Is it just me or is this headline (intentionally?) misleading?
3 responses | 0 likes
Started by WxFollower - March 25, 2025, 8:13 p.m.

Speaker Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts as GOP ramps up attacks on judges

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Hey Mike/all,

 This was a headline today. I’m curious. What does it sound like to you that the author MAY be trying to make the readers think in order to get more readers to click on it? I want to see if you think of it the way I did. I’ll explain more after I give you a chance to respond. Thanks in advance.

Comments
By metmike - March 25, 2025, 8:51 p.m.
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Thanks, Larry!

The situation hasn't matured enough for me to have real strong opinions yet(or I haven't followed it long enough), other than Trump is getting flustered that some of what he ordains is being blocked by lower court judges. 

This appears to be a situation where Trump wants to be a dictator and can't but I will note that there have been cases in the past where  loose cannon, politically motivated  judges have stepped in to block common sense presidential or other actions. 

Considering that the loose cannon here is President Trump, the lower court judges might be the ones applying common sense. I dunno. 

Johnson stresses Congress’s power over courts: ‘Desperate times call for desperate measures’

https://thehill.com/homenews/house/5212930-mike-johnson-congress-power-courts/

Speaker Mike Johnson(R-La.) on Tuesday drew attention to Congress’s power over the federal judiciary as Republicans plot how to legislatively channel their outrage over district judges who have blocked Trump administration actions.

 “We do have authority over the federal courts,” Johnson said in a press conference Tuesday. “We can eliminate an entire district court. We do have power over funding over the courts and all these other things. But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

Johnson clarified that he was not calling to eliminate courts, but rather meant to illustrate Congress’s broad scope of authority, Punchbowl News reported.

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It definitely feeds more fuel to the rapidly building RESIST fire that will be a raging inferno by this Summer.

By WxFollower - March 25, 2025, 9:16 p.m.
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Thanks for your reply, Mike.

 The headline I showed was this:

“Speaker Mike Johnson floats eliminating federal courts as GOP ramps up attacks on judges”


When I first read this headline, I thought like a dummy that Johnson was considering the idea of eliminating “federal courts” as opposed to just “some federal courts.”

You didn’t think that? My point is that the author should have included the word, “some” in the headline. But he didn’t and I wonder if it was intentional to fool people like me into thinking all (non-SCOTUS) federal courts.

By metmike - March 25, 2025, 9:20 p.m.
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That's why I copied the quote below:

Johnson clarified that he was not calling to eliminate courts, but rather meant to illustrate Congress’s broad scope of authority,

If we wanted, we could sit in front of the computer and find a dozen media stories with misleading headlines.........every hour. 

So I agree that its misleading and likely intentional.