-class hater.” The tweet is now gone, but I’ve included an image. On Tuesday, Moran’s employer announced that they were parting company with him, as NPR media reporter David Folkenflik writes.
I think ABC was right to suspend Moran but wrong to get rid of him, and that media critic Margaret Sullivan got the nuances perfectly when she wrote this for her newsletter, American Crisis:
I’m amazed that Moran posted what he did. It’s well outside the bounds of what straight-news reporters do. It’s more than just calling a lie a lie, or identifying a statement as racist — all of which I think is necessary. Moran is not a pundit or a columnist or any other kind of opinion journalist….
I would hate to see Moran — with his worthy career at ABC News, where he’s been for almost 30 years — lose his job over this. I hope that the honchos at ABC let a brief suspension serve its purpose, and put him back to work.
Unfortunately, this is ABC News, whose corporate owner, Disney, disgraced itself earlier this year by paying $15 million to settle a libel suit brought by Trump over a minor, non-substantive error: George Stephanopoulos said on the air that Trump had been found “liable for rape” in a civil case brought by E. Jean Carroll when, in fact, he’d been found liable for sexual abuse. The federal judge in the Carroll case even said in a ruling that the jury had found Trump “raped” Carroll in the ordinary meaning of the term. But Disney couldn’t wait to prostrate itself before our authoritarian ruler.
So when Moran violated ABC News’ social-media policy, as the organization claimed, he no doubt knew he could expect no mercy.
Trump meets the press. 2019 photo by the Trump White House.
A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington has ruled that, at least for now, the White House can exclude The Associated Press from coverage of presidential events in most venues. The 2-1 ruling puts on hold a decision by a lower court in favor of the AP.
The decision is 55 pages long, and I’ve simply scanned it for a few highlights. But it appears that the court’s main argument is grounded in the number of media organizations that would like to gain access to President Trump’s events. It’s not so much that the White House is kicking out the AP as it is that they’re letting someone else in instead. Here’s how Judge Neomi Rao puts it in her majority decision:
The White House is likely to succeed on the merits because these restricted presidential spaces are not First Amendment fora opened for private speech and discussion. The White House therefore retains discretion to determine, including on the basis of viewpoint, which journalists will be admitted. Moreover, without a stay, the government will suffer irreparable harm because the injunction impinges on the President’s independence and control over his private workspaces.
In a strongly worded dissent, Judge Cornelia Pillard writes:
In granting a stay, my colleagues assert a novel and unsupported exception to the First Amendment’s prohibition of viewpoint-based restrictions of private speech — one that not even the government itself advanced….
Make no mistake as to why it matters that the panel majority accepts these theories. In the short term, the court allows the White House to rely on viewpoint to exclude the AP from the Press Pool pending a final decision on the merits, a process that typically takes months. And, looking further ahead, if any merits panel were to accept those theories, the result would be a Press Pool — and perhaps an entire press corps — limited during Republican administrations to the likes of Fox News and limited to outlets such as MSNBC when a Democrat is elected.
As you may recall, the Trump regime banned the AP from many of its events after the wire service refused to go along with President Trump’s absurd insistence that the Gulf of Mexico be referred to as the “Gulf of America.” Map services from Apple, Microsoft and Google quickly toed the line, as did several news organizations; the AP, though, held firm.
But as Zach Montague and Minho Kim report for The New York Times, Trump changed the facts on the ground, possibly making it easier for the the president to prevail in a lawsuit brought by the AP. Most notably, the regime ended the practice of allowing the White House Correspondents’ Association to determine which news outlets would be included in the press pool.
The White House now has the discretion to decide for itself. And though announcing that the AP was being banned might not withstand constitutional scrutiny, saying that the pool will include NewsMax, Breitbart and Catturd, and “oh, sorry, there are no more slots” is an assertion that might hold up. It’s a complicated decision, since the majority ruled that the AP must be allowed into press briefings where there is some give-and-take with the president but may be excluded from merely observational events, such as those that take place in the Oval Office.
