“California Attorney General Rob Bonta has settled the challenge that he brought with 11 other state AGs to the merger between Paramount and Warner Bros. The deal to settle the suit is both improbable and outrageous. The $81 billion merger will give the Ellison family control of two of America’s biggest media companies, rolled into one behemoth combining film, television, sports, entertainment, and news. It would slash jobs and reduce competition throughout several industries. David Ellison has already destroyed the independence of CBS News. This would allow him to destroy CNN as well. As an indication of the strength of Bonta’s case, on July 20, U.S. District Court Judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín issued a temporary restraining order against the merger that rejected many of Paramount’s arguments, and scheduled a trial for next March. At that point, the Ellisons began applying political pressure for a settlement and threatening that Paramount would leave California if the suit succeeded.” (09/21/26)
“Some people seem to think the Constitution’s framers simply made the whole thing up. ‘Why should we pay attention to what 55 dead white guys wrote 239 years ago?’ they ask. But the framers did not make it all up. The ideas behind the Constitution had been discussed and tested for a very long time. Illustrating this is a document written nearly 20 years before the framers met in Philadelphia—a document that proclaims concepts later incorporated into the Constitution.” (09/20/26)
“When ‘industry leaders’ start advocating for government regulation — or even, initially, for industry-internal ‘standards’ bodies leading to such regulation — they’re not riding to the rescue of humankind, they’re looking out for their own bottom lines.” (09/20/26)
Source: The American Conservative
by Ted Galen Carpenter
“Although the relatively new venue of social media adds a wrinkle, the tactic of the White House or the federal bureaucracy using ostensibly independent analysts to validate the national security state’s propaganda is not. That approach routinely polluted news coverage in the so-called mainstream media throughout the Cold War and has continued to this day. Indeed, the latest scheme is marginally less insidious than many of its predecessors. At least this time the paid influencers are listed on official records as government employees.” (09/19/26)
“Trade deficits are an accounting fiction. We all run trade deficits with our local grocery store—to each of our great advantage. Republicans are obsessed with halting immigration, yet what better way to reduce the pressure for job seekers to immigrate to the United States than encouraging the construction of job-producing factories in Mexico and elsewhere and then just simply trading with them? Free trade boosts consumer choice and economic growth. It reduces prices and makes for freer lives. Unfortunately, the president is doubling down rather than learning the right lesson.” (09/18/26)
“The freedom of speech and of the press is not a gift bestowed by a president, Congress or a federal agency. It is a natural right of all persons. The First Amendment does not create that right; it prohibits the government from infringing upon it. The ability to think, speak, write, criticize, ridicule, persuade, offend, dissent and challenge those in government is among the most fundamental preconditions of the exercise of human liberty. It is also indispensable to personal happiness.” (09/18/26)
“The financial crisis demonstrated how regulations can produce dangerous incentives — and how discretionary intervention can magnify uncertainty. Eighteen years later, policymakers remain tempted by both.” (09/18/26)
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone
“Julian Assange is officially back on Twitter, restoring to the world an important voice we were robbed of by the US empire’s years-long campaign to silence the WikiLeaks founder via lifelong imprisonment for forbidden acts of journalism. Not everyone will remember it but there was a time when this was almost impossible to imagine. It seemed almost certain that this man was going to die in Belmarsh Prison or spend his remaining years in some hellhole in America. Now whenever my nephew catches me or my husband expressing pessimism about something working out, he tells us ‘Hey. Assange is free now’. It’s become our family code for ‘Anything’s possible. Don’t give up hope’. We should really try to appreciate this. Never let hope die. A better world is possible. Anything can be.” (09/19/26)
“As with lies (see previous commentary), the number and variety of laws seems to be exploding in our Fifty States. And the world. We are constantly amazed by what municipalities, tribal councils, county commissions, State legislatures, and of course, the DC cabal passes and tries to (or pretends to) enforce. … It isn’t just the Bible and Americans that have pointed out the dangers and stupidity of too many laws. To say nothing of the content of those laws.” (09/19/26)
