CNNis forcing other television networks and outlets to agree to a list of tedious requirements in exchange for the ability to air the first2024 presidential debate, sources toldThe Los Angeles Times.
Despite becoming the first TV network in history to secure the exclusive rights to air a general election debate, CNN is opting to allow other networks the ability to simulcast the June 27 face-off between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump.
The network, however, has cobbled together a rather finicky list of conditions for what rival networks and other outlets like Fox News and MSNBC are allowed to do in exchange for the rights to the debate feed, sources told the paper.
CNN has foisted a list requirements on networks and outlets looking to air the June 27 presidential debate.Ron Haviv/VII/Redux
Among the requirements is that all networks must display CNN’s on-screen logo through the simulcast.
Other networks can flaunt their own graphics during the debate, which will be moderated by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash, but the cable network’s logo must be clearly visible during the event.
CNN also is policing other outlets’ language about the debate, requiring them to refer to the June showdown as the “CNN Presidential Debate.”
Any on-air promotions or ads for the telecast must refer to it as “CNN Presidential Debate Simulcast” while program guides and TV listings must call the event “Simulcast: CNN Presidential Debate.”
In another presidential debate first, the cable network will include a pair of commercial breaks during the 90-minute event, each three-and-a-half minutes long.
Among the demands is that networks must display CNN’s logo throughout the simulcast.REUTERS
Other outlets running the simulcast can opt to use their own commercials instead of those sold by CNN, but having their own anchors or commentators opine during the breaks — or at any point during the event — is verboten.
Network executives told The Times they are pushing back on the requirements, and some may opt not to air promos for the simulcast if they have to utter CNN’s name every time.
The struggling cable news network has been plagued in recent years by rotating executives, budget cuts, and plummeting ratings.
This is the first time a TV network in history has secured the exclusive rights to air a presidential debate.Ron Haviv/VII/Redux
The first presidential debate between the same two candidates in 2020 brought in 73 million viewers, and CNN is likely looking to capitalize on the event and beef up its brand, including displaying its red logo behind the debate stage, instead of the Constitution, as has been tradition.
A CNN representative told the outlet the requirements are being requested in exchange for the network covering all of the debate’s production costs.
“CNN is unilaterally producing this debate, and that requires transparency with viewers and a substantial investment of resources,” the representative said.
Turmoil in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden intensified this week as Iran-backed Houthi rebels launched a series of attacks on commercial vessels traversing the critical maritime chokepoint. In a bold new move, the rebels deployed asuicide drone boatthat slammed into the stern of a bulk carrier, paralyzing the vessel and forcing the crew to abandon the ship.
The drone boat attack on commodity-hauling bulk carrier "Tutor" was first reported on Wednesday. By Friday, the crew of the vessel was "evacuated by military authorities," according to the British military's United Kingdom Maritime Trade Operations.
UKMTO said, "The vessel has been abandoned and is drifting in the vicinity of the last reported position 14°20'00" N 041°56'00" E."
Filipino-based media outlet ABS-CBN News spoke with Department of Migrant Workers Secretary Hans Cacdac, who said 21 of the 22 Filipino seafarers aboard the Liberian-flagged, Greek-owned, and operated bulk carrier were rescued. He did not specify which military rescued the crew. However, Bloomberg reports that a US Navy ship conducted an extraction operation at the end of the week.
"The ship was adrift in the southern Red Sea," Cacdac told reporters, adding one missing crew member is likely dead in the engine room. This is the area where the drone boat struck the bulk carrier.
Bloomberg said the ship is taking on water, and a salvage company has dispatched two tugboats to rescue it.
ABS-CBN News posted a video onboard the vessel before the extraction.
Like security firm Ambrey, we have told readers this was the first time Houthis used remote-controlled, water-borne explosives.
One commodity research firm with a high focus on oil/gas flows in the Middle East told us this won't be the last time the Houthis use kamikaze drone boats against commercial vessels.
In a separate report, Bloomberg cites US officials who believe Houthis are expanding "international partnerships with other militant groups as part of their campaign to disrupt global shipping and protest the Israel-Hamas war."
This week, I have received emails from Connecticut bar members over a message posted by President Maggie Castinado, President-Elect James T. (Tim) Shearin, and Vice President Emily A. Gianquinto warning them about criticizing the prosecutions of former President Donald Trump. The message from the bar leadership is chilling for those lawyers who view cases like the one in Manhattan as a raw political prosecution. While the letter does not outright state that such criticism will be considered unethical conduct, it states that the criticism has “no place in the public discourse” and calls on members to speak publicly in support of the integrity of these legal proceedings.
