NUTLICK

 

> Wall Street vulture who survived 9/11 by dropping his kid at kindergarten for the first time ever

> while 658 of his employees got vaporized upstairs > Rebuilt Cantor Fitzgerald into a personal piggy bank, allegedly pocketing chunks of the 9/11 insurance payout while families fought for scraps > Next-door neighbor to Epstein on East 71st, bought the adjoining mansion cheap from Wexner-linked trusts, ran joint ventures with the pedo until at least 2014 > Flew the whole family including wife, four kids, nannies to Little St. James for a "family lunch" in 2012, years after Epstein's conviction > Sister was a "Founding Citizen" of Ghislaine Maxwell's scam TerraMar—a real tight-knit crew > Zero gag reflex, spends every TV hit fellating Trump harder than a Mar-a-Lago waitress chasing tips > Turned Cantor into Tether's favorite laundry service, custodies billions in shady stablecoin reserves despite allegations of terrorist financing > short and bald, just an all-around awful look > Pumps Bitcoin treasury scams and crypto SPACs with SoftBank, all while playing Commerce Secretary and threatening tariffs that juice his own book > turned Cantor into a walking conflict of interest, puts his sons with zero real experience in charge > laughs hysterically any time 9/11 is mentioned, claims it was a “tragedy”

He Studied Cognitive Science at Stanford. Then He Wrote a Startling Play About A.I. Authoritarianism.

Michelle Goldberg

He Studied Cognitive Science at Stanford. Then He Wrote a Startling Play About A.I. Authoritarianism.

Feb. 16, 2026

Karan Brar, who plays Maneesh in “Data.”Credit...Rachel Papo for The New York Times

 

By Michelle Goldberg

Opinion Columnist

When I saw “Data,” a zippy Off Broadway play about the ethical crises of employees at a Palantir-like A.I. company, last month, I was struck by its prescience. It’s about a brilliant, conflicted computer programmer pulled into a secret project — stop reading here if you want to avoid spoilers — to win a Department of Homeland Security contract for a database tracking immigrants. A brisk theatrical thriller, the play perfectly captures the slick, grandiose language with which tech titans justify their potentially totalitarian projects to the public and perhaps to themselves.

“Data is the language of our time,” says a data analytics manager named Alex, sounding a lot like the Palantir chief Alex Karp. “And like all languages, its narratives will be written by the victors. So if those fluent in the language don’t help democracy flourish, we hurt it. And if we don’t win this contract, someone else less fluent will.”

I’m always on the lookout for art that tries to make sense of our careening, crises-ridden political moment, and found the play invigorating. But over the last two weeks, as events in the real world have come to echo some of the plot points in “Data,” it’s started to seem almost prophetic.

Its protagonist, Maneesh, has created an algorithm with frighteningly accurate predictive powers. When I saw the play, I had no idea whether such technology was really on the horizon. But this week, The Atlantic reported on Mantic, a start-up whose A.I. engine outperforms many of the best human forecasters across domains from politics to sports to entertainment.

I also wondered how many of the people unleashing A.I. tools on us really share the angst of Maneesh and his co-worker, Riley, who laments, “I come here every day and I make the world a worse place.” That’s what I think most people who work on A.I. are doing, but it was hard to imagine that many of them think that, immersed as they are in a culture that lauds them as heroic explorers on the cusp of awe-inspiring breakthroughs in human — or maybe post-human — possibility. As a New York magazine review of “Data” put it, “Who gets so far at work without thinking through — and long since justifying — the consequences?”

But last week, Mrinank Sharma, a safety researcher at Anthropic, quit with the sort of open letter that would have seemed wildly overwrought in a theatrical script. “The world is in peril,” he wrote, describing constant pressure at work “to set aside what matters most.” Henceforth, said Sharma, he would devote himself to “community building” and poetry. Two days later Zoë Hitzig, a researcher at OpenAI, announced her resignation in The New York Times, describing the way the tool could use people’s intimate data to target them with ads.

I reached out to the writer of “Data,” Matthew Libby, because I was curious about how he got so much so right, and learned that before he worked in theater, he studied cognitive science at Stanford. More specifically, he has a degree in symbolic systems, an interdisciplinary program that combines subjects including computer science, philosophy and psychology. He always intended to be a writer, he said, but wanted to make sure he had something to write about.

