Stop the Presses

Mark’s reading list: Abuse of migrant kids takes us down a dark road

Mark Jacob — Fri, 21 Aug 2026 17:02:32 GMT

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Mark’s reading list: The feds’ spying and lying is horrifying

Mark Jacob — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 20:48:35 GMT

Your paid subscription to Stop the Presses entitles you to this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. This one’s tardy and didn’t go out Friday as planned, but the suggestions are all still worthy.

The media are missing the story of our lives: a looming dictatorship

Mark Jacob — Mon, 17 Aug 2026 17:10:37 GMT

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Is it possible that large segments of mainstream media will continue normalizing fascism right up to the very minute a dictatorship takes hold?

Is it possible that they will never warn us?

If that happens, it will mark the culmination of the most shameful episode of journalism neglect in the nation’s history.

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The news industry’s mission is to inform the public about matters that affect their lives and warn them of threats to their health and safety. That’s why weather reports are such a big part of local news. So allow me to use a weather analogy to explain what’s happening in political media right now.

Imagine a hurricane approaching the coast. News organizations report that winds are increasing, heavy rain is starting to fall, barometric pressure is dropping, people are being urged to evacuate and shop owners are boarding up their windows. But the news outlets carefully avoid using the word “hurricane.”

They might tell themselves, “We said there was a big storm coming and people were urged to leave. Everyone should have figured out it was a hurricane.”

But that’s not human nature. It’s human nature to think, “We can ride this out. It’s a big storm – but it’s not a hurricane.”

What’s bearing down on us is a political hurricane – a dictatorship in which a despot controls the news media, justice becomes a mirage, oligarchs buy off the government, white supremacy reigns, and dissent is crushed by masked thugs who execute people in the street and use electrified gloves to torture people.

A lot of this is happening already. So the news media need to say plainly, in big headlines: Trump is building a dictatorship. Use the D word. Say that this is the most corrupt presidency in American history, which it obviously is. Say that the president is mentally unstable, which he obviously is.

State painful truths directly and loudly before it’s too late.

I don’t think dictatorship is inevitable. There’s a chance we can survive this. There’s the potential for people power – millions of demonstrators refusing to submit. There is the court system, which is the only branch of government putting up meaningful resistance right now. And there are the midterms, in which Democrats could win one or both houses of Congress and start holding the regime to account and obstructing its crimes.

But none of those things can be relied upon. There’s not a long tradition of mass anti-government demonstrations bearing fruit in this country. Would people even know how to attempt a general strike? And the highest court, the right-wing-dominated Supreme Court is in a position to nullify much of the good work being done by the lower courts.

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As for the midterms, Trump and his Republican co-conspirators are plotting at this very minute to rig the elections or nullify the results. They’ve already stolen Black political power through a mid-decade gerrymandering of congressional districts. The question isn’t whether Trump will rig the midterms – it’s whether he’ll rig them more.

Again, I think we can survive this. But the American people need to send a strong signal to the MAGA movement that we won’t tolerate another coup attempt. And fewer people will send that signal if the news media keep acting like everything is normal.

This is the biggest story of our lifetimes – and of political journalists’ careers – but many of them aren’t treating it that way.

The recent White House Correspondents’ Dinner, with Trump as guest of honor, was one of the worst examples of American tone deafness ever, earning a dishonorable place in history alongside the picnicking spectators at the First Battle of Bull Run.

I’ve written frequently about how major media use lame euphemisms to minimize what’s happening, such as describing Trump’s blatant corruption as “testing norms.” Another form of media malpractice was on display last weekend when Trump said he’d make the Strait of Hormuz “a territory of the United States” and U.S. news outlets barely covered it, apparently deciding that the commander of the most powerful military on Earth doesn’t need to be taken seriously.

Mainstream media are generally casting the midterms as just another red-vs.-blue contest when they ought to be telling their readers and viewers that this year’s elections may be the last chance to save American democracy. This year may also be the last chance for the news profession to save itself.

A Category 5 hurricane is bearing down on us right now. Too many journalists are still debating whether to call it one.

This week’s media atrocity

After Trump announced that professional liar Karoline Leavitt was leaving her White House job, New York Times investigative reporter Eric Lipton wrote an embarrassing Bluesky post: “White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt & members of her team have been extremely helpful in responding to questions I raise. Regardless of public facing commentary, privately they are willing to engage and address questions. And I have appreciated that. Thank you.”

A classic case of celebrating private access over public honesty.

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The media must do more to confront Republicans’ Islamophobia

Mark Jacob — Wed, 12 Aug 2026 21:42:39 GMT

When Al Smith ran for president in 1928, opponents used his Roman Catholic faith against him. His enemies distributed a photo of Smith at the opening of the Holland Tunnel between New York City and New Jersey and claimed he was building a tunnel to the Vatican. After Smith lost, a joke went around that he reacted to the defeat by sending a one-word telegram to the pope: “Unpack.”

But religious bigotry is not at all funny.

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Hatred toward Catholics was still so widespread in 1960 that John F. Kennedy feared it would ruin his chances of becoming president. His pollster went so far as to ask West Virginia voters: “Is there a tunnel being dug from Rome so that the pope can have a secret entrance to the White House if Kennedy wins?” The results were never announced, and Kennedy was alarmed that the pollster had even asked the question, fearing it would spread a damaging rumor.

Today, Muslims occupy a similar place in our politics. The Republican Party is stoking anti-Muslim hatred as it embraces Christian nationalism, conducts an illegal war against a Muslim country, and reacts to a few election victories by Muslim Democrats, including Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan.

Among the slimy statements:

Donald Trump: “We have jihadists being elected all over the place.”
Rep. Nancy Mace: “Every single Muslim holding public office in America is a trojan horse, and a threat to both national security and our republic.”
Rep. Andy Ogles: “Muslims don’t belong in American society.”
Sen. Tommy Tuberville: “Islam is not a religion. It’s a cult. Islamists aren’t here to assimilate. They’re here to conquer ... We’ve got to SEND THEM HOME NOW or we’ll become the United Caliphate of America.”
Rep. Brandon Gill: “No more Muslims immigrating to America.”
Rep. Randy Fine: “We need more Islamophobia, not less.”

