The Biggest Loser

"A federal judge yesterday ordered the Internal Revenue System to stop sharing residential addresses with Immigration and Customs Enforcement until the court can review the case further. The judge also barred ICE from using information already provided by the IRS. Danny Nguyen and Toby Eckert report for POLITICO. "

"A federal appeals court yesterday allowed the Trump administration to move forward with ending Temporary Protected Status for more than 60,000 migrants from Nepal, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Chris Cameron reports for the New York Times. 

A federal judge yesterday issued a preliminary injunction blocking California’s law prohibiting federal law enforcement agents from wearing masks. She ruled that it was unconstitutional because it exempted state law enforcement officers, making it discriminatory. The judge upheld a companion measure requiring them to display identification. Laurel Rosenhall reports for the New York Times. "

A federal judge yesterday blocked the Trump administration from transferring 20 former death row inmates to a notorious maximum security prison in Colorado, finding that Trump and Bondi had dictated the decision before the men had a chance to contest it. Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein report for POLITICO. "

"A federal judge yesterday ordered the Trump administration to restore displays discussing slavery at a site in Philadelphia where George Washington lived as president. The ruling granted an immediate injunction, requiring the reinstallation of 34 education panels removed last month. “The government claims it alone has the power to erase, alter, remove, and hide historical accounts on taxpayer and local government-funded monuments within its control. Its claims in this regard echo Big Brother’s domain in Orwell’s 1984,” the judge wrote. Gregory S. Schneider reports for the Washington Post.

A federal judge on Friday ordered the Trump administration to return Any Lucia López Belloza, a college freshman who was mistakenly deported to Honduras in November, to the United States within two weeks. Hannah Ziegler and Mattathias Schwartz report for the New York Times."

A federal judge yesterday vacated the decision by the Board of Immigration Appeals, finding that the administration had failed to comply with her earlier order declaring unlawful the underlying policy of denying detainees the chance to seek release on bond. The administration has “far crossed the boundaries of constitutional conduct,” the judge said. Nate Raymond reports for Reuters."

FedEx yesterday filed a lawsuit demanding a refund from Customs and Border Protection of the U.S. tariffs that the Supreme Court ruled were unlawful last week. Peter Eavis reports for the New York Times.   

Maryland yesterday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to try to stop plans to convert a warehouse, bought by the Homeland Security Department for $102  million, into an immigration detention facility in Washington County. Jasmine Golden reports for the Washington Post.  

A class action lawsuit was filed yesterday accusing Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem of using surveillance technology to intimidate legal observers watching ICE officers in Maine. The complaint details multiple incidents in which the plaintiffs said federal immigration officers scanned observers’ faces and license plates, and threatened to appear at their homes and place them on a domestic terrorist database. Alfred Ng reports for POLITICO."

"A federal judge yesterday ruled that the Trump administration’s policy to quickly remove people to third countries to which they have no previous connection is unlawful, stating that people must receive meaningful notice and the chance to challenge their deportations. Gary Grumbach and Daniella Silva report for NBC News."

Today, Zaslav is being lauded by the business community as a genius for selling Warner Bros Discovery to the Ellisons’s Paramount for $111 billion, more than double its valuation in September. 

Why would the Ellisons spend their billions to buy Warner Bros Discovery?

Wealth and power. Assuming the deal closes, they’ll own CBS News, Comedy Central (home of John Stewart), HBO (John Oliver), and CNN. And with Trump’s help, Larry Ellison is also the lead investor in TikTok.

Pause for a moment and think how huge and sudden is this emergence of a new media giant — and its profound potential for silencing criticism of Trump. 

I don’t mean to suggest that John Stewart or John Oliver will be silenced. But their contracts may not be renewed (look what happened to Stephen Colbert). The algorithm on TikTok may be ever-so-slightly adjusted to reduce Trump criticism. And a small army of producers and correspondents on CNN may be more careful about what they report, or stories critical of Trump may be axed, as is now happening on CBS News. 

Larry Ellison is the fourth-richest person in America. He also owns Oracle, which runs much of the digital backbone of the nation's commerce and government.