Not surprisingly, Libby, who graduated in 2017, felt the pull of Silicon Valley, at one point interviewing for an internship at Palantir. He was heartbroken when he didn’t get it. But when he came across a 2017 Intercept story headlined “Palantir Provides the Engine for Donald Trump’s Deportation Machine,” he wondered what he would have done if he’d worked there, which is how “Data” was born.

Perhaps the most interesting thing about “Data” isn’t its insight into those who leave companies making dangerous A.I., but into the majority who stay, and the stories they tell themselves about what they’re building. “My experience of the tech industry is just that there’s always this air of inevitability,” said Libby. “You know, ‘We can’t pause any of this because it’s coming no matter what, and don’t you want to be the person doing it?’”

Among technologies, A.I. is unique in that those who are creating it — and profiting off it — will from time to time warn that it could destroy humanity. As Sam Altman said in 2015, shortly before helping found OpenAI, “I think that A.I. will probably, most likely, sort of lead to the end of the world. But in the meantime, there will be great companies created with serious machine learning.” A slightly truncated version of that quote appears as an epigraph in Libby’s script.

Just last month Dario Amodei, who leads Anthropic, the most seemingly responsible of the A.I. giants, published an essay titled “The Adolescence of Technology,” about potential A.I. apocalypses. A.I. systems, he wrote, could turn against humankind or help to create biological weapons. They could be used to build a digital panopticon more comprehensive than anything existing today, or develop propaganda so precisely tailored to its users that it would amount to brainwashing.

But as Amodei sees it, these hellish possibilities are less reasons to slow A.I. development, or to keep it out of the hands of the surveillance state, than to make sure that the United States stays ahead of China. “It makes sense to use A.I. to empower democracies to resist autocracies,” he wrote. “This is the reason Anthropic considers it important to provide A.I. to the intelligence and defense communities in the U.S. and its democratic allies.” His argument would be sounder if the United States were still, in any meaningful sense, part of a coalition of democracies, rather than a nation ruled by an aspiring autocrat who is propped up in no small part by the tech industry.

In “Data,” Alex makes a similar argument for bidding on the Department of Homeland Security contract. “We’re the fighters protecting democracy,” he says. “China already has an automated social credit system they’re exporting to developing nations. Russia has the most targeted disinformation infrastructure known to man. That’s what they’re innovating towards. If we stop innovating? We lose our lead.” The threat of authoritarianism abroad becomes a rationale for building the tools of digital authoritarianism at home. Too bad it’s not just fiction.

HEATHER

 

