It's a corrupt patronage system out in the open, not actually "state control," it's major companies (oligarchs) willingly being controlled.
CBS doesn't "fear the FCC"... who didn't even have a rule. It's just open corruption.
The administration wants to signal what it wants to CBS, without actually doing anything that they could lose in court.
CBS wants to signal they are willing to help the administration by doing the censorship "out of fear" when really they just want a friendly relationship with the administration.
It's exactly the way oligarchs will give patronage to maintain their position in the hierarchy where the leader gives the orders.
It's what happens in Russia. It's literally how the mob does shit: "I didn't tell anyone to pay me any bribe. I just said that I'm in need of money and I'm kind to my friends. They chose to pay me of their own volition."
I know things may look bleak, but America has a large, loud, well-funded contingent of free-speech advocates. As soon as Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, and Thomas Chatterton Williams hear about this, there'll be hell to pay!
Not Larry, David his son. For some reason people want to keep pretending that the apple doesn't fall far from the tree though. Seen multiple puff pieces about how David just loves movies so much and his dad is the political one.
“They were careless people, David, Megan, and Larry- they smashed up things and creatures and then retreated back into their money or their vast carelessness or whatever it was that kept them together, and let other people clean up the mess they had made.”
Recall it was the same lawnmower^W Ellison-owned CBS that last minute pulled a 60 Minutes report on CECOT. They didn't blame that one on the government.
Given that, I believe the higher ups at CBS wanted this to happen, but are colluding with the executive branch or misrepresenting the situation to shift responsibility.
we'll need more facts but if there is substance to this then the reaction from Bari Weiss (now cbs news editor-in-chief and a long-time public advocate of free speech) and team will be interesting.
It's kind of ironic, so much drama all for a safe centrist corporate democrat. Although perhaps that's why it's such a big deal for liberals, it's oligarchical infighting. It's even more confusing that he's funded by the same billionaires that trump is.
- Once print newspapers were no longer a thing, even local news outlets are struggling to stay alive, and are resulting to sensationalism and entertainment as news
- Corporate sponsors retain a huge influence in mainstream news (or have outright purchased it and use it for partisan politics).
- "Social" media resides in (you guessed it) corporate-owned walled gardens.
- Even those willing to speak out are being targeted by federal agencies
Wondering where others are finding great places to learn what's going on, what's actually relevant to me, and what I can actually do about it.
Follow trusted journalists that have a history of superb journalism. You have to decide what is good for yourself. Also industry specific journalists for deeper insight into industry you care about. Many of the greats realize that all the news companies are sinking ships and are trying to establish their own thing before things completely collapse.
Focus on what each journalist specializes in and don't read too much into it when they report on topics that are not their forte (like Breaking points talking about AI). Many journalists stay in their lane but the groups covering all the news don't. I wish all journalists would stay in their lane but this is not the world we live in anymore.
For everything else that you are not willing to invest the time in, just accept you are not going to get great coverage.
My (typically far left) biases are comfortable with the following (these are not all far left)
Zeteo + dropsite for foreign middle east leaning coverage
Breaking points for daily news
Ken Klippenstein, Glenn greenwald for national security state/us government news. Klippenstein is more fun (when he gets an FBI email asking for info but also politely asking to not release it, he goes ahead and provides a download link). Greenwald feels a bit more dry.
Industry specific: autoline (youtube+website) for automotive, semianalysis for semi.
Again this is just my opinion, please decide for yourself.
"Didn't air" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means the interview didn't go over the airwaves via broadcast towers. The full interview is online, which thanks to the Streisand effect already has millions of views and therfore helped CBS in terms of funding. This can be seen as a 4D chess move by CBS. They'll certainly do this again if they're hitting millions of views.
It is a great illustration of how transition to the authoritarianism happens (I've seen it happen in Russia in 2000s). At first you don't even need censorship, you just need to scare owners of channels/newspapers enough, so that they self-censor.
I think the FCC is just enforcing the rule that you have to give equal time to all candidates. The late night talk shows used to get around this policy by using the exception given to news agencies. The FCC is just saying that the late night talk shows aren't really "news" shows. Probably should have been doing this the whole time. They also noted that it would not be a problem on cable or internet broadcasts. Not saying it's not politically motivated though.
My question is are there any historical parallels for the slide toward authoritarianism being reversed without a major catastrophe/war.
