For something like the sixth or seventh time, I watched the movie The Post on TV, profiling the controversy surrounding the unauthorized release of what came to be known as The Pentagon Papers by former government employee and RAND Corporation operative turned whistleblower, Daniel Ellsberg, during the presidency of Richard Nixon in 1971.The film is based on the true story and stars Meryl Streep as Katherine Graham, owner and publisher ofThe Washington Post; Tom Hanks as Ben Bradlee, managing editor and later executive editor; Bruce Greenwood playing Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara; and Mathew Rhys as Daniel Ellsberg. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg in 2017. Related Why the Epstein Files might finally provide consequences Trump cant dodge Trumps biggest supporters are turning on him hes right to be worried. The Pentagon Papers included over 1,000 pages of classified information of the U.S. governments then 20-year involvementin the Vietnam War and earlier in French Indochina back to the 1940s. The assessment by expert analysts throughout the report was that the U.S. incursion into Vietnam was not a winnable war, and that troops should retreat and pull out of the country. Dive deeper every day Join our newsletter for thought-provoking commentary that goes beyond the surface of LGBTQ+ issues Subscribe to our Newsletter today A series of presidents going back to Truman and Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, and then Nixon failed to inform the public of the true risks of U.S. involvement for the primary reason that these latter presidents did not want to take responsibility for the first loss of the United States in a foreign war on their watch.By refusing to accept the narcissistic injury of announcing the truth, they endangered an ever-increasing number of primarily young troops as well as the Vietnamese citizens, placing both in constant terror and in heightened risk of losing their lives.TheNew York Timeswas the first media outlet to publish excerpts of The Papers. A secret source delivered a shoebox full of documents toThe Washington Post, when the Nixon administration won a courts restraining order preventing further publishing by theTimesof these documents. Knowing they could potentially face a lawsuit and possible imprisonmentforcontempt of courtunder the original injunction, and further criminal liability under theEspionage Act, Katherine Graham and Ben Bradlee risked publishing further excerpts against their corporate lawyers advisement, placing the paper in jeopardy of losing shareholders.ThePostandTimespleaded their case before the Supreme Court on grounds of theirFirst Amendmentrights. Several other newspapers across the U.S. published information from Ellsbergs documents in solidarity.On June 30, 1971, the Supreme Court, inNew York Times Co. v. United States,ruled 63 in the newspapers favor, vindicating Grahams decision. In response, Richard Nixon became vindictive by barringPostsemployees from ever entering the White House again. The Wall Street Journals Epstein reporting stands up to presidential threatsRep. Jared Moskowitz holding up a picture of Donald Trump and Jeffrey Epstein in a House hearing in January, 2024 | ScreenshotFor some unknown reason, maybe sheer coincidence or possibly because the stars aligned just right, following the film, I turned to my favorite news channel, MSNBC, as important news was breaking.Alicia Menendez was announcing thatTheWall Street Journalhad published aletterwhich theJournalasserted was written by private citizen Donald Trump to his friend Jeffrey Epstein on Epsteins 50thbirthday in 2003. The letter was filled with sexual innuendos and allegedly included a drawing by Trump of the figure of a nude woman with Trumps signature in the crotch area with the caption:Happy Birthday and may every day be another wonderful secret.Trump immediately posted (on his misnamed Truth Social platform) that he did not and could not have written the letter and that he never wrote a picture in his life. The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein, wrote Trump. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I dont draw pictures, Trumpsaid. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldnt print this Fake Story. But he did, and now Im going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper. Thank you for your attention to this matter! DJTAnd again, Trump was caught in his usual lies. Between 1995 and 2020 alone, Trump sold his sketches at auction. For example, in 2005, he sold arudimentary drawingfor $30,000 of New York City. In 2006, he auctioned off another basic sketch of theGeorge Washington Bridge. In 2017, his Empire State Buildingsketchgarnered $16,000 at auction. And in 2020, his Money Tree drawing sold for $8,500.Rupert Murdoch, owner ofThe Wall Street Journaland other conservative political media outlets such as Fox News, has been consistently supportive of this president, but seemed to stand up to his demands to kill this story.Who knew that Murdoch had it in him? We will see how long and far the lawsuit goes. Stephen Colberts Late Show is standing up to Trumps threats tooStephen Colbert | screenshotAs per my weeknight schedule for the past ten years, I tune into Stephen Colberts Late Show on CBS. The stars continued to line up this night as Stephen began his show in an unusual position, seated behind his desk, to announce that his parent company, Paramount Global, had informed him the day before that they would be canceling his program, effective May 2026.Their reasoning was for financial reasons, which holds absolutely nocredibility. As of February 2025, Stephen Colberts Late Show on CBS had the highest rating in the 11:35 p.m. time slot of comedy shows, averaging 2.417 million viewers.Jimmy KimmelLive! on ABC came in second with an average of 1.77 million viewers, andJimmy Fallons Tonight Show on NBC finished third with 1.188 million viewers.More likely, Paramount Global cancelled (censored) Stephen for calling out his bosses for surrendering to