Blocking the Paramount-Warner Merger: Keeping the Trumpers from Owning Everything

Dean Baker

 July 20, 2026

FacebookTwitterRedditBlueskyEmail

Photograph Source: Todd Dwyer – CC BY-SA 3.0

Until a couple of months ago, we could get a dose of humor to help us get through the craziness, cruelty, and corruption of the Trump administration. But CBS pulled Stephen Colbert off the air, and not because of bad ratings — he had by far the most widely viewed network show at that hour.

The problem was Donald Trump is too thin-skinned to put up with a comedian poking fun at him regularly. As a result, he had Brendan Carr, his chair of the Federal Communications Commission, imply that the Ellison family’s effort to take over Paramount, CBS’s parent company, would be blocked if Colbert wasn’t fired. The Elliot family includes prominent Trumper Larry Ellison, one of the richest people in the world, and David Ellison, his equally right-wing son who most immediately controls Paramount.

But taking over one of the country’s major broadcast networks wasn’t enough for the Ellisons. They also control TikTok, the fifth most widely used social media platform, which Trump wrestled away from a Chinese company and put in Larry Ellison’s hands.

And now, Paramount is looking to take over Warner Brothers. In addition to giving them control over two major Hollywood studios, the merger would allow Paramount to merge CBS’s newsroom with Warner-owned CNN. This would presumably mean arch-Trumper Bari Weiss would be in charge of CNN.

David Ellison put Weiss, who has long-established right-wing credentials, in charge of CBS News soon after taking over the network. In this role, she has already fired or driven away many serious reporters and repeatedly censored 60 Minutes, its highly regarded and widely-watched investigative news show. We can expect more of the same at CNN if Paramount’s takeover of Warner is allowed to go through.

While Trump’s Justice Department’s antitrust division has greenlighted the Paramount-Warner merger, there is still a possibility it can be stopped. California and 11 other states sued to stop the merger on antitrust grounds. In addition to merging two of the major news networks, it would also consolidate two massive Hollywood studios.

An analysis by the Media and Consolidation Research Organization Lab at the University of California San Diego found that the resulting reduction in competition would almost certainly mean fewer new movies are produced and less employment in the industry. It also would likely mean higher streaming prices for consumers. This is in addition to the problem of giving Trumpers even more control of the media.

There is at least some chance that the courts will block this merger on the merits. However, if it goes through the appellate process, the Republican Supreme Court may find the opportunity to provide another gift to Trump supporters irresistible. Still, the prospect of a years-long delay could persuade Paramount to compromise and offer at least partial divestment of some of Warner Brothers holdings to facilitate the merger. In any case, the antitrust lawsuit raises the possibility of blocking the merger in its current form.

While further consolidation of the media and placing ever more of it in the hands of Trumpers is definitely bad news, it would be wrong to imagine that we previously had a golden age of media. News outlets owned and run by rich people tend to present news in a manner that is acceptable to the bosses. Stories about the upward redistribution of income over the last half-century, and anti-worker practices by businesses, tend to get short shrift. But there is no doubt they would get even less attention in a Trumper-controlled media universe.

However, we should be looking for something better. One route is a system of individual tax credits, say $100 per person, to support a person’s favorite news outlet(s). This would be a credit, not a deduction, and fully refundable, so even the poorest person would get a $100 to support the news outlet of their choice.

The model is the tax deduction for charitable contributions, except that everyone would get the same amount. There are many design issues that would have to be ironed out, but such a system could create a large pool of money to support news reporting in various forms that is not controlled by rich people.

This system also has the advantage that it can be done at the state or even local level. That means that cities run by progressives, like New York and Seattle, could pave the way by putting this sort of system in place. (Seattle’s new mayor, Katie Wilson, is a big supporter of this sort of system.)

It is hugely important to do what we can to block further consolidation of the media in the hands of the Trumpers. We also need to do other things, like reforming Section 230 to take away the special protection it gives the huge social media platforms. But the most important longer-term measure to protect a free press is to set up an alternative funding mechanism. An individual tax credit system is a promising route, but we need to get these alternatives on the table and start moving forward with them.

This first appeared on Dean Baker’s Beat the Press bog.

