Tom Cotton derails bipartisan PRESS Act for all the wrong reasons

[LetMyPeopleVote]

The Arkansas Republican’s explanation for rejecting the PRESS Act was so absurd, it seems implausible that the senator actually believed it.
https://bsky.app/profile/stevebenen.com/post/3ld2jrgjfc22c

Tom Cotton's stated rationale for derailing the bipartisan PRESS Act was so foolish, it seems implausible that the senator actually believed it.

The more obvious explanation: He killed the bill because Trump wanted him to.

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/tom-cotton-derails-bipartisan-press-act-wrong-reasons-rcna183798

The legislation was written by a Democrat and a Republican, and it enjoyed equal numbers of Democratic and Republican co-sponsors in the House. For those who assumed that bipartisan policymaking was simply impossible in 2024, especially in the lower chamber, this one bill offered at least some evidence to the contrary.

That is, until this week. The Hill reported:

Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) blocked a federal shield law that would protect journalists from revealing their sources and material to the government. In the Senate on Tuesday, Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) asked for unanimous consent for the Senate to pass the Protect Reporters from Exploitative State Spying Act, known as the PRESS Act, and Cotton objected.

By way of an explanation, the Arkansas Republican told his colleagues on the Senate floor, “The liberal media doesn’t deserve more protections.”

The argument was so absurd that it seems implausible that Cotton actually believed it......

But if Cotton’s official explanation is simply too foolish to take seriously, why did the Arkansan derail the PRESS Act? It might very well be because Donald Trump told him to.

In fact, it was just a couple of weeks ago when the Republican president-elect issued an online edict that said GOP senators “MUST KILL” the legislation.

As we discussed soon after, it wasn’t altogether clear why. One possible explanation was that Trump did a detailed and thoughtful analysis of the bill and had concerns about how the policy would be implemented. The far more likely explanation was that Trump saw a headline about protections for journalists, remembered that he hates the free press, and responded reflexively without doing any research or even taking the time to understand the bill at its most basic level.

Either way, the incoming president called for the demise of the bipartisan measure — and Cotton played his part, support for the bill from the right notwithstanding.

[rich7862]

1. Both the dems and the thugs are responsible for the death of democracy. We have been betrayed.

[allegorical oracle]

2. Skeazy politicians live in abject terror of anonymous sources (and whistleblowers). Legit

pols regard it as one of the freedoms of the press. Watergate would never have been uncovered if not for Deep Throat.

[SWBTATTReg]

3. So, tommy boy is part of the club in DC that wants a dictator in the WH. Nice. Absolutely just nice. Nothing

about the separation of powers or anything like that.

He's still proving numerous times of his ineptitude and inability to govern wisely. I don't think he knows the word 'wisely'. For that matter, I don't think a lot of the gop thugs know any of these words that are over 5 alphanumeric characters. If the word is too big, they have to edit it down to where they can understand (and not just them, tRUMP too). Perhaps everything should be written in a comic book format or coloring book format?