F Be warned: the financial bubble will soon burst And just like 2008, many will be hurt — except for the biggest gamblers. Robert Reich Jul 31 Friends, This isn’t an investment letter and I’m not an investment advisor. But I want to warn you. The financial economy — stocks, bonds, and their derivatives — is in for a big reality check, and I think it will happen soon. The real economy is showing worrisome signs. Yesterday’s Commerce Department report about the U.S. economy’s performance in the second quarter — April to June — revealed serious strains. Although consumer spending is up from the first quarter, the 1.4 percent rate of growth in the second is nothing to write home about. It’s slower than the growth rate throughout most of the Biden administration. Also worrisome is that U.S. exports fell during the second quarter, particularly in the auto sector. And real final sales to private domestic purchasers — which reflect consumer spending and private investment — increased just 1.2 percent in the second quarter. That’s down from the first three months of the year. And remember: Trump’s big tariffs haven’t hit yet. They go into effect tomorrow. That will cause prices to rise and consumers to pull back. Trump has set a 50 percent tariff on semi-finished copper imports. He has also imposed a 50 percent tariff on Brazilian goods, following through with his threat to punish the country over several political disputes. Yet despite all this worrisome news, investors are going nuts buying up super-risky assets. The financial economy is immersed in the kind of wild gambling we saw leading up to the 2008 financial crisis. We’re seeing it all over again — this time with cryptocurrency tokens, meme stocks, junk bonds, shares of Meta and Microsoft, and the reemergence of blank-check entities (better known as SPACs, or special purpose acquisition companies). I attribute all the high-risk gambling to the high-risk gambling of the gambler-in-chief who sits in the Oval Office. He’s into crypto and meme stocks, and has done well with his own blank-check entity. Plus, he’s a conman’s conman. Investors figure he must know what he’s doing — and even if he doesn’t, he’s shown no compunctions about using every lever of government power to keep the party going. So investors are following him, although more and more of these investments look like pyramid schemes — whose return depends on recruiting ever more people into buying and selling them, until some schnooks are left holding the bag. Meanwhile, investors are pouring money into AI, without knowing what it is or which if any corporation will come out on top. Meta’s revenue jumped 22 percent year over year to $47.5 billion and beat Wall Street’s targets by the widest margin in more than four years. Microsoft has also made huge investments in AI. The AI gold rush started three years ago with the launch of ChatGPT, and most of the financial rewards so far have gone to Nvidia — whose revenue has jumped 10-fold since ChatGPT’s launch, with its market cap crossing the $4 trillion mark earlier this month. This does feel like a gold rush. And it’s taking place on top of the most blatant corruption this country has witnessed since the first Gilded Age of the late nineteenth century. As Trump and his family make hundreds of millions of dollars off of crypto, Trump is pushing crypto and changing the laws to encourage more use of it. In a landmark report issued yesterday, the Trump regime laid out a series of recommendations aimed at further promoting cryptocurrency markets. Senator Elizabeth Warren and two Democratic colleagues questioned the nation’s new stablecoin regulator, newly confirmed Comptroller of the Currency Jonathan Gould, over how he’ll respond to pressure from Trump as the agency begins overseeing the stablecoin market — where the Trump family business is now a player with its own stablecoin. Gould is in the early stages of implementing the new stablecoin regulatory regime created under the GENIUS Act, which Trump signed into law earlier this month. The legislation gives the Comptroller expanded oversight of nonbank stablecoin issuers. It’s starting to feel as if the financial economy is no longer moored to the real one. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent went so far yesterday as to characterize the new “Trump accounts” — tax-deferred investment accounts created in Trump’s sweeping Big Ugly tax law earlier this month — as a “transformative tool” for building long-term wealth and a “backdoor for privatizing Social Security.” Hello? So the Trump regime wants us to give up on Social Security and become gamblers in the stock and bond markets? At the very time when the finance is becoming so frothy that such gambling is exceptionally risky? Well, you know the outcome: The little guys will get hurt and the biggest gamblers will get away with it because they’ll get out just in time or they’ll get the government to bail them out. That was the story of 2008. It’s likely to be the story again. So, my friends, please beware. I’m not suggesting you cash in your stocks and bonds, but if I were you I wouldn’t follow the crowd into more risky investments. Again, I’m not an investment advisor, but there’s so much wild gambling going on right now that I fear we’re soon in for another financial crisis.

