Donald Trump and his authoritarian friends have successfully destroyed the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), the closest this country has gotten to having a useful and effective publicly-funded media. The CPB this week voted to officially shut down, just months after Republicans passed a massive billionaire tax cut plan that stripped the organization of more than $1 billion in funding.
“For more than half a century, CPB existed to ensure that all Americans—regardless of geography, income, or background—had access to trusted news, educational programming, and local storytelling,” said Patricia Harrison, CPB’s president and CEO.”
As we’ve noted previously, right wingers and authoritarians loathe public broadcasting because, in its ideal form, it untethers journalism from the perverse financial incentives inherent in our consolidated, billionaire-owned, ad-engagement based, corporate media. A media that is easily bullied, cowed, and manipulated by bad actors looking to normalize, downplay, or validate no limit of terrible bullshit (see: CBS, Washington Post, the New York Times, and countless others).
The destruction of the CPB is particularly harmful for local U.S. broadcasting stations. While NPR doesn’t really take all that much money from the public anymore (roughly 1% of NPR’s annual budget comes from the government), the CPB distributed over 70 percent of its funding to about 1,500 public radio and TV stations, which now face existential collapse.
The attacks on the CPB are part of a broader information warfare campaign by the U.S. right wing, which has involved destroying all remaining media consolidation limits, letting radical right wing billionaires buy up major news networks and social media platforms, and launching fake investigations into public broadcasting. They’re afraid of the truth and a functional press, and it’s not subtle.
While Republicans are outwardly hostile to informed consensus, Democrats historically have done a shit job defending journalism or implementing media reform. The press also generally doesn’t like covering this destruction too deeply because consolidated corporate media billionaire ownership doesn’t much like the idea of having to compete with government subsidized alternatives to their bland infotainment dreck.
And even though U.S. public media never truly reached the potential we’ve seen in other countries (usually due to decades of right wing defunding and attacks), this is a generational, devastating loss all the same. Especially in terms of what could have been.
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Given the recent Supreme Court ruling that (surprisingly!) said Trump did not have the executive power to commandeer National Guard troops to aid and abet law enforcement/deportation efforts in Illinois, this ruling [PDF] from the Ninth Circuit Appeals Court was, perhaps, inevitable.
If it’s illegal to do it in Illinois, it’s equally illegal in California (as well as Oregon and any other state the administration has targeted). It may still be legal in Washington DC, but it’s probably only a matter of time before that deployment of National Guard troops (especially those from other states) is declared equally illegal.
The extremely short order by the Appeals Court vacates the stay it had placed on the lower court’s ruling in favor of the rule of law (which is, of course, a ruling against the Trump administration), allowing it to take force. It only runs two pages, but it does contain at least one surprising element: capitulation by Trump’s DOJ.
On December 23, 2025, this court issued an order directing defendants to file a supplemental brief “explaining why the partial administrative stay should not be lifted” in light of the Supreme Court’s decision in Trump v. Illinois, No. 25A443 (U.S. Dec. 23, 2025).
Defendants filed their supplemental brief on December 30, 2025. Defendants represented that “[w]ithout prejudice as to any other arguments defendants may present, defendants do not oppose lifting of the partial administrative stay and hereby respectfully withdraw their motion for a stay pending appeal.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr. Trump said he was, for now, abandoning his efforts to deploy the Guard in Los Angeles, Chicago and Portland, Ore. But he suggested that the administration may deploy them again the future.
“We will come back, perhaps in a much different and stronger form, when crime begins to soar again — Only a question of time,” Mr. Trump wrote on Truth Social.
There’s the patented Trump bravado — something that runs on a clean blend of bigotry and ignorance. Because this loss came at the hands of SCOTUS, administration officials are unable to deploy their usual “activist judge” bitching since the activist judges in the Supreme Court are mostly MAGA-cooked.
And they can’t claim this is the “liberal” Ninth Circuit going rogue, since its ruling is based entirely on the precedent set by the nation’s top court. All that’s left to do is the sort of social media sour grapes shit Trump is known for. At least until the administration decides to break every pane of glass in the Overton Window and just start turning every “Democrat” city into the Kent State campus.
