In 1957, Reuters reported that communist dictator Mao Zedong had condoned “a ‘blossoming’ of democratic freedoms among the people so long as it keeps within bounds.” The headline, according to The New York Times’ online archive, credited Mao with proposing “More Freedoms but With Limits.”
Sixty-six years later, the concept of “Freedoms, but With Limits” is back in the headlines. Major outlets are all carrying water for an activist judge’s order that Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump is totally welcome to use his First Amendment freedoms during his political prosecution by his rival’s Department of Justice — as long as he keeps those freedoms “within bounds” set by the same people working to destroy him.
On Monday, federal Judge Tanya Chutkan barred the former president and current candidate from criticizing the special counsel who is running a politicized prosecution against him. Since Chutkan — who has made no secret of her prejudice against Trump and his voters — didn’t step off the judge’s dais, take off her robe, and hand it to the prosecution, granting every request they threw at the wall to silence their defendant, the corporate media responded in lockstep by championing Chutkan’s “narrow” and “limited” order gagging a presidential candidate from criticizing his prosecutors on the campaign trail.
The Associated Press made sure to describe the gag order as “narrow” in both the headline and first sentence of its report on Monday afternoon, as did Axios. The New York Times shilled for Chutkan even harder, fawning that