Exclusive: Startling revelations about Three Mile Island cast doubt on new nuclear plants

 

FACING SOUTH News, trends and politics in the changing South April 2, 2009 A Facing South Exclusive Investigation FOOLING WITH DISASTER? Startling new evidence about Three Mile Island disaster raises doubts over nuclear plant safety Thirty years ago this week, Randall and Joy Thompson were hired to monitor radiation releases after the Three Mile Island reactor meltdown. What they saw didn't match what officials say happened -- but, fearing for their lives, they gave up trying to tell their story. Now, Facing South shares their account -- and their warning about the dangers of a nuclear revival. by Sue Sturgis Facing South April 2, 2009 It was April Fool's Day,1979 -- 30 years ago this week -- when Randall Thompson first set foot inside the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant near Middletown, Pa. Just four days earlier, in the early morning hours of March 28, a relatively minor problem in the plant's Unit 2 reactor sparked a series of mishaps that led to the meltdown of almost half the uranium fuel and uncontrolled releases of radiation into the air and surrounding Susquehanna River. It was the single worst disaster ever to befall the U.S. nuclear power industry, and Thompson was hired as a health physics technician to go inside the plant and find out how dangerous the situation was. He spent 28 days monitoring radiation releases. Today, his story about what he witnessed at Three Mile Island is being brought to the public in detail for the first time -- and his version of what happened, supported by a growing body of other scientific evidence, contradicts the official U.S. government story that the Three Mile Island accident posed no threat to the public. "What happened at TMI was a whole lot worse than what has been reported," Randall Thompson told Facing South. "Hundreds of times worse." Thompson and his wife Joy -- a nuclear health physicist who also worked at TMI in the disaster's aftermath -- claim that what they witnessed there was a public health tragedy. The Thompsons also warn that the government's failure to acknowledge the full scope of the disaster is leading officials to underestimate the risks posed by a new generation of nuclear power plants. While new reactor construction ground to a halt after the 1979 incident, state leaders and energy executives today are pushing for a nuclear energy revival that's centered in the South, where 12 of the 17 facilities seeking new reactors are located. Fundamental to the industry's case for expansion is the claim that history proves nuclear power is clean and safe -- a claim on which Thompson and others cast doubt, marshaling a startling array of new evidence. An Unlikely Critic Randall Thompson could never be accused of being a knee-jerk anti-nuclear alarmist. A veteran of the U.S. Navy's nuclear submarine program, he is a self-described "nuclear geek" who after finishing military service jumped at the chance to work for commercial nuclear power companies. He worked for a time at the Peach Bottom nuclear plant south of Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania's York County, but quit the industry six months before the TMI disaster over concerns that nuclear companies were cutting corners for higher profits, with potentially dangerous results. Instead, he began publishing a skateboarding magazine with his wife Joy. But the moment the Thompsons heard about the TMI incident, they wanted to get inside the plant and see what was happening first-hand. That didn't prove difficult: Plant operator Metropolitan Edison's in-house health physics staff fled after the meltdown, so responsibility for monitoring radioactive emissions went to a private contractor called Rad Services. The company immediately hired Randall Thompson to serve as the health physics technician in charge of monitoring radioactive emissions, while Joy Thompson got a job monitoring radiation doses to TMI workers. "I had other health physicists from around the country calling me saying, 'Don't let it melt without me!" Randall Thompson recalls. "It was exciting. Our attitude was, 'Sure I may get some cancer, but I can find out some cool stuff.'" What the Thompsons say they found out during their time inside TMI suggests radiation releases from the plant were hundreds if not thousands of times higher than the government and industry have acknowledged -- high enough to cause the acute health effects that have been documented in people living near the plant but that have been dismissed by the industry as impossible given official radiation dose estimates. The Thompsons tried to draw attention to their findings and provide health information for people living near the plant, but what they say happened next reads like a John Grisham thriller. They tell of how a stranger approached Randall Thompson in a grocery store parking lot in late April 1979 and warned him his life was at risk, leading the family to flee Pennsylvania. How they ended up in New Mexico working on a book about their experiences with the help of Joy's brother Charles Busey, another nuclear Navy vet and a former worker at the Hatch nuclear power plant in Georgia. How one evening while driving home from the store Busey and Randall Thompson were run off the road, injuring Thompson and killing Busey. How a copy of the book manuscript they were working on was missing from the car's trunk after the accident. Eventually, after a decade of having their lives ruled by TMI, the Thompsons decided to move on. Randall Thompson went to college to study computer science. Joy Thompson returned to publishing and writing. Today they live quietly in the mountains of North Carolina where, inspired by time spent seeking refuge with a traveling circus, they have forged a new career for themselves as clowns -- or what they like to call "professional fools." As Joy Thompson wrote in the fall 2001 issue of Parabola, a journal of myth, the role of the fool is to help people "perceive the foolishness in even ... the most powerful institutions," noting the medieval court jester's role of telling the King what others dared not. That conviction has led the Thompsons to tell their story today. "They haven't told the truth yet about what happened at Three Mile Island," says Randall Thompson. "A lot of people have died because of this accident. A lot." Continued at Facing South online ... read the rest of Facing South's exclusive investigation here. Photo: President Jimmy Carter leaves Three Mile Island for Middletown, Pa. on April 1, 1979 (National Archives and Records Administration). FOOLING WITH DISASTER: Nuclear Index Number of years since the partial core meltdown at Pennsylvania's Three Mile Island nuclear plant: 30 Number of new commercial nuclear power plants built in the U.S. since then: 0 Number of planned new reactors now awaiting federal approval: 26 Of the 19 sites where those proposed reactors would be located, number in the South: 12 Number of utilities switching to different reactor models because of problems with costs and timetables: 2 Amount by which one planned reactor is already over budget: $2 billion Factor by which estimated costs of reactors have increased in the past two years: 2 Estimated cost of a new reactor today: $8 billion Amount that nuclear power companies are seeking in taxpayer-financed subsidies: $18 billion Extra monthly charge that Progress Energy customers in Florida began paying this year to finance two new reactors: $14.53 All figures from "Nuclear power inches back into energy spotlight," by Paul Davidson, USA Today, 3/29/2009. Quick Links... FOOLING WITH DISASTER: Full Facing South investigation Nuclear Regulatory Commission responds to Facing South [pdf] Facing South/Institute home Join or make a contribution Join our mailing list! email: chris@southernstudies.org web: http://www.southernstudies.org

