When Trump-aligned billionaires control the networks Americans trust for news, they don’t just own the cameras. They gain the power to decide what the entire country sees, hears, and never learns…
The proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger, which California Attorney General Rob Bonta — with a strong nudge from Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — has cleared with no meaningful concessions, will put CBS News and CNN under one corporate roof. It will also make three foreign governments major financial backers of the merged company. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, and an Abu Dhabi investment company have committed a combined $24 billion to the deal.
And Newsom has plans to run for President. No effing way.
I am dishearted and disgusted, The world has turned upside down . House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is set to host an event for well-heeled donors that is being organized by Michael LaRosa, an erstwhile Democratic operative who became a token disaffected Democrat and now works for a MAGA darling lobbying firm
Denmark and Greenland have fallen for a sham Treaty, that Trump will use to deploy troops into Greenland and declare it a territory. He already has put up a meme on Truth Social of him planting the American flag on Greenland, how can they be so stupid, and he is 100% Putins's asset, bad enough that Trump wants to give Europe away to Putin, now the EU and NATO are acquiescent.
1938 Sudetenland/Chamberlain all over again.. Russian Mi8 Helicopter tests Latvian Air Defeense by flyiing into it's territory, and rather than shoot it or force it down, all that happens is an impotent protest.
Meanwhile Trump continues raping and plundering the nations capital, and the only reaction is feeble protests
He ignores the courts, he ignores the laws and ploys straight ahead, and our Democratic governors and attorney generals do nothing but stand on court house steps and bloviate.
The archtect for the ballroom, just quit, because Trump is ignoring all fire and safety codes,, he said "I am the code". This is America today, a dictatorship and our so called oppositional leadership is complicit, cowardly and corrupt..
One glimmer of hope for truth to spread is the massive expansion of Substack. I get a lot of news from Thom, Bob Reich, Paul Krugman, and Aaron Rupar and his Public Notice staff. Also, not all global news is rigged yet. I find a number of fascinating articles from foreign sources ignored by the US MSM, in Susan Webber's NakedCapitalism.com "Links." Sadly, this monopoly expansion by the Ellisons betrays that freedom of the press in America is nowadays a myth. Unless the Democrats start tearing these monopolies down once in power, our Democracy will be doomed to sham status like the ridiculous election recently in Russia where Putin won by a landslide because there were no options on the ballots. Doubtless Trump drools over wanting to be our emperor too one day.
Seems like he feels he already is. The Mitigation Midterms/ Obi-Wan Kenobi are our only HOPE ?! The Substack connection, FreeSpeechTV & some others are helping fight back the despair !
Corporations have become so powerful that governments don't have the resources to oppose them, even if they had the will to do so. If an independent media were truly a fundamental right of the people, then the people should own the media, not one family or one person. This is essential to a democracy, and is non-negotiable. The truth is not for sale.
Corporate media, corporate Democrats, what could go wrong? We have GOT to clean up our own house if we are to clean up anything the hell else. The lesser of two evils is still evil. We can and must do better.
We here in the US are being picked clean by these billionaire vultures. This is why this administration is in office, now—just for this purpose. We were and still are ripe for picking.
We are a divided people. A people who feel separated, angry, and at a mostly silent war with our fellow countrymen and definitely our so-called representatives. How is that turning out for us?
We have to find common ground to go forward. This administration is a symptom of who we have become as a people and the world sees this and is just as panicked as the majority here.
The Dems have to stop stem rolling people with candidates that placate a portion and come up with honest leadership that doesn’t just continue the alienation. Leaders free from Corporate PAC alliances and corporate ownership.
There is common ground. The people need to stopped being drained of THEIR tax money. We are and have been going no where and are falling further and further behind as more and more lose jobs, prices rise, salaries stay frozen, and health declines.
We watch as our industries depend upon AI and continuously replace human workers with robotics. We watch while there is continuous deregulation and the very people who are known for non-stop felonies and blatant dirty deals at our expense are running the country through their now crazy representatives. And, now, we are told that the steam roller of AI will no doubt destroy us all.
These criminals, both the one’s in office and the ones who fund them, ARE draining the swamp right into their own pockets. Pretty soon our “swamp” will be desert and the parasites and piranhas will be on their personal islands somewhere counting our money and running our countries remotely. And what are the people of the US doing? Mostly sitting here watching our trillions of tax dollars being carted away digitally.
