"The Media Capitulation Index is a tracker that rates media conglomerates 'on a scale from "independent" to "vulnerable" to "compromising" to "capitulating" to "obeying" to "propaganda."' Free Press has also released a companion report: A More Perfect Media, with deeper analysis."
~ Melissa Ryan
"The Media Capitulation Index is a tracker that rates media conglomerates 'on a scale from "independent" to "vulnerable" to "compromising" to "capitulating" to "obeying" to "propaganda."' Free Press has also released a companion report: A More Perfect Media, with deeper analysis."
~ Melissa Ryan
"A small cartel of billionaires and conglomerates dominates the U.S. media landscape. Through a history of mergers and acquisitions, they’ve concentrated their control over much of what Americans see, read and hear. Free Press rates the independence of each of these giants and analyzes their ability to defend democracy at a time of domestic and international authoritarianism."
~ Free Press
The war on crypto never ends. The war on privacy, civil rights, security and freedom of speech never ends.
This time we are dangerously close to lose. The "Child Sexual Abuse" (CSA) EU regulation proposal, more aptly nicknamed "ChatControl", will be voted AGAIN this October, and many countries who opposed it last year are now undecided. The proposal at its roots aims at allowing authorities to break end-to-end encryption for the usual reason: "because of the children". As a father of two, I am disgusted by this recurring, cheap rhetoric.
What you can do: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/#WhatYouCanDo
#eu#CSA#CSAM#ChatControl #privacy #security #surveillance #authoritarianism #crypto #cryptography #civilrights
The war on crypto never ends. The war on privacy, civil rights, security and freedom of speech never ends.
This time we are dangerously close to lose. The "Child Sexual Abuse" (CSA) EU regulation proposal, more aptly nicknamed "ChatControl", will be voted AGAIN this October, and many countries who opposed it last year are now undecided. The proposal at its roots aims at allowing authorities to break end-to-end encryption for the usual reason: "because of the children". As a father of two, I am disgusted by this recurring, cheap rhetoric.
What you can do: https://www.patrick-breyer.de/en/posts/chat-control/#WhatYouCanDo
#eu#CSA#CSAM#ChatControl #privacy #security #surveillance #authoritarianism #crypto #cryptography #civilrights
Focus today: How can decentralized technologies help you self-organize through mutualistic, peer-to-peer power?
Ksenia Ermoshina speaks on eQualitie's approach to countering digital authoritarianism, using decentralized tech https://equalit.ie/
And now, an executive order that calls for the involuntary institutionalization of the homeless and mentally ill without due process or clear release criteria. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/07/ending-crime-and-disorder-on-americas-streets/
GOOD! 😈 #Trump#WhiteHouse Rages Over ‘#SouthPark’ Episode, Calls Show ‘Fourth-Rate’
The president cowed #Paramount execs, but the company’s talent is rebelling. Now, the administration is melting down
By Andrew Perez, Asawin Suebsaeng
July 24, 2025
Excerpt: "The twice-impeached, repeatedly indicted president has for decades harbored intense, mean-spirited pop-culture fixations, and that personality trait has not changed six months into his second administration. It would be easier to shrug off his celebrity obsessions as mere cattiness, if waging war on late-night television and its corporate owners weren’t an actual facet of his administration’s sprawling project of #authoritarianism and #fear.
"Prior to the White House’s statement, Rolling Stone had asked several Trump advisers if clips of the latest South Park episode had been circulating among Trump’s staff. One senior administration official replied, 'Of course,' noting how much their phone had lit up about it. A Trump adviser also said they’d seen it, and that as a longtime fan of the series, they found it 'disappointing.' [Who cares!]
"Trump recently secured a hefty payout from Paramount to settle his meritless lawsuit against CBS News’ 60 Minutes, based on his claims that the show selectively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, his 2024 opponent, to 'make her look better.' The agreement is part of a broader pattern of major corporations settling Trump’s baseless lawsuits, agreeing to shovel millions of dollars into his presidential library fund () to accommodate the president.
"The Paramount settlement comes as the firm seeks regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance — and appears to contain more than just a payout to Trump’s library fund. According to Trump, the deal includes a $16 million settlement as well as $20 million 'from the new Owners, in Advertising, #PSAs, or similar Programming.'
"South Park specifically skewered the reported PSA arrangement on
Wednesday. The episode concluded with an AI-generated PSA showing a fully nude Trump wandering the desert with a 'teeny tiny' penis."