Americans do not want to be complicit in an unfolding famine and daily civilian massacres in Gaza. THANK YOU SENATOR SANDERS!

 

Sisters and Brothers -

Last night, by a vote of 27-17, Senate Democrats voted to stop sending arms shipments to a Netanyahu government which has waged a horrific, immoral and illegal war against the Palestinian people.

The last time a vote happened on this issue, only 15 Democrats voted for it.

We are making progress ... and the reason we are making progress is because poll after poll shows that a majority of Americans oppose sending more weapons and military aid to fuel the criminality of Netanyahu's war machine -- a war machine that has killed 60,000 people and injured 140,000 more, a majority of whom are women, children and the elderly.

They oppose supporting a war machine that has destroyed the entire infrastructure of Gaza: schools, the health care system, housing and water systems.

And they are horrified by Netanyahu's war machine that is preventing humanitarian aid from coming in that has resulted in mass malnutrition and children starving to death, many of the images you are seeing on tv and online right now.

The tide is turning because the American people have had enough. But there is more still that needs to be done.

I gave a long floor speech ahead of last night's vote about the unspeakable and immoral tragedy happening in Gaza. You'll find it below. Please give it a read and maybe forward this email to those you think may be interested.

In solidarity,

Bernie Sanders

---

M. President, let me begin by stating what this debate is about, and what it is not about. It is not about whether anyone in the Senate disagrees that Hamas is a terrorist organization, which began this war with a brutal terrorist attack on October 7, 2023, that killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. Everyone agrees with that.

The International Criminal Court was right to indict the leaders of Hamas as war criminals for those atrocities. There is also, I believe, no disagreement as to whether or not Israel had a right to defend itself, like any other country suffering an attack like that. Clearly, it did.

And, in a certain sense, this debate is not really about Israel. It is about the United States of America, and whether we will abide by U.S. and international law, or whether we will continue to contribute billions of dollars to an extremist government in Israel, which has caused an unprecedented humanitarian disaster in Gaza. This debate is over whether or not the United States of America will have any moral credibility on the international scene. Whether or not we will be able, with a straight face, to condemn other countries who commit barbaric acts if we don't stand up tonight. That is what we are debating.