The thing that should be known by us all is that their infrastructure has been laid, now. The infestation has taken place and we are a sick nation. These people with the billions won’t go away and we have allowed this to happen because we as a people idolize these billionaires and their way of life, even though we are actively being robbed by the very ones we worship.
Education from the “corporate” media has disappeared in so many ways. The monopolizing of media, the privatization and the profiteering are so destructive. I’ve learned more from independent non-profit non-corporate media like Democracy Now & Thom Hartmann on FreeSpeechTV and NPR, and the Substack community where independent thinking is thriving, but I think people don’t want even to engage in learning anymore. To me learning has become a fountain of youth (so to speak) ! Remember the late coach/ English teacher John Wooden said ;”When you stop learning, you’re through.” Well, I’m not done yet, so I choose to fight, at the very least for the children because they deserve a better future. Thanks for educating me Thom & ALL !!
It's been clear in watching Jewish comedian Jon Stewart over the past year that he's not about to take sides on the Israeli Palestinian controversy. It became vividly apparent when he interviewed his Jewish friend Ari Emanuel about his book Roll the Calls: A Memoir(bit.ly/4iEV1DX).
The interview partially revolved around Ari's learning disability and how he coped with his more successful sibs in other societal areas of medicine and politics but then there came up the issue of genocide which Stewart brought up. Emanuel denied the genocide coverage and without pushback Stewart went right along with it as if it's now settled, no genocide.
When pressed about the Macklemore/Kraft/Sherran controversy Emanuel became deft at not taking sides saying he needed more information rather than incriminating Kraft and Sherran. When asked about the Muskrat withe who Emanuel is close friends, despite USAID shut down under DOGE, Emanuel defended him, saying the Muskrat had done a lot of good humanitarian things.
It became clear that there were 2 Jewish men kibitzing about the damning murderous Israeli treatment of Palestinians nimbly avoiding the harsh reality of a fascist government. We'll talk about it but not take sides because it's inconvenient. Denial can get you somewhere and nowhere at the same time. Shame on Stewart and his buddy.
Excellent article; thanks. In the 1970s, I was stationed as a U.S. Army soldier for five years at a major logistics command in West Germany. What puzzled many of us was why so many senior NCOs, officers, and civilian employees were opting to retire in West Germany and take W.G. citizenship. In retrospect, I see that their years of living in West Germany convinced them to bail out of our corrupt corporate system and get into West German health care. Interesting thing: while the US is the only major industrialized nation with the vast (cosmic!) "health insurance" scam (middle man shoulders in, steals over half of the money), Germany has a CORPORATE health care system but the difference is vast: it is not allowed to earn a profit. It's not perfect, but ours is by far the biggest stinking manure pile on earth. In November 2026, we face a fateful election: do or die. My optimistic hope is that we will throw out all the corrupt corporate republicans and elect Democrats, Progressives, etc... but we have to do more. Let's outlaw "insurance" as we have known it, from the health scam to the education (student loans) scams etc. JTC
It disappoints me greatly hat Tom would choose Ralph Nader to write the forward to his 2020 book about right-wing billionaires. This is the same Ralph Nader who in 2000 allowed the right-wing billionaires party aka the GOP to fund his 2000 tv ad campaign that spread the big lie that their were no differences between Al Gore and George W. Bush. This tv ad campaign was run in crucial battleground states like Florida and it siphoned off 97,000 crucial votes from Al Gore which made it possible for Bush to get close enough in Florida to have his little brother, Florida Bush campaign co-chair and the corrupt GOP controlled SCOTUS majority steal the 2000 election for Bush.
One of Bush's signature pieces of legislation was to give big tax breaks to the same right-wing billionaires that Nader claimed he hated during his 2000 campaign. Now 20 years later, Nader was again claiming he hated right-wing billionaires despite taking financial help from the right-wing billionaires loving GOP in 2000. Nader's hypocrisy knows no bounds. Nader must never be let off the hook for what he did to our country. Nader's behavior in 2000 helped make possible the terrible nightmare that our country is now living through. There would be no Trump or extremist Roberts SCOTUS majority now without Nader 2000.