Dean Baker is the senior economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC. 

Farnborough to survey the state of Boeing’s comeback

AFP
July 16, 2026

Boeing earlier this month marked the start of ‘North Line’ to expand 737 MAX output – Copyright AFP/File Jason Redmond


Fresh off last week’s launch of new production capacity in Washington state, Boeing plans a splashy display of new commercial and defense offerings at next week’s Farnborough International Airshow.

The airshow comes as the industry’s expectations about Boeing are beginning to reset after a rocky period defined by safety crises, criminal probes and leadership shakeups.

US regulators gave the company approval in recent months to boost production of its top-selling planes — the 737 MAX and 787 Dreamliner — and Boeing is nearing final certification of two new MAX aircraft and the much-delayed widebody 777X.

Boeing executives said the pathway to final certification on the three aircraft is “clear” and that the company is “on track” to meet its timeline, during a press tour last week. Boeing has said it will obtain US certification in 2026 for the MAX 7 and MAX 10, and deliveries of the 777X will commence in 2027.

Boeing, which reported annual losses between 2018 and 2024, announced earlier this week that it delivered 314 commercial planes in the first half of 2026, the most since 2018.

But the expected uptick in commercial deliveries from newly certified aircraft is central to the company’s long-term target of achieving $10 billion in annual free cash flow.

Questions about the new jets loom over Boeing at Farnborough.

“At Boeing, customers will be looking for greater certainty around certification and delivery dates for the 737 MAX 7, MAX 10, 777-9 and 777-8F,” said a note from consultancy Cirium.

United Airlines executives said Thursday they expect to take 737 MAX deliveries in mid-to-late 2027.

“We’ve been waiting a really long time for the MAX 10, and hopefully that wait is coming to an end,” United Executive Vice President Andrew Nocella said on an earnings conference call.

While airlines have been reassured the 737 MAX 7 and 737 MAX 10 will soon be in their fleets, questions linger about the 777X, said longtime aviation analyst Richard Aboulafia, who will attend Farnborough.

“People are going to want clarity on the 777X and there isn’t a lot of clarity,” said Aboulafia. “It’s become a bit of a ‘show-me’ story, I’m afraid.”



– Tighter regulatory scrutiny –



Boeing officials deferred to the Federal Aviation Administration on the timing of final approval, but said certification testing on the 737 MAX 7, the smallest version of the aircraft, was 100 percent complete, while “deliverables” were 95 percent done.

“We’re just in the last throes of getting it certified,” said Chris Payne, the vice president of the Boeing’s 737 airplane development program, who outlined upgrades to the engine’s anti-ice system that had held up certification.

For the 737 MAX 10, the largest version of the plane, flight tests were 98 percent complete while documentation of results and analysis is 30 percent complete.

The aviation giant’s efforts on the MAX 10 have included a revamped enhanced angle of attack (AOA) sensor after a defect contributed to fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that led to a lengthy grounding.

Capitol Hill hearings exposed weak government oversight of Boeing as a factor in the MAX crashes, leading to 2020 legislation requiring the company to install new AOA sensors on the entire fleet of over 2,300 MAX planes within two years.

Boeing has completed 50 percent of planned certification flight testing for the 777-9, with one test plane deployed to Canada to trial ice protection systems while another was sent to Arizona to test exposure to high radiated fields, like those produced by radar.

Boeing launched the 777X program at the 2013 Dubai Airshow, originally targeting 2020 for deliveries.

Some delays were due to shifts under the 2020 legislation that the FAA had to undertake for the first time, said Boeing Senior Vice President Mike Sinnett.

Cirium and Aboulafia also flagged supply chain issues affecting everything from engines and spare parts to seats for both Boeing and rival Airbus.

“A lot of their internal problems are behind them,” Aboulafia said of Boeing. “But they will soon be bumping against the external problems that are bedeviling the industry.”

Ihssane Mounir, senior vice president for global supply chain, said Boeing has confidence in availability from tier-one suppliers but less visibility into others.

The supply chain in general is more stable, said Mounir, before adding, “it’s getting more difficult as well, because you’ve got the rates that are going up, so the volumes are going up, so the problems are going to come.”