Trump's library fund? Do they mean Fantasy Island Book Store? lol! 😂
Archived version:
https://t.co/q8LlyWHJJP
#SkyDance #TrumpIsALaughingStock#RidiculeTheKing#NoKings#TrumpSucks
GOOD! 😈 #Trump#WhiteHouse Rages Over ‘#SouthPark’ Episode, Calls Show ‘Fourth-Rate’
The president cowed #Paramount execs, but the company’s talent is rebelling. Now, the administration is melting down
By Andrew Perez, Asawin Suebsaeng
July 24, 2025
Excerpt: "The twice-impeached, repeatedly indicted president has for decades harbored intense, mean-spirited pop-culture fixations, and that personality trait has not changed six months into his second administration. It would be easier to shrug off his celebrity obsessions as mere cattiness, if waging war on late-night television and its corporate owners weren’t an actual facet of his administration’s sprawling project of #authoritarianism and #fear.
"Prior to the White House’s statement, Rolling Stone had asked several Trump advisers if clips of the latest South Park episode had been circulating among Trump’s staff. One senior administration official replied, 'Of course,' noting how much their phone had lit up about it. A Trump adviser also said they’d seen it, and that as a longtime fan of the series, they found it 'disappointing.' [Who cares!]
"Trump recently secured a hefty payout from Paramount to settle his meritless lawsuit against CBS News’ 60 Minutes, based on his claims that the show selectively edited an interview with former Vice President Kamala Harris, his 2024 opponent, to 'make her look better.' The agreement is part of a broader pattern of major corporations settling Trump’s baseless lawsuits, agreeing to shovel millions of dollars into his presidential library fund () to accommodate the president.
"The Paramount settlement comes as the firm seeks regulatory approval for its merger with Skydance — and appears to contain more than just a payout to Trump’s library fund. According to Trump, the deal includes a $16 million settlement as well as $20 million 'from the new Owners, in Advertising, #PSAs, or similar Programming.'
"South Park specifically skewered the reported PSA arrangement on
Wednesday. The episode concluded with an AI-generated PSA showing a fully nude Trump wandering the desert with a 'teeny tiny' penis."
Trump's library fund? Do they mean Fantasy Island Book Store? lol! 😂
Archived version:
https://t.co/q8LlyWHJJP
#SkyDance #TrumpIsALaughingStock#RidiculeTheKing#NoKings#TrumpSucks
“We keep talking about an imperial court that is slowly but certainly constructing an imperial executive, but none of that can happen without the learned helplessness of an American public that was intended to be sovereign.”
~ Dahlia Lithwick
#Trump#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts#ImperialPresidency#UnitaryExecutive #authoritarianism #fascism
/3
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/07/myth-supreme-court-john-roberts-trump-oz.html
“We keep talking about an imperial court that is slowly but certainly constructing an imperial executive, but none of that can happen without the learned helplessness of an American public that was intended to be sovereign.”
~ Dahlia Lithwick
#Trump#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts#ImperialPresidency#UnitaryExecutive #authoritarianism #fascism
/3
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2025/07/myth-supreme-court-john-roberts-trump-oz.html
"And Trump has been mostly proven right, because the Supreme Court seems to be willing to let him do anything, to exempt him from the laws that prior Presidents had to follow."
#Trump#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts#ImperialPresidency#UnitaryExecutive #authoritarianism #fascism
/2
"'When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.'
Renewed scrutiny of Trump’s ties to Jeffrey Epstein reminds us of just how Trump’s strategy with women — assaulting them without permission, on the assumption that legal accountability was unlikely — mirrors his strategy for governing. Grab ‘em by the institutions."
~ Don Moynihan
#Trump#SupremeCourt#JohnRoberts#ImperialPresidency#UnitaryExecutive #authoritarianism #fascism
/1
https://donmoynihan.substack.com/p/when-youre-a-star-the-supreme-court
The capitulation of major U.S. institutions to Donald Trump is smartly observed in this astute column. https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2025/07/stephen-colbert-cancelled-cbs-trump-paramount/
Bill Goodman, a former longtime host of “Kentucky Tonight” on KET-TV, which broadcasts statewide from Lexington, recalled watching a recent episode of his old show that devoted nearly an entire hour to an in-depth conversation about #Medicaid cuts. The guests engaged in reasoned & intricate arguments from opposite sides of the national debate.
“You don’t find that on commercial television,” he said.
#Trump#Republicans#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
Bill Goodman, a former longtime host of “Kentucky Tonight” on KET-TV, which broadcasts statewide from Lexington, recalled watching a recent episode of his old show that devoted nearly an entire hour to an in-depth conversation about #Medicaid cuts. The guests engaged in reasoned & intricate arguments from opposite sides of the national debate.
“You don’t find that on commercial television,” he said.
#Trump#Republicans#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
The explosion in #media sources is what Capitol Hill #Republicans & their allies point to in justifying this year’s rescission package.
“With cellphones & internet & all that, I think the ability of people almost any part of the country to access all kinds of information sources is, you know, greater than it’s ever been,” Jeff Miron, a VP of Cato Institute, a libertarian research group, said this week—on none other than #NPR.
#Trump#PublicBroadcasting #censorship #authoritarianism #autocracy
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