There were many "ground rules" in American society and politics that Trump has just proved can be thrown completely out the window, and it feels like there is no unringing that bell.
The prob has always been the FCC didnt recognize the internet as a Broadcast Medium. Which it is. Anyone can get their message out to a billion people if the algos deem its going to make the platform money. This means the platform support 1 to All messaging ie Broadcast. Thanks to Claude Shannon we know if everyone is given free broadcast capability like giving everyone a mic connected to the same sound system, without a coordination mechanism we get massive noise. How do ppl react to not being heard? They shout louder and louder or keep repeating their message. Amplifying the noise even more. Thats exactly whats happening on the internet today. We had the same issue with radio back in the day when anyone could stick tower on their roof and start broadcasting. This is why Spectrum gets licensed to solve the interference and noise problem. Americans are fed from birth that Free Speech is a right. But no one tells people before the internet Broadcast was not free. You either owned a newspaper, radio station, TV/sat spectrum to broadcast. There is a serious category error happening because the FCC didnt recognize the platforms are really broadcast mediums.
It's a terrible look for CBS. At the same time, I find it unbelievable that they don't fire Colbert. This is obvious gross insubordination, and he is an employee.
His final show is coming in May, and I'm sure that they can expect Colbert to continue to embarrass them (as the spineless sycophants they are) every week until then. It's a tremendous self own.
Colbert is not a CBS employee. He runs Spartina Productions which, along with Busboy Productions, produces The Late Show for CBS. It's a coordinated project of the three companies, he's not their employee and likely can't just cancel the show except for very specific circumstances.
Really? CBS's lawyers cited the equal time rule, which only applies to broadcasts sent over limited airwaves. I think the equal time rule doesn't actually apply in this case (because why couldn't CBS provide equal time in the near future? who even requested equal time and was denied it?), but more relevantly the equal time rule does not apply to publishing the same interview over the internet instead of over the "air".
If you don't like a coworker questioning your behavior, maybe don't engage in questionable behavior;
If you just want them to do what you say unquestionably, maybe you should have been born during a time when slavery was more common;
If you are having trouble getting good output out of a direct report that previously has produced good output, chances are you are currently a failure of a boss; and if you use terms like "insubordination" instead of asking "what am I doing wrong?", you probably have pointy hair, too.
Reminder that the most reliable way to prevent the rise of the far right is to implement robust safety nets and low inequality, to reduce status anxiety and grievance.
Support for such measures (welfare, healthcare, unionization, high taxes etc) is usually low among Americans.
That's why the rightward shift is unavoidable and corporate Dems like Talarico only further this shift into fascism. Even if liberals win it only means the next right-wing candidate is going to be even more extreme than the last.
People think that's crazy talk, even though it's happening right in front of their faces since Obama, we're cooked.
That is not a reminder, that is just, like, your opinion, man. Many countries with robust safety nets in Europe have far right parties rising in popularity significantly or already in the government/ruling coalition (Italy, Sweden, Germany, etc.).
> On the morning of July 27, 1943, I was told that, according to radio reports, fascism had collapsed and Mussolini was under arrest. When my mother sent me out to buy the newspaper, I saw that the papers at the nearest newsstand had different titles. Moreover, after seeing the headlines, I realized that each newspaper said different things. I bought one of them, blindly, and read a message on the first page signed by five or six political parties — among them the Democrazia Cristiana, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Partito d’Azione, and the Liberal Party.
> Until then, I had believed that there was a single party in every country and that in Italy it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I was discovering that in my country several parties could exist at the same time. Since I was a clever boy, I immediately realized that so many parties could not have been born overnight, and they must have existed for some time as clandestine organizations.
What I think is fascinating here in this case isn't just the suppression of any old free speech, it's trying to hide the presence of political options.
48 comments
[ 2.6 ms ] story [ 56.7 ms ] threadCBS doesn't "fear the FCC"... who didn't even have a rule. It's just open corruption.
The administration wants to signal what it wants to CBS, without actually doing anything that they could lose in court.
CBS wants to signal they are willing to help the administration by doing the censorship "out of fear" when really they just want a friendly relationship with the administration.
It's exactly the way oligarchs will give patronage to maintain their position in the hierarchy where the leader gives the orders.
It's what happens in Russia. It's literally how the mob does shit: "I didn't tell anyone to pay me any bribe. I just said that I'm in need of money and I'm kind to my friends. They chose to pay me of their own volition."