Trump and his fascist party have been particularly vicious toward the 260,000 people of Somali ethnicity in the United States, the vast majority of whom are both Muslim and American citizens. He says they’re “not smart, they have no aptitude, they have nothing going,” and they’re “garbage.” History tells us this kind of rhetoric can lead to a wave of atrocities.

Obviously, every American of good will needs to denounce it.

But the news media have a particular responsibility. What should they do?

Here are five action points:

Do not let anti-Muslim smears by prominent people go unreported. Do not normalize them. The New York Times published a strong overview of the problem this week, “With El-Sayed’s Victory Comes a Wave of Islamophobia” (gift link). NPR’s “All Things Considered” broadcast a sharp segment in March on Republican leaders’ shoulder-shrugging response to their party’s religious intolerance. News outlets need to treat this with the importance it deserves.
Use words like “bigotry” and “hatred” to describe what’s happening. It’s not slanted or unprofessional to describe hate speech against Muslims in starkly negative terms. It’s just being a good human being.
Note that right-wing terrorist attacks and plots have far outnumbered those by Islamic jihadists in the United States in recent years. Republicans keep talking as if it’s Sept. 11, 2001, but that was a quarter of a century ago.
Tell the real stories of Minnesota’s Somali community – the success stories – as the right wing exploits a fraud scandal to claim that “they’re all crooks,” as Trump put it.
Run fact-filled stories about how Muslims have made America great, featuring people like boxing champ Muhammad Ali and structural engineer Fazlur Rahman Khan, whose genius helped create Chicago’s Willis Tower (formerly Sears Tower). Remind people that President Barack Obama’s 2016 speech at the Islamic Society of Baltimore quoted Thomas Jefferson as saying specifically that religious freedom applied to everyone, including Muslims.

To anyone who might think that writing Muslim-positive stories is ”not news,” I must push back. The central goal of journalism is to equip the public with the facts that will inspire them to be good citizens in a just society. This means combatting smears and disinformation.

When the people in power conduct a holy war against a religious group, the news media need to put themselves squarely on the side of tolerance and decency.

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25 must-follow people in pro-democracy media

Mark Jacob — Mon, 10 Aug 2026 17:52:02 GMT

Negativity is a trap we can fall into during times like these. But we need to stay optimistic and motivated if we’re going to defeat the criminals who are trying to steal our country.

Here’s my subjective list of 25 bright stars of pro-democracy media, in no particular order, plus honorable mentions at the end.

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Greg Sargent
No political commentator finds sharper news angles than Sargent, who writes for The New Republic and hosts its Daily Blast podcast.
Heather Cox Richardson
The Boston College history professor has nearly 3 million subscribers to her Letters from an American newsletter. She’s earned that attention with incisive analysis of today’s politics, often with a historical perspective.
Jamelle Bouie
The best political columnist, bar none, at the New York Times. He’s also excellent on Bluesky.
Margaret Sullivan
The former Buffalo News editor, New York Times public editor, and Washington Post media columnist is one of the most sensible people doing journalism criticism today. She writes the American Crisis newsletter and also is a columnist for The Guardian. Check out her most recent piece. It’s excellent.
Allison Gill
A savvy commenter on Donald Trump’s governmental scams who gained social media fame as “Mueller, She Wrote” but now goes by her name, Gill founded the MSW Media podcasting network.
Aaron Rupar
I don’t know how Rupar monitors so much video and posts it so quickly. It’s amazing he hasn’t burned out from listening to wall-to-wall right-wing disinformation. He and his team also write terrific essays for his Public Notice newsletter.
Judd Legum
His well-researched Popular Information newsletter is billed as “news for people who give a damn.”
Nicolle Wallace
No MS NOW host is better focused on the authoritarian threat to our country.
Jim Acosta
CNN tried to shove him into an overnight shift. He left instead. Now he’s doing a podcast with straight talk about Trump’s abuses of power.
Marc Elias
Elias is the nation’s No. 1 fighter in court against the Republicans assaulting our elections. His Democracy Docket keeps the public focused on the battlegrounds.
Katie Phang
The former MSNBC host is an activist journalist. She does videos with the Meidas Touch Network and she has sued the Justice Department over its mishandling of the Epstein files.
Parker Molloy
I hate that Molloy is so good at her job because she often writes about the same subject as me – journalists’ failure to confront bigotry and fascism. Her Present Age newsletter is a must read.
Marcy Wheeler
Known as “Empty Wheel” on social media and her blog, Wheeler smartly explains developments in national security and civil liberties.
Angelo Carusone
He’s the president and chief executive officer of Media Matters for America, which monitors extremism in right-wing media despite harassment from Elon Musk and Trump’s Federal Trade Commission.
16. Amy Goodman and Juan González
The hosts of the daily news hour “Democracy Now!” will make you smarter. I guarantee it.

Karen Attiah
She edited the work of Jamal Khashoggi at the Washington Post before the Saudis murdered him. WaPo later fired her “for talking about race,” as she put it. She’s not shutting up.
Steven Beschloss
I’ve done video segments with Beschloss in the past, and I know he’s a passionate fighter against MAGA fascism. He writes the America, America newsletter and does “Six Questions With Steven Beschloss” videos with Lincoln Square.
Oliver Darcy
The former CNN reporter now runs the Status newsletter, which regularly breaks news about the news industry. It’s subscription-only, but worth it.
Nina Burleigh
If you like a side dish of snark with your political commentary, Burleigh’s American Freakshow newsletter is right for you. She has one of the deepest and most sophisticated understandings of the Epstein scandal.
Radley Balko
A leading voice exposing abuses in law enforcement, Balko writes The Watch newsletter and recently penned a New York Times op-ed headlined “ICE Is Out of Control. Here’s What to Do About It” (gift link).
Catherine Rampell
MS NOW is on an upward track because of the addition of journalists like Rampell, who cuts through spin and delivers facts, however painful they may be. She’s also economics editor for The Bulwark.
Stephanie Miller
Talk radio is dominated by the right, and progressive voices can sometimes seem sincere but sleepy. “The Stephanie Miller Show” is an exception. It’s freewheeling, funny, and aggressively anti-MAGA.
Rex Huppke
Like Miller, Huppke uses humor to get his point across. I used to edit him at the Chicago Tribune. Now he’s fighting the good fight at USA Today.
Jen Rubin
She was a conservative columnist for the Washington Post who realized that support for the American right was incompatible with support for decency and democracy. Rubin left WaPo and helped found The Contrarian.