Unfortunately Thom while you are not a billionaire you are guilty of the same abuse of your megaphone. You made the unfathomable decision as "the nation's #1 progressive talker" not to even mention the genocide in Gaza. You pretended that Biden's obvious Parkinson's dementia was just a stutter, the upshot being a very undemocratic anointing of Kamala Harris. Instead of protecting us from the Democrats running the most unpopular VP in history since polling began, and someone who couldn't even survive the 2020 primary, you told us how virtuous she was, never question the DNC's subversion of democracy. You convinced your minions that Hillary Clinton lost because of Putin, rather than admitting she was a flawed and corrupt candidate who thought she was entitled to win. Nancy Pelosi is a progressive. Hillary Clinton was a "brilliant" Secretary of State. Over and over you capitulated to power and electoral jockeying over the truth. In my view you are no better than the billionaires you justly denounce as you bear responsibility for the election of Trump--twice. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/the-election-is-so-close-because
Just hearing that there will be an "independent editorial board" is all we need to know about the future of CNN and its reporting (which is full of false equivalency propping up its "fair & balanced" slogan). At best this says reporting will be shaped; at worst, and most likely censored and controlled.
This is another example of the blatant corruption of democracy -- the media writ large has done a poor job -- and that's being diplomatic -- in staunching the flow of lies and illegality from the moment Trump came down the elevator.
It's been surprising that all of the press has banded together at this juncture, denying Trump the tv coverage that is his oxygen. Is it that they smell blood in the water, a blue takeover?
How long will it last -- and who will stand firm in the future in the face of the ubiquitous and endemic corruption evidenced by the cave of the AG of California paving the way for Donald Trump's dream of eliminating even the most mild and occasional criticism to pierce his bubble-wrapped word?
There's almost nothing left to say, again, except BRING ON THE METEOR - because even our precious voting may not be enough to stop this tide of infected, rabid slime.
California Democrats sell out democracy https://saltypolitics.substack.com/p/california-democrats-sell-out-democracy
The proposed Paramount–Warner Bros. Discovery merger, which California Attorney General Rob Bonta — with a strong nudge from Governor Gavin Newsom and Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass — has cleared with no meaningful concessions, will put CBS News and CNN under one corporate roof. It will also make three foreign governments major financial backers of the merged company. Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, and an Abu Dhabi investment company have committed a combined $24 billion to the deal.
And Newsom has plans to run for President. No effing way.
If the 2028 ticket were Newsom-Harrison, I would stay home on election day.
I am dishearted and disgusted, The world has turned upside down . House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries is set to host an event for well-heeled donors that is being organized by Michael LaRosa, an erstwhile Democratic operative who became a token disaffected Democrat and now works for a MAGA darling lobbying firm
Denmark and Greenland have fallen for a sham Treaty, that Trump will use to deploy troops into Greenland and declare it a territory. He already has put up a meme on Truth Social of him planting the American flag on Greenland, how can they be so stupid, and he is 100% Putins's asset, bad enough that Trump wants to give Europe away to Putin, now the EU and NATO are acquiescent.
1938 Sudetenland/Chamberlain all over again.. Russian Mi8 Helicopter tests Latvian Air Defeense by flyiing into it's territory, and rather than shoot it or force it down, all that happens is an impotent protest.
Meanwhile Trump continues raping and plundering the nations capital, and the only reaction is feeble protests
He ignores the courts, he ignores the laws and ploys straight ahead, and our Democratic governors and attorney generals do nothing but stand on court house steps and bloviate.
The archtect for the ballroom, just quit, because Trump is ignoring all fire and safety codes,, he said "I am the code". This is America today, a dictatorship and our so called oppositional leadership is complicit, cowardly and corrupt..
Newsom just lost y vote and Bonta and Bass my respect.
One glimmer of hope for truth to spread is the massive expansion of Substack. I get a lot of news from Thom, Bob Reich, Paul Krugman, and Aaron Rupar and his Public Notice staff. Also, not all global news is rigged yet. I find a number of fascinating articles from foreign sources ignored by the US MSM, in Susan Webber's NakedCapitalism.com "Links." Sadly, this monopoly expansion by the Ellisons betrays that freedom of the press in America is nowadays a myth. Unless the Democrats start tearing these monopolies down once in power, our Democracy will be doomed to sham status like the ridiculous election recently in Russia where Putin won by a landslide because there were no options on the ballots. Doubtless Trump drools over wanting to be our emperor too one day.
and Heather Cox Richardson
Absolutely please include HCR too with those you mentioned above Tomonthebeach! Thanks Gordon for adding her.