February 18, 2026 Heather Cox Richardson Feb 19 Today Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker delivered the State of the State address. The underlying purpose of the address is to explain the state budget, but Pritzker, a Democrat, used the occasion to talk far more broadly about the state of Illinois and the nation. Pritzker anchored his speech by reaching back to the days of John Peter Altgeld, a German-born American who helped to lead the Progressive movement and served as governor of Illinois from 1893 to 1897. Altgeld oversaw passage of some of the strongest laws in the country for workplace safety and protection of child workers, invested heavily in education, and appointed women to important positions in state government despite the fact that women could not yet vote. Pritzker noted that in his State of the State speech in January 1895, Altgeld talked about “the need to ensure that science would govern the practice of medicine in Illinois; the high cost of insurance; the condition of Illinois prisons; the funding of state universities; a needed revision of election laws; the concentration of wealth in large businesses.” Altgeld expressed pride for appointing women to office and his statement that “[j]ustice requires that the same rewards and honors that encourage and incite men should be equally in reach of women in every field and activity.” Pritzker said he brought up Altgeld’s defense of equal rights “to highlight one enduring human truth—injustice can become a genetic condition we bequeath on future generations if we fail to face it forthrightly.” Pritzker then turned to the year that has passed since President Donald J. Trump took office. “To be perfectly candid,” Pritzker said, “as Illinois is one of the states whose taxpayers send more dollars to the federal government than we receive back in services, I was hoping that his threats to gut programs that support working families [were] the kind of unrealistic hyperbole that fuels a presidential campaign but then is abandoned when cooler heads prevail.” But, he said, “Unfortunately, there are no cooler heads at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue these days.” The Trump administration has cost Illinois $8.4 billion, Pritzker said, “illegally confiscating money that has already been promised and appropriated by the Congress to the people of Illinois.” Pritzker was clear that this money is not handouts but “dollars that real Illinoisans paid in federal taxes and that have been constitutionally approved by our elected Democratic and Republican representatives in Washington.” Unlike the federal government, states must balance their budgets every year. Trump’s billions in illegally withheld funds inflict a cost on the state’s residents, while Illinois has been “forced to spend enormous time and taxpayer money going to court and fighting to get what is rightfully ours.” Pritzker said: “It is impossible to tally the hours, days, and weeks our state government has spent chasing news of Presidential executive orders, letters, and edicts that read like proclamations from the Lollipop Guild.” Pritzker noted that Trump is making life harder for everyday Americans with tariffs that raise costs for working families and small businesses; trade wars that are devastating farmers; cuts to healthcare, nutritional assistance, and education; increased bureaucratic demands on states; and low job creation. The good news, Pritzker said, is that Illinois had managed such crises before and had found a way forward. He noted the growth of Illinois’s economy and economic stability over the past eight years even as the state had balanced its budget every year and made historic investments in education, child welfare, disability services, and job creation in the private sector. In the past year, Illinois’s gross domestic product was more than $1.2 trillion, up from $881 billion when Pritzker took office. Looking forward, Pritzker outlined plans to address the top three economic issues on the mind of most Americans: the cost of housing, electricity, and healthcare. He promised to reduce the cost of housing by cutting local regulations and providing more options for financing. He promised to address the skyrocketing cost of electricity first by pausing the authorization of new data center tax credits and then by investing in renewable energy and nuclear power. Finally, he announced that, as of this week, the state had eliminated $1 billion in medical debt for more than 500,000 people in the state by purchasing and erasing it for pennies on the dollar. Pritzker warned that the benefits of our changing world are increasingly “reaped by a smaller and smaller group of people while middle and working class Americans pay for it. Special interests and large corporations seem to delight in finding ever more insidious ways to extract money from everyday people. Those same companies then react with a mixture of surprise and outrage when they’re asked to rein in their worst abuses.” “I’m committed to doing everything government can to rein in the worst of the price gouging and profiteering we are seeing,” Pritzker said. “But I implore the titans of industry who regularly ask government to make their lives easier—what are you doing to make your employers’ and your customers’ lives easier?” Then Pritzker turned to the crisis federal agents created on the streets of Chicago. “A year ago, I stood before you and asked a provocative question: After we have discriminated against, disparaged, and deported all our immigrant neighbors—and the problems we started with still remained—what comes next?” Pritzker said. He recalled that when he asked that question, some people walked out. “But a year later, we have an answer—don’t we?” he said. “Masked, unaccountable federal agents—with little training—occupied our streets, brutalized our people, tear-gassed kids and cops, kidnapped parents in front of their children, detained and arrested and at times attempted to deport U.S. citizens, and killed innocent Americans in the streets.” Pritzker identified Trump and White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller as the architects of that plan to “drip authoritarianism…into our veins.” But, he noted, people in Illinois did not accept that authoritarianism. Pritzker reminded the audience that President Grover Cleveland had similarly tried to “subdue the Illinois population with hired thugs” during the 1894 Pullman strike after the Pullman Company, which made railroad cars, cut workers’ wages by about 25%. When workers struck, Cleveland deputized U.S. Marshals to end the strike. They fired into crowds of bystanders and, according to a Chicago paper, “seemed to be hunting trouble.” Twenty-five people died and more were wounded before the strike ended. Altgeld had opposed the arrival of federal troops, and his fury at their intrusion still smoldered when he gave his State of the State speech almost six months later. “If the President can, at his pleasure, send troops into any city, town, or hamlet…whenever and wherever he pleases, under pretense of enforcing some law,” Altgeld wrote, “his judgment, which means his pleasure being the sole criterion—then there can be no difference whatever in this respect between the powers of the President and those of...the Czar of Russia.” Pritzker joked that he wished he “could spend just one year of my governorship presiding over precedented times. I yearn for normal problems,” he said. But these are not normal times. “I’ve been thinking a lot lately about love—about loving people and loving your country and the power involved in both,” the governor said. “I know, right now, there are a lot of people out there who love their country and feel like their country is not loving them back. I know that.” But he told those people that “your country is loving you back—just not in the way you are used to hearing.” “It’s not speaking in anthems or flags or ostentatious displays of patriotism. It will never come from the people who say the only way to love America is to hate Americans. Love is found in every act of courage—large and small—taken to preserve the country we once knew. You will find it in homes and schools and churches and art. It is there; it has not been squashed.” Pritzker called out the love shown by “the bicyclers who showed up in Little Village every day during Operation Midway Blitz to buy out tamale carts so the vendors could return to the safety of their homes,” “the parishioners who formed human chains around churches so that immigrants could worship,” and “the moms in the school pickup line who whipped out their cameras and their whistles,” and in “the face of every Midwesterner who put on their heaviest coat and protested outside on the coldest day.” That love for one’s neighbor, he suggested, is the country’s most powerful tool against the rise of authoritarianism. “I am begging my fellow politicians, my fellow Illinoisans, my fellow Americans to realize that right now in this country we are not fighting over policy or political party,” Pritzker said. “We are fighting over whether we are going to be a civilization rooted in empathy and kindness—or one rooted in cruelty and rage.” “I love my country,” Pritzker said. “I refuse to stop. The hope I have found in a very difficult year is that love is the light that gets you through a long night.” — JB Pritzker I Love Illinois. I Love America. I Refuse to Stop. Today, I delivered my annual State of the State address to the Illinois legislature. I talked about how Illinoisans’ love of our country has been our most powerful tool against authoritarianism – from the Pullman Strike to Trump’s invasion of our state… Read more 10 hours ago · 236 likes · 20 comments · JB Pritzker YouTube: watch?v=OQ0pxPpsxjI