Needless to say, this is fairly disastrous for democracy since it allows Trump to decide who will cover him. Excluding the AP is particularly outrageous since so many news outlets are dependent on the wire service for coverage of national and international affairs; indeed, the service provides news to about 15,000 media organizations around the world. It is for that reason that the AP had always been included in the press pool.
The AP’s own story on the stay, by media reporter David Bauder, calls Friday’s stay “an incremental loss.” But as Judge Pillard notes, it could take months for the full Court of Appeals to render a decision, and then there’s the prospect of the case winding up before the Supreme Court. If nothing else, the Court of Appeals’ endorsement of viewpoint discrimination should not be allowed to stand. It would be yet another lurch down the road to authoritarianism if the high court ultimately decides that Trump has found a way to censor the AP without violating the First Amendment.
More: As I’ve mentioned before, we now have access at Northeastern to Claude, a leading AI chatbot from Anthropic. Though I have deeply mixed feelings about AI, I also think it’s worth experimenting with. I asked Claude to produce a 1,200-word summary of the decision, and you can read it here. I can tell you that reading Claude’s handiwork did lead me to go back and add a tweak to this post.
I don’t want to waste a lot of space on the feud between Elon Musk and Donald Trump. Pixels aren’t cheap, you know. But I do want to push back on the notion that this is (1) some kind of pre-arranged stunt; (2) a distraction from what’s really important; or (3) a prelude to their eventual reconciliation. I think it’s both real and important, and that the fallout will be long-lasting.
“Well, Elon Musk finally found a way to make Twitter fun again,” wrote Democratic strategist Dan Pfeiffer for his newsletter, The Message Box. Indeed it is fun — these are two people who are doing enormous damage to our country, and it’s hard not to enjoy watching their very public falling-out.
Trump has no friends. One of the keys to the way he operates is that he also has no permanent allies and no permanent enemies. Everything is conditional. After all, he and Steve Bannon patched up their relationship after Bannon absolutely torched him in Michael Wolff’s book 2018 book “Fire and Fury.”
But Musk has suggested that Trump was involved in the late Jeffrey Epstein’s pedophile sex ring, and that goes many steps beyond a normal knock-down-drag-out. Here’s what Musk wrote on Twitter: “Time to drop the really big bomb: @realDonaldTrump is in the Epstein files. That is the real reason they have not been made public. Have a nice day, DJT!”
Of course, “in the Epstein files” is doing a lot of work in that tweet. Trump has been photographed with Epstein and even joked (gift link) about Epstein’s predeliction for young girls, because that’s the kind of dirtbag Trump is. Musk, though, is hinting at something much, much worse on Trump’s part.
Now, it has to be said there’s no reason to believe that Musk even knows what’s in the Epstein files, and that if Trump is in there, it’s likely as a walk-on, not as a participant. As much as I loathe Trump, he strikes me as way too cautious to get caught up in anything that evil — and, more to the point, illegal. (Before you @ me, read this.)
Musk also has a habit of accusing his enemies of engaging in child rape. Here’s an example, and it’s not the only one. What’s missing are any examples of Musk kissing and make up with someone he’s accused of such horrendous activities.
Right-wing billionaire Bill Ackman took to Twitter and urged Musk and Trump to “make peace.” Musk responded, “You’re not wrong.” But though the two may find it’s in their best interest not to maintain a white-hot level of animosity, it strikes me as exceedingly unlikely that Musk will ever return to a position of real power in Trump’s White House. Good.
Photo from the Middlesex County district attorney’s office via NHPR
It’s been a major loose end in a frightening story about harassment and threats directed at journalists.
Four men have been sentenced to federal prison for carrying out a campaign of terror against New Hampshire Public Radio journalist Lauren Chooljian, her parents and her editor, Dan Barrick. All four appeared to be motivated by Chooljian’s reporting on Eric Spofford, the founder of several addiction treatment centers, who, according to Chooljian’s reporting, had engaged in sexual abuse and harassment.
Yet Spofford denied any involvment and was not charged. He even turned around and sued Chooljian and NHPR for libel, a suit that was dismissed by a New Hampshire state judge.