Seems like he feels he already is. The Mitigation Midterms/ Obi-Wan Kenobi are our only HOPE ?! The Substack connection, FreeSpeechTV & some others are helping fight back the despair !
Corporations have become so powerful that governments don't have the resources to oppose them, even if they had the will to do so. If an independent media were truly a fundamental right of the people, then the people should own the media, not one family or one person. This is essential to a democracy, and is non-negotiable. The truth is not for sale.
Corporate media, corporate Democrats, what could go wrong? We have GOT to clean up our own house if we are to clean up anything the hell else. The lesser of two evils is still evil. We can and must do better.
News just gets worse and worse...😭
We here in the US are being picked clean by these billionaire vultures. This is why this administration is in office, now—just for this purpose. We were and still are ripe for picking.
We are a divided people. A people who feel separated, angry, and at a mostly silent war with our fellow countrymen and definitely our so-called representatives. How is that turning out for us?
We have to find common ground to go forward. This administration is a symptom of who we have become as a people and the world sees this and is just as panicked as the majority here.
The Dems have to stop stem rolling people with candidates that placate a portion and come up with honest leadership that doesn’t just continue the alienation. Leaders free from Corporate PAC alliances and corporate ownership.
There is common ground. The people need to stopped being drained of THEIR tax money. We are and have been going no where and are falling further and further behind as more and more lose jobs, prices rise, salaries stay frozen, and health declines.
We watch as our industries depend upon AI and continuously replace human workers with robotics. We watch while there is continuous deregulation and the very people who are known for non-stop felonies and blatant dirty deals at our expense are running the country through their now crazy representatives. And, now, we are told that the steam roller of AI will no doubt destroy us all.
These criminals, both the one’s in office and the ones who fund them, ARE draining the swamp right into their own pockets. Pretty soon our “swamp” will be desert and the parasites and piranhas will be on their personal islands somewhere counting our money and running our countries remotely. And what are the people of the US doing? Mostly sitting here watching our trillions of tax dollars being carted away digitally.
The thing that should be known by us all is that their infrastructure has been laid, now. The infestation has taken place and we are a sick nation. These people with the billions won’t go away and we have allowed this to happen because we as a people idolize these billionaires and their way of life, even though we are actively being robbed by the very ones we worship.
Education from the “corporate” media has disappeared in so many ways. The monopolizing of media, the privatization and the profiteering are so destructive. I’ve learned more from independent non-profit non-corporate media like Democracy Now & Thom Hartmann on FreeSpeechTV and NPR, and the Substack community where independent thinking is thriving, but I think people don’t want even to engage in learning anymore. To me learning has become a fountain of youth (so to speak) ! Remember the late coach/ English teacher John Wooden said ;”When you stop learning, you’re through.” Well, I’m not done yet, so I choose to fight, at the very least for the children because they deserve a better future. Thanks for educating me Thom & ALL !!
Jon Stewart Gives Israel A Pass
It's been clear in watching Jewish comedian Jon Stewart over the past year that he's not about to take sides on the Israeli Palestinian controversy. It became vividly apparent when he interviewed his Jewish friend Ari Emanuel about his book Roll the Calls: A Memoir(bit.ly/4iEV1DX).
The interview partially revolved around Ari's learning disability and how he coped with his more successful sibs in other societal areas of medicine and politics but then there came up the issue of genocide which Stewart brought up. Emanuel denied the genocide coverage and without pushback Stewart went right along with it as if it's now settled, no genocide.
When pressed about the Macklemore/Kraft/Sherran controversy Emanuel became deft at not taking sides saying he needed more information rather than incriminating Kraft and Sherran. When asked about the Muskrat withe who Emanuel is close friends, despite USAID shut down under DOGE, Emanuel defended him, saying the Muskrat had done a lot of good humanitarian things.
It became clear that there were 2 Jewish men kibitzing about the damning murderous Israeli treatment of Palestinians nimbly avoiding the harsh reality of a fascist government. We'll talk about it but not take sides because it's inconvenient. Denial can get you somewhere and nowhere at the same time. Shame on Stewart and his buddy.