Some honorable mentions: Brian Beutler, Kai Ryssdal, Aaron Parnas, Lawrence O’Donnell, Jay Rosen, Nancy Levine Stearns, Jennifer Schulze, Dan Froomkin, Edwin Eisendrath, Molly Jong-Fast, Jack Cocchiarella, Denny Carter, Susan J. Demas, Kyle Tharp, Jamison Foser, Ron Filipkowski, Jeff Jarvis, Josh Marshall, Ben Collins, John Fugelsang, Tara McGowan, Marisa Kabas, Jacob Soboroff, Asawin Suebsaeng, and Kevin M. Kruse.

If your favorite people are not listed here, please make your recommendations in the comments.

This week’s media atrocity

Why don’t major media realize that when they start a headline with “Trump says …” they’re telling us to ignore the story? An Associated Press report last Wednesday was headlined, “Trump says deal to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could come as early as Wednesday.” It didn’t. As of Sunday, “We are only semi-negotiating with them” … Trump says.

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Mark’s reading list: The GOAT of grifting and more

Mark Jacob — Fri, 07 Aug 2026 17:29:24 GMT

Your paid subscription to Stop the Presses entitles you to this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I highlight some videos, too, including two this week.

Stop saying Trump is joking when he’s not

Mark Jacob — Mon, 03 Aug 2026 17:32:34 GMT

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Last week, Trump bizarrely told Michigan auto workers: “I’ve done more for you than your parents, OK? Your parents are good. I’m not going to knock your parents, but I have been better to you than your parents.”

The Associated Press ran it this way:

“He joked”? Really? I don’t think Trump was joking. He is, after all, the most narcissistic and megalomaniacal person in American public life.

Here’s why the news media must stop reflexively treating Trump’s comments as “jokes”:

In 2016, Trump urged Russia to hunt for Hillary Clinton’s emails. “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.” Trump later claimed the remark was “in jest,” but the Mueller Report stated that “within five hours of Trump’s remark, a Russian intelligence service began targeting email accounts associated with Hillary Clinton for possible hacks.”
In 2017, Trump encouraged police brutality, telling officers, “Please don’t be too nice” when making arrests. His press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said, “I believe he was making a joke at the time.” What have we seen since? A series of street executions carried out by Trump’s immigration agents.
In late 2019, while running for re-election, Trump mused about staying in office beyond his allotted time: “5 years, 9 years, 13 years, 17 years, 21 years, 25 years, 29 years.” Pointing to the press, he said, “I’m only doing that to drive them totally crazy. That drives them crazy. Even joking about it.” It wasn’t funny a year later when Trump launched a deadly coup attempt to try to stay in power.
In 2023, Trump said if he was returned to the White House, he wouldn’t be a dictator “except for Day 1.” He later posted that “it was said in a joking manner.” Now, after all the authoritarian moves of his second term, it’s obvious he wasn’t kidding, except when he said he’d stop after Day 1.
A CNN headline last December read: “Trump jokes about ‘Trump-Kennedy Center’ in remarks during Honors ceremony.” Trump, serving as host, played it off as a slip of the tongue. A few days later, the “joke” became reality: Trump arranged for his name to be officially added to the building – an outrageous action that was later reversed by a federal judge.

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There are more examples of “jokes” that could become serious in the coming months and years:

In January, Trump said his administration was doing so well that “we shouldn’t even have an election.” Asked whether Trump was serious about the idea of canceling the midterms, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said: “The president was simply joking.” Meanwhile, as polls look bad for Republicans, Trump keeps pushing voter suppression measures. He’s reckless and desperate. Who knows what he may do?
An AP headline in May read: “Trump jokes that US Navy will take on Cuba on the way home from Iran.” I’m not so sure that’s a joke.
At the White House Correspondents’ Dinner and other events, Trump has talked about running for another term in 2028, even though the Constitution forbids it. Several news outlets – including NBC, C-SPAN, USA Today, Newsweek, The Independent, and The Hill – have said Trump is “joking” about that, but in March 2025, Trump himself said he was not. I think he’s testing the waters.

Trump can also be deeply unfunny and inappropriate when he tries to be a quipster. In March, while hosting Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi in the Oval Office, he explained why the United States did not give Japan a heads-up that it was planning to attack Iran.

“We didn’t tell anybody about it because we wanted surprise,” he said. “Who knows better about surprise than Japan, OK? Why didn’t you tell me about Pearl Harbor, OK? Right?”

Not only are his “jokes” unfunny, they’re hamhanded. If he ever had comedic timing, he’s lost it. That’s why he bombed so badly at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Jon Stewart delivered a brilliant takedown on “The Daily Show” last week of just how incompetently Trump told jokes at the dinner.

Trump’s stand-up comedy act suffers when we don’t know if he’s kidding. But Trump’s political act benefits from that uncertainty. Some people are tempted to think, “He must be joking.” But those of us who remember the outrages of the last decade know enough to get alarmed.

The news media need to get alarmed, too. His regime is a sick joke, but he isn’t kidding.

This week’s media atrocity

CBS News continued to bulldoze its credibility by naming New York Times columnist Ross Douthat a “60 Minutes” correspondent. You may remember Douthat from his column in late 2020 headlined, “There Will Be No Trump Coup.”

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Mark’s reading list: Musk’s racism, America’s popularity slide, and more

Mark Jacob — Fri, 31 Jul 2026 15:41:31 GMT

Thanks for your paid subscription to Stop the Presses. One of your “extras” is this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I throw in some podcasts now and then, too.

When news execs help fascists whitewash murder

Mark Jacob — Mon, 27 Jul 2026 17:31:54 GMT

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It matters who owns news organizations. It matters who runs them.

Corporate media have similar profit motives that may affect their willingness to tell the whole truth, but they’re not all the same. Some news executives let journalists do their jobs with little or no interference. Others, like CBS News, owned by the pro-Trump Ellison family, are in the tank for the fascist regime.

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Last week, former “60 Minutes” correspondent Cecilia Vega provided new insight into how CBS management pressured its staff to twist reporting after federal agents murdered Renee Good and Alex Pretti in Minneapolis in January.

According to Vega, CBS management asked her to include video of protesters attacking people they erroneously believed were undercover ICE agents. But Vega said her team found “no credible examples” of that.