Now, according to a story by WBUR and posted at NHPR, federal authorities are charging Spofford with orchestrating a conspiracy to vandalize the homes of Chooljian, her parents and Barrick — vandalism that included threatening and offensive graffiti. The story says in part:
Prosecutors say Spofford paid his close friend, Eric Labarge, $20,000 in two installments to vandalize the homes in 2022. Spofford allegedly provided the addresses and specific instructions on what to do. Labarge then found three others to carry out the attacks.
Spofford reportedly lives in Salem, New Hampshire, and in Miami. He was arrested Friday and will be arraigned in U.S. District Court in Boston on Monday. According to a press release from the U.S. attorney’s office, Spofford, 40, was indicted by a grand jury on four counts of conspiracy and stalking. If he’s found guilty, he could face a prison sentence of up to five years and a fine of up to $250,000 on each of the four counts.
The Trump administration’s war on access to knowledge will result in the end of public library access in Massachusetts to a number of academic databases and The Boston Globe. The cuts take effect on July 1.
The dispiriting news is reported in a memo issued May 20 by the Massachusetts Board of Library Commissioners that is weirdly titled “MBLC Maintains some Databases, Support for eBooks, and ComCat.” I don’t mean to be critical of the commissioners, since Trump’s perversity is not their fault. But the news here is what’s being cut, not what’s being saved.
The cuts are the result of an executive order issued by Trump on March 14 titled “Continuing the Reduction of the Federal Bureaucracy.” The order eliminates a number of agencies and programs, including the Institute of Museum and Library Services, which in the current fiscal year provided $3.6 million for library services in Massachusetts as well as grants to local libraries. The MBLC spent about $2.2 million of its federal allocation on access to various online databases. MBLC director Maureen Amyot said in a statement:
The federal impact cannot be overstated. In Massachusetts, over 1,600 school, public, academic and special libraries from across the state benefit from federal IMLS funding. Millions of people rely on federally funded library services. Developing a plan for services in an environment of almost daily federal change has been challenging, but our goal has remained constant: to maintain services that are integral to the functioning of our system and heavily relied on by the people of the Commonwealth.
The MBLC was able to preserve access to some databases. The decisions about what to cut and what to keep were based on usage, according to the MBLC. In addition, the statewide program that funds access to e-books and audiobooks will continue, as well the Commonwealth Catalog, or ComCat, which provides access to items that a local library may not have.
Needless to say, there is no reason for any of this. Trump inherited a strong economy that continues to perform reasonably well despite his efforts to take a wrecking ball to it. These cuts call to mind his infamous outburst in 2016: “I love the poorly educated.” It appears that he wants to keep them that way.
Kevin Dale, executive editor of Colorado Public Radio. Photo (cc) 2021 by Dan Kennedy.
I haven’t seen any explanation for why three public radio outlets in Colorado joined NPR in suing the Trump administration over its threat to defund the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. I’m glad they did, but it seems to me that all 246 member stations ought to sign on, including GBH and WBUR in Boston.
When I was in Colorado several years ago to interview people for the book that Ellen Clegg and I wrote, “What Works in Community News,” CPR was perhaps the largest news organization in the state, with a staff of 65 journalists. (I say “perhaps” because executive editor Kevin Dale thought one or two television stations might be bigger.) Some cuts were made last year as business challenges hit a number of public broadcasting outlets as well as NPR itself.
The basis of the lawsuit, writes NPR media reporter David Folkenflik, is that CPB is an independent, private nonprofit that is funded by Congress. The suit claims that the president has no right to rescind any money through an executive order; only Congress can do that. Moreover, the suit contends that this is pure viewpoint discrimination, as demonstrated by Trump’s own words — that NPR and PBS, which also relies on CPB funding, present “biased and partisan news coverage.”
WNET, the New York public broadcasting giant, doesn’t want you to see this cartoon — at least not on public television.
The New York Times reports (gift link) that 90 seconds have been butchered out of a documentary about the artist Art Spiegelman that is scheduled to be shown as part of the “American Masters” series on PBS. It is, as you can see, wildly unflattering to President Trump, and it comes at a moment when Trump is trying to eliminate all funding for public media.
