Robert Reich

Friends,

Thanks to the courage of 12 state attorneys general, Paramount-Skydance's bid to buy Warner Bros. Discovery is on ice. Now, the Ellisons — the pro-Trump billionaire family trying to take over our media landscape — are pressuring AGs to settle out of court.

You've probably heard from me, and many others, about why this deal would be a disaster for workers, viewers, and freedom of speech. That's why we can't let this case get settled out of court.

Please sign the petition below to urge these state attorneys general to stay strong, demand #NoConcessions, and take the case to trial.

Sign here: bit.ly/4ySArF7

State attorneys general in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon and Washington joined forces in the lawsuit to block the deal, and the court froze the deal pending a March 2027 trial. Paramount cannot close while its legality is contested, and some analysts don’t think the deal can survive the wait.

That's why the Ellisons are launching a pressure campaign to designed to force the AGs to settle before trial. In one month, Paramount starts paying Warner shareholders $650 million per quarter if the deal isn’t closed. Seven million dollars a day. Larry Ellison personally backed $40.4 billion of the equity financing. So the Ellisons have asked a federal judge to force the states to post a $1.88 billion bond, their estimate of potential losses due to the injunction.

That’s why our support for the AGs matters so much. History shows that merger concessions are unenforceable, frequently abandoned, and they fail to protect workers, consumers, and the free expression the public depends on. A promise made in 2027 will not restrain an empire in 2040. Only a trial can. Twelve attorneys general hold that line.

Tell state attorneys general to stand firm: no settlement, no concessions, no censorship empire. This case belongs in front of a judge — #NoConcessions.

bit.ly/4ySArF7

Thank you for fighting back against the Ellisons' attempt to control our media.

19 hours ago | [YT] | 31,084

Robert Reich

Your periodic reminder...

2 days ago | [YT] | 40,491

Robert Reich

My friends -- I really think you will enjoy the new Inequality Media film THE WORK IN PROGRESS. It's playing in theaters across the country now. Find a screening here:

www.theworkinprogressfilm.com/buy-tickets

I wanted to share a review from someone who saw the film last night during a screening with a special Q&A featuring producers Heather Kinlaw Lofthouse (my Coffee Klatch cohost) and Elliot Kirschner (director of The Last Class). Thank you to Todd for the thoughtful words. The filmmakers do not attempt to sugar coat the issues we're dealing with as a nation. But rather, they invite participants to have tough discussions about those issues.

Ultimately, THE WORK IN PROGRESS is a work in progress. It's not just a film, it's a much bigger project based on the belief that our shared future is still ours to shape — and it’s meant to foster the conversations we need to have to be able to do just that