She said she was urged to include a comment by Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey supposedly calling on city police officers to fight ICE agents. But Vega said she and her colleagues watched “every frame” of a Frey news conference and “that never happened. We could not find any instance of the mayor saying something like that.”

Vega’s account bolstered the claims made by her former colleague Scott Pelley, who accused CBS executives of pressuring him “to inject falsehoods and bias” into his reporting. Pelley said CBS News boss Bari Weiss ordered his team to make protesters look more violent and to describe Good as driving toward an ICE agent when video clearly showed her steering away.

Let’s take stock of what happened here: CBS News executives tried to help the Trump regime whitewash public executions carried out by federal agents.

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Both Vega and Pelley refused to insert falsehoods into their reporting. They were later fired. But they’re not disgruntled employees settling scores. They’re seasoned journalists appalled by what they saw.

“I’ve gone head-to-head with editors for 25 years in this business,” Vega said. “But never in my career, until now, have I felt that those edits, that those suggestions, came from a place of misinformation or politics.”

It appears likely that CBS executives were passing on disinformation they received from the Trump regime, which had falsely labeled both Good and Pretti as domestic terrorists.

Corporate media are especially susceptible to political influence because their owners often operate businesses that have nothing to do with journalism but stand to be rewarded or punished by the people in power. The Ellisons’ friendliness toward Trump earned them the support of Trump’s Justice Department in their bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery.

A key test of a news outlet’s culture and ethics is whether its money people can keep their thumbs off the newsgathering process. Many don’t respect any boundaries. Another threat to journalists’ honest reporting is the desire of some news executives to avoid being confrontational toward politicians, either because they fear being seen as biased or because they’re addicted to access. But journalists have a duty to apply truth to power, even if some executives flinch at that.

I experienced this flinching firsthand when I was an editor at the Chicago Tribune.

In the early days of Trump’s first term, a top editor ordered me and my staff not to say in stories that Trump was lying, or even that he was wrong. We were instructed to convey what Trump said and then say what the facts were, hoping that readers would reach the correct conclusion all by themselves.

That timidity has been common throughout legacy media, and it’s part of the reason Trump is in a position now to destroy our democracy.

Of course, soft treatment toward politicians happens in both big and little ways. Sometimes it’s a slanted headline or corruption being downplayed as “a break from norms.”

But in the case of the Good and Pretti murders, CBS executives crossed a far darker line. They took the side of lying politicians trying to justify shooting Americans. And since then, ICE has killed more people.

This wasn’t “politics.” It was a test of whether a news outlet would prioritize basic human decency. CBS News failed that test.

This week’s media atrocity

It was disgusting to see the White House Correspondents’ Association hosting Trump as its guest of honor at its dinner Friday. NBC’s Kristen Welker was caught on video yukking it up with Stephen Miller, architect of ICE’s reign of terror against immigrants and the people who defend them. Members of the Washington press are supposed to be watchdogs, but too often they’re lapdogs. The dinner sent the message that they’re all in the same club, and you aren’t.

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Mark’s reading list: The assault on voting, that damn dinner, and more

Mark Jacob — Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:27:41 GMT

Thanks for your paid subscription to Stop the Presses. One of your “extras” is this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I throw in some podcasts now and then, too.

Trump and prediction markets are building a society of suckers

Mark Jacob — Mon, 20 Jul 2026 19:16:34 GMT

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Trump and prediction markets are building a society of suckers

Prediction markets are perfect examples of how Donald Trump and the oligarchs who conspire with him are building a nation of chumps, a society of suckers.

These markets are online betting parlors by another name. They allow people to wager on a wide variety of questions, from“Next prime minister of Ethiopia?“ to “Where will ‘Janice STFU’ by Drake rank on the Billboard Hot 100 chart dated Aug 1, 2026?”

Prediction markets are sometimes described as a testament to “the wisdom of crowds,” but such wisdom has its limits. The markets are notoriously vulnerable to insider trading, which means people who control events or have private knowledge of what will happen can make a killing.

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Trump, who loves gray-area, funny-money opportunities like cryptocurrency and prediction markets, has made his position clear. He wants his Commodity Futures Trading Commission to have “exclusive authority” over prediction markets, with no regulation by the states. “We cannot have SCUM like Chris Christie, Letitia James, Tim Walz, and JB Pritzker setting the rules!” Trump wrote in May.

Trump’s CFTC chairman, Michael Selig, doesn’t look like much of a watchdog. This month, he praised prediction markets as “an interesting hedging tool” that helps companies “manage risk.” And the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., is a booster, too. He has financial ties to the top two prediction markets – serving as an investor and unpaid adviser for Polymarket and a paid adviser for Kalshi.

Major news media are also in cahoots. CNBC and CNN treat Kalshi’s numbers as if they’re news – and both have financial deals to promote the company. CNBC sometimes fails to disclose that relationship when reporting on Kalshi, according to an excellent report by Aaron Rupar and Judd Legum. CNBC says it discloses its financial link only when it is “directly relevant to the story.”

CNN’s deal with Kalshi is exclusive, which means CNN can’t cite other prediction markets in its coverage, a network source told The New Yorker. If the coverage of Kalshi’s wagers were actually news instead of just sneaky product placement, why wouldn’t CNN occasionally cite other prediction markets, too?

While CNBC and CNN continue this gross perversion of their journalistic mission, other news outlets are doing fine jobs of exposing the ways these markets make our country more dishonest and exploitative. Among the most damning reports:

About 0.1% of accounts on Polymarket collect about two-thirds of the profits, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis.
In a stunningly dodgy tactic, Polymarket created “clone” sites on which social media influencers made fake bets before posting videos with messages like, “I just turned $500 into $100K.”
The Associated Press reported: “A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the U.S. and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits … At least 50 accounts, or wallets, placed substantial ‘Yes’ bets Tuesday before Trump announced the ceasefire in a Truth Social post at around 6:30 pm ET. These were the first bets made by these particular wallets.”
Some prediction markets let people to bet on wildfires. “Experts are sounding the alarm,” says CNN. “They fear it risks incentivizing arson.”
Kalshi will soon begin taking bets on the outcomes of clinical drug trials. Nothing bad could come from that, right?
Trump’s teleprompter operator is suspected of using his inside knowledge to win more than $100,000 betting on Kalshi about what the president would say in his major speeches.
Spotify removed about 500,000 streams from Malcolm Todd’s song “Earrings” after its strong performance on the charts was linked to manipulation tied to Kalshi bets.