But until that happens, the threats of bringing “liberal” states to heel by commandeering their National Guard are as empty as the heads of the administration’s most powerful members.
American right wing propaganda companies are beginning to fight among themselves as a shrinking number of dodgy media companies vie for domination of the Trump-coddled U.S. propaganda market.
Newsmax executives filed an adorable complaint with the Trump FCC and Brendan Carr (who they actively helped install), pointing out that letting all the local fake-journalism right wing-coddling broadcasters merge into one giant shitty company will be bad for media diversity:
“The company formally filed a petition with the FCC on New Year’s Eve, arguing that the proposed merger “violates the law and creates an unprecedented concentration of power in the hands of one broadcaster.”
Newsmax’s focus on its opposition is that the current ownership limits make a single entity owning enough stations to reach more than 39% of the U.S. TV households illegal. Should the proposed merger with TEGNA go through, Nexstar Media Group would reach nearly 80% of all households.”
These folks literally and actively helped install a corrupt NYC real estate con man president, who openly and repeatedly stated he was going to destroy whatever was left of U.S. media consolidation limits, and now they’re shocked and upset that he’s following through. It’s priceless.
Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy goes on, suddenly seemingly concerned about media consolidation issues:
“This merger would create an unprecedented and dangerous consolidation within the broadcast TV industry, giving them immense control over local news and political news coverage,” Newsmax CEO Chris Ruddy — who signed the filing with the FCC for the network — said in a statement.
“This merger is no better than others the FCC has already blocked,” the filing from Newsmax concludes. “The Commission should reject the proposed transaction because it violates the law, will harm competition, and will damage the public interest.”
Spoiler: Brendan Carr will not block the merger because he doesn’t care about the public interest, functional competition, or healthy markets. He cares about getting a post-FCC revolving door gig at whatever telecom and media giant remains at the end of the Trump administration.
It’s about to get much, much worse under Trump 2.0.
There are a few media consolidation limits left, like rules preventing the big four (ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC) from merging. There’s also the national television ownership rule, which prevents one company from reaching more than 39 percent of all US TV households (again, because the goal was ensuring a more diverse array of opinions and ownership, which is good for media markets and the public interest).
Once TEGNA and Nexstar merge, you can be absolutely sure the remaining company will seek to merge with Sinclair broadcasting, the poster child for right wing agitprop pretending to be local broadcast news. After that, expect efforts by ABC, CBS, FOX, and NBC to both merge with each other, and increasingly merge with existing telecom and tech companies looking to goose stock earnings with pointless consolidation.
Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr is preparing to take a hatchet to all of these remaining restrictions, propped up by the false claim that the modern media environment is just so damned competitive and vibrant, such restrictions harm “free market innovation.” Ironically, the consolidated mass media doesn’t like to report on the problems this will cause because that’s not in ownerships’ best financial interests.
It’s not all downside. These folks are all rushing to try and dominate a traditional media sector aren’t historically competent. And their ham-fisted attempt to replace U.S. journalism with infotainment cack is likely to result in an even greater exodus of viewers as their primary target audience dies off. Which is why right wing billionaires also made sure to acquire Twitterand TikTok.
Somewhere in this hot agitprop mess you’d like to believe that there’s opportunities for individual, independent and worker-controlled media (and ethical, public-interest oriented companies, if any remain) to grab greater audience share. And for actual innovators to disrupt traditional app and media domination. Otherwise, any hope of having an informed electorate and building a useful anti-authoritarian cultural counter-movement grows increasingly dim.
I’ve come to really appreciate the term “Trump derangement syndrome.” I’ve found it incredibly useful, primarily because whenever I hear someone use the phrase unironically, I am comfortable assessing that the conversation with that person will be unproductive and can be ended. It’s a rhetorical device, and not a particularly good one, that is trotted out to dismiss any criticism of Dear Leader/Orange Daddy. There’s no actual substance to it, but it’s been picked up by all kinds of right wing media outlets and even the President himself when he wants to take a shit on a beloved dead man’s undug grave. It’s all just empty calories, candy for a base of fervent fandom that can’t be bothered to actually argue a point.