Please, oh please(!), send Cabinet secretaries to swing districts to campaign for Republicans in 2026

 

Please, oh please(!), send Cabinet secretaries to swing districts to campaign for Republicans in 2026! February 19, 2026 Robert B. Hubbell Feb 19 Trump’s handlers know that a blue wave is swelling in the distance, timed to crash on the Republican Party on November 3, 2026. In panic mode, they are “spitballing” ideas to convince voters that things aren’t as bad as they seem. One of their brilliant ideas is to dispatch members of Trump’s cabinet to key congressional districts to defend the administration’s handling of the economy, immigration, healthcare, and the Epstein files. We can only hope that the administration follows through on this monumentally bad idea. Let’s consider the most likely Cabinet secretaries to be dispatched to swing districts: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent can advise voters on how to manage the “five, ten, twelve homes“ in their parents’ retirement portfolio. (Washington Examiner; Raw Story). Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick can explain how he “forgot” that he visited Epstein’s island while on a private yacht vacation through the Caribbean. (NBC News) DHS Secretary Kristi Noem can explain why she needs a $70 million Boeing 737 MAX — twice the cost of the other deportation planes in DHS’s fleet — that features a private cabin in the rear, as she travels the country with Corey Lewandowski, a relationship that reportedly makes Trump “uncomfortable.” See HuffPost, “Kristi Noem And Alleged Lover Have Mile-High ‘Private Cabin’ On Government Plane: Report.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth can explain why he spent taxpayer money renovating a Pentagon green room into a personal makeup studio — initially estimated at over $40,000 (pricetag later dropped)—while simultaneously signing a memo eliminating over $580 million in what he called “wasteful Pentagon spending.” See CBS News, “Hegseth orders makeup studio installed at Pentagon.” FBI Director Kash Patel can explain why he used a $60 million government jet to attend his girlfriend’s country music performances on multiple occasions. CBS News, Kash Patel once called for ending FBI director’s government jet use. Now he won’t reveal if he’s a frequent flyer. Health Secretary Robert Kennedy can explain why he promised in confirmation hearings not to cut funding for vaccine research, only to decimate it almost immediately after taking office. (It would be too crass to ask about his admitted “snorting cocaine off toilet seats” or depositing a dead bear cub in Central Park as a prank.) (NPR; ABC News) Attorney General Pam Bondi can explain why the Epstein client list “was on my desk” before the files were released, but disappeared as soon as Congress forced the release of the Epstein files. (U.S. News & World Report; PBS NewsHour; The Intercept) Secretary of State Marco Rubio can tell us how much it cost taxpayers to switch the State Department’s official font from Calibri to Times New Roman because Calibri was “too woke.” (New Republic) There is more, but you get the point. The above is the tip of the iceberg. If Trump sends his privileged, corrupt, tone-deaf cabinet secretaries to campaign for Republicans, it will be a boon to Democrats. The only politically wise place for the Trumpian cabinet secretaries to appear will be in closed settings, like private clubs, five-star restaurants, or golf resorts, where the riffraff (a.k.a. “voters”) won’t have a chance to ask them tough questions. The fact that Trump and his cronies do not understand that they are out of touch with American voters is regime-ending hubris. While we cannot count on Republicans to defeat themselves, we should be realistic about the fact that they have lost control of the political narrative. And they know it. We must exploit our advantage for all it is worth. Since even Trump doesn’t realistically believe Republicans can win in a free and fair midterm, they continue to consider anti-democratic means of “stealing” or “rigging” the 2026 midterms. As always, we should take seriously Trump’s efforts to put a thumb on the electoral scale in 2026. But I recommend (again) an article by Nicholas Grossman in the Bulwark, Trump Can’t Steal the Midterms. Grossman examines each of the current theories of how Trump will allegedly steal the 2026 midterms and addresses them in a sober manner. To be clear, Grossman does not say that we should dismiss those concerns. Instead, he says we must be “vigilant but realistic” about the nature of the threats. Readers who took the time to consider Grossman’s arguments were impressed. On Thursday, MS Now reported that the Trump administration is considering targeting “naturalized” citizens for voting fraud. See MS Now, White House directing DHS to hunt for voter fraud by naturalized citizens: Sources. To no one’s surprise, the effort is being directed by Stephen Miller, the great-grandson of naturalized citizens, who is now targeting naturalized citizens. (Interesting fact, Miller’s great-grandfather was initially denied naturalization on grounds of “Ignorance,” but was later naturalized when he learned enough English to pass the citizenship test. See Yahoo News, (6/20/18), Trump aide Stephen Miller, meet your great-grandfather, who flunked his naturalization test.) Obviously, naturalized citizens can vote, just like all other citizens. But in Stephen Miller’s disturbed mind, naturalized citizens are “suspect.” Why? Because, per Miller, they may have “cheated” to become citizens by, for example, voting before they became citizens. (The obvious question is why anyone would go to the