2025 Archives

Trump is the first president in American history to seize the nation's newsrooms and attack a cartoon in the same week… The media’s job in a democratic society is to speak truth to power, not to suck up to it. But last week, CBS and its parent company Paramount waved the white flag, handing Donald Trump a $16 million bribe and agreeing to censor their own newsroom to curry favor with a twice-impeached, multiply-indicted rapist authoritarian who lost the popular vote twice. That is not journalism. That’s capitulation. And it’s devastating to democracies. The CBS merger with Skydance should never have been a political issue. In normal times, regulatory agencies like the FCC operate independently, applying laws without fear or favor. But these are not normal times.

There are lots of different ways of defining the American Dream. While the “middle class job with a house in the suburbs” is the most common one, being able to start and grow your own family-owned business is the version of the American Dream that Louise and I pursued.

When the heat's on, invent a scandal — especially if it targets America's first Black president… When the walls start closing in, Donald Trump doesn't lawyer up: he doubles down. With Epstein's ghost rattling through the headlines and the threat of explosive disclosures looming, Team Trump has rolled out its most cynical, racially-charged distraction yet: accuse Barack Obama of treason. It's not about justice. It's not about truth. It's a deliberate psyop meant to hijack the news cycle, enrage the MAGA base, and erase Epstein's name from every chyron in America. Which is why it appears that the Trump White House is closing in on the conclusion that the only story that could be "big enough" to blow Epstein off the front pages will be "Obama Committed Treason!" They're busily assigning investigators, FBI agents, lawyers, and others in the Justice Department to find everything they can that might implicate our first Black president in having committed High Crimes and Misdemeanors. Democrats and many in the media are essentially ridiculing the effort, arguing that nobody is naïve enough — or malicious enough — to believe such a story. But things that seem illogical or even flat-out nuts to reporters and Democrats may, according to a scientific study published in recent months, make perfect sense for Trump supporters.

The CBS merger isn't a business deal — it's a pay-to-play scheme fueling America's slide into oligarchy… The CBS merger deal illustrates everything that's wrong with post-Reagan Revolution America. It's not just another corporate merger: it's a road sign on our accelerating march toward oligarchy, propaganda, and the collapse of honest media. We've watched one of the most important legacy broadcast platforms in America pay a $16 million bribe to our convicted felon president, reportedly offer him another $16 million worth of free air time, and try to sell its entire operation to a billionaire with a God complex. It's the worst of the Reagan revolution coming home to roost, on our screens, in our homes, and in our civic life. Start with the $16 million payoff: Trump sued CBS and its parent company Paramount over a 60 Minutes interview with Kamala Harris, laughably arguing that CBS's editing of the interview constituted unlawful election tampering. The lawsuit was instantly and widely regarded as frivolous, but instead of fighting it, CBS quietly settled for an astonishing $16 million. No trial. No discovery. Just a big, fat check. This isn't journalism: it's tribute. It's what oligarchs have done for centuries when they want to please the king.