FCC Approves Corrupt Media Merger to Satisfy Trump - The Friday AM Quickie 7/25/25
Trump-loving racist free speech villain Terry Gene Bollea, better known as Hulk Hogan, died yesterday. I can credit him with inspiring one of my earliest memories of cultural alienation, watching "Hulkamania" take hold and feeling nothing but bewilderment and repulsion. Anyway, I'm out, Whitney's back Monday. - Corey
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THE BIG NEWS
FCC Approves Paramount-Skydance Merger, Promising MAGAfication of CBS News
CBS News, one of the big three US networks licensed for over-the-air broadcast by the Federal Communications Commission, was the historic home of trusted journalists like Walter Cronkite, Dan Rather, Connie Chung and the investigative reporting stalwarts at "60 Minutes." Today the network is so compromised it can't even tell readers of its website the truth about the corrupt corporate deals that threaten to transform it into yet another MAGA mouthpiece.
Yesterday the FCC, dominated by Republicans, approved an $8.4 billion merger between CBS parent company Paramount Global and Skydance Media, a company led by David Ellison, the son of Oracle billionaire and Trump buddy Larry Ellison. "Ellison is great. He'll do a great job," Trump said last month.
The FCC was intended to ensure that companies that profit from their use of the American airwaves serve the public interest. Now it's mutated into a handmaiden to corruption at the highest levels of power. As fans of kicked-to-the-curb "Late Show" host Stephen Colbert know, this merger wouldn't be happening without a "big, fat bribe" Paramount paid to Trump in the form of a $16 million settlement to his meritless libel lawsuit against 60 Minutes for daring to run an interview with his campaign rival, Kamala Harris.
The lone Democratic Commissioner, Anna Gomez, accuses Paramount of "cowardly capitulation" and says Skydance will implement "never-before-seen controls over newsroom decisions and editorial content" that violate the First Amendment to appease the Trump regime. "The stench of this transaction will linger over the Commission for years," Democratic Sens. Ed Markey of Massachusetts and Ben Ray Luján of New Mexico said in a statement.
Another Paramount property, "South Park," launched its season premiere Wednesday night with an episode featuring Trump in bed with Satan and mocked his "weird" connections to Jeffrey Epstein. "We're terribly sorry," the show's co-creator Trey Parker said in response to White House outrage about the popular cartoon, soon to be a Paramount+ streaming exclusive.
MORE STORIES TO WATCH
Gaza Genocide: US and Israel Abandon Ceasefire Talks with Hamas
- Children, Adults, and Aid Workers Alike Suffer as Starvation Sweeps Gaza Under Israeli Siege "There can frankly be very little doubt that we are seeing starvation and hunger as an instrument of the war," says former United Nations aid chief Martin Griffiths. "My grandchildren will be learning in school about who did what in the worst crime of the 21st century." via the Associated Press, Middle East Eye, the Guardian, and the New York Times.
- News Organizations Warn That Last Working Journalists in Gaza May Also Starve "For many months, these independent journalists have been the world's eyes and ears on the ground in Gaza. They are now facing the same dire circumstances as those they are covering," says a joint statement from Agence France-Presse, the Associated Press, BBC News, and Reuters. via the Guardian.
- Israel Attacks Last City Standing in Gaza, Deir al-Balah The central Gaza city is a "humanitarian hub" for the United Nations and many aid agencies, and tends of thousands of displaced Palestinians have fled there. via Drop Site News and Zeteo.
- France Recognizes State of Palestine "The urgent thing today is that the war in Gaza stops and the civilian population is saved," French President Emmanuel Macron said. via the New York Times and Le Monde.
Trump's Lawyer Meets with Ghislaine Maxwell
The New York Times confirms that Donald Trump contributed to a birthday book for his longtime friend, the late serial sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, while the Wall Street Journal, which first broke the story, now reports that former Democratic President Bill Clinton also sent Epstein a happy birthday letter. The bipartisan implication may not come as a surprise to those who've followed the Epstein case closely over the years. Meanwhile, Epstein's imprisoned accomplice, Ghislaine Maxwell, met with a top Justice Department official for about five hours yesterday, the Washington Post reports, and that official, Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche – Trump's former personal defense attorney – will continue that interview today. Maxwell's attorney calls the meeting "very productive." Hm. A House Republican source [tells Politico](is in for a rough September at the very least) that Attorney General Pam Bondi "is in for a rough September" as Congressional inquiries into the Epstein drag on into the fall.
QUICKEST QUICKIES
- Advocates Horrified By Trump Order to Force Poor and Mentally Ill People Living on the Streets Into 'Facilities' White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt calls the people subject to Trump's order, which does nothing to increase access to housing and other resources, "vagrant criminals." via the Washington Post and Common Dreams.
- Eric Adams Dithers as Trump Regime Sues NYC Over Sanctuary Policies New York Immigration Coalition president Murad Awawdeh calls the Justice Department lawsuit "frivolous at best, and an attack on New York's ability to govern itself at worst." via the New York Times and Gothamist.
- Thousands Displaced, 14 Dead as Thailand and Cambodia Trade Bombs and Rockets Many Cambodian villagers retreated from the border region "with entire families and most of their possessions on home-made tractors, before settling down with hammocks and makeshift shelters." via the Associated Press and BBC News.
- Frustrated with Rightward Drift of UK Labour, Jeremey Corbyn May Launch New Party Corbyn made the announcement with fellow independent MP Zarah Sultana; the launch website is called Your Party, but Sultana says that won't be its name. via BBC News, the Financial Times, and the Guardian.
SOME NUMBER
183,000
That's how many adult migrants that could be shackled with GPS-enabled ankle monitors under a new Immigration and Customs Enforcement policy, the Washington Post reports. Most of the people who will be tracked in this way "have no criminal record or history of missed court appointments." Pregnant women may be forced to wear a tracker on their wrist instead of an ankle.
ON THE SHOW TODAY
7/25: Happy Friday! Today's guest will be Mehdi Hasan, editor-in-chief and CEO of Zeteo, to wrap up the week in news and discuss his appearance on Jubilee's Surrounded.
DON'T MISS MR CLIPS
Welcome to the Moronosphere
Like Sam, I'd never heard of these lunkheads.
Supreme Court OKs Trump's Mass Layoffs
Sam and Emma interview Law Dork Chris Geidner about some recent cases on the docket.
PARTING WORDS
"This is further evidence that, especially in urban areas, the DSA is gaining traction within the Democratic Party."
-- Minnesota political analyst Blois Olson, speaking to the Washington Post about a coast-to-coast trend of leftist candidates racking up wins in Democratic primaries. "Minnesota Mamdani" Omar Fateh, a democratic socialist state Senator, won the endorsement of the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party over the two-term incumbent in the Minneapolis mayoral race last weekend. Meanwhile in Portland, Oregon, city councilors backed by the DSA have formed a decisive bloc in the municipal government. The local leftist victories come at a time when the national Democratic Party is floundering, both in terms of messaging and fundraising.
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