bother of becoming a citizen in order to vote if they were already voting illegally. But I digress.) Per MS Now, Launched at the direction of the White House, the people said, the program requires agents to determine if naturalized citizens voted or registered to vote prior to becoming citizens. Investigators are then asked to submit reports to the White House detailing each case in which they declined to bring charges, the people said. An administration official speaking on background disputed that characterization. The initiative targeting naturalized citizens is pernicious. Millions of Americans, including our First Lady, are naturalized citizens and should not be targeted merely for pursuing a legal pathway to citizenship. The initiative is particularly cynical because it may be a subterfuge to send ICE agents to polling stations in roving patrols to locate naturalized citizens. See the MS NOW article cited above, which states: NOW has also learned that senior DHS and Justice Department appointees have held a series of meetings to discuss sending law enforcement to polling places to “secure” elections. This has also ramped up legal concerns for law enforcement and military personnel, according to people involved in their conversations, given that a federal law makes it a crime for military personnel or armed law enforcement to deploy to a polling location in a way that intimidates voters. Many news outlets are rightly focusing on the unlawful suggestion that ICE agents will show up at the polls . . . but are ignoring the second portion of the MS Now reporting that says it is a crime “for military personnel or armed law enforcement to deploy to a polling location in a way that intimidates voters.” Democrats have the opportunity in the DHS shutdown negotiations to insert a clause conditioning future funding for DHS agencies on a prohibition on deploying to or near polling locations. A “one-mile” geofence around polling locations would be a good start; or a “stand down” order on Election Day would be better. In a related development, the Georgia State Election Board may stage a “takeover” of the Fulton County elections operations. See Fox 5 Atlanta, Georgia lawmaker urges state takeover of Fulton County Elections after FBI ballot seizure. The potential takeover has been brewing since 2021, when Georgia passed a law allowing the state elections board to take over “underperforming” local elections boards. If a takeover occurs—a likelihood—a GOP-controlled state board will manage the election in Georgia’s largest county, which includes Atlanta. If so, we should assume that the Republicans will attempt to make voting more difficult in Atlanta, a Democratic stronghold. To be clear, these efforts are bare-knuckle voter suppression tactics that should be condemned, opposed, and defeated. Full stop. But . . . we should not assume defeat if the state takes over Fulton County’s elections. Voter suppression is a blunt instrument that applies to all voters in the affected jurisdiction. So, let’s consider the following: Atlanta is the largest source of votes in the state, including for statewide Republican candidates. Republicans have every incentive to ensure that Republican voters in Fulton County can get to the polls. If overall voting is suppressed in Fulton County, that will affect both Democratic and Republican candidates. It might hurt Democrats more, but that is a variable that won’t be known until after the election is complete---a risk that Republicans may not want to run during a blue wave year. To the extent that the state sets up obstacles to voting, Democrats have advance notice and decades of experience fighting voter suppression. They are in a better position than Republicans in Fulton County to adapt to new obstacles. We are not potted plants; we have agency; we can affect the outcome. Let’s hope that Fulton County can resist a takeover by the state. But if it doesn’t happen, we know the drill. Get out the vote—whatever it takes! Concluding Thoughts I invited readers to comment and email about their experiences with Jesse Jackson. The Comment section is here, and I have pinned comments about Jackson to the top. The Comment section is here: Comments - We are being called to make a choice. We can speak or we can remain silent. Each of the comments is interesting, but many readers were moved by the comment from reader Linda Ryden: In 1975, when I was 10 years old, he came to speak at my school. I went to the laboratory school at the University of Chicago. He spoke to a large, diverse audience of children and led us in his famous “I am somebody” call-and-response. He spoke to us as if we were important and could do something to make the world a better place. He encouraged us to take care of each other, to take care of those in need, to invite the stranger to our table. I remember tears streaming down my face as he spoke. I was lucky to be born at a time when my major cultural influences were the Reverend Jackson, Fred Rogers, Marlo Thomas and the Free to Be You and Me album. From that day on, I knew that the most important thing in life is to help and take care of each other and that is what I have tried to do. Thank you for making that a bit easier. Rest in peace, Rev. Jackson Beautifully said, Linda. Reader, friend, and world-class photographer Jonathan Atkin sent a photo he took of Reverend Jackson in 1968, below. As with all of Jonathan’s photos of famous people, he somehow managed to capture Jesse Jackson in an unguarded, emotive moment that captures one aspect of a man who touched all our lives, whether we know it or not. Thanks for sharing your photo, Jonathan. Rest in peace, Reverend Jackson.

