The "Civilized" World

So it looks like Donald Trump and SecDef Pete Hegseth want to livestream the execution of Nidal Hasan by firing squad.

Honestly, the level of depravity here is beyond anything I could have imagined.

President Trump loves a public spectacle. After 14 years on reality television, he has brought one show after another to his presidency — a military parade down Pennsylvania Avenue, the biggest fireworks display ever, even a cage match on the White House’s South Lawn.

Now his administration is planning another unprecedented public exhibition, but one with a macabre twist: livestreaming a firing squad execution.

For the first time, Americans would be invited to watch on their cellphones, laptops and other screens as a convicted murderer is put to death. Never before has an official execution been broadcast live in the United States, turning what in theory is supposed to be the solemn application of justice into an event for an audience of potentially millions.

Under the plan announced this week, those who click online on Dec. 3 would see Nidal Malik Hasan, who gunned down 13 fellow Army soldiers and injured 32 others at Fort Hood in Texas in 2009, shot by rifle-bearing soldiers at the same base on the same day of the week at the same time of day that he opened fire. No limits on who would be allowed to watch were described, even though an Army manual restricts witnesses to an execution.

………

The idea seemed to shock even some of his colleagues in the administration. Vice President JD Vance cast doubt that it would be livestreamed, telling reporters that “I don’t know that that’s going to happen” and adding that he would not watch if it does. But Mr. Trump said he signed off on it. “Did I approve?” he said. “Absolutely I did.”

………

Even some supporters of capital punishment flinched at the idea of livestreaming Mr. Hasan’s execution, calling it medieval and barbaric. “Hasan should face the death penalty, but making his execution public and streaming it? Beyond disgusting,” said Senator Thom Tillis, Republican of North Carolina. “Public executions are what oppressive dictatorships like Iran and Afghanistan do. It should not be happening in America.”

When Tom f%$#ing Tillis is taking the moral high ground, something is profoundly wrong. 

I Am Amused

It appears that Fox News has canceled Karl Rove for his criticism of Trump and MAGA.

So, the rat-f%$#er of his generation has been rat-f%$#ed by his descendants.

Good. 

Fox News political analyst Karl Rove has not appeared on his network’s weekday programming for the last three weeks, even as the midterm elections loom. Rove’s absence coincides with his newsmaking public statements warning about extremism within the Republican Party — and his denunciation by President Donald Trump.

While Rove appeared alongside Fox senior political analyst Juan Williams on the October 4 edition of Fox News Sunday (which airs on Fox broadcast stations and reairs later in the day on Fox News), he last appeared on a Fox weekday program on September 14, when anchor Martha MacCallum interviewed him on The Story.

Rove’s absence at a time when his analysis would theoretically be most useful is notable. He averaged seven weekday Fox appearances per month from March through August, and that interview on The Story was his 5th of September, according to a Media Matters review of our database.

………

Rove’s disappearance from Fox's weekday airwaves overlaps with his increasingly strident criticism of extremist elements in the GOP, which has drawn attention from other news outlets.

Two days after Rove’s most recent Fox weekday appearance, The Wall Street Journal published a column in which the veteran Republican strategist and former top aide to President George W. Bush called out the “raw, uncut bigotry” of Texas GOP candidate Bo French, vowed to “vote for only the second Democrat in my life” rather than support French’s campaign, and warned that “the GOP has a growing number of Bo Frenches—and not only in Texas.”

Rove doubled down during a September 26 appearance at the Texas Tribune Festival and drew more headlines for his lament that the Republican Party is “being infiltrated by people like Bo French” and the white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes, who he described as “a Nazi.”

Rove has been using racism as a political tool his entire career.

I have no sympathy for him. 

Oswald Mosley and Adolph Hitler are Fighting

My bad, I mean Jacob Rees-Mogg and Tucker Carlson.

To quote Declan Patrick MacManus, "I used to be disgusted, now I try to be amused.

The former Tory minister Jacob Rees-Mogg has found himself defending Britain’s decision to fight against Adolf Hitler after inviting the US rightwinger and Vladimir Putin sympathiser Tucker Carlson into his home for an interview.

During the encounter, Carlson repeatedly suggested the west was to blame for inviting aggression from Russia and said of the prospect that Britain could have lost to Hitler: “Who cares?”