WNET vice president Stephen Segaller told Times reporter Marc Tracy that the 9-year-old drawing of Trump, with feces and flies on his head and a swastika superimposed over the image, was a “breach of protocol,” adding, “I don’t think we’d have made a different decision if it had been a year earlier.” Yeah, probably not. Last year at this time, Trump was leading President Joe Biden in the polls, so the incentive not to antagonize him was just as strong then as it is now.
Spiegelman was quoted as saying, “It’s tragic and appalling that PBS and WNET are willing to become collaborators with the sinister forces trying to muzzle free speech.”
But at least you can see Spiegelman’s cartoon in the Times. And here.
The assault on freedom of expression being waged by the Trump White House is so wide-ranging that it’s hard to know where to begin. From threats against universities to bogus lawsuits targeting news organizations, it is clear that President Trump and his thuggish allies want to silence criticism and force civil society to cower in fear.
But there is one action in particular that stands out for its cruelty as well as its blatant disregard for the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech and of the press. And that’s the arrest and detention of Rümeysa Öztürk, who, at long last, was freed over the weekend. It also happens to have played out in New England, from her Soviet-style snatch-and-grab by black-clad ICE goons on the Tufts campus, where she’s a Ph.D. student, to her release at the hands of a federal judge in Vermont.
The anti-First Amendment intent of the government’s actions was underscored by U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Burlington, Vermont, who said that he could find no reason for detaining Öztürk other than her co-authoring an op-ed piece in The Tufts Daily that was critical of Israel and sympathetic to the pro-Palestinian cause.
“That literally is the case. There is no evidence here … absent consideration of the op-ed,” Sessions said, according to an account by Liz Crampton and Kyle Cheney in Politico. “Her continued detention cannot stand.”
Which is why this whole sordid affair is worthy of a New England Muzzle Award. In fact, it may be the most worthy Muzzle since I started handing them out at The Boston Phoenix 27 years ago.
But who should be the winner? My choice is Stephen Miller, the White House deputy chief of staff and the dark lord of Trump’s anti-immigration policies. Over the years, Miller has made his hatred for non-white immigrants clear, and though he generally directs his rhetoric at those who are undocumented, his overall contempt for people who don’t look like him permeates the Trump gang, starting at the very orange-hued top.
For example, here’s something that Miller wrote about Muslims for his high-school newspaper, according to a profile by William D. Cohan for Vanity Fair:
Blaming America for the problems of countries whose citizens would rather spend time sewing blankets to cover women’s faces than improving the quality of life is utterly ludicrous.
And in a speech to his high-school classmates, Miller once said: “I will say and I will do things that no one else in their right mind would do.”
Now, is it fair to cite things that Miller wrote and said in high school to build a case against him today? In his case, the answer is yes, because he devolved into exactly the sort of adult that he said he would nearly a quarter of a century ago. I mean, if you want something recent, he called for the suspension of habeas corpus — a basic protection against false imprisonment guaranteed not just by the Constitution but by Magna Carta — on Friday, as Steve Vladeck writes in his newsletter, One First.
ICE goons grab Rümeysa Öztürk near Tufts.
As for Öztürk, her ordeal is not over yet. A Turkish citizen, she was attending Tufts legally on a student visa. That visa was revoked by the State Department on the grounds that her activism could create a “hostile environment for Jewish students” and that she might support “a designated terrorist organization,” according to an account by Rodrique Ngowi and Claire Rush in The Associated Press. But the State Department’s own case cites nothing except the op-ed, which merely argues that the university administration should uphold resolutions passed by the faculty senate.
In other words, Öztürk could still be deported for nothing more than expressing her views, which the First Amendment protects for anyone in the United States, regardless of immigration status. That would be an outrage, and if the Trump administration can find a judge who’s willing to go along, a second Muzzle Award might be looming on the horizon.
But at least Öztürk is free to defend herself, no longer locked up in a Louisiana detention facility, where she reportedly experienced multiple asthma attacks without access to her medication.
Sadly for all of us, it’s Miller Time. We can only hope that his day of reckoning is coming soon.
The anti-First Amendment intent of the government’s actions was underscored by U.S. District Judge William Sessions III in Burlington, Vermont, who said that he could find no reason for detaining Öztürk other than her co-authoring 