Polymarket pays “influencers” to insert its product into social media conversations. Among them: former Politico reporter Rachael Bade, former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, anti-trans activist Riley Gaines, leftist commentator Brian Krassenstein, and right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson (who was also funded by Russia, supposedly without his knowledge).
Billionaire Peter Thiel, the money man behind JD Vance’s political career, is a major investor in Polymarket.

The greed of Team Trump and the mainstream media have empowered prediction markets to separate many people from their money while allowing a few to quietly profit from dodgy schemes.

CNBC and CNN aren’t the only media companies with prediction market ties. Polymarket has a partnership with Dow Jones, publisher of the Wall Street Journal, though it must be said that some of the most negative stories about prediction markets have appeared in the WSJ.

Polymarket also has a cooperation agreement with Substack, the publishing platform for this newsletter, which is sponsored by COURIER Newsroom. I have had no dealings with any prediction market and pledge to never take their money.

If you see a journalist or influencer posting positively about a prediction market on social media, ask them in the comments whether they have any financial ties. I have done that myself and aim to do it more often.

Prediction markets, as currently operated, stink to high heaven.

This week’s media atrocity

Reacting to Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth’s campaign to boost testosterone levels in the military, Fox host Jesse Watters declared: “Women on base, you guys better be careful. Port calls, women in Asia, you better be careful. Because these guys are going to be wild animals and you better watch out.”

Yep, rape is hilarious if you’re an idiot like Jesse Watters.

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Mark’s reading list: Military madness, memorable movies, and more

Mark Jacob — Fri, 17 Jul 2026 15:53:06 GMT

Thanks for your paid subscription to Stop the Presses. One of your “extras” is this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I throw in some podcasts now and then, too.

When fascists come for the news outlets that enabled them

Mark Jacob — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 17:59:07 GMT

Federal agents went to New York Times reporters’ homes last week to deliver subpoenas in their investigation of news coverage that displeased the Trump regime.

This is bad news for both journalism and democracy. But it’s entirely predictable. News outlets that minimize and normalize Republican authoritarianism will eventually find it at their doorstep.

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The NYT has been simultaneously great and terrible in its coverage of MAGA. Its investigative reporters have often exposed individual abuses, but its news editors have failed to shape a coherent warning about the broader threat to our freedom. Too often, they’ve been clueless or trivializing.

When Donald Trump called for “termination” of the Constitution, the NYT put the story on Page 13. When he lied about immigration and the economy in an address to Congress, the NYT praised his “game show flair.” When he vowed to take back the Panama Canal by force, the NYT called it a desire ”to expand America’s footprint.” When he showed that his brain was broken by bizarrely swaying to music at a campaign rally for 39 minutes, it was merely an “improvisational departure.”

During the 2024 presidential campaign, NYT Executive Editor Joe Kahn said the survival of democracy was not a top priority in the Times’ coverage:

The NYT seemed to take civil liberties more seriously last week after receiving subpoenas over its coverage of problems with Qatar’s “gift” of a new Air Force One to Trump. The regime’s investigation is “a brazen act” that “should shock the conscience of any American,” the NYT said.

Of course, the NYT isn’t the only mainstream outlet that once thought it could ride out the fascist movement without getting confrontational with the fascists. Some journalists at legacy news organizations act as if they live in a very safe space. They’re part of the power structure. They have lawyers and researchers and expense accounts and multiple layers of editors to keep them out of trouble. Nothing bad could happen to them, right?

ABC News may have thought it was protecting itself by settling a Trump lawsuit for $15 million over host George Stephanopoulos’ comments that Trump had been “found liable for rape” in the E. Jean Carroll case. Technically, under New York law, it was sexual abuse, not rape, even though a judge in the case said it would be considered rape in “common modern parlance.” ABC had a good chance of winning the lawsuit because Trump is a public figure and would have had to prove Stephanopoulos knowingly made a false statement.

Instead, ABC surrendered, which encouraged Trump to sue other media outlets. Stephanopoulos signed a new contract and the network moved on.

But for tyrants, there’s never enough acquiescence.

ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel often mocks Trump on his late-night show, and Trump’s hatchet man at the Federal Communications Commission, Brendan Carr, went after Kimmel last September. Carr’s FCC can’t shut down networks, but it does have the power to launch investigations and pull the licenses of network-owned local affiliate stations.

Seizing on Kimmel’s comments after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Carr made his threat:

Nexstar and Sinclair, two major local TV chains, pulled Kimmel’s show, and then ABC suspended him. But the regime’s heavy hand caused a major stink – and inspired calls for a boycott of Disney, ABC’s parent company. The bid to silence Kimmel fell apart, and he went back on the air.

Now Trump and Carr are going after ABC’s “The View,” whose hosts have long irritated the regime. Carr’s FCC is questioning the show’s claim that it qualifies as a news show exempt from “equal time” rules. As ABC puts it, “the FCC wants to control who is allowed to appear on the show.”

This time, ABC is fighting back, launching an ad campaign urging viewers to submit comments to the FCC. Tens of thousands have done so.

Better late than never, ABC. It’s well past time for other legacy outlets to defend the 1st Amendment and themselves. But so many of them continue to betray their duty to a free society.

We’ll soon see another demonstration of that subservience with the redo of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on July 24, featuring Trump. You’ll recall that a gunman interrupted the event in April, and the White House Correspondents’ Association vowed to reschedule the dinner in cooperation with the nation’s most prominent enemy of the free press.

The dinner – which should be abolished – will carry some suspense about what Trump decides to say. Back in April, some of us anticipated that journalists would sit there and take it as Trump ripped the “fake news.” But he is unpredictable. To its credit, the NYT does not participate in the WHCD, though it does cover it. Maybe it will once again praise Trump’s “game show flair.”

Trump, who can turn anything into a cheap carny act, is coy.

“I don’t know whether or not I will give the same rather nasty statements, at least as it concerns certain people,” he wrote in June. “But we will soon find out.”

This week’s media atrocity

The Hill, anticipating an announcement of Sen. Mitch McConnell’s death, prematurely published a story headlined, “DO NOT USE: A lookback at Mitch McConnell’s time in the Senate.”