The Ellisons are Trump allies and suck-ups, which is how they’ve so rapidly created a new rightwing media empire. 

Even before the Ellisons sweetened their offer for Warner Bros Discovery last week, they proclaimed their “confidence in the speed and certainty of regulatory approval for its transaction.” 

Translated: Don’t worry that we’re creating a gigantic media monopoly. Antitrust laws won’t touch us. We’ve got Trump’s Justice Department in the bag. 

On Tuesday night, David Ellison attended Trump’s State of the Union address as a guest of Trump ally, South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham. (Graham tweeted out a photo of the two men making Trump’s signature “thumbs-up” gesture ahead of the speech.)

Trump cares more about TV news than he does about his presidency. In fact, TV news is his presidency. 

He’s repeatedly blasted CNN as “fake news” and publicly demanded it be turned over to new owners. 

Trump was instrumental in the Ellison’s takeover of CBS (along with Comedy Central), and of TikTok. 

Last summer, as Shari Redstone and other of Paramount’s previous owners sought federal approval to sell the company to the Ellisons, they announced the end of late night host Stephen Colbert’s CBS show — which will end its run in May. 

They cited economics, but Colbert’s has been the top-rated late night show on network television — and he has been a lacerating satirist of Trump. Colbert called the cancellation a "big fat bribe,” which it surely was. 

To win further support from Trump for the sale, David Ellison promised to end diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at CBS. He has added a rightwing ombudsman, Kenneth Weinstein, the former head of a conservative think tank, and named Bari Weiss, founder of the center-right opinion and news site The Free Press, editor-in-chief of CBS News. 

Since Weiss took over, at least six out of 20 “CBS Evening News” producers have left. She named a bunch of new contributors, including the anti-aging influencer Peter Attia (who has subsequently resigned over his ties to Jeffrey Epstein). She declared “We love America” a guiding principle. And replaced “Evening News” anchors John Dickerson and Maurice DuBois with Tony Dokoupil — best known for hassling the writer Ta-Nehisi Coates for his “extremist” belief that apartheid is morally wrong.

In December, Weiss axed a “60 Minutes” report about Venezuelans being deported by the Trump administration to El Salvador’s notorious CECOT prison hours before it was set to air — a move that Sharyn Alfonsi, long-standing “60 Minutes” correspondent who reported the segment, claimed was for “political” reasons. (The segment later aired on January 18, drawing over 5 million viewers.)

As Trump told Dokoupil recently in a rambling nearly 13-minute interview, had Kamala Harris won the presidential election in 2024, “you probably wouldn’t have a job right now.” Moments after that rambling interview, White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt conveyed Trump’s threat that “if it’s not out in full, we’ll sue your ass off.”

CNN was moving to the right even before the Ellisons got their hands on it, but the move proved disastrous. 

In 2022, Zaslav put Chris Licht in charge, who told CNN’s staff he wanted less criticism of Trump and the Republican right — instructing them to stopreferring to Trump’s “Big Lie” because he thought the phrase sounded like a Democratic talking point, telling producers to downplay coverage of the first hearing of the congressional committee investigating January 6, and arranging the infamous CNN town hall with Trump, which gave the disgraced ex-president a platform to make his comeback. 

CNN’s rightward lurch harmed CNN’s ratings — its primetime show ratings fell 25 percent — causing Zaslav to fire Licht. 

Since then, CNN has undergone rounds of cuts under a series of owners seeking to reduce debt. Paramount will be its fourth corporate parent in under a decade.

It has happened so suddenly most Americans still haven’t noticed: A new pro-Trump media empire — CBS, CNN, HBO, Comedy Central, and TikTok — all under the control of Trump crony Larry Ellison and his son David. 

The billionaires are flipping media companies like playing cards. They don’t give a fig for the public interest, or about the lives of the producers, correspondents, journalists, and investigative reporters that are being turned upside-down. To them, it’s all about accumulating even more wealth and power. 

The Ellisons’s new mega-media monopoly would never pass muster if we still had antitrust enforcers. But Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice is as likely to stop it as they are to enforce criminal laws against ICE agents. 