If it’s a contest on who can tee up the wackiest bill for a veto, Surprise state Sen. Janae Shamp might be going for gold. In a bill filed Monday ahead of the 2026 legislative session, Shamp has proposed that Arizona’s government undertake a study of “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” a phrase that has become popular among Republicans to describe negative sentiments toward President Donald Trump.
Shamp’s Senate Bill 1070 — not the most infamous bill by that name, which it shares with Arizona’s notorious “show me your papers” law — would direct the Arizona Department of Health Services to conduct or support research to “advance the understanding of Trump Derangement Syndrome, including its origins, manifestations and long-term effects on individuals, communities and public discourse.” It also directs the department to identify early documented cases and analyze factors like political polarization. The department would have a year to present its findings or provide an update.
Some have called this a “statement bill.” Some have indicated it’s red meat for the base in order to further Shamp’s career. I call it something much more simple: a giant waste of fucking time, money, and resources that are provided by the people of Arizona. The disrespect to go on a campaign of legislative shitposting, while putting real dollars and people behind the troll, is breathtaking.
So much so, actually, that I hope this passes. It almost certainly won’t survive a veto from Democrat Governor Katie Hobbs of course, but a big piece of me wishes it would. Put this bullshit on full display. Make a circus of it. Show in painful detail exactly how some lawmakers in the Trump cult want to use your money for this nonsense. Then come back to me and tell me once more about the party of limited government and fiscal responsibility.
Or turn this bill completely on its head.
The bill’s definition of “Trump Derangement Syndrome” is amusingly — and perhaps unintentionally — broad. Shamp’s bill defines so-called TDS as “a behavioral or psychological phenomenon that is characterized by intense emotional or psychological reactions to Donald Trump, his actions or his public presence as observed in individuals or groups.”
According to that definition, it appears that “Trump Derangement Syndrome” could also be applied to the intense adoration and worship of Trump that Republicans often exhibit. Perhaps right-wingers like Shamp and Wendy Rogers, who often fawn over Trump, should be in padded cells.
To be clear, I think that would be a giant waste of time as well. But if modern American politics is going to devolve into a troll-off, at least go ahead and try to win it, I guess.
Or perhaps we can all agree that this is stupid, that spending any calories studying a made up affliction that has no basis in reality is silly, and that there are obviously some members of state government who are past their expiration date.
It was a chilly afternoon in January, just a week after President Donald Trump returned to the White House, when I met Yineska, a Venezuelan mother who had been living in the United States for nearly two years. Trump’s election, she told me, had put her in a bind. On his first day back in office, Trump announced that he planned to end the humanitarian parole program that had allowed her, her children and more than 100,000 other Venezuelans to come to the United States in recent years. She feared that the new life she had worked so hard to build was about to unravel.
I went to her home and we talked for hours in the small kitchen. She told me about her two boys, Sebastián and Gabriel, and about Eduard, her partner, who worked as a cook in a restaurant nearby in Doral, Florida, a city beside Miami. She described how difficult it had been to leave her family and small business behind in a once-thriving part of Venezuela, now hollowed out by years of economic decline. The journey to the U.S. was grueling. It took almost seven months for Yineska, her boys and a nephew to cross the dangerous Darién Gap and then Mexico before reuniting with Eduard in Miami.
They managed to rent a safe space to live on the edge of Doral, found work and enrolled the boys in school. Yineska’s oldest was excited about getting an American high school diploma. And then, with the swipe of his pen, the president threatened to take away the stable lives they had finally begun to build. I could hear the fear in her voice as we spoke.
I introduced myself to Yineska because I knew she wasn’t alone. I’m a journalist and filmmaker at ProPublica, and I moved to the U.S. from Venezuela nearly a decade ago. I was fortunate to arrive with a visa that allowed me to work legally.
As I watched Trump’s second presidential campaign, I sensed what might be coming. His return to office would thrust so many Venezuelans who had recently settled in the U.S. between two storm clouds: an American government turning against them and a repressive regime back home that offered no future. Many of my Venezuelan friends saw something entirely different. They believed his return would be a blessing for our community, that he would cast out only those who had brought trouble and shield the rest.