M. President, the vast majority of the American people and the world community understand that the Netanyahu government in Israel has gone well beyond defending itself from Hamas. Over the last 21 months, it has waged an all-out, illegal, immoral and horrific war of annihilation against the Palestinian people.

This war has already killed some 60,000 Palestinians and wounded more than 143,000 — most of whom are women, children and the elderly. In a population of just over two million, more than 200,000 people have been killed or wounded since this war began. That, M. President, is 10% of the population of Gaza.

M. President, to put that into scale so we as Americans can understand the enormity of what is happening there, if that kind of destruction happened in the United States — if 10% of our population were killed or wounded in war, it would mean that 34 million of us would have been killed or wounded.

The toll on Gaza’s children is unspeakable, and it is literally hard to imagine. The United Nations reports that more than 18,000 children have been killed since this war began. Just this morning, the Washington Post published a list of all these children’s names, and I ask that these names be entered into the Congressional Record.

I should mention that more than 12,000 of these children were under the age of 12, and more than 3,000 children in Gaza have had one or more limbs amputated. That is how this war has impacted the children in Gaza. But it’s not just the horrific loss of life that we are seeing.

New satellite imagery shows that Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment has destroyed 70% of all structures in Gaza. The UN estimates that 92% of the housing units have been damaged or destroyed. Most of the population is now living in tents or other makeshift structures.

And let us not forget, over the last 21 months, these people, most of whom are poor, have been displaced time and time again — told to go here, told to go there, moved around with often no possessions other than the clothing on their backs.

M. President, the health care system in Gaza has been destroyed. Most of the territory’s hospitals and primary health care facilities have been bombed. More than 1,500 health care workers have been killed, as well as 336 UN staff.

Gaza’s civilian infrastructure has been totally devastated, including almost 90% of water and sanitation facilities. Raw sewage now runs all over Gaza. Most of the roads have been destroyed. Gaza’s educational system has been obliterated. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, as has every single one of Gaza’s 12 universities. And there has been no electricity in Gaza for 21 months.

M. President, all of this is a horror unto itself. But in recent months, the Netanyahu government’s extermination of Gaza has made an unspeakable and horrible situation even worse.

From March 2 to May 19, Israel did not allow a single shipment of humanitarian aid into Gaza — no food, no water, no fuel and no medical supplies for a distressed population of two million people over a period of 11 weeks. Since then, Israel has allowed a trickle of aid to get into Gaza, but nowhere near enough to meet the enormous needs of a population besieged for so long.

M. President, when you cut off all food to a population, what happens is not surprising. People starve to death. And that is exactly what Israeli policy has deliberately done — it is causing mass starvation and famine.

Children and other vulnerable people are dying in increasing numbers. In the last two weeks, dozens of young children have died from starvation. Starving mothers cannot breastfeed their infants, and no formula is available, and certainly no clean water to make it, in any case. Hospitals have run out of nutritional treatments, and doctors and nurses who are already treating the desperate, they themselves are going hungry and are fainting from hunger.

The World Food Programme says that the food crisis has reached “new and astonishing levels of desperation, with a third of the population not eating for multiple days in a row.”

Just yesterday, the gold-standard UN-backed food monitoring group, the IPC, issued a new report saying: “The worst-case scenario of famine is currently playing out in the Gaza Strip.”

When mass death from starvation begins, it is difficult to reverse. Aid groups say it will soon be too late to stop a wave of preventable deaths in Gaza, all of which is the direct result of the Israeli government’s policies.

M. President, what I'm going to describe now is gruesome, but I think it is important for us to understand what is happening to the children in Gaza.

Mark Brauner, an American doctor who spent in two weeks in Gaza in June described the situation: “a lot of the children have already passed the point of no return where their physiology has eroded to the point where even refeeding could potentially cause death itself. The gut lining has started to auto-digest and it will no longer have adequate absorptive capacity for water or for nutrition. Death is unfortunately imminent for probably thousands of children.”

That's an American physician who was in Gaza in June.

M. President, what the extremist Netanyahu government is doing now is not an effort to win a war. There is no military purpose in starving thousands and thousands of children. Let us be clear: This is not an effort to win a war, this is an effort to destroy a people.