The statement begins by warning members that “words matter” but then leaves the ramifications for bar members dangling on how it might matter to them. They simply note that some comments will be viewed as “cross[ing] the line from criticism to dangerous rhetoric.”
According to the Connecticut Bar, it is now considered reckless and unprofessional to make analogies to show trials or to question the integrity of the legal system or the judges in such cases.
For example, criticizing Judge Juan Merchan for refusing to recuse from the case is considered beyond the pale. Many lawyers believe that his political contributions to Biden and his daughter’s major role as a Democratic fundraiser and activist should have prompted Merchan to remove himself (and any appearance of a conflict). I have been more critical of his rulings, which I believe were both biased and wrong.
Yet, the Bar is warning lawyers that such comments can cross the line. The letter assures members that they are free to criticize but warn that attacking the ethics of a judge or the motivations behind these cases is dangerous and could spark violence.
I have previously denounced overheated rhetoric and share the concern over how such rage rhetoric can encourage violence. After the verdict, I immediately encouraged people not to yield to their anger, but to trust our legal system. I believe that the verdict in New York may ultimately be overturned. I also noted that I do not blame the jury but rather the judge and the prosecutors for an unfounded and unfair trial.
My concern is not with the plea for lawyers to take care that their comments do not encourage such “aggressive tactics.” The problem is the suggestion that lawyers are acting somehow unprofessionally in denouncing what many view as a two-tier system of justice and the politicalization of our legal system.
Like many, I believe that the Manhattan case was a flagrant example of such weaponization of the legal system and should be denounced by all lawyers. It is a return, in my view, to the type of political prosecution once common in this country.
For those lawyers who view such prosecutions as political, they are speaking out in defense of what they believe is the essence of blind justice in America. What is “reckless” to the Connecticut Bar is righteous to others. Notably, the Bar officials did not write to denounce attacks on figures like Bill Barr or claims that the Justice Department was rigging justice during the Trump years.
Likewise, the letter focuses on critics of the Trump prosecutions and not the continued attacks on conservative jurists like Justice Samuel Alito. It has never published warnings about those calling conservative justices profanities, attacking their religion, or labeling them “partisan hacks” or other even “insurrectionist sympathizers.” Liberal activists have been calling for stopping conservative jurists “by any means necessary.”
In Connecticut, Sen. Richard Blumenthal has warned conservative justices to rule correctly or face “seismic changes.” That did not appear to worry the bar. Likewise, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer also declared in front of the Supreme Court “I want to tell you, Gorsuch, I want to tell you, Kavanaugh, you have released the whirlwind, and you will pay the price.”
The letter goes further and suggests that lawyers should speak publicly in support of trials like the one in Manhattan, a view that ignores the deep misgivings over the motivations and means used in New York to target an unpopular figure in this city. You have the top Bar officials calling on lawyers to take a public position that is opposed by many lawyers and citizens in defending the integrity of these prosecutions. Imagine the response if the Idaho Bar called on its lawyers to speak out against these cases and declared that it is reckless or unprofessional to defend them.
I expect that, in the very liberal Bar of Connecticut, the letter is hardly needed. Indeed, this letter is likely to be quite popular. Yet, I would have thought that Bar officials would have taken greater care to respect the divergent opinions on these trials and the need to avoid any statements that might chill the exercise of free speech.
Ironically, the letter only reinforced the view of a legal system that is maintaining a political orthodoxy and agenda. These officials declare that it is now unprofessional or reckless for lawyers to draw historical comparisons to show trials or to question the motives or ethics underlying these cases. They warn lawyers not to “sow distrust in the public for the courts where it does not belong.” Yet, many believe that there is an alarming threat to our legal system and that distrust is warranted in light of prosecution like the one in Manhattan.
As discussed in my new book, The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage, critics of political prosecutions under the Crown and during the Adams Administrations were often threatened with disbarment or other legal actions for questioning the integrity or motives of judges or prosecutors. It is not enough to say “well that was then and this is now.” The point is that the Bar Association also has a duty to protect the core rights that define our legal system, particularly the right of free speech.
Again, these officials are not threatening Bar action against critics of these cases. However, as evidenced by the emails in my inbox, it is being taken as a warning by many who hold misgivings over these prosecutions.
Our legal system has nothing to fear from criticism. Indeed, free speech strengthens our system by exposing divisions and encouraging dialogue. It is orthodoxy and speech intolerance that represent the most serious threats to that system.
Words matter. Reckless words attacking the integrity of our judicial system matter even more.
In the wake of the recent trial and conviction of former President Donald Trump, public officials have issued statements claiming that the trial was a “sham,” a “hoax,” and “rigged”; our justice system is “corrupt and rigged”; the judge was “corrupt” and “highly unethical”; and, that the jury was “partisan” and “precooked.” Others claimed the trial was “America’s first communist show trial”—a reference to historic purges of high-ranking communist officials that were used to eliminate political threats.
