Why not? I guess the Protection Racket Media has tried everything else to derail Donald Trump. Perhaps gagging themselves would work!

It would work for me, anyway.

This brilliant plan to boycott Trump comes from Jim Acosta, late of CNN, who floated the idea over the weekend. In that same weekend, current CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins tried explaining why she posted a defense fund website for chicken-s*** back-shooting assassin Luigi Mangione, which gives you an idea of the quality of ideas coming from that organization and its alums. Collins, by the way, is one of the people that Acosta wants to convince to walk out of the White House briefing room.

Acosta claims that the decision to boot the Associated Press violates the organization's constitutional right to, er, a seat on Air Force One:

The Trump White House placed unconstitutional restrictions on the Associated Press last week, when it barred the AP from the Oval Office and Air Force One over the outlet’s policy of continuing to call the Gulf of Mexico by its actual name, clearly violating the news organization’s First Amendment right to freedom of the press.

Er ... what? The First Amendment does many wonderful things. One of the things it does not do is guarantee a news organization a seat on AF1 or in the White House briefing room. Denying either or both does not, in fact, negate the freedom of the press; the AP is still free to publish whatever it wants, even actionable defamation, although (as CNN just discovered again) that could cost them money down the road. To claim that denying the AP either or both of those two seats is "unconstitutional" is as absurd as, well, most of Acosta's career ... which is one of the reasons he's on Substack rather than on the air these days. 

Freedom of speech and freedom of the press means speaking and publishing. It does not confer a right to access or an audience. If every American news organization had a constitutional right to be on AF1, it would never get off the ground.  

Is the Gulf of America née Mexico fight with the AP petty? Yes. Is it provocative? Sure. Is it stupid? I wouldn't go that far, but of all the issues on my priority list, the "Gulf of America" ranks around 14,383rd, its estimated top depth. (That's from the Encyclopedia Brittanica, which wisely uses both names in its listing. Maybe they can take the AP seat on the plane!) But then again, I'm not the president, and 77,300,000-plus people didn't choose me for that job. And I didn't spend the last nine years with the Protection Racket Media slinging mud at me, either. 

Rather than Fisk the rest of Acosta's lead-up to his Big Plan to force Trump to bend the knee to the mainstream media, let's just get to the proposal itself:

Reporters and their bosses, however, need to do more. For starters, the AP should consider challenging the White House harassment of its reporters in court. News outlets then must rally to the cause, by offering supportive statements to the court hearing the case, writing op-Ed’s backing the AP, and, if necessary, refusing to cover presidential movements in solidarity, until Trump backs down.

Ahem. In an environment where Trump has become more popular than ever and the electorate ranks their trust in media below that of politicans and used-car salesmen, Acosta's brilliant strategy is to [checks notes] make the media even more irrelevant to their erstwhile consumers.

Perhaps sensing just how stupid this is, Acosta then engages in a little projection:

Trump may respond by inviting only sycophants and right-wing hacks to chronicle his daily decrees. Fine. Let the American people soak that in - the image of an aspiring autocrat and his servile propagandists.

We spent the last four years soaking that in, pal. The mainstream media spent that time covering up Joe Biden's obvious senility and pretending it didn't exist, even with the access to the White House and AF1 they had. Not only did they refuse to ask questions about the obvious cognitive and physical decline, they propped up the actual autocrat and attacked anyone who dared suggest that Biden wasn't "Sharp As A Tack®"! The media, CNN definitely included, actually argued that we shouldn't believe our own lying eyes during Biden's aphasiac moments, calling the videos "cheap fakes," a term the servile propagandists in the media regurgitated from White House cover-up participants that handed it to them. 

And as long as we're discussing "access," how much access did the servile media propagandists get from Biden and his team? Trump has held more free-form press conferences in a month than Biden did on the campaign until his dementia got exposed in that June 27 debate. I'd venture a guess that Trump has given the press more extemporaneous access and engagement than Biden did in his entire presidency. And yet the media never bothered to point out that Biden was hiding from them most of his presidency, and when he did take questions, he had to rely on note cards to read off the answers. 

Why? Because the American media industry has become little more than propagandists for Democrats and progressives. That's why its consumers rate the industry just a skosh north of pond scum, and it's one big reason why Trump has returned to the White House, too.

So what would happen if the Protection Racket Media used the Acosta plan for utter irrelevance? As he suggests, the White House would simply find other news orgs to engage, on AF1 and elsewhere. They would likely shift their main thrust to direct communication to the electorate, however, using Twitter/X and streaming platforms to make their arguments. That would transform the striking media outlets to secondary or tertiary status, reporting what everyone already knew from direct engagement. There may not be a better recipe for utter irrelevance, which Acosta has more or less achieved recently anyway. 

The Protection Racket Media might be corrupt, but they're not that suicidal. But if they surprise me and try this out, there won't be enough popcorn in the world to pass while they self-immolate on the Acosta Career Flame-Out Plan. 

Addendum: Want to prepare for that self-immolation and stick it to the Protection Racket Media? There's no better time to sign up for our VIP, VIP Gold, and VIP Platinum memberships! As David wrote earlier, we aren't getting gold bars at taxpayer expense to keep our operations afloat as the Protection Racket Media does, nor do we want it. (I don't even want a seat on Air Force One!) We keep fighting to keep independent voices and dissent alive in the face of enormous pressure, and our members are right there on the front lines with us. 

Please join the fight! Become a HotAir VIP member today and use the code GOLDBARS for 50% off and get the media deal of a lifetime!

Addendum II - Credit Where Due Boogaloo: Critical Drinker uses The Fifth Element laugh clip often in his reviews, and Beege used it recently in one of her posts.