When I left Yineska’s house that first night, I wrote in my notebook: “This is a good family. A working family. They represent so many Venezuelans who came here seeking safety and opportunity — and, in many ways, they represent me, too.”In her story, I saw the chance to highlight the quiet anxiety growing in some corners of Doral that the sense of safety we had found in America could disappear overnight.
Doral is the heart of the Venezuelan diaspora in the U.S. About 40% of those who live there emigrated from my country to escape the deep economic, political and social collapse that has unfolded in the nearly 12 years President Nicolás Maduro has been in power. His authoritarian grip and the country’s unraveling economy caused nearly 8 million people to flee, mostly to other Latin American countries and the Caribbean. It’s the largest mass displacement in the Western Hemisphere’s recent history.
When I came to the U.S., most Latinos were facing the first waves of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. At the time, Trump called Mexican people “bad hombres.” Venezuelans, by contrast, were not viewed negatively. Trump took a hard line against Maduro, imposing heavy economic sanctions meant to weaken his autocratic hold on power. The stance earned Trump broad support among Venezuelan exiles in the U.S., especially in South Florida and in Doral. In the final days of his first term, Trump recognized the danger Venezuelans faced if they were forced to return and issued a memorandum that temporarily shielded those already in the U.S. from deportation.
In the following years, President Joe Biden opened several temporary pathways that allowed more than 700,000 Venezuelans to live legally in the U.S. His administration granted humanitarian parole to Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, like Yineska and her sons, allowing them to reside and work in the U.S. for up to two years if they passed background checks and secured financial sponsors. He also expanded Temporary Protected Status to Venezuelans already living here, which prevented them from being sent back to an unstable Venezuela and granted them work permits.
After securing humanitarian parole and entering the U.S. in April 2023, Yineska and her two sons made their way to Florida to reunite with Eduard. He was in Miami and had applied for TPS. Traveling with Yineska was a nephew who applied for asylum. All of them entered the U.S. legally.
Even as some in the community benefitted from Biden’s policies, many Venezuelans counted themselves among the Latinos who argued that the Biden administration was giving asylum-seekers preferential treatment and not carefully vetting those entering the country. They said that lax oversight had allowed criminals, including members of the Venezuelan gang known as Tren de Aragua, to cross into the U.S. They also wanted Biden to take a stronger stance against Maduro. In 2024, the Venezuelan American vote helped Trump win handily in Miami-Dade County.
Since Trump returned to the White House, that loyalty has been shaken. His administration has targeted Venezuelans in some of its most dramatic and punitive operations. In February, the federal government flew more than 230 Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador where men described being beaten and berated. The administration branded them “the worst of the worst.”
My colleagues found that the U.S. government knew the vast majority had not been convicted of any crime here. Its own data indicated that of the 32 men with convictions, only six were for violent crimes. In response to that reporting, Department of Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin insisted, without providing evidence, that the deportees were “terrorists, human rights abusers, gang members and more — they just don’t have a rap sheet in the U.S.”
At the same time, the Trump administration has sought to end legal protections for families like Yineska’s. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said in April that Temporary Protected Status “was only supposed to be used in times of war or storm or destruction in the home countries of these migrants. It was completely abused.”
“It’s as if you’re standing on a rug that’s pulled from under you,” Yineska told me during one of our many conversations in her kitchen. For Venezuelan families like hers, the idea of “temporary relief” feels detached from reality. They have followed the rules and envisioned a future for their children. To tell them that their safety has an expiration date while their home country remains mired in the same crisis they fled — and is now in the crosshairs of the U.S. military — is a painful contradiction.
Venezuelans I spoke with, including Yineska and Eduard, said migrants who break the law should face consequences, but those who follow the rules should have an opportunity to stay. And even as they confront the administration’s crackdown, many still cheer Trump’s hard-line stance against Maduro because they see a glimmer of hope that Venezuela might finally move toward a brighter future, something Venezuelans everywhere — myself included — dream of. But the future is dimming for those in Doral with temporary status. I see the impact every day. Restaurants are quieter. More apartments are listed for rent. The energy that once defined this community isn’t the same.