We have to rely on state attorneys general to enforce the antitrust laws. Thankfully, California’s attorney general, Rob Bonta, has already made clear he will take it on. Good luck to him.

A federal judge yesterday ruled that the Homeland Security Department may not bar members of Congress from making unannounced visits to ICE detention facilities. Kyle Cheney reports for POLITICO.  

The Justice Department said it was dropping its appeals defending Trump’s executive orders sanctioning several law firms, according to a court filing. Erin Mulvaney and C. Ryan Barber report for the Wall Street Journal. "

Botch said:

What planet is that monumentally-stupid toddler from?!?  First he walks away from an acceptable nuclear agreement with Iran, then he bombs their nuclear facilities without provocation (and in defiance of the Oath he took to our Constitution), then he kills most of their senior government and so much of their defense and infrastructure (again in defiance of his Oath)...
...and now he's demanding to have a say in their new leadership?!?!?!?!?  WTFF!    

A federal judge on Saturday ruled that Senior Advisor for the U.S. Agency for Global Media Kari Lake did not have legal authority to largely dismantle the Voice of America by laying off most of its employees. The judge said that while Lake was chosen by Trump, she never received Senate confirmation for her role. David Bauder reports for AP News.

A federal appeals court on Friday upheld a lower court’s ruling that the Trump administration had unlawfully terminated Temporary Protected Status for Haiti. Haitians covered by TPS will be protected from deportation as the lawsuit proceeds in federal court. Miriam Jordan reports for the New York Times.

Rep. Joyce Beatty (D-OH) asked a federal court on Friday to block Trump’s plan to close the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts for two years for reconstruction. Beatty amended her lawsuit, saying “President Trump’s own words indicate that he is planning to demolish the existing Kennedy Center building” without authorization from Congress. Luke Broadwater reports for the New York Times."

"The Democratic National Committee yesterday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration to compel the government to say whether it was planning to put armed federal agents or military personnel at polling places or election offices this year. Nick Corasaniti reports for the New York Times."

"A federal judge yesterday issued a temporary restraining order halting construction work on an immigration detention center after the state had sued, citing environmental concerns. Kanishka Singh reports for Reuters. 

The Trump administration yesterday asked the Supreme Court to lift a judge’s decision that blocked the administration’s move to end Temporary Protected Status for Haitians. Andrew Chung and John Kruzel report for Reuters.  

17 Democratic-led states yesterday filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over its mandate that colleges share detailed student and admissions data with the federal government, which the government has said is meant to ensure schools are not employing racial preferences. Vimal Patel and Stephanie Saul report for the New York Times. 

Food stamp recipients filed a lawsuit against the Agriculture Department yesterday over restrictions barring them from using their benefits to buy sugary drinks and candy. Linda Qiu reports for the New York Times. "

A federal appeals court yesterday allowed the Trump administration to continue, for now, summarily deporting immigrants to nations other than their home countries. The order blocked a lower court ruling that would have required the administration to prioritize deportees’ home countries as destinations and give deportees “meaningful notice.” Mattathias Schwartz reports for the New York Times.

A federal judge yesterday blocked the Trump administration from implementing sweeping changes to the childhood immunization schedule.The judge said the government undermined its history of recognizing “the importance and value” of involving independent experts in setting the national public health agenda and relying on “a method scientific in nature” to make such decisions. Lena H. Sun and Rachel Roubein report for the Washington Post.

The Supreme Court yesterday agreed to decide whether the Trump administration acted legally when it sought to end Temporary Protected Status for thousands of citizens from Haiti and Syria. The Trump administration had asked the Court to lift lower court orders blocking the effort to end TPS. However, the Court instead agreed to take up the cases on the merits. Josh Gerstein reports for POLITICO.

16 Democratic attorneys general from California, Illinois, the District of Columbia, and other states are suing the Department of Housing and Urban Development for a policy restricting state agencies from pursuing certain fair housing claims, including discrimination based on sexual orientation, gender identity, criminal record, or English-language proficiency. Cassandra Dumay reports for POLITICO."