Rees-Mogg, who lost his parliamentary seat in 2024, appears to have agreed to host Carlson’s podcast show after carving out a post-politics career as a commentator.

………

During the interview, Rees-Mogg said he was very surprised that Carlson was “verging on defending Hitler”, adding: “I think this is not really what you want to be doing.”

Carlson replied: “Yeah, I guess I’m just a secret Nazi. I’m actually not a secret Nazi … and hardly a public Nazi.”

………

The interview has raised eyebrows in the US as well as Britain, with the Republican Mike Huckabee, the US ambassador to Israel, posting on X: “When it seemed impossible for Toxic Tucker to descend deeper into the sewer here he goes opining that UK should have let Nazis take over. Forget that Hitler murdered 11 million people? I thought Tucker was against killing? He needs help. Serious help.” 

 When Mike f%$#ing Huckabee has the moral high ground, something is amiss.

Also, Reese-Mogg is Mosley.

The Fix is In

I not particularly surprised that the major social media networks are refusing ads for Alex Gibney's new Elon Musk documentary.

Tech bros gonna protect tech bros.

All of the major social media platforms are refusing to run ads for the upcoming Musk documentary, which hits theaters Oct. 9, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Google-owned YouTube and Meta’s Facebook and Instagram have declined to run trailers for Musk, much to distributor Bleecker Street’s surprise. So has TikTok, which in the U.S. is run by an Oracle-backed joint venture. According to THR, all three tech firms cited reasons related to “political content.”

TikTok does not allow political ads. Meta has restrictions on political ads but not a strict ban, just pre-authorization. YouTube only requires disclosures. But all of those restrictions have until now mostly been understood as applying to political campaigns/parties and advocacy or lobbying groups, not Hollywood.

Not only has Elon Musk-owned X (née Twitter) refused to acknowledge Bleecker Street’s ad inquiries, X won’t “even accept advertising for any of its other films on its upcoming calendar,” THR wrote.

THR reported TikTok and YouTube “are still entertaining the petitions” from Bleecker Street to reconsider, though Meta is not and has rejected the distribution company’s appeal. None of the social media companies immediately returned THR’s requests for comment.

………

In other words, this is exactly the kind of thing that might piss off Musk, who has a notoriously thin skin and needs no excuse to slip into a fit of rage. Musk already has: he responded by tweeting Gibney has “ZERO integrity” and is a “horrible human.”

Musk’s webs of companies and business interests weave all throughout Silicon Valley and beyond—that’s how you become the world’s first temporary trillionaire. He has wealth, business relationships to threaten, and other methods of influence, not to mention an army of right-wing trolls and/or government officials who indulge his every grievance. No telling whether he’s called any of those favors in, or tech firms are just helping shush the baby as a matter of habit.

………

But Musk can’t stop people from talking about how much he doesn’t want them to see Musk, can he? Perhaps that Streisand effect will kick into motion soon enough.

One can only hope for the Streisand effect.

This Has Me Stoked

Disney is rebooting the Darkwing Duck animated series with Mark Hamill as the voice of the main character.

Disney is about to get dangerous. Six years after news of the project first broke, Disney has greenlit a brand-new animated version of the hit 1990s show Darkwing Duck for Disney+. Mark Hamill will voice the title character, with Seth Rogen producing and providing the voice of Launchpad McQuack.

The show is a continuation of the story told in the original series, which ran for 91 episodes in the early 1990s. “For the last 35 years, Darkwing Duck has been trapped in his worst nightmare: an alternate world that’s never heard of his superhero exploits,” the official description reads. “Now a rebellious teen named Duckie who knows all about his heroic past shows up to pull this ego-fueled vigilante back into battle. Together, this unlikely duo will get dangerous to fight old enemies like Negaduck and Megavolt and reunite with allies Launchpad, Gosalyn, and Morgana to save the entire universe.”

Duckie is voiced by Lilimar, who voiced Val in Inside Out 2. Lizzy Caplan is Gosalyn Mallard, Dan Stevens is Glade McTowers, and it’s being showrun by Sean Tretta (Star Trek: Picard) and Borja Peña Gorostegui. The original creator of Darkwing Duck, Tad Stones, consulted on the series.