No to Crypto

By Robert Reich

July 17, 2026

Source: Robert Reich's Substack

“Close-up of physical representations of Bitcoin, Litecoin and Ethereum cryptocurrencies on the table” by Ivan Radic, CC BY 2.0

I’m sorry to say that several Democratic senators appear willing to support the CLARITY Act—a sweeping pro-crypto bill that will be voted on next week. All they’re demanding is that Republicans agree to a few cosmetic changes such as a slight toughening of ethics rules, a modest expansion of law-enforcement authority, and a tad-bit strengthening of financial regulators.

All worthwhile improvements, but they don’t cure the bill’s fundamental defects.

Let me get right to the point. Congress should not enact legislation that further legitimizes and expands an industry whose promised public benefits are zilch while its costs and risks are increasing by the day.

There’s simply no legitimate use for crypto. Its only practical uses are tax evasion, money laundering, fraud, speculation, and crime.

The crypto lobby is large and well-financed. It has already bought off many members of Congress including, sad to say, a number of Democrats.

There’s no lobby on the other side to guard small investors who are losing their shirts on crypto, or to guard the public against the crime, money laundering, and human trafficking that crypto facilitates.
The crypto lobby says blockchain technology and digital assets will foster innovative companies, create new payment systems, strengthen small businesses, generate wealth, and expand opportunities for younger Americans.

Bullsh*t. There’’s no evidence of these benefits. Even if crypto did any of these things, crypto’s costs and risks significantly exceed them.

Aren’t Trump’s crypto conflicts of interest evidence enough? Isn’t the Ponzi scheme he created sufficient proof of how many people will get snookered?

The CLARITY Act would narrow the authority of the Securities and Exchange Commission over digital assets and give authority over crypto to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission.
This means investors will be shafted and the public will be left in the dark because of the lack of disclosures, the absence of fiduciary obligations, and the deficiency of investor safeguards. All these would apply under federal securities law; but none of these exist under laws governing futures contracts.

In other words, the CLARITY Act would give crypto even more cover. It would make crypto even more opaque. It would allow even more tax evasion, more money laundering, more fraud, more speculation, more ripoffs, and more crime.

I have no hope for Republican politicians. They’ve already sold their souls to Trump and the crypto lobby. But shame on any Democratic senator or representative who votes for this abomination.
It’s well worth your time to phone your senators and representative and tell them NO to the “Clarity Act.” The congressional switchboard is (202) 224-3121. You can call this number to be directly connected to the office of your specific senators or representative.
The vote is next week. Please phone now.

---

This article was originally published by Robert Reich's Substack; please consider supporting the original publication, and read the original version at the link above.Email

Robert Reich

Robert Bernard Reich is an American professor, author, lawyer, and political commentator. He worked in the administrations of Presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, and served as Secretary of Labor from 1993 to 1997 in the cabinet of President Bill Clinton. He was also a member of President Barack Obama's economic transition advisory board. Reich has been the Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at UC Berkeley since January 2006. He was formerly a lecturer at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a professor of social and economic policy at the Heller School for Social Policy and Management of Brandeis University.

From Fracking to Data Centers — the Same Old Song and Dance

By Tish O'dell

July 17, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

As a community organizer and environmental activist for over 15 years, I’ve often used the metaphor that “we are spinning on a hamster wheel.” That phrase gets mixed reactions. Some nod in agreement, and some get angry. The truth is not always easy to hear. I understand that from my own experiences.

In 2012, I learned that fracking for natural gas and oil was happening in my community. I started researching fracking, and found out about air pollution, toxic chemicals being injected underground, threats to water, farmland being bought up at unprecedented pace, and tax incentives subsidizing all this. And in the end, the community wouldn’t even have lower energy costs.

The fracking boom was hitting communities all over Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Colorado — anywhere the fossil fuel industry sniffed out profits — and people were angry. So my neighbors and I tried to use the tools we had been taught we have in our supposed democracy.

We went to local and state officials, regulatory agencies like the EPA and Health Department, and environmental organizations. With help from the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, we passed a citizen initiative to ban fracking. The people voted for it — but then two drilling companies sued to have our democratically-enacted law overturned for violating their corporate “rights.” The court agreed with them and overturned our law.