I am now a U.S. citizen, but this milestone feels bittersweet as I watch friends pack their belongings to seek opportunities abroad. Few plan to return to Venezuela.
As the hostility of the administration pressed down on people like Yineska and her family, they worried they, too, would be forced to pack their bags. My new film, “Status: Venezuelan,” follows them as they weigh fear against hope, struggling to decide whether to fight for the life they have built or leave everything behind.
New York Governor Kathy Hochul just signed a law that’s going to get expensive fast. The state’s new social media labeling requirement—S4505, courtesy of state Senator Andrew Gounardes—forces websites to slap unscientific warnings on their services claiming that features like algorithmic feeds and push notifications cause addiction.
It’s compelled speech based on contested science, which means it’s blatantly unconstitutional, and courts have already rejected nearly identical schemes. But Hochul and Gounardes either don’t care or don’t understand First Amendment basics, so New York taxpayers are about to fund a losing legal battle whose only real purpose is generating headlines for those politicians pretending to care about “protecting the children.”
(For those keeping track: Gounardes has a track record of pushing unconstitutional anti-internet legislation, and when constituents call him out on it, he tells them they’re just parroting “big tech” talking points. Several of his constituents have forwarded me these dismissive responses. Engaging on substance apparently isn’t part of his process.)
We had warned New York officials that this law was unconstitutional, but Hochul and Gounardes clearly don’t care.
The law targets any site with algorithmic feeds, push notifications, infinite scroll, like counts, or autoplay—basically every modern website—and demands they post warnings claiming these features are addictive. This isn’t based on scientific consensus. It’s based on misreading correlational studies and pretending they show causation.
Hell, even with Texas’s law regarding porn which went to the Supreme Court over its age verification requirements, every court along the way outright rejected the required labeling with unscientific warnings about how porn is unhealthy. Not just the lower court, but the Fifth Circuit, which seems quite willing in other circumstances to go along with anti-internet nonsense. While the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in the case was extremely problematic on other grounds, even it wouldn’t go so far as to say that the government can force websites to label their services based on made up, unsubstantiated claims of “public health.”
Throughout that ruling, the normally censorial Fifth Circuit highlights that the consensus on such public health warnings for pornography are way too contested to require getting around the First Amendment’s prohibition on compelled speech around health warnings:
We are not scientific journal editors, much less social scientists, behavioral experts, or neurologists. The courts generally are not the place to hash out scientific debate, particularly not on so contentious a topic as the impacts of engaging with pornography. Experts must do that in academic journals, studies, and presentations. Therefore, the record leaves us with no option but to declare that the health impacts of pornography are currently too contentious and controversial to receive Zauderer scrutiny.
The science on social media’s “addictive” features is even more contested than the porn stuff the Fifth Circuit already rejected. Yet Hochul’s signing statement declares, with absolute certainty, that “studies show” spending more time on social media increases anxiety and depression. That’s likely backwards.
The studies show correlation, not causation. And actual experts in the field—not politicians cherry-picking abstracts—suggest the causal arrow likely points the other direction. Kids struggling with anxiety and depression aren’t getting adequate professional help and support. So they turn to social media to self-medicate, to find community, to cope. The increased screen time is a symptom, not the cause. Which means taking away that tool—or scaring them away from it with dire warnings—could make things considerably worse for the kids who need support most.
But the key here is that there is no generally agreed upon scientific consensus that social media itself, let alone any specific features of social media, are the cause of depression or anxiety. Yet, Hochul and Gounardes are forcing all sorts of sites to speak and claim that these unproven things are true. That’s dangerous! And obviously unconstitutional.
The bill’s language is so broad that it’ll snag far more than just Facebook and TikTok. Here’s the language in the bill:
“Addictive social media platform” shall mean a website, online service, online application, or mobile application that primarily serves as a medium for covered users to interact with media generated by other users and which offers or provides covered users an addictive feed, push notifications, autoplay, infinite scroll, and/or like counts as a significant part of the services provided by such website, online service, online application, or mobile application.