“Like every other fan of the original show, I’m excited to see Darkwing getting dangerous again in a whole new series,” Stones said in a press release. “The new creative team has certainly amped up the action and comedy without forgetting the Disney heart. This series places DW in the literary tradition of Robin Hood, Zorro, and Sherlock Holmes, heroes whose lore has been reinterpreted by multiple creators in multiple mediums. They explored the core of those characters by tossing them into new eras, new relationships, and even new universes. No matter when or where, Darkwing Duck will appear in a cloud of blue smoke to grab the spotlight.”

There are some risks, but, "Like the chicken said, you knew the job was dangerous when you took it." (An actual homage of Superchicken used in the original series.)

I cannot wait for this to show up on the torrents. (Like I'm gonna give a cent to the f%$#ing mouse) 

Of Course They Caved

Despite every indication that they would win in court, state attorneys general have settled with Paramount for little more than some magic beans, because our political system has been deeply corrupted  by big money.

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.

In late August, Bonta canceled a scheduled meeting with representatives of Paramount after leaks of supposed settlement talks began appearing in the media, accusing Paramount of bad-faith tactics.

The tactics never changed. Paramount, Bonta, and other AGs spent the weekend in “advanced settlement talks” in which Paramount would stay in California, agree to 30 film releases per year among the two studios under threat of divesting some production companies if they don’t, invest $1.5 billion, and add an editorial board to allow for independence at CNN and CBS. The leaks of the deal very likely came from Paramount.

………

Yet Bonta caved under pressure, after being abandoned by every major politician in California (from current Gov. Gavin Newsom to heir apparent Xavier Becerra to Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass), all of whom are worried about jobs in the event of a Paramount exit. But Paramount’s stated plan post-merger includes $8 billion in “savings,” which translates into the loss of tens of thousands of jobs.

So, the right-wing nepo-baby, and his even more right-wing dad, end up with control over much of the US media landscape.

This sucks. 

Of Course They Are

Is anyone at all surprised that nepo-baby David Ellison is paying for a massive astroturf campaign in an attempt to secure approval for Paramont's takeover of Warner Brothers?

Dishonesty and greed is all that he has.

We’ve well established how the $111 billion Paramount and Warner Brothers merger is terrible for labor, creatives, consumers, and markets. But the kind of behaviors Paramount leadership have been engaged in to sell the deal also give a pretty clear indication what kind of company we’re dealing with, and why they shouldn’t be allowed to control an even bigger slice of U.S. media.

Recent desperate moves by the company include accusing all deal critics of being “antisemitic,” threatening to take Paramount out of California if states attempt to enforce U.S. antitrust laws, and running press leak and PR campaigns (in close collaboration with their Trump allies) making all sorts of patently false claims as to why more media consolidation is great for America.

Paramount’s also been caught using an “astroturf” — or fake grass roots organization — to try and make it appear that the giant merger has more public support than it does.

Let us note here that in addition to being unethical, such a tactic is really stupid.

It is entirely possible that much of the public does not know or does not care about the merger, but any showing of grass roots support is transparently fraudulent on its face.

David Ellison is too f%$#ing stupid to be allowed control of that much of the US media landscape.

Keith Olbermann's Back

‮Keith Olbermann's Front‭Olberman has been blogging regularly for a few years now, and he took a break on May 11 to get treatment for atrial fibrillation.

The update, which he posted on Thursday, and which I have embedded below as a YouTube vid, is a one off, but he seems to be recovering nicely, and it looks like he will be back to twice weekly blogs in the next month or so. 

I figured that I should make note of this, if just because it gave me an opportunity to steal a joke. 

A virtual Kewpie doll to any of my reader(s) who can identify the source of the joke.

I agree with his conclusion in this episode, that the headlines have not changed over the past 12 weeks. 

It's kind of depressing actually. 

Pass the Popcorn

The BBC has secured an order requiring that Donald Trump provide detailed information about his businesses for his defamation lawsuit.

This is a no-brainer from a legal perspective.  In addition to the requirement that the statements be false (absence of malice for public figures), but it also requires a showing of harm.

In this case, in addition demonstrating harm to the delicate feelings of snowflake Trump, this means that Trump has to demonstrate real and measurable financial harms.