It's evident which side you take. Supply us with your evidence and how it corroborates the definition of genocide.
How can anyone sleep at night, knowing the gazillionaires OWN the very news we receive? I cannot believe California CAVED like that.
Excellent article; thanks. In the 1970s, I was stationed as a U.S. Army soldier for five years at a major logistics command in West Germany. What puzzled many of us was why so many senior NCOs, officers, and civilian employees were opting to retire in West Germany and take W.G. citizenship. In retrospect, I see that their years of living in West Germany convinced them to bail out of our corrupt corporate system and get into West German health care. Interesting thing: while the US is the only major industrialized nation with the vast (cosmic!) "health insurance" scam (middle man shoulders in, steals over half of the money), Germany has a CORPORATE health care system but the difference is vast: it is not allowed to earn a profit. It's not perfect, but ours is by far the biggest stinking manure pile on earth. In November 2026, we face a fateful election: do or die. My optimistic hope is that we will throw out all the corrupt corporate republicans and elect Democrats, Progressives, etc... but we have to do more. Let's outlaw "insurance" as we have known it, from the health scam to the education (student loans) scams etc. JTC
It disappoints me greatly hat Tom would choose Ralph Nader to write the forward to his 2020 book about right-wing billionaires. This is the same Ralph Nader who in 2000 allowed the right-wing billionaires party aka the GOP to fund his 2000 tv ad campaign that spread the big lie that their were no differences between Al Gore and George W. Bush. This tv ad campaign was run in crucial battleground states like Florida and it siphoned off 97,000 crucial votes from Al Gore which made it possible for Bush to get close enough in Florida to have his little brother, Florida Bush campaign co-chair and the corrupt GOP controlled SCOTUS majority steal the 2000 election for Bush.
One of Bush's signature pieces of legislation was to give big tax breaks to the same right-wing billionaires that Nader claimed he hated during his 2000 campaign. Now 20 years later, Nader was again claiming he hated right-wing billionaires despite taking financial help from the right-wing billionaires loving GOP in 2000. Nader's hypocrisy knows no bounds. Nader must never be let off the hook for what he did to our country. Nader's behavior in 2000 helped make possible the terrible nightmare that our country is now living through. There would be no Trump or extremist Roberts SCOTUS majority now without Nader 2000.
Unfortunately Thom while you are not a billionaire you are guilty of the same abuse of your megaphone. You made the unfathomable decision as "the nation's #1 progressive talker" not to even mention the genocide in Gaza. You pretended that Biden's obvious Parkinson's dementia was just a stutter, the upshot being a very undemocratic anointing of Kamala Harris. Instead of protecting us from the Democrats running the most unpopular VP in history since polling began, and someone who couldn't even survive the 2020 primary, you told us how virtuous she was, never question the DNC's subversion of democracy. You convinced your minions that Hillary Clinton lost because of Putin, rather than admitting she was a flawed and corrupt candidate who thought she was entitled to win. Nancy Pelosi is a progressive. Hillary Clinton was a "brilliant" Secretary of State. Over and over you capitulated to power and electoral jockeying over the truth. In my view you are no better than the billionaires you justly denounce as you bear responsibility for the election of Trump--twice. https://barryjkaufmando.substack.com/p/the-election-is-so-close-because
Just hearing that there will be an "independent editorial board" is all we need to know about the future of CNN and its reporting (which is full of false equivalency propping up its "fair & balanced" slogan). At best this says reporting will be shaped; at worst, and most likely censored and controlled.
This is another example of the blatant corruption of democracy -- the media writ large has done a poor job -- and that's being diplomatic -- in staunching the flow of lies and illegality from the moment Trump came down the elevator.
It's been surprising that all of the press has banded together at this juncture, denying Trump the tv coverage that is his oxygen. Is it that they smell blood in the water, a blue takeover?
How long will it last -- and who will stand firm in the future in the face of the ubiquitous and endemic corruption evidenced by the cave of the AG of California paving the way for Donald Trump's dream of eliminating even the most mild and occasional criticism to pierce his bubble-wrapped word?
There's almost nothing left to say, again, except BRING ON THE METEOR - because even our precious voting may not be enough to stop this tide of infected, rabid slime.