 

Stephen Colbert and the First Amendment

Joyce Vance

Feb 18, 2026

As if CBS hasn’t drawn enough fire for tampering with 60 Minutes’ journalistic integrity, on Monday, Stephen Colbert shared that he was told by the network’s lawyers that he couldn’t have Texas Democrat James Talarico, who is running in a contested primary for the U.S. Senate, on his show because of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules that require broadcasters to give “equal time” to opposing political candidates.

So, Colbert put the segment on YouTube, where it has garnered almost 7 million views as of tonight. That’s closing in on three times as many views as the show typically gets on CBS.

CBS issued a statement on Tuesday claiming Colbert was “not prohibited” from broadcasting the interview. They said he received “legal guidance” that airing it could trigger the equal time rule, which requires opposing political views to be shown on network TV. The statement said that Colbert was “presented options for how the equal time for other candidates could be fulfilled.”

Colbert pointed out that he’d had Talarico’s primary opponent, Jasmine Crockett, on his show. But this is obviously about the Democratic nominee’s eventual Republican challenger. That could be incumbent John Cornyn or Ken Paxton—they’re currently locked in a tight primary race. But either way, here’s the thing: Does anyone think Colbert wouldn’t relish having either Cornyn or Abbott on his show?

Using the equal time rule as a dodge for suppressing political speech is almost expected at this point in the Trump administration. But there’s rarely been a time in our nation’s history when the First Amendment mattered more.