Donald Trump must divulge detailed financial information from his many businesses as part of his $10bn defamation lawsuit against the British Broadcasting Corporation, a federal judge ruled during a discovery hearing on Tuesday, according to news reports.

The ruling by US magistrate judge Enjoliqué Lett could open a unique window into the hundreds of businesses owned by Trump’s family trust. It also highlights a potential drawback for Trump’s strategy of bludgeoning critical media with multibillion-dollar lawsuits.

Trump filed a defamation lawsuit late last year seeking $10bn in damages over a 2024 documentary called “Trump, A Second Chance,” which features a scene of the speech he made before his supporters attacked the US Capitol on 6 January 2021. The scene splices lines together to make it appear that Trump directly urged his supporters to attack. The BBC apologized to Trump last year for the misleading edit, but has argued the president’s defamation claims have no merit.

………

Trump’s lawyers are also trying to dodge the forced release of his financial records by limiting the scope of the lawsuit. Alejandro Brito, a Trump lawyer, told Lett on Tuesday that he intends to amend the current complaint, according to Politico. The amended complaint will say the documentary only caused reputational damage, rather than undermining his businesses, making the financial disclosures unnecessary.

But for now, the BBC can move forward with requests for Trump’s financial records. The BBC aims to argue that Trump’s wealth skyrocketed since the documentary aired, contradicting the claim that the documentary undermined his businesses.

I am thinking that if the BBC gets this data and looks into it thoroughly, they should find some convincing data of self-dealing and bribery.

If they find such evidence, they should report on it. 

It's Only 14 Days, But

I am heartened that federal district judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín has issued a 2 week injunction against the Paramont-Warner merger.

The only way this deal makes sense is through the extraction of monopoly rents, and they need those rents sooner rather than later.

With nepo-baby David Ellison's Paramount Skydance Corporation being largely dependent on his dad's Oracle wealth, and given that Oracle bonds are rapidly approaching junk bond status, any delay in the deal could both kill the deal and Paramount Skydance.

A federal judge on Monday ordered Paramount and Warner Bros Discovery to halt their $81bn merger for at least two weeks, allowing states that are challenging the deal more time to see their case through in court.

Twelve states, led by California, sued to block Paramount’s pending buyout of Warner last week – alleging that such a combination would “extinguish competition” in Hollywood and lead to fewer choices for consumers, particularly moviegoers and cable customers across the US.

The states’ top prosecutors called on Warner and Paramount to not close the transaction until after a court had time to “fully evaluate” their claims. And when the companies refused, they filed for a temporary restraining order – which is what district judge Araceli Martínez-Olguín granted on Monday. That opens the door to a potential preliminary injunction that the states are also seeking to effectively block the deal.

………

The temporary restraining order granted on Monday halts the deal from progressing for at least 14 days, although the pause could be extended for up to 28 days. The court has set 3 August as a date for a hearing on the states’ preliminary injunction motion, although that schedule could also be pushed back.

This does not appear to be anything more than a delay to allow for evidence to be presented and evaluated, but 14 days is better than no days.

Remember When Colbert Played the Vince Guaraldi Peanuts Music on his Last Show?

He ended up costing CBS a lot of money.

No amount disclosed for the settlement, the Lee Mendelson Film Productions announced that, "It would donate all proceeds to World Central Kitchen, the disaster-relief food non-profit founded by chef José Andrés."

Sweet, 

Today in Bullsh%$

In response to complaints about the Paramont takeover of Warner Bros. Discovery about dodgy foreign funding, mass layoffs, and the destruction of journalism at the merged entity, chief legal officer Makan Delrahim is saying that this is all just antisemitism.

Way to minimize the credibility of any claims of antisemitism.

Paramount is clearly getting nervous about the growing opposition to its $111 billion merger with Warner Brothers, which is being intensely criticized for dodgy overseas funding, its dire impact on journalism, and the inevitable mass layoffs, consumer price hikes, and shittier overall product that always results from debt-fueled mega-media consolidation.

There’s a certain desperation creeping into their arguments as state regulators send signals that they’re considering filing an antitrust lawsuit. Top Paramount lawyer Makan Delrahim recently sat down for an interview with the billionaire-owned LA Times (non-paywalled alternative), and insisted that opposition to the company’s terrible merger spree is somehow antisemitic:

“Let’s be honest,” he told the Times. “There’s a lot of fear-mongering, particularly from people in Washington, D.C. They are running a political campaign. Some of these people are trying to inflict harm on this transaction, really because of their own antisemitic views. Regulators and law enforcement officials will see right through that.”