Afterwards, I convinced myself that it was our fault. I believed that if more communities took action like we had, positive change would come. So, I started organizing with other communities across Ohio and in other states which found themselves in the same position. But the same cycle of corporate power overriding the people was repeated over and over. The people in these communities had no legal authority to stop fracking.

Some communities, like New York, banned fracking. However, they didn’t ban the use of fracked gas, so my community and many others were sacrificed to make sure Times Square stayed lit up. No offense to New Yorkers, but that’s the hard truth. It is how the system is set up to work.

Other communities turned to regulations. People convinced themselves that if frackers had to have further setbacks from schools and homes, we’d be protected from toxic water injections, airborne chemicals from waste pits and hundreds of trucks, and water depletion due to the between 1.5 and 16 million gallons of water used for each frack well. Communities enacted stricter regulations, but the harm continued.

It became all too clear that we the people were indeed like hamsters spinning in a wheel. All the tools which we grew up believing would protect us and our communities didn’t work. They were just diversions to keep us occupied as the government and the fracking industry drilled well after well.

Now it’s 2026 and communities are up in arms again over an issue that causes many of the same harms as fracking: data centers. I get calls and emails every week from communities all over the country with people sharing concerns — farmland being purchased at unprecedented rates, massive water withdrawals, air pollution and toxification, astronomical energy usage, skyrocketing power rates, and tax subsidies for mega tech corporations. Sound familiar?

It reminds me of the Aerosmith song, Same Old Song and Dance. The song is about how the “justice system” does not apply equally to all. They weren’t singing about fracking or data centers, but they may as well have been. Whether we use metaphors like spinning in a hamster wheel or cliches like “same old song and dance,” this is how the system is set up to work: it protects industry, capitalism and the profits of a few, not the people and environment. Folks fighting mining, toxic waste, big agriculture, industrial energy of any kind, clear cutting of forests, plastic pollution, etc. are all trapped in the hamster wheel.

We must jump out. This will take facing hard truths, like the fact that holding up signs in front of public meetings, writing letters, and giving testimony to regulatory agencies won’t protect you and your community. Once we can begin reckoning with these truths, maybe we can turn toward each other and turn away from the existing system. Maybe we can free our imaginations and creativity to experiment with new ideas. Maybe we can work together in community to build grassroots power, take direct action, disrupt unjust systems, and resist corporate encroachment rather than jumping back into the hamster wheel. Maybe we can start being effective.Email

Tish O'dell

Tish O’Dell is the Consulting Director for the Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF). She started in her own community of Broadview Heights, Ohio, leading to the adoption of Ohio’s first Home Rule charter amendment creating a Community Bill of Rights banning fracking and recognizing Rights of Nature, and today works with communities all over the country and internationally.

A Protest Leader in Bolivia Speaks

By Hammer and Hope

July 17, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

Image by Susu Phisi, Creative Commons 4.0

Bolivia has been rocked since early May by strikes, mass marches, and road blockades across the country as people demand the resignation of center-right president Rodrigo Paz. Paz’s election last fall brought an end to the two-decade-long political dominance of the left-wing Movement for Socialism (MAS) party and was viewed as another sign of a rightward political shift across Latin America. Yet Bolivia’s Indigenous groups, miners, urban workers, teachers, and peasants rose up again after the president broke a series of campaign promises and returned to the neoliberal agenda of austerity and political repression imposed on Bolivia prior to the MAS’s coming to power.

Though Paz reached an agreement with the country’s main union federation, a couple of days later, on June 20, he declared a state of emergency and ordered police and armed forces to clear roadblocks. Protest leaders say they nonetheless will keep up the pressure on the government.

To learn more about the protests and what the future may hold, Hammer & Hope spoke in early June with a Quechua Indigenous woman who is a protest leader and member of the National Confederation of Indigenous Peasant Women of Bolivia–Bartolina Sisa.

Hammer & Hope What led to the wave of protests?

Quechua activist To win our vote, President Paz made commitments to the working people who make up the majority of the country. He promised to resolve the fuel crisis, the dollar shortage, and the crises in health and education.