Justice Louis Brandeis: "If there be time to expose through discussion... the remedy to be applied is more speech, not enforced silence."

Benjamin Franklin: “Freedom of speech is a principal pillar of a free government: When this support is taken away, the constitution of a free society is dissolved.”

Justice William J. Brennan Jr.: “If there is a bedrock principle underlying the First Amendment, it is that the government may not prohibit the expression of an idea simply because society finds the idea itself offensive or disagreeable.”

George Orwell: "If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."

Then there’s Donald Trump. He has frequently called media outlets "dishonest" and the "enemy of the American people." He has attacked individual journalists over questions he doesn’t want to answer (“Quiet, Piggy”) and unfavorable coverage. In his second term, Trump barred The Associated Press from the press pool because it continued to call the Gulf of Mexico “the Gulf of Mexico” after Trump renamed it the Gulf of America.

Suffice it to say, Trump is no fan of the First Amendment, despite having sworn the oath of office, which requires him to “take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed,” which includes the First Amendment.

Colbert’s show has already been canceled. That happened shortly after he criticized CBS’s parent company, Paramount, for handing Trump a $16 million bribe when it settled Trump’s lawsuit against 60 Minutes, which accused the show of deceptively editing an interview with Kamala Harris during the campaign. Paramount was attempting a merger with entertainment company Skydance at the time, and it needed the administration’s sign off to make it happen. That came less than a month after Colbert was canned. The merger went through.

Trump, even after Colbert’s show was canceled, can’t seem to leave it alone. He posted this in December 2025.

So much for the sanctity of the First Amendment.

I adore Stephen Colbert. During the 2008 and 2012 presidential election cycles, my husband and I made it a ritual to watch The Daily Show and The Colbert Report every night. They kept us sane. (Full disclosure: We also made it through every season of NCIS and Supernatural). My only real regret from my book tour is not getting invited onto The Late Show with Stephen Colbert. (Stephen, I’m still out here if you ever need a last-minute fill-in guest!)

Since the first of the year, a Washington Post reporter's home has been searched. Don Lemon, the former CNN host who is now an independent journalist, has been indicted for his coverage of ICE in Minneapolis. This administration is doing everything it can to intimidate the media from reporting on it.

The FCC administers rules and regulations regarding access to airwaves by political candidates. Section 315(a) of the Communications Act of 1934 requires stations to give "equal opportunities to all other such candidates for that office" if they permit a candidate for public office "to use a broadcasting station." Violating FCC rules can cost a station’s owner their license.

But the rule has exceptions, including for when a candidate appears on a "bona fide newscast" or in "on-the-spot coverage of bona fide news events." News interviews are typically excepted. Then, last month, the FCC issued a Public Notice warning television broadcasters that news interviews with political candidates conducted “on a program that is motivated by partisan purposes” are not exempt from the rule.

Trump’s FCC Chair, Brendan Carr, wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC. We talked about that here, back in November of 2024. I wrote that Carr claimed that “bipartisanship on the FCC is a matter of tradition, not law, suggesting without coming out and saying it that Trump could change that. The FCC regulates radio, television, wire, satellite, and cable networks. In response to an LA Times tweet, suggesting Carr might ‘make life more difficult’ for media companies, Carr confirmed it, suggesting he could take away broadcast licenses from media companies that don’t ‘operate in the public interest.’ That’s preparation for authoritarianism.”

That has turned out to be the case.

It was Colbert who coined the term “Truthiness” in his first show on October 17, 2005. It became the word of the year in 2006, and proved prescient when Trump advisor Kellyanne Conway insisted the new administration was entitled to its own “alternative facts” shortly after Trump’s first inauguration, when the president insisted his crowd size was bigger than it was.

Life imitating art.

The last episode of Colbert’s late night show will run in May—CBS called it a “financial decision.” But canceling a top-rated show doesn’t make much financial sense. And our public discourse will be the poorer for it.

Colbert’s handling of this incident is illustrative. “Because my network clearly doesn’t want us to talk about this, let’s talk about this,” he said, claiming CBS attorneys were caving to “guidance” from the FCC. “Let’s just call this what it is. Donald Trump’s administration wants to silence anyone who says anything bad about Trump on TV, because all Trump does is watch TV.”

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Joyce