Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report, host Leahy welcomed co-author of Created Equal, Michal Pack to discuss his new documentary and book about Clarence Thomas’s rise from poverty, radicalism, and ultimately becoming a Supreme Court Justice.
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The director of U.S.-funded Voice of America and her deputy resigned Monday following recent clashes with the Trump administration that have sparked fears for its independence.
Amanda Bennett and Deputy Director Sandy Sugawara announced they were leaving the organization as Trump ally and conservative filmmaker Michael Pack takes over leadership of the agency that oversees VOA.
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A divided Senate voted along party lines Thursday to confirm President Donald Trump’s choice to head the Voice of America and other U.S. government-funded international broadcasters that have been the subject of harsh criticism from the White House.
Despite significant Democratic opposition and concerns over his fitness for the job, the Senate voted 53-38 to confirm Michael Pack to run the U.S. Agency for Global Media, which oversees VOA and its sister outlets including Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, Radio Free Asia and the Cuba-oriented Radio and Television Marti.
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Retiring U.S. Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) is taking yet another dig at President Donald Trump while he still holds a public platform, this time by trying to undermine his choice to lead Voice of America and attacking his Yemen policy. The Washington Free Beacon reported the story Friday. Corker, the outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, this week supported a bill to force the United States to withdraw from Yemen. He also slipped through a quiet committee vote to limit the power of Michael Pack, the incoming new head of the U.S. Agency for Global Media, (USAGM), which oversees the Voice of America. Corker has lobbed plenty of criticism at Trump over the past two-years plus. This summer, he had bananas on the brain as he twice likened Trump’s White House to a banana republic in reaction to the president’s removal of former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance. Following the 2018 midterm elections in November, in which Trump ally Marsha Blackburn won his seat, the Never-Trumper cracked open the door to challenging the president in the 2020 Republican primary. When asked by reporters if he plans to run for president in 2020, Corker said, “I have not ruled it…
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by Michael Gonzalez If war is the continuation of diplomacy by other means, public diplomacy is a theater where states use ideas instead of ordnance. But in this important battlefield, the U.S. is not currently fighting with generals chosen by the commander in chief elected by the American people in 2016. The ideas are still being shaped by officials picked by President Barack Obama, not President Donald Trump. All of this may be about to change now that the White House has announced its intention to nominate Michael Pack to replace Obama appointee John Lansing as head of the Broadcasting Board of Governors, the agency in charge of broadcasting operations in support of freedom around the world. Pack, a documentary filmmaker, is a former executive with the liberal Corporation for Public Broadcasting and former president of the high-brow conservative Claremont Institute. [ The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution. Find out more. ] But don’t expect “The Resistance” to take Pack’s nomination lying down. Like those World War II Japanese soldiers who held out in Filipino jungles until well into the 1970s, that hardy band of stalwarts continues…
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