Having already killed or wounded more than 200,000 Palestinians, mostly women and children, the extremist Israeli government is using mass starvation to engineer the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. They are trying to drive a desperate people out of their homeland, to God knows where.

This is not my speculation; this what Israeli ministers and officials are saying themselves.

A few months ago, the Finance Minister vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed.” Just last week, another current Israeli minister said: “All Gaza will be Jewish... the government is pushing for Gaza being wiped out. Thank God, we are wiping out this evil.” Another Likud member of the Knesset and former minister called for “Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the earth.”

And in the West Bank, we see this agenda being carried out clearly and methodically, with more than 500,000 Israeli settlers now illegally occupying land integral to any future Palestinian state. Earlier this month, the Knesset even approved a non-binding motion in favor of formally annexing the West Bank.

This slow-motion annexation is backed by violence: Israeli security forces and settler extremists have killed thousands of Palestinians in recent years. Israeli settlers brutally beat a young American to death earlier this month, the seventh American killed in the West Bank since 2022. Despite a demand from President Trump’s ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, no one has been held accountable for these deaths.

M. President, people around the world are outraged by what is going on in Gaza right now, and countries are increasingly demanding that Netanyahu’s government stop what they are doing.

France and Canada have said they will recognize a Palestinian state. The United Kingdom has said it will do so, as well, if Israel does not immediately end this war and surge humanitarian aid. And at the UN last month, 149 countries voted for a ceasefire resolution condemning the use of starvation as a weapon of war and demanding an end to Israel’s blockade on humanitarian aid. But it is not just the international community.

Just yesterday, Gallup, one of the best polling organizations in our country, released a new poll that shows that just 32% of Americans support Israel’s military action in Gaza, while 60% oppose it. To my Democratic colleagues here in the Senate, I would point out that only 8% of Democrats support this war, and just 25% of independents. And to my Republican colleagues, I would point out that more and more Republicans are beginning to speak out against the atrocities of this war and the fact that billions and billions of taxpayer dollars are going to a government in Israel waging an illegal war.

Further, M. President, a recent Economist/YouGov poll shows that just 15% of the American people support increasing military aid to Israel, while 35% support decreasing military aid to Israel or stopping it entirely. Just 8% of Democrats support increasing military aid to Israel.

M. President, the American people are haunted by the images coming out of Gaza.

These are desperate children with pots in their hands, crying, begging for food in order to stay alive. That's what the American people are seeing every night on TV, on the internet and in the newspapers. These are emaciated children, their bodies, in some cases, barely more than skeletons. The American people are seeing miles and miles of rubble where cities and towns once stood. They are seeing innocent people shot down while they wait on line to get food while they are starving.

M. President, despite these war crimes, carried out daily in plain view, the United States has provided more than $22 billion for Israel’s military operations since this war began. One estimate, based on Brown University research, calculates that the United States has paid for 70% of the Gaza war. In other words, American taxpayer dollars are being used to starve children, bomb schools, kill civilians and support the cruelty of Netanyahu and his criminal ministers. And that, M. President, is why I have brought these two resolutions of disapproval to block offensive arms sales to Israel.

S.J.Res.34 would prohibit the U.S.-taxpayer financed $675.7 million sale of thousands of 1,000-pound bombs and many thousands of JDAM guidance kits.

And S.J.Res.41 would prohibit the sale of tens of thousands of fully automatic assault rifles.

These arms sales clearly violate the Foreign Assistance Act and the Arms Export Control Act, which prohibit sending arms to countries that violate international law by killing civilians and blocking humanitarian aid — and very few people doubt that that is exactly what Israel is doing. If you want to obey the law, vote for these resolutions.

The rifles in question will go to arm a police force overseen by far-right, extremist minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, who has long advocated for the forcible expulsion of Palestinians from the region, who was convicted of support for terrorism by an Israeli court, and who has distributed weapons to violent settlers in the West Bank. Ben-Gvir has formed new police units comprised of extremist settlers and has boasted about how many weapons he has distributed to vigilante settlers in the West Bank. And you want to give him more rifles? That's what one of these resolutions is about.

These are rifles the Biden administration held back over fears they would be used by extremist Israeli settlers in the West Bank to terrorize Palestinians and push them from their homes and villages.