These claims are unsubstantiated and reckless. Such statements can provoke acts of violence against those serving the public as employees of the judicial branch. Indeed, such statements have resulted in threats to those fulfilling their civic obligations by sitting on the jury, as evidenced by social media postings seeking to identify the names and addresses of the anonymous jurors and worse, in several cases urging that the jurors be shot or hanged. As importantly, such statements strike at the very integrity of the third branch of government and sow distrust in the public for the courts where it does not belong.
To be clear, free speech includes criticism. There is and should be no prohibition on commenting on the decision to bring the prosecution, the prosecution’s legal theory, the judge’s rulings, or the verdict itself. But headlines’ grabbing, baseless allegations made by public officials cross the line from criticism to dangerous rhetoric. They have no place in the public discourse.
It is up to us, as lawyers, to defend the courts and our judges. As individuals, and as an Association, we cannot let the charged political climate in which we live dismantle the third branch of government. To remain silent renders us complicit in that effort.
Respect for the judicial system is essential to our democracy. The CBA condemns unsupported attacks on the integrity of that system.
On a cost-adjusted basis, California leads the nation in percentage living in poverty. Blame the Progressive oligarchs like Governor Newsom.
Unemployment rates from the BLS through April. State level data lags by one month. Chart by Mish.
Warning to the World
Spiked makes a strong case that a dominant class of oligarchs and woke bureaucrats has bled the Golden State dry. It’s a Warning to the World.
Many still see California as the home of a ‘new progressive era’. It is often viewed as an exemplar of social equity, one that reflects, as a New York Times column put it, ‘the shared values of our increasingly tolerant and pluralistic society’. In truth, far from embodying an egalitarian ethos, it is pioneering a new kind of almost feudal society. A relative handful of oligarchs and a vast bureaucratic ‘clerisy’ lord it over a massive class of what are essentially serfs.
California is not only home to by far the highest number of billionaires in the US. But it also suffers the highest proportion of Americans living in poverty and the widest gap between middle- and upper-middle-income earners of any state. It endures among the US’ highest rates of unemployment, as well as massive net outmigration, an exodus that has increased sharply since 2019. It also has 30 per cent of the nation’s homeless population, with some now living in ‘furnished’ caves.
Even without adjusting for costs, no Californian metro area ranks in the US top 10 in terms of well-paying, blue-collar jobs. But four – Ventura, Los Angeles, San Jose and San Diego – sit among the bottom 10.
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor and prince of the oligarchic elite, seems determined to double down on his attempt to shape California as the model for the ‘progressive’ future. ‘Unlike the Washington plutocracy’, he proclaims, ‘California isn’t satisfied serving a powerful few on one side of the velvet rope’.
Such rhetoric crashes against reality. Newsom’s high-tax, regulation-heavy regime is driving enormous poverty. The state’s ethnic-minority communities are suffering most. Ignoring the interests of these people, California legislators and regulators enact proposals for the almost total elimination of fossil fuels.
This, as attorney Jennifer Hernandez explains, has created a kind of ‘green Jim Crow’ that disproportionately hurts working-class, ethnic-minority families. Californians have the highest energy prices in the continental US and energy poverty is particularly rife among the heavily Latino inland areas. Recently, the California Air Resources Board, the primary executor of California’s climate policies, projected that these policies will result in significant income declines for individuals earning less than $100,000 annually, while boosting incomes for those above this threshold.
Rather than address class issues, California’s progressive project focusses on issues like gender, abortion and race. All provide excellent ways to virtue-signal without threatening the ruling cabal of the oligarchical elite, the government bureaucracy and the political class. This has led California to pass such measures as mandates for stores to have gender-neutral toy sections and allowing children to change genders without parental approval.
But it is the race card that California’s feudalists rely on most to appeal to both the guilt-ridden white progressives, as well as the non-white majority. Their regulatory and tax policies may undermine the aspirations of minorities, notably Latinos and African Americans, but they offer support for race-based affirmative-action measures. This is despite the fact that Californian voters have twice rejected such efforts by wide margins.
This hasn’t stopped the state’s nine-member Reparations Task Force. Last month, it recommended state payments of $223,200 to black descendants of slaves living in California. The bill for this could top $569 billion. Equally terrifying, the Racial Justice Act 2020 came into effect in California this year, allowing anyone serving time for a felony to retroactively challenge their conviction and sentencing, on the basis of systemic racial bias. This will essentially allow race to become a major deciding factor in convicting and sentencing criminals in California.