That is, of course, a whole lot of bullshit. Delrahim is trying to pretend that opposition to the deal stems from the fact that billionaire Trump-donor Larry Ellison, who has retooled CBS News to be more friendly to Benjamin Netanyahu, is Jewish. But if there’s any personal ire directed at Ellison as it pertains to the deal, it’s that he has a generational track record of being a foundationally terrible person.

The real-world concerns about the deal have focused on things like the fact it’s heavily financed by Saudi Arabia and China. And there’s fifty years of history showing that deals like this (especially deals involving Warner Brothers) routinely result in mass layoffs, higher prices, and both a shittier company and a less healthy film and television production market.

Way to give Nazis an excuse to Nazi.

It Was Always a Scam

Given that most of their engagement was AstroTurf, and most of their funding came via the Koch brothers and their ilk. it is no surprise that Ben Shapiro and the Daily Wire are imploding.

They are a classic example of, "The Bezzle," which is generally defined as the interval between when someone has been cheated out of money, and when they realize that this is the case.

The conservative media company Daily Wire was once a star of the MAGA digital universe, dominating social media feeds and podcast apps with a blend of “anti-woke” commentary, viral Facebook posts and culture-war stunts.

In the run-up to the 2020 presidential election, the company co-founded by conservative pundit Ben Shapiro ranked as Facebook’s top English-language publisher for three straight months. Its sarcastic news items on then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s salon visits gained millions more views than the websites of Fox News, CNN and the New York Times.

But the company now faces sweeping layoffs and heavy skepticism over its online future, with some critics — including former employees, such as Candace Owens — arguing its relevance to the right has irrevocably collapsed.

Its YouTube channel’s subscriber base has plateaued or shrunk in 15 of the 16 months since the start of 2025, according to data from the analytics firm Social Blade. And in an analysis of 20 conservative news sites, the Daily Wire has consistently ranked among the biggest year-over-year traffic losers since last summer, according to estimates from the market intelligence firm Similarweb that were compiled by the media newsletter TheRighting. In March, the website’s traffic was half of what it was the year before.

Here is hoping that Shapiro ends up washing dishes for a living. 

 

There is Fail, There is F%$#ing Fail, and then there is

Fail so bad that Ted Cruz condemns your actions.

America's most loathsome Senator has condemned the FCC for its witch hunt against Jimmy Kimmel.

Jimmy Kimmel has acquired an unexpected defender amid his feud with Donald Trump: Texas Sen. Ted Cruz.

The MAGA Republican, who famously clashed with the president during the 2016 primaries before supporting him, bashed the administration’s attempts to pressure Disney and ABC News into firing Kimmel.

“It is not the government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police,” Cruz told Punchbowl News of the Federal Communication Commission’s move to force ABC to file for license renewals.

Stopped clock time, I guess. 

Mind Officially Blown

Heinz Doofenshmirtz as a good parent who has turned aside his own trauma to be a loving father and family man?

He's right, and I am shocked. 

Headline of the Day

The U.S. Press Loves To Pretend Widespread Corruption Doesn't Exist

—Karl Bode, describing how our mainstream media studiously ignores rampant corruption in the United States

Even before Donald Trump and his minions turned up corruption to 11, the United States was remarkably corrupt by the standards of "First World" nations.

I just want you to pause and notice something.

The next time you're reading a news story about a particular area of U.S. dysfunction – whether it's gun control, health care, or air travel – notice if the reporter mentions, at literally any point, if corruption and unchecked corporate power sits squarely and undeniably at the heart of the problem.

Here's an example. Earlier this month the New York Times, considered by some to be the pinnacle of U.S. journalism, wrote this story about how the Trump-stocked Supreme Court was preparing to neuter the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to battle climate change (spoiler: they succeeded). 

………

But when the article proceeds toward what we're supposed to do next, you hit this gargantuan turd in the road:

A more definitive way to address the issue would be for Congress to weigh in. Democrats could pass legislation that defined greenhouse gases as air pollutants under the Clean Air Act, giving the E.P.A. the explicit authority to regulate them. Conversely, Republicans could enact legislation that said the opposite.