But he didn’t keep his promises. The government cut the fuel subsidy and provided very poor-quality fuel — total garbage — and it ruined many machines, tools, and vehicles. That caused deep anger not only in the transport sector but also among those who work in agriculture and production — basically everyone who uses fuel.

Popular organizations of Indigenous people, women, and workers repeatedly requested hearings and dialogue. Instead, Paz responded with repression. So people began to mobilize more and more, day after day. The government has never had the humility to listen to the people, not even to acknowledge that the people voted for them. Paz has repaid the people who voted for him with rubber pellets and tear gas. This government speaks of dialogue but offers only political persecution, including kidnappings of women leaders from the doorsteps of their homes.

HH In the face of the protests, Paz repealed Law 1720, an agrarian reform measure that the legislature had passed just one month earlier and he had previously supported. What would the law have done?

QA The government wanted to offer peasants the possibility of taking out loans and mortgaging their land as collateral. Peasants marched from Pando and Beni to La Paz to protest the proposal, but the government didn’t listen to them. [Pando and Beni are remote areas in northern Bolivia.] This government has no heart at all and treats workers worse than animals.

HH The uprising continued even after apparent concessions, including the agrarian law’s repeal, the replacement of government ministers responsible for energy policy, and Paz’s creation of a new Economic and Social Council meant to appease the protesters. Why do workers’ organizations consider these measures insufficient?

QA The council is made up of people who do not represent workers. They are public officials and relatives of members of the government. The country is completely shaken by protest. Workers, campesinos, and Indigenous people have been blockading roads for almost two months, but the government continues abducting them and violating Bolivians’ constitutional rights.

HH On June 8, President Paz signed a law that allows the government to take extraordinary measures when a state of emergency is declared. The armed forces can now intervene in internal conflicts, including using troops to dismantle roadblocks. How do you view this new law?

QA That law is not going to solve anything. On the contrary, the situation is going to get worse. What do you think the protesters are going to do? They are not afraid of it, and they remain strong at all the roadblocks currently set up in Bolivia. The Plurinational Legislative Assembly that approved the law is not made up of representatives of the workers, chosen from our communities, but rather of the elites, a small minority of the population. That is why we are demanding that those representatives of the elites must leave together with Rodrigo Paz. They are the enemies of the people.

HH How do the popular organizations propose to solve the political crisis?

QA This government has to go. The vice president has to assume the presidency constitutionally and call new elections. That way, we can have a new government for the people.

HH What is the role of the former president Evo Morales, the Indigenous militant who led the MAS for many years, in the current popular uprising?

QA Comrade Evo is not leading this uprising. The mobilizations are led by representatives elected organically by their bases.

The people recognize that Evo was a better president, and that bothers the government. That is why government officials blame him for everything and wash their hands of responsibility. He is facing severe repression. In the small town where he lives, Lauca Eñe in Cochabamba, his supporters have maintained a constant security watch to protect him from violence for almost two years. They fear that Evo might be kidnapped or arrested, as happened with Maduro in Venezuela. He offers moral support, but saying that he is behind everything is completely false. Blaming him is part of a political attack meant to confuse people, including the international press.

HH The United States, together with the governments of Bolivia, Argentina, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay, and seven other Latin American and Caribbean countries, issued a joint statement condemning the workers’ actions as antidemocratic and an attempt to undermine the elected government. How do you view foreign interference in Bolivia today?

QA Bolivia possesses many natural resources, such as lithium; minerals, including rare-earth metals; fresh water; and forests. That is why those countries have their eyes on us. They want to plunder our wealth. In 2019, there was a coup d’état over control of lithium resources. The mobilizations today are also a response to the international threat. Indigenous peoples will not allow interference, because we do not want to gamble away our children’s future.

These countries talk about drug trafficking, but that is a pretext to try to bring the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration back into the country, something the Bolivian people do not accept. That would serve to open the door to the plunder of our natural resources. Indigenous peasant peoples have a clear position: Those resources must be respected and preserved for the future, especially lithium. That is why, today more than ever, the people are standing up.

This article was produced by Hammer & Hope