Given that, I believe the higher ups at CBS wanted this to happen, but are colluding with the executive branch or misrepresenting the situation to shift responsibility.
I know the timing makes this seem cravenly partisan, but revoking an exemption like this could be motivated by a desire to ensure fairn-
> while the FCC chair was targeting late-night talk shows, he had made clear that right-wing talk radio would not be subject to the equal time notice.
Ah, well.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/21/james-talarico-miri...
https://www.npr.org/2025/09/12/nx-s1-5537152/cbs-news-elliso...
- Once print newspapers were no longer a thing, even local news outlets are struggling to stay alive, and are resulting to sensationalism and entertainment as news - Corporate sponsors retain a huge influence in mainstream news (or have outright purchased it and use it for partisan politics). - "Social" media resides in (you guessed it) corporate-owned walled gardens. - Even those willing to speak out are being targeted by federal agencies
Wondering where others are finding great places to learn what's going on, what's actually relevant to me, and what I can actually do about it.
Follow trusted journalists that have a history of superb journalism. You have to decide what is good for yourself. Also industry specific journalists for deeper insight into industry you care about. Many of the greats realize that all the news companies are sinking ships and are trying to establish their own thing before things completely collapse.
Focus on what each journalist specializes in and don't read too much into it when they report on topics that are not their forte (like Breaking points talking about AI). Many journalists stay in their lane but the groups covering all the news don't. I wish all journalists would stay in their lane but this is not the world we live in anymore.
For everything else that you are not willing to invest the time in, just accept you are not going to get great coverage.
My (typically far left) biases are comfortable with the following (these are not all far left)
Zeteo + dropsite for foreign middle east leaning coverage
Breaking points for daily news
Ken Klippenstein, Glenn greenwald for national security state/us government news. Klippenstein is more fun (when he gets an FBI email asking for info but also politely asking to not release it, he goes ahead and provides a download link). Greenwald feels a bit more dry.
Industry specific: autoline (youtube+website) for automotive, semianalysis for semi.
Again this is just my opinion, please decide for yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Streisand_effect
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oiTJ7Pz_59A
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_commissar
There were many "ground rules" in American society and politics that Trump has just proved can be thrown completely out the window, and it feels like there is no unringing that bell.
His final show is coming in May, and I'm sure that they can expect Colbert to continue to embarrass them (as the spineless sycophants they are) every week until then. It's a tremendous self own.
Really? CBS's lawyers cited the equal time rule, which only applies to broadcasts sent over limited airwaves. I think the equal time rule doesn't actually apply in this case (because why couldn't CBS provide equal time in the near future? who even requested equal time and was denied it?), but more relevantly the equal time rule does not apply to publishing the same interview over the internet instead of over the "air".
If you don't like a coworker questioning your behavior, maybe don't engage in questionable behavior;
If you just want them to do what you say unquestionably, maybe you should have been born during a time when slavery was more common;
If you are having trouble getting good output out of a direct report that previously has produced good output, chances are you are currently a failure of a boss; and if you use terms like "insubordination" instead of asking "what am I doing wrong?", you probably have pointy hair, too.
Support for such measures (welfare, healthcare, unionization, high taxes etc) is usually low among Americans.
https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-releases/2025/10/welfare-cuts...
People think that's crazy talk, even though it's happening right in front of their faces since Obama, we're cooked.
Source: https://archive.org/details/gilens_and_page_2014_-testing_th...
> On the morning of July 27, 1943, I was told that, according to radio reports, fascism had collapsed and Mussolini was under arrest. When my mother sent me out to buy the newspaper, I saw that the papers at the nearest newsstand had different titles. Moreover, after seeing the headlines, I realized that each newspaper said different things. I bought one of them, blindly, and read a message on the first page signed by five or six political parties — among them the Democrazia Cristiana, the Communist Party, the Socialist Party, the Partito d’Azione, and the Liberal Party.
> Until then, I had believed that there was a single party in every country and that in Italy it was the Partito Nazionale Fascista. Now I was discovering that in my country several parties could exist at the same time. Since I was a clever boy, I immediately realized that so many parties could not have been born overnight, and they must have existed for some time as clandestine organizations.
What I think is fascinating here in this case isn't just the suppression of any old free speech, it's trying to hide the presence of political options.