Techdirt has our comment voting system, which we created years before other systems of “likes” and whatnot, but do we need to warn users that our comments are addictive? Here’s the definition of “like counts”:
“Like counts” shall mean the quantification and public display of positive votes, such as but not limited to those expressed via a heart or thumbs-up icon, attached to a piece of media generated by a covered user.
We don’t publicly “quantify” people voting for “funny” or “insightful,” but we will display an icon when they reach a threshold. Does that qualify? Do I need to pay a lawyer to find out if I have to warn people our comments are addictive? Can I send the bill to Andrew Gounardes?
The whole thing is nonsense.
There can be exceptions, but they appear to be solely the determination of NY’s Attorney General deciding which sites to exempt, which seems to be putting way too much power in the hands of a single politician.
“Addictive social media platform” shall not include any such service or application which the attorney general determines offers the features described herein for a valid purpose unrelated to prolonging use of such platform.
We’ve criticized NY’s Attorney General in the past. Now she has a tool to punish us since she has sole authority of determining whether or not our comments qualify under this law. Doesn’t that seem like a problem? It does to me!
Obviously, this applies to way more than just Facebook and Tiktok. But also more than just our comments. It means almost any site with a recommendation algorithm? That’s probably covered. Auto-playing videos? Covered. Notifications of things that may interest you? Covered. That means news sites, recipe apps, fitness trackers, even email clients could theoretically fall under this law’s scope if they have the wrong combination of features and don’t play nice with NY’s Attorney General.
So what happens next? Either this law gets struck down immediately when challenged in court—wasting taxpayer money on litigation over compelled speech that even the Fifth Circuit wouldn’t tolerate—or it survives long enough to force websites to lie to users about nonexistent dangers, potentially driving vulnerable kids away from the online communities that actually help them cope.
Neither is a good look for New York. But at least Gounardes and Hochul will have gotten their headlines. That must be worth something.
It’s hilarious that a single Salvadoran migrant has made the Trump administration look so pitiful. During one of its first purge efforts, the administration deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia and another 100-plus migrants to El Salvador’s infamous CECOT prison.
Since then, the administration has done nothing but lose when it comes to Abrego Garcia. He not only managed to get returned to the US, but he’s successfully pushing back against the bullshit prosecution the DOJ cooked up to punish him for daring to stand up for his rights.
At this point, the DOJ is almost out of options. The Tennessee judge overseeing the attempted prosecution has not only allowed Abrego Garcia to go free on bail, but has taken setting a trial date completely off the docket until the government can provide an argument for engaging in the prosecution that isn’t just “because he pissed us off.”
The timeline of this prosecution strongly suggests the government can’t contradict Abrego Garcia’s vindictive prosecution allegations. Abrego Garcia’s first experience with US law enforcement happened in November 2022 when he was pulled over for speeding by Tennessee Highway Patrol officers. The locals referred the case to Homeland Security Investigations based on “suspicions of human trafficking.” Garcia, however, was free to go and didn’t even get a speeding ticket.
On March 12, 2025, he was arrested and interviewed by HSI. The decision was made to deport him. Although the 2022 traffic stop was discussed, Abrego Garcia still wasn’t charged with any crime beyond being in the country illegally. HSI closed its human trafficking investigation on April 1, 2025. Again, no charges were brought.
Three days after that, a Maryland court ordered Abrego Garcia returned to the US because his due process rights had been violated. More litigation ensued with the Supreme Court finally weighing in on the issue on April 10. Then this happened:
[O]n May 21, 2025, a Middle District of Tennessee grand jury presented a two-count indictment against Abrego arising from the November 30, 2022 traffic stop. An arrest warrant issued, prompting the United States to return Abrego from El Salvador. Abrego was arrested on June 6, 2025, and was brought to this District.
So far, the government has turned over 3,000 pages to the court. Abrego Garcia hasn’t seen many of these because the government claims almost everything it has provided are privileged communications. The court says that may be true in some cases, but it hardly matters because what it has seen so far undercuts the sworn statements the DOJ has previously made in this case. The government has argued (not very convincingly) that this can’t possibly be vindictive prosecution because the acting US Attorney Robert McGuire did all of this on his own without any input from the rest of the administration.