Today, even in face of a record $68 billion deficit and a weak economy, the state’s political establishment seems reluctant to curb its spending or regulatory impulses.
Rather than change course, Newsom and his allies employ budget tricks to deal with the deficit. The governor has even blamed climate change for much of the problem. California’s Democrats are not remotely serious about fixing the budget. Redistribution continues to ace out wealth creation, as epitomised by a pledge to provide undocumented immigrants, hard-working or not, with free healthcare. Meanwhile, middle- and working-class Californians pay ever higher premiums.
These new costs are being imposed even as the high-tech industries keeping California’s economy afloat are beginning to erode.
Dissatisfaction with these and other state policies is becoming more widespread. In one recent survey of California opinion, some 57 per cent said the state was headed in the wrong direction, up from 37 per cent in 2020. Residents of most states hold positive feelings for their state, but not in California, where four in 10 people are considering an exit.
As for the Republicans, the road to resurgence is filled with boulders, many of which are of the party’s own making. The potential is there. Barely 40 per cent of Latinos surveyed recently thought the Democrats were best suited to meeting the state’s challenges.
Such multi-racial coalitions will be critical. California’s future preeminence can only be assured if we return to the kind of common sense, growth-oriented politics that served it so well in the past. The Golden State was once the world’s epicentre of human aspiration. We can’t just surrender it to the neo-feudalists.
The Path to National Ruin
If you live in California and vote for Progressives, you deserve what’s happening. The problem, of course, is the rest of the state does not deserve the madness you impose.
Going one step further, if you are also for slave reparations in a state that never had slaves, then you deserve to lose your house to someone clearly more deserving than you. At a cost of $569 billion, the only way to pay these reparations is for people to be taxed out of their homes.
What’s happening in California is also playing out in Illinois led by Progressive governor J. B. Pritzker.
At the city level look at policies by Chicago by mayor Brandon Johnson, New York City mayor Eric Adams, Boston mayor Michelle Wu, and San Francisco mayor London Breed.
“Wu has argued for charges including shoplifting and disorderly conduct to be beyond the reach of prosecutors along with other serious crimes including the receiving of stolen property and even driving with a suspended license.”
There are too many Progressive idiots to name them all.
If Biden were to win, promotion of economically insane policies, reparations, and bailouts of states like California and Illinois would be in the cards. That is what’s at stake in the election, but few see it.
If that isn’t the future you would like for the US, then think about how you vote.
In late May, Idaho Department of Water Resources Director Mathew Weaver issued a curtailment order requiring 6,400 junior groundwater rights holders who pump off the Eastern Snake Plain Aquifer to shut off their spigots.
Idaho Gov. Brad Little issued a statement following the order on May 30, "Water curtailment is never desired, but the director must follow Idaho law and the Constitution in issuing this order."
Brian Murdock, an East Idaho farmer, said the water curtailment affects 500,000 acres, which equates to roughly 781 square miles of farmland.
"Well, as you said, the state of Idaho and the Idaho Department of Water Resources has issued this curtailment of 500,000 acres. And to help put that in perspective, that's basically 781 square miles of farm ground that is being taken out of production," Murdock told the hosts of Fox News.
The grain and potato farmer continued, "And, of course, the worst problem is this is happening during a very plentiful water year. We have the reservoirs [that] are completely full, and when I mean full, they're dang near breaking. The rivers are running as high as they possibly can. Just trying to keep those dams from breaking."
In eastern Idaho, groundwater users with junior water rights breached the 2016 agreement in 2021 and 2022. Currently, Gov. Little, the lieutenant governor, the Director of Water Resources, and representatives from groundwater and surface water user groups are discussing a new deal. The plan is to strike a new agreement before the curtailment dries up the farmland.
Murdock told co-hosts Dagen McDowell and Sean Duffy that his family's century-old farm faces a $3 million loss due to the state-issued order.
"This is the largest curtailment in the history of the United States as far as farm ground," Murdock said in a video posted on X.
In a commentary piece in the local paper Idaho Capital Sun, farmer Adam Young had a lot of questions about the state's move to inflict pain on farmers:
It's hard to understand why the department chooses to be so openly hostile to groundwater irrigators or why they decided to inflict widespread, massive curtailment on the state in a year when water is abundantly plentiful. This is not what sound resource management looks like. It's time for Idaho's elected officials to step up and demonstrate true leadership on this crucial issue. This is not how Idaho water law, which relies on both "priority of time" and "the public policy of reasonable use of water," was ever intended to work.
Some X users believe the water curtailment is happening around the time as the governor commissions a new cobalt mining operation in the state.
Why is the DWR in Idaho curtailing water rights from the farmers for an Australian mining company mining cobalt? pic.twitter.com/nRGvkComzm