M. President, U.S. taxpayers have spent many, many billions of dollars in support of the racist, extremist Netanyahu government. Enough is enough.

Americans want this to end. They do not want to be complicit in an unfolding famine and daily civilian massacres. And we here in Congress tonight have the power to act. No more talks, no more great speeches. But tonight, we have the power to act — the power to force Netanyahu and his extremist government to end this slaughter.

The time is long overdue for Congress to use the leverage we have — tens of billions in arms and military aid — to demand that Israel end these atrocities.

At a time when Israeli soldiers are shooting civilians trying to get food aid on a near-daily basis, when extremist settlers are pushing Palestinians from their homes in the West Bank, and when Gaza is witnessing mass starvation as a result of Israeli government policy, the United States should not and must not be providing more weapons to enable these atrocities.

M. President, whatever happens tonight, history will condemn those who fail to act in the face of these horrors.

 

Paid for by Friends of Bernie Sanders

PO BOX 391, Burlington, VT 05402

Watch now   Exclusive: Trump Biographer Reveals New Info on Trump-Epstein Relationship Author Michael Wolff shares explosive new details with MeidasTouch about Epstein and Trump. Ben Meiselas and MeidasTouch Network Jul 31 By Ben Meiselas You asked for it. We delivered. Here at MeidasTouch, we don’t just chase the truth. We expose it. And in an exclusive collaboration, we’re now working closely with renowned journalist and Trump biographer Michael Wolff—a man who’s spent years with the very figures at the center of the Epstein scandal, including Epstein himself. What Wolff just shared with us is explosive, disgusting, and perhaps the most important glimpse yet into why Donald Trump is terrified of the Epstein files being released. In a MeidasTouch exclusive, Wolff recounts an encounter he had with Epstein after Trump was elected. Epstein, with his usual sick smugness, pulled Wolff aside and said: “Wait a minute, I gotta show you something.” What he produced from his safe were Polaroids—a dozen or more photos of Donald Trump with topless girls of indeterminate age at Epstein’s Palm Beach house. One image, etched into Wolff’s memory, shows Trump with a visible stain on his crotch as the girls around him laugh and point. Let me say that again: Girls. Topless. Undetermined age. Laughing. At Donald Trump. With a crotch stain. In Epstein’s lair. And these weren’t rumors or gossip. Michael Wolff says he saw them with his own eyes. And here’s the kicker: Wolff believes those very photos may have been in Epstein’s safe when the FBI executed a search warrant after Epstein’s arrest. Why is the Trump White House so desperate to block the release of the Epstein documents? Why are they threatening lawsuits against anyone, including Rupert Murdoch and the Wall Street Journal, who so much as breathes a connection between Trump and Epstein? Now you know. And the strategy isn’t just to block. It’s to sue the media into silence, shake them down for millions, and destroy the First Amendment in the process. CBS and ABC have already quietly settled with Trump for tens of millions of dollars each, under pressure from the Trump administration. But this time, they may have picked the wrong fight. Rupert Murdoch, no saint himself, despises Trump and has a long history of protecting his empire’s press freedoms. And Michael Wolff provided us with his exclusive message to Murdoch on how to turn the tables on Trump. This is what we do at MeidasTouch. We dig. We expose. And we refuse to back down. We’ll be rolling out more exclusive clips with Michael Wolff over the coming days, so stay tuned. Become a paid subscriber now to support our work, and remember to add the MeidasTouch Podcast on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Meidas+ is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