But in the half-century since Congress passed the Clean Air Act, it has never mustered the political will to decide this question. And it seems exceedingly unlikely to happen at a time when climate change has become such a polarizing topic.

Why this Congressional gridlock persists is left as an open question for the reader to puzzle through.

The reason we don't have effective protections for climate change (or functional gun control, or universal health care, or cheap broadband) is because the U.S. Congress is often too corrupt to function. Monied interests have polluted state and federal legislatures to the point they no longer serve the public interest.

(emphasis original)

It's all about the Benjamins. 

Buck Fezos

The Washington Post just laid off 30% of its reporters, shuttering its sports desk, it's Middle East offices, it's Silly Con Valley offices.

Amazon Bezos never wanted the paper as anything beyond a political bargaining chip that would allow him to generate legislation to facilitate his rent seeking at Amazon. 

If you recall the story of the frog and the scorpion, the question as to why he would do this is simple, it is his nature.

In August of 2019, Senator Bernie Sanders faced negative coverage of his Presidential campaign by a vaunted national newspaper, the Washington Post. This publication was revered in D.C., having broken the Watergate scandals and brought down Richard Nixon in the 1970s. It had delivered a host of important stories over the decades since, seen as a public trust so important that Steven Spielberg made a movie about the publisher’s decision to help publish the Pentagon Papers. But like most newspapers, it had stumbled in the early 2010s.

………

In 2013, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post for $250 million. Local elites in D.C. were immensely grateful to Bezos. The paper adopted the slogan “Democracy Dies in Darkness” and took on a sharp edge against Donald Trump. Bezos had deep pockets, and had saved the town’s pride.

Six years later, Sanders, running for President against what he called the billionaire class, did something unusual in polite liberal society. He said Bezos had an incentive to shade coverage of politicians he didn’t like. Sanders had been discussing how Amazon doesn’t pay enough in taxes.

………

And that comment created a bitter reaction within D.C. towards the populist politician. The executive editor of the Washington Post, a deeply respected man named Marty Baron (played by Liev Schreiber in the 2015 film “Spotlight”), responded the way all of D.C. felt. He called Sanders a conspiracy theorist.

………

What a difference six years makes.

Yesterday, the Washington Post engaged in layoffs across the organization, getting rid of the Middle East team, war correspondents, its entire sports department, and everyone in the West coast office who covers big tech. Local coverage will be cut to just 12 people. Overall, Bezos is firing 300 out of 800 reporters, decimating what is widely regarded as a key newspaper covering government in America. “It’s an absolute bloodbath,” said one employee.

Importantly, the paper also fired the reporter tracking Amazon. The stated reason is that the company is losing money due to a loss of local market power, falling ad revenue, and generative AI. 

………

As Louis Brandeis once said, “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.”

That is a lesson Jeff Bezos is helping to impart to all of us, once again. 

The power of these people needs to be broken, period, full stop.

Lies the Media Tells Us

Notwithstanding the media reports, the 2025 murder rate fell significantly.

The headlines of 2025 painted a portrait of America in chaos, driven by the financial logic of America’s media ecosystem. It’s number one product isn’t news, but fear.

“NYC youth crime doubled since controversial state Raise the Age Law kicked in,” exclaims one hysterical New York Post headline from September. “Business owners express frustration over crime surge in Federal Hill,” reads a banner from FOX45 News, a local outlet in Baltimore. “Office shooter’s rampage shows terrifying rise of motive-free violence, experts warn,” goes a Fox News heading from August.

The scary headlines were all underscored by inflammatory rhetoric from the Trump administration, which continued to insist that America’s cities are crime-ridden hell holes well into the new year.

Selective media coverage of crime certainly isn’t a new phenomenon, though it’s worth revisiting — especially because new data suggests 2025 was actually one of the least violent years for the US in over a century.

According to fresh Council on Criminal Justice crime statistics, Axios reports, murder rates fell 21 percent last year across the 35 largest cities in the US. It’s the single largest one-year-drop ever, the publication reports, and possibly the lowest homicide rates we’ve seen as a nation since the year 1900 — when the last generation of frontier outlaws were still robbing train cars.

