Here's what happens when the world's richest man puts a target on your back
ā Why every American should care about CBS settling ādangerousā Trump lawsuit, even MAGA. CBSās parent company, Paramount, wants to merge with Skydance, another media giant, but they need the approval of Trumpās FCC to make it happen. CBS, meanwhile, is being sued by Trump personally for $10 billion for violating ānews distortion rules.ā The suit is a blatant attempt to intimidate a network into favorable coverage ā something straight out of Viktor OrbĆ”nās playbook (or Putin in his early days) ā but CBS is, according to insiders quoted in the media, seriously considering making some sort of a settlement, handing millions to Trump to make the suit go away. This follows ABC doing the same thing after George Stephanopolis said that Trump had been found liable for ārapeā ā a description of Trumpās attack on E. Jean Carroll that the judge in the case said was appropriate ā but, again, the network paid him off with $15 million to make the threats go away.
In an extraordinary and risky show of defiance, CNN anchor Jake Tapper took to the airwaves to explain that CBSās considering a payoff is an extraordinarily dangerous thing to do. He said that to āsettle the suit would be a white flag of surrenderā¦ the network of [veteran broadcaster] Edward R. Murrowā¦ saying, we will not speak truth to power. We will acquiesce to power at the expense of truth.ā He wrapped up his rant, saying, āYou live long enough and you see how eroded standards that politicians think work for their side always end up being wielded against them. And at that point, it doesnāt even matter who started it. It just matters that corporations are leaning on news divisions to supplicate themselves to whomever is in power because of their bottom line and the implied threat from the government.ā
Itās been a few years since I had lunch with Jake in Washington, DC, but I was impressed then and am even more so now. Itās getting more and more dangerous for reporters and opinion writers to speak out against the authoritarian/fascist threat this administration represents. Good on Jake Tapper. Now, the rest of the stars in American media need to get on board rather than cowering behind bland, adjective-free coverage.
ā Elon Musk demands firing of ādisgusting and cruelā WSJ reporter who uncovered DOGE employeeās racist tweets. Katherine Long is a Wall Street Journal reporter who uncovered (or reported on) the racist social media posts of a 25-year-old Musk staffer whoās invading our government offices. She wrote:
āMarko Elez, a 25-year-old who is part of a cadre of Elon Musk lieutenants deployed by the Department of Government Efficiency to scrutinize federal spending, resigned after The Wall Street Journal asked the White House about his connection to the account.
āāJust for the record, I was racist before it was cool,ā the account posted in July, according to the Journalās review of archived posts.
āāYou could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,ā the account wrote on X in September. āNormalize Indian hate,ā the account wrote the same month, in reference to a post noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley.ā
Now, in the administrationās latest attempt to intimidate our nationās reporters, Musk wants her scalp, retweeting on X a post claiming sheās an USAID employee (she isnāt; that was years ago): āWhat the hell? Certainly improper, possibly criminal.ā When the richest guy in the world and owner of the worldās largest social media site puts a target on your back, it can be extraordinarily intimidating, particularly for somebody whoās never had a high public profile. Itās also dangerous.
And now JD Vance, whoās married to a woman whoās the daughter of Indian immigrants, joined the pile-on against Long, writing on X, āWe shouldnāt reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever.ā He also wants Mr. āNormalize Indian Hateā re-hired, adding: āSo I say bring him back. If heās a bad dude or a terrible member of the team, fire him for that.ā Itās gotta be tough cosplaying a white supremacist while married to a dark-skinned Indian womanā¦
ā Trump tries to intimidate The Washington Post and columnist Eugene Robinson. The storied WAPO writer was a guest on Joe Scarboroughās eponymous TV show Friday morning, calling out the Trump/Musk shutdown of USAID, saying:
āThese are highly skilled technical people in these NGOs, Christian NGOs, Roman Catholic, and evangelical NGOs, and all of thatās being shut down. The camps are being collapsed in many areas, and people whoāve had their houses burned down, their children raped, who are traumatized. Theyāre getting food aid from us. The whole operation is going to be shut down. ā¦ They donāt care what happens to the people of the world because they donāt vote in the United States. They donāt care that hundreds of millions of people are going to have to be on the edge of starvation if these programs arenāt restored immediately.ā
The comments apparently sent Trump into a rage, provoking him to post on his Nazi-infested social media site, āEugene Robinson of the Washington Post is INCOMPETENT! So sad to see him trying to justify the waste, fraud, and corruption at USAID with his pathetic Radical Left SPIN. He should be fired immediately!!!ā
The last president who declared war on our free press was John Adams, and his imprisonment of multiple newspaper publishers for āslanderingā him caused his vice president, Thomas Jefferson, to leave the White House and Washington DC for the final two years of the Adamsā presidency; the two men never met in person again (although they resumed a correspondence in the years before their death within hours of each other on July 4, 1826). Jefferson was right; without a free and independent press itās impossible to have a functioning democracy. Which appears to be exactly why Trump and his fascist-leaning, Nazi-saluting colleagues are so enthusiastic about taking down our media and replacing it with a Greek chorus like Fox āNews.ā
ā Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor calls out the Courtās rightwingers on presidential immunity. The Democratic-appointee justice made her first public comments since the bizarre decision was handed down months ago, pointing out that our Founders never, ever intended that anybody in America should be above the law and for the Court to say so hurts its credibility. āIf we as a court go so much further ahead of people, our legitimacy is going to be questioned,ā Sotomayor said in Kentucky this week. āI think the immunity case is one of those situations. I donāt think that Americans have accepted that anyone should be above the law in America. Our equality as people was the foundation of our society and of our Constitution.ā Gee, ya think? When FDR and LBJ were pushing through Congress the main components of the New Deal and Great Society, it was Republicans who were screaming about an imperial presidency, saying both presidents had grabbed too much power for themselves. Now we have a man who appears to think himself king of America, and suddenly the GOP is just fine with that.
ā GOP bill bans prosecutors from going after officials who refuse to certify elections..say what?! Republican legislators in Arizona are pushing legislation that would let a single crank with a āsworn statementā shut down counting or certifying votes in Blue counties of the state. Currently, itās illegal for a county clerk or other official to refuse to certify an election without a seriously good reason, but this bill would end ālegal liability for balking at certification if they have any ādocumentation or other evidenceā that suggests āpotential irregularities or errors in the election process,āā including ānot just official reports but also sworn affidavits and āexpert testimony.āā So, if you wanted to shut down the certification of, say, Maricopa County (Phoenix) and only count ballots from the Red regions of the state, all youād have to do is submit a āsworn affidavitā that you believe thereās something hinky going on. Increasingly, it appears thereās no limit to what Republicans will do to rig electionsā¦
ā Trump administration orders states to halt EV charging programs. The bipartisan infrastructure bill that President Biden got through Congress appropriated $5 billion for the construction of EV chargers on federal highways and $2.5 billion for chargers in towns and communities. Yesterday, Trump signed an executive order cancelling those funds and shutting down the program, handing a huge and profitable win to the guy whose company owns the largest EV charging network in American: Elon Musk. It doesnāt take a rocket scientist to figure out how corrupt this deal isā¦
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