Bias or Just BS? Another blow to CBS News Dan Rather and Team Steady Jul 31 Credit: Getty Images As bad as it is that CBS’s parent company was extorted by Donald Trump for $16 million, that wasn’t the worst of it. In the final merger deal, New Paramount has agreed to appoint a “bias monitor” who will report directly to Donald Trump, says the chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). This person will work with the company’s new president to review “any complaints of bias or other concerns.” In other words, Paramount is installing a censor at CBS News with a direct line to the president. One would think that if a bias monitor is called for, there has been evidence of blatant bias. By definition, bias is unfair prejudice in favoring one side over the other. The far-right defines it as any story they don’t like. Let’s be clear: By any sane or objective measure, CBS News is not a biased organization, no matter what the president and his FCC chair would have you think. In addition to hiring a bias monitor, Paramount has promised that “news and entertainment programming embodies a diversity of viewpoints across the political and ideological spectrum,” while also eliminating all diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives. Hard to do both, unless what you really mean is embodying only “conservative” (read: Trump’s) viewpoints. CBS has a history of mega-wealthy owners, but no one as rich as Oracle founder Larry Ellison and his son David, whose estimated net worth is $300 billion. Both Ellisons are tight with Trump. One wonders how deep will this go? Does “60 Minutes” now submit scripts for approval by a Trump toady? What about “The CBS Evening News?” Will its reporters have to give equal time to disinformation? And what will be the effect on other news outlets? The intended outcome is to foster fear. Insiders at CBS already have a term for the censor: “hall monitor.” The credibility of the news organization that was my home for more than 40 years is suddenly threatened because of a bogus lawsuit and an FCC that is supposed to be independent but clearly is not. Donald Trump might as well be CEO of CBS. We are now on the slipperiest of slopes. Who will be next? Trump could certainly make similar demands of other news organizations. The White House communications team is doing its damnedest to curve coverage to embellish their boss through lies, intimidation, and extortion. Despite the questionable characterizations from the White House, not every story is left versus right. Most actually deal with the truth, or as near as journalists can get to the truth, versus what Trump & Co. want you to believe is the truth. They have a 10-year history of bald-faced lying. According to The Washington Post, which tracked Trump’s (lack of) truthfulness during his first term, he lied an average of 21 times a day for four years, totalling 30,573 false or misleading claims. Respected historian David Brinkley called him a "serial liar.” The argument that CBS and other legacy media outlets have a left-leaning bias and therefore need monitoring falls apart quickly when you realize the far-right doesn’t want unbiased reporting. They want Trump’s version of the story and his version of the truth. To them, it simply can’t be negative and true. If it goes against their agenda, it’s biased. After all, it was Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway who coined the term “alternate facts.” That is just doublespeak for lies. The network of “alternative facts,” Fox “News,” was formed to combat perceived bias. We all know Fox “News” hits it right down the middle. Trump supporters point to Americans’ declining trust in the news media as a reason for the need for his administration’s “monitoring” of the mass media. Clearly what they intend is not monitoring but censorship, led by a man who eschews the truth and whose constant spewing of propaganda has been a factor in the loss of trust in the media. They are led by the most transparently thin-skinned person imaginable. In the space of a week, the prickly president has officially lashed out at several entertainment programs that have had the temerity to make fun of him. When Joy Behar of the morning talk show “The View” joked that Trump was jealous of President Obama’s swagger, a White House spokesperson told Entertainment Weekly, “Joy Behar is an irrelevant loser suffering from a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome” who “should self-reflect on her own jealousy of President Trump’s historic popularity before her show is the next to be pulled off air.” After the animated series “South Park” aired an episode that depicted a naked Trump hanging out with the devil, the White House said “no fourth-rate show can derail President Trump’s hot streak.” Meanwhile the creators of the cartoon just inked a $1.5 billion, five-year deal with Paramount. Yes, that Paramount. One wonders if the bias monitor will be script doctoring new “South Park” shows. This comes after the questionably timed cancellation of “The Late Show,” whose host, Stephen Colbert, is an ardent critic of the president and the most popular host on late-night television. Everyone interprets the world through their own prism. People are influenced by where they grew up, what their parents taught them, where they went to school, and the beliefs of the people they respect. Journalists included. Journalists sometimes make mistakes. But the media is not a monolith driven by a collective desire to elect Democrats. The vast majority of people I worked with throughout my career were dedicated journalists, rock-solid reporters. They believed in objectivity and curiosity and in questioning authority and standing up to power, regardless of whom they voted for. As details of the new deal at CBS News remind us, the need for independent journalism has never been greater — journalism that doesn’t need sign-off from a censor. The good people and proven professionals of CBS News will do their best under their new circumstances. But they, and the rest of us, are left to ponder where this all leads. Steady is free, but to support my team’s efforts to protect our democracy through the power of independent journalism, we’d appreciate it if you would consider joining as a paid subscriber. It keeps Steady sustainable and accessible for all. If you are not able to upgrade, we understand. No matter how you subscribe, I thank you for reading. Stay Steady, Dan