Homicide wasn’t the only crime that fell in 2025. Out of 13 crimes tracked by the Council on Criminal Justice, 11 of them were lower last year than in 2024. Aggravated assaults, for example, fell by 9 percent across the 35 cities, while gun assaults and robberies dropped off by 22 and 23 percent, respectively. (The only category that increased was drug crimes, up 7 percent — and which are nonviolent.)

This a toxic combination of the, "If it bleeds, it leads," ethos of local news and the oligopolistic nature of news, particularly broadcast news/

They are selling a lie. 

From the "Mind" of Bari Weiss

Update — Here is another clearer view of the "Whiskey Fridays with Tony Dokoupil" staging at CBS News:

[image or embed]

— Prem Thakker ツ (@premthakker.bsky.social) January 14, 2026 at 11:52 AM

OMFG, it's Real

UPDATE: Jack Daniel’s parent co. Brown-Forman tells me it has nothing to do with CBS’ “Whiskey Friday” concept. “Jack Daniel’s is not involved in any such segment, nor do we have any awareness of the segment and any potential partnerships or sponsorships.”

[image or embed]

— Dave Infante (@dinfontay.com) January 14, 2026 at 9:44 AM

Also, Jack Daniels had no knowledge of this, and wants nothing to do with it.

After the continuous stream of disasters coming from CBS News since Bari "Shanda far de Goyim" Weiss took over, I thought it could not get any more awful.

I was wrong.

The latest idea to spring from the "Very Special brain," aka the Editor in Chief of the Tiffany Network's news division is to have her disastrous choice for CBS Evening News anchor drink on the air once a week.

No, I am not fucking joking.

The new era of CBS Evening News, under the editorial direction of Bari Weiss and featuring new anchor Tony Dokoupil, is off to a rough start. Weiss is meddling and pouting, Dokoupil is not ready for primetime, and the ratings are already slumping compared to last year's numbers. These guys need a win, badly. On Tuesday, they tried to get one by securing an exclusive interview with President Donald Trump at a Ford factory in Dearborn, Mich. 

………

Dokoupil isn't equipped to be an effective nightly news anchor, and he's not the best option to interview a deranged president who can rightly point out that his current career trajectory is entirely owed to the rise of reactionary forces in the country. Surely, this former morning show host has something else to offer. Perhaps we can't judge him until we've seen him fully unleashed on Whiskey Fridays, as reported by Zeteo's Prem Thakker:

………

Is this the exact sort of idea that I've personally seen cooked up by a beleaguered sales team at a struggling digital media company? No comment, but that doesn't make it any less awesome. The CBS News ratings are going to go through the roof as soon as Dokoupil is allowed to get behind this desk and say, "Welcome to Whiskey Fridays, presented by Jack Daniel's, where we drink like we mean it and report like we give a damn."

So we have a political poseur pseudo intellectual hired by Larry Ellison's useless nepo-baby, and we get a, "Sponsored by Jack Daniels, we'll tell the good old boys from Lynchburg Tennessee next week," drunk news.

Bari?  You do know that Comedy Central already has this basic show, don't you?

It's called Drunk History. 

Damn!

Howie Klein, former music executive and later a political activist, has died at age 77 of pancreatic cancer, not something I would wish on anyone.

My exposure to him was primarily as the proprietor of the blog Down With Tyranny,  but he was everywhere in pop music during his earlier career.  (Not sure what will happen to the site with him gone)

He and I were on the same page about the Democratic Party establishment (There is no Democratic Party establishment).

Howie Klein, a veteran record executive, radio DJ and political activist who was a leader in the famously artist-friendly Warner Music family during its golden era of the 1980s and early ‘90s, died Wednesday after a long battle with pancreatic cancer, according to a social media post from his sister. He was 77.

He was a top executive at Sire Records during the label’s peak era — a time when the label had everyone from the Smiths and Depeche Mode to Madonna and Lou Reed on its roster — and later was president of Warner’s Reprise label from 1989 to 2001. He was a co-founder of the San Francisco-based 415 Records during the 1970s, and was a strong and vocal presence in the music industry’s anti-censorship efforts in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, focusing on political activism in his later years.

You can read the rest of the article for his voluminous background in music, particularly Punk.

He occasionally wrote about music on DWT, and I wish that he had written something on the Ur-Punk band Death.