Trumps frivolous authoritarian lawsuit in the amount of $16 million for supposedly editing a 60 Minutes episode during the 2024 presidential election season with Kamala Harris in a manner not to Trumps liking.Stephen, in addition to several media analysts and political commentators, accused the network of bowing down to kiss Trumps highly inflated squishy buttocks because he had the final say over whether a proposed merger between Skydance Media and Paramount Global, a deal valued at $8 billion, could become final. The deal has since been finalized by the Trump administration. The network knew full well that Trump hates Colbert for continually speaking truth to power by calling out his lies, hypocrisy, and downright cruelty.Trump also sued ABC for defamation after anchor George Stephanopoulos said that Trump had been found liable for rape during a March 10, 2024, on-air interview with Republican Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC).The jury in 2023 found Trump liable for sexual abuse against the writerE. Jean Carroll. The sexual abuse claim included the allegation that Trump forced his fingers inside Carroll against her will. The federal judge who presided over the case later wrote, the jury implicitly found Mr. Trump did in fact digitally rape Ms. Carroll.ABC, however, decided not to contest the lawsuit against them in order to move on. Lgenpresse: The Nazi term for lying press echoes Trumps fake news claimsU.S. President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress at the U.S. Capitol on March 04, 2025 in Washington, DC. | Win McNamee-Pool via Imagn ImagesAnd again, each time a media outlet, a law firm, a university, or any other institution succumbs to the tyranny of a would-be or actual autocrat, it emboldens them even more.At a Mar-a-lago press conference during the 2024 election, Trump enumerated some of the additional media outlets he would go after. He announced his plans to sue theDes Moines Register, the newspaper of note in Iowa. He accused the pollster, J. Ann Selzer of saying, I was going to lose by three or four points, after other Iowa surveys reported that he would win the state by 20 points. He eventually led Kamala Harris in Iowa by 13 points.Most recently, Trump barred reporters at theAssociated Pressfrom attending various press briefings or from boarding Air Force One with others from the press core over disputes that the AP will not rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America, after Trump renamed it. Hey, I seriously wonder when Trump will rename Lake Superior as Lake Trump and California as the state of Ivanka since California contains large amounts of bleach in its numerous swimming pools.Trumps sustained and vicious attacks on what he refers to as the dishonest and corrupt media imperils our very freedom of the press as guaranteed by the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Fortunately, the Fourth Estate, while making some mistakes, fact-checks itself and our politicians, including Trump, and by so doing,exposes his liesfor what they are, though unfortunately not in person to his face very often.Trump admitted that he actually likes and has been positively energized by his feud with the media.I will be honest. I sort of enjoy this back and forth, and I have all my life, but I have never seen moredishonestpeople than frankly the political media, he claimed. German Nazis popularized the termLgenpresse(lying press) to intimidate and silence opposition.Trump, however, seems to like people at Fox News and other conservative sources who serve as his apologists and promoters. Fox News has operated as the mouthpiece of the conservative segment of the Republican Party since its inception (a virtual neverending Republican Party infomercial), and as the state-supported propaganda machine during Republican administrations, much asPravda(truth in Russian) functioned under dictatorial regimes during the former Soviet Union.Fox News promotes fairness and balance asPravdapromotes truth. As the infamousquotefrom Nazi chief propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, makes clear: If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.No matter how Trump and his accomplices wish to characterize the so-called mainstream press, gratitude must be showered upon them rather than the scorn and vile bigotry coming from the political right.Members of the media, our purveyors of facts, ensure the perpetuation of our democratic form of government. While they sometimes get it wrong, when they do, they follow up with retractions, and at times, individual reporters and commentators lose their jobs if malice is proven. Fox News has recently, however, taken Trump to task for his apparent hiding of the truth in the Jeffrey Epstein scandal, which amounts to the first cracks in the MAGA movement saga.I admire not only the center-left to progressive news outlets, reporters, and commentators, but also the courageous conservative Republican-leaning journalists and pundits who speak truth to power, people like Joe Scarborough, Nicole Wallace, Michael Steele (former Republican National Committee chair), and former Fox News host, Shepard Smith, whostatedin an on-air discussion with another former Fox anchor, Chris Wallace, regarding Donald Trump Jr.s meeting with Russian agents in Trump Tower: Were still not clean on this, Chris. Why all theselies? Why is it lie after lie after lie?Donald Trump represents the voice of the alt-right in spreading his alt-facts within his alt-reality universe. Because of our mighty press providing the democracy-saving antidote to the constant stream in dribs and torrents of misinformation, lies, and cover ups from this and past administrations,We the People, by informing ourselves, will ensure that our system of government does not perish from the Earth.And no matter what, the laughing will survive as the jesters continue to call out the king for wearing no clothes.Subscribe to theLGBTQ Nation newsletterand be the first to know about the latest headlines shaping LGBTQ+ communities worldwide.