The central question after Abrego established a prima facie case of vindictiveness is what information in the government’s control sheds light on its new decision to prosecute Abrego, after removing him from the United States without criminal charges. These documents show that McGuire did not act alone and to the extent McGuire had input on the decision to prosecute, he shared it with (Associate Deputy Attorney General Akash] Singh and others.
Specifically, the government’s documents may contradict its prior representations that the decision to prosecute was made locally and that there were no outside influences. For example, Singh contacted McGuire on April 27, 2025, to discuss Abrego’s case. On April 30, 2025, Singh asked McGuire what the potential charges against Abrego would be, whether the charging document would reference Abrego’s alleged MS-13 affiliation, and asked for a phone call before any charges were filed. In a separate email on April 30, 2025, Singh made clear that Abrego’s criminal prosecution was a “top priority” for the Deputy Attorney General’s office (Blanche). He then told McGuire to “sketch out a draft complaint for the 1324 charge [making it unlawful to bring in and harbor certain aliens].”
On May 15th, McGuire emailed his staff that “DAG (Blanche) and PDAG would like Garcia charged sooner rather than later.” Then, on May 16, 2025, counsel of record Jacob Warren emailed Singh and reported, “if the DAG (Blanche) does want to move forward with the indictment on Wednesday, we think it would be prudent to loop in the press office ASAP.” Finally, on May 18, 2025, Singh emailed McGuire and others, and instructed them to “close[ly] hold” the draft indictment until the group “g[o]t clearance,” to file. The implication is that “clearance” would come from the Office of the Deputy Attorney General, not just McGuire.
The upshot is this: the government can assert all the privilege it wants to, but the system of checks and balances means it can’t bypass constitutional rights just by denying criminal defendants access to anything that might support their arguments.
The Court recognizes the government’s assertion of privileges, but Abrego’s due process right to a non-vindictive prosecution outweighs the blanket evidentiary privileges asserted by the government.
For now, the government is barely managing to hang onto a case it’s probably going to end up losing. All the power of the government — especially this government which has repeatedly expressed its disdain for courts, judges, and orders it doesn’t like — is meeting an unexpectedly immovable object. And if Abrego Garcia walks away from this a free man, he’s going to make it clear that even the cadre of thugs currently inhabiting White House cabinet positions still have soft, white underbellies that can be exposed.
“In the public letter, which is addressed directly to Ellison, the signatories declare that they “stand in solidarity” with the 60 Minutes team that worked on “Inside CECOT,” the story that was pulled by Weiss shortly before it was set to air on December 21. They also note that this signaled a “breakdown in editorial oversight” and risked “setting a dangerous precedent in a country that traditionally valued press freedom.”
Ellison, of course, won’t balk. Much like Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, the Ellisons bought CBS (and a part of TikTok) with the goal of information control. The goal is the same goal billionaires have had for generations: dominate mass media, soften its criticism of wealth and power, and befuddle, distract, confuse, and disorient an already pretty fucking dim electorate.
They’re not going to back off that agenda because you said “pretty please.”
It’s worth reiterating that CBS already wasn’t in great shape to begin with. Even before Ellison, the network’s very first response to rising U.S. authoritarianism was to hire more Trump-friendly Republicans. And if you haven’t read it already, this piece by longtime journalist Spencer Ackerman demonstrates how the network already had a very rich history of coddling U.S. wealth and power.
This is, as you might be noticing, a lot harder than billionaires tend to think. It’s very likely that the Ellison effort to dominate media simply drives people away from CBS and toward more ethical, interesting alternatives. There’s really no indication that this weird assortment of nepobabies and contrarian trolls have any idea what they’re doing. They’re not even good at agitprop.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t dangerous. If successful, Ellison could still turn CBS, TikTok, and potentially CNN into an even worse version of Fox News, which is arguably the last thing American media needs.
Ethical folks who care about an informed electorate should fund trustworthy independent and worker-owned media (like Techdirt) whenever possible in the new year.
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