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Mark’s reading list: When AI gets to vote, and other scary issues

Mark Jacob — Fri, 10 Jul 2026 15:49:01 GMT

Thanks for your paid subscription to Stop the Presses. One of your “extras” is this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I throw in some podcasts now and then, too.

While CNN may get worse, MS NOW is getting better

Mark Jacob — Mon, 06 Jul 2026 18:13:57 GMT

I’m increasingly worried about “media capture.”

That’s when rich people buy up mass-communication companies and use them to disinform the public and empower a strongman leader.

In the United States, the trend is disturbing.

Last month, the right-wing Murdoch family’s Fox Corp. announced plans to buy streaming TV platform Roku, which is used by 100 million American households. Also last month, the U.S. “Justice” Department fast-tracked the pro-Trump Ellison family’s bid to acquire Warner Bros. Discovery, parent company of CNN. The Ellisons have already gained a share of TikTok with Trump’s help and taken over CBS News, where they hired right-wing favorite Bari Weiss to promote pro-Trump disinformation.

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Clearly, the Ellison family is pursuing media capture in collaboration with the regime.

Trump’s DOJ approved Ellison-owned Paramount’s bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery, and thus take control of CNN, before its own staff had a chance to oppose the deal on antitrust grounds. State attorneys general and/or European regulators could still block the sale, but the smart money says the Ellisons’ takeover is a done deal.

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth is cheerleading for it. In March, he denounced “more fake news from CNN” and said, “The sooner David Ellison takes over that network, the better.”

So what would that mean for CNN’s coverage?

I predict a slow slide to the right. CNN reports sharply about Trump at times, and does a good job of running clips of his past statements to demonstrate his hypocrisy. But it generally stops short of the obvious sweeping conclusion that he’s building an authoritarian government. Journalists like Jim Acosta and John Harwood who were really hardnosed about Trump have left the network. Meanwhile, MAGA liar Scott Jennings remains on CNN’s payroll.

Some CNN journalists seem worried about the prospect of pro-Trump bias, especially if Bari Weiss’ role expands to cover CNN too. Scott Pelley was fired at CBS after accusing Weiss of “murdering ‘60 Minutes.’” He said she pressured the program to make Minnesota protesters look “more violent” and to report that shooting victim Renee Good drove her car toward an immigration agent when she didn’t.

The New York Post’s Charles Gasparino reported that CNN’s staff is “in a panic” over the likely takeover, and he quoted an unnamed Paramount insider as saying, “Yes, I know people are scared but we’re looking to produce a news product that appeals to 70% of the country that is either center left or center right. Why be scared of that?”

David Ellison likes to cite that 70% figure, but it’s wrong. Polls show that only about 40% of American adults put themselves in the center. But whatever the number, a more legitimate approach would be to avoid pandering to the supposed center and instead “center” the truth. Report the facts. Keep liars off the air.

I don’t expect that to happen at CNN. Nor do I anticipate a dramatic lurch to the right. That was Weiss’ big mistake at CBS, costing it both credibility and viewership. I suspect the Ellisons have learned their lesson and will turn the dial only slightly to the right, allowing a few more Republicans to tell a few more lies.

One of CNN’s strengths is its international coverage, and that may face the greatest threat. The Ellisons are major supporters of Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu’s leadership, as is Weiss. Also, If the Ellisons’ Paramount buys WBD, 15% of the combined company will be owned by the Saudi sovereign wealth fund. Yes, the people who murdered journalist Jamal Khashoggi.

CNN is sometimes disappointing now. It’s likely to get worse.

Now the good news

Counterbalancing the troubling prospects for CNN is what is happening every day on MS NOW: hard-hitting, well-focused, fact-based news.

Since the former MSNBC separated from NBC last October and changed its name to MS NOW, it has found its footing as a major pro-democracy voice in our country. While other networks and the New York Times clutch their pearls and say Trump is “testing norms,” MS NOW is calling out corruption and authoritarianism. It calls lies “lies.”

But it would be wrong to think of MS NOW as just the liberal flipside of Fox News. MS NOW is focused on real issues that matter to people’s lives. Fox is focused on culture clashes to instill fear and hatred. Also – and this is most important – MS NOW seeks to convey the truth, unlike Fox, which routinely twists the facts to mislead its viewers.

MS NOW features some of the best journalists in the business. Nicolle Wallace’s concentration on the threat of a dictatorship reflects a depth of understanding often lacking in corporate media. Jacob Soboroff, a leading reporter on the abuses of Trump’s immigration crackdown, has a new weekend show. Carol Leonnig regularly breaks news on national security and law enforcement, while Lisa Rubin deftly explains complex court cases.

The likely decline of CNN and the growing influence of MS NOW are demonstrated by legal affairs correspondent Paula Reid leaving CNN amid reports that her next newsroom will be at MS NOW.

I still have problems with the self-indulgent Joe Scarborough on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe,” but in general the network is a smart news operation that respects its audience. We need more like it.

This week’s media atrocity

NPR embarrassed itself with Nina Totenberg’s false report that Justice Samuel Alito was retiring. Totenberg called it “the worst professional mistake of my more than 50 years in journalism." But I think it was the second worst. The worst was Totenberg continuing to cover the Supreme Court despite maintaining a decades-long close friendship with Ruth Bader Ginsburg. If Totenberg wanted to be her friend, she should’ve gotten off the SCOTUS beat.

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Mark’s reading list: Scams, hoaxes, gun deaths and more

Mark Jacob — Fri, 03 Jul 2026 18:29:39 GMT

Thank you for your paid subscription to Stop the Presses. One of your “extras” is this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I throw in some podcasts now and then, too.

Republicans think the Bill of Rights is optional

Mark Jacob — Thu, 02 Jul 2026 15:13:33 GMT

Birthright citizenship survived the latest session of the Supreme Court, no thanks to Donald Trump and the Court’s far right wing.

The 14th Amendment’s language is abundantly clear: “All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside.”

But Trump and other white supremacists think birthright citizenship encourages immigration by Black and brown people, so they attack it. Considering the closeness of the ruling – with four of nine justices saying a ban wouldn’t violate the Constitution – Republicans probably will revisit this issue if they remain in power.

As the United States marks its 250th birthday, we must face the fact that the party in control of the White House, Congress, and the Supreme Court opposes key aspects of the Constitution.

Remember what Trump posted on social media in December 2022 when he called for the overturning of the 2020 election: “A Massive Fraud of this type and magnitude allows for the termination of all rules, regulations, and articles, even those found in the Constitution.”

Clearly, many leading Republicans consider the Constitution optional. Even the Bill of Rights – the first 10 amendments to the Constitution – is not safe from the march of MAGA fascism. I decided to take an amendment-by-amendment look, not always from a technical legal view (I’m not a lawyer), but from a philosophical view.

1st Amendment

When Trump tries to cancel late-night comedians’ TV shows and threatens lawmakers with death for urging the military to follow the law, it’s obvious that he doesn’t believe in freedom of speech. This amendment also prohibits “an establishment of religion,” yet the right is taking many steps toward making Christianity the state religion.

2nd Amendment

This is the part of the Bill of Rights that right-wingers have long been most passionate about. Yet when Alex Pretti was shot to death in Minneapolis while carrying – not brandishing – a legally registered handgun, the Trump regime said his death was his own fault because he was armed.

3rd Amendment

This might be the part of the Bill of Rights with the least modern relevance, but the thinking behind it is relevant to Trump’s attempts to send the military into U.S. cities as an occupying force. It states: “No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.” The Framers wanted the military beholden to the public, not the other way around.

4th Amendment

This gives people – not just citizens, but all people – the right “to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures.” It requires authorities to secure legal warrants before conducting searches. Yet the Department of Homeland Security routinely violates this right. Republicans such as Sen. Roger Marshall claim “it’s just not practical” to secure judicial warrants for every single undocumented immigrant, arguing that administrative warrants – issued by Homeland Security itself – are enough.

5th Amendment

This right guarantees that no person – not “no citizen,” but no person – shall be “deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” Yet the Trump regime kidnapped immigrants and shipped them to a torture prison in El Salvador without court proceedings – and even defied a federal judge’s order to turn around planes that were en route. The 5th Amendment has an exception for wartime actions, and the regime made a bogus claim that the detained migrants were “conducting irregular warfare” against the United States.

6th Amendment

This right states that “in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial.” The Trump regime is ignoring that by murdering more than 200 people on boats in the Pacific and Caribbean. It accuses them of drug trafficking, but presents no evidence and avoids going through the courts by calling them soldiers in an imaginary “war” that’s taking place overseas.

7th Amendment

This guarantees the right to a trial by jury. The regime isn’t disputing that, but as the previous paragraph points out, it’s simply skipping the trial altogether.

8th Amendment

This is the ban on “cruel and unusual punishment,” which would seem to include murdering people on boats without charging them with a crime or presenting evidence against them. But once again, it’s supposedly a “war” conducted on foreign territory, so the Bill of Rights is conveniently deemed irrelevant.

9th Amendment

This amendment states that all powers not stipulated in the Constitution as belonging to the government belong to the people. Yet Trump, through his many executive orders, is systematically trying to claim powers he doesn’t really have.

10th Amendment

This goes along with the previous one. It reinforces that powers that are not conferred on the federal government “are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.” Yet Trump is trying to steal control of elections from the states. A Supreme Court ruling this week defeated a Republican-led attack on mail-in voting, but Trump is still campaigning hard to pass the “SAVE America Act” as another means of suppressing the vote.

Other constitutional amendments Republicans hate

15th: This amendment declares: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” Yet Republicans are putting up barriers to try to reduce minority voter turnout.
19th: This gives women the right to vote – and some Chrstian nationalists want to repeal it. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth shared a video on social media in which pastors said the vote should be taken away from women.
22nd: This amendment says, “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice.” Yet Trump keeps bringing up the idea of running for a third term. And some of his judicial nominees have refused to rule that out.

Have a nice Independence Day, and let’s get busy defending our freedom from right-wing authoritarianism.

The right exploits Caitlin Clark to push its white victim agenda

Mark Jacob — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 16:50:23 GMT

Over the last six days, Fox News’ website has posted 21 separate stories and videos about Caitlin Clark. There were two stories on Wednesday, five more stories on Thursday, another five stories on Friday, an additional five stories and a video on Saturday, two more stories on Sunday, and one on Monday.

Was this because Clark did something extraordinary in the history of women’s basketball? No. This news tsunami occurred because Clark, a white heterosexual woman, was flagrantly fouled by a Black lesbian woman. It occurred because Fox and other right-wing propagandists are determined to exploit Clark as a symbol of white victimization.

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Clark is a fine basketball player – a dazzling passer and a shooter with amazing range. She’s the league’s most famous player, though not its best one. She’s average at best on defense, leads the league in turnovers per game, and isn’t even the top scorer on her own team.

Yet she’s clearly gifted and fun to watch. So it’s a shame that the right’s racial agenda has cast her as a great white hope mistreated in a league dominated by Black women. Players who handle the ball a lot and drive to the basket often get fouled, whether they’re white and named Clark or not. Sometimes the refs miss the call.

An uncalled cheap shot on Wednesday was the trigger for Fox’s latest gusher of white grievance. Clark lost her footing, fell in a tumble and was punched in the throat by the Phoenix Mercury’s Alyssa Thomas. While no foul was called at the time, Thomas later received a one-game suspension, and certainly deserved it.

Fox, which has often portrayed Clark as a victim , went into overdrive, running headlines like “Haters who framed Caitlin Clark’s success as racial now dismiss race when she’s targeted on the court.”

MAGA politicians weighed in, too:

Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita tweeted: “That’s it? Just one game? Pathetic.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa tweeted that Clark “gets consistently treated unfairly on the court.”
Rep. Tim Burchett of Tennessee told the tabloidy TMZ Sports outlet: “I think it’s trashy. She gets the crap kicked out of her.” (TMZ has gotten “exclusives” from Burchett before, including one story headlined “Rep. Tim Burchett Says the Only Bad Bunny He Knows Was His Horny Pet Rabbit.”)

One of the ugliest reactions to the Clark-Thomas incident came from Dan Dakich, who hosts the “Don’t @ Me” podcast for Fox News’ Outkick. He called Thomas’ foul “street justice ghetto style.” As he showed a photo of the incident, he said, “That picture will be a poster on the wall of every African American lesbian basketball player slash woman in America, right there. Holding the white girl down with a couple other people around and putting her in a chokehold.”

“Chokehold” was an exaggeration by a racist idiot. It was a flagrant foul, but not a chokehold.

Dakich was also outraged that “angry African American lesbians” excluded Clark from the WNBA’s 30th anniversary poster. But he undercut his own complaint by noting a report that Clark was left off because she didn’t license the poster company to use an image of her face. Other famous players, Black and white, were omitted from the poster, too, but Dakich focused on “fellow white women who made the sport … Diana Taurasi, nowhere to be seen. Sue Bird, nowhere to be seen. Elena Delle Donne or whatever the hell her name is, nowhere to be seen.”

Yep, Dakich was really standing up for “whatever the hell her name is.”

And that’s the point. Fox and other exploiters of Caitlin Clark’s story don’t really care about women’s sports except as a vehicle to stoke outrage and drive clicks.

There’s a legitimate issue about the quality of WNBA officiating and whether play is too rough. Clark often complains about it, but not in racial terms. I have seen no evidence that race or sexual preference are factors. Other players may resent the adulation toward her, but if that’s a motive for fouling Clark, I think it’s rare. (I’m no expert, but I watch a lot of WNBA games and have written about basketball in the past. My brother Matthew and I co-authored Globetrotter: How Abe Saperstein Shook Up the World of Sports, a biography of the Harlem Globetrotters founder.)

I’d just like the right wing to find something else to cynically overreact to and leave basketball alone. Enough with headlines like the one in Gateway Pundit reading, “Was Caitlin Clark Assaulted in WNBA Game Because She’s a Single Christian Straight White Girl?”

MAGA demagogues like to attack trans people by talking about “keeping men out of women’s sports.” But this Caitlin Clark “controversy” is a case where the men who need to stay out of women’s sports are the MAGA demagogues themselves.

This week’s media atrocity

Regular readers know that sometimes I cite a genuine news industry “atrocity” and other times I’m using the word more loosely to just point out something annoying. This week, it’s the latter. Politico wrote a stupid story last week headlined “Democrats grapple uncomfortably with World Cup success.” As if Democrats are rooting for disaster. Ridiculous.

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Mark’s reading list: Disturbing news on ICE, CBS, and RFK Jr.

Mark Jacob — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:12:45 GMT

Thank you for your paid subscription to Stop the Presses. One of your “extras” is this weekly list of recommended articles and newsletters. I throw in some podcasts now and then, too.

Top 20 lessons from military super-genius Donald Trump

Mark Jacob — Mon, 22 Jun 2026 18:00:57 GMT

There’s a yearbook photo of young Donald Trump in military school, an array of medals attached to his dress jacket. Except it wasn’t his jacket. Trump had borrowed it from a classmate because it had more medals than his own.

Then there was the time in 2015 when Trump touted himself as an expert in national security. “I know more about ISIS than the generals do,” he said.

Just last week, Trump joked about giving himself a Medal of Honor. At least it seemed like a joke.

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Clearly, in Trump’s mind he’s a genius at warmaking and diplomacy. Perhaps he should resurrect Trump University as a military and international relations school where eager students could learn these 20 key pieces of operational guidance from Trump and his regime:

1. Claim you have a “complete” deal with your enemy when you’re actually putting off the important stuff until later.

2. Insult your allies. That’s a smart way to get them to help you.

3. When your country is conducting delicate peace talks with the enemy and has signed a pledge to “refrain from the threat or use of force,” it’s the perfect time to announce that you might “blow the shit out of them.”

4. In wartime, try to pick a fight with a respected moral leader like the pope.

5. Build public confidence by creating confusion over your military goals. For example, cite regime change as a reason to go to war, then months later say, “I never cared about regime change.”

6. Even though you went to war promising to eliminate your enemy’s missiles, feel free to cut them some slack because “if other countries have them, it’s a little bit unfair for them not to have some.”

7. A “ceasefire” doesn’t necessarily mean you actually cease fire.

8. Insist that God is on your side even when you blow up a school full of children, and don’t worry about looking hypocritical when you call your enemies “religious fanatics.”

9. If you claim “control” of a key waterway when your enemy is in fact blocking it, don’t worry. Everyone will believe you and no one will mind that it’s driving up gasoline prices.

10. A great way to get respect as commander in chief is to call soldiers who died in wars “suckers” and “losers.”

11. Build public trust by declaring a mainstream news network “fake news,” then saying its war coverage will favor your side after one of your rich supporters buys the network.

12. If the war goes badly, blame your predecessors, including a guy who hasn’t been in power for nearly a decade.

13. Refer to your enemies as “very rational people” who are “nice to deal with” (but don’t let that stop you from threatening to “blow the shit out of them” a few days later).

14. Don’t let anyone tell you it’s wrong for you to send people to their deaths in a war just because you dodged the draft as a young man by claiming “bone spurs.”

15. It’s 100% legitimate to say your attacks are in “self-defense” even when you blow up a drinking water facility serving 20,000 civilians.

16. When people make financial sacrifices because of a war you started, be sure to tell them their additional costs are “peanuts.”

17. Increase your credibility by issuing a demand for “unconditional surrender” that you know will be impossible to achieve.

18. Allow your peace deal to be held hostage by a foreign leader like Benjamin Netanyahu, who remains in power only by keeping his country in a constant state of war.

19. Increase confidence in your peace deal by hiding its contents from the public for days and lying about it.

20. When you’re losing a war, throw a bunch of money at your enemy.

War is really simple, right? Especially for a stable genius. Enroll your children now.

This week’s media atrocity

Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos is bad for journalism. It’s well known that he blocked his editorial board from endorsing Kamala Harris in 2024, pledged $1 million for Trump’s inauguration, steered his opinion section to the right, laid off hundreds of employees, and bankrolled a puffy documentary about Melania Trump. Now there’s a new detail in the book “Regime Change” by Jonathan Swan and Maggie Haberman.

They say Bezos attended a December 2024 dinner with Trump and badmouthed WaPo’s business staff. “The people there are terrible,” Bezos reportedly told him. “They don’t listen.” Bezos was also quoted as saying the paper was his worst investment.

So why doesn’t he sell it, as advocates for quality journalism have urged? Because Bezos uses his mishandling of WaPo as a way to please Trump, who has the power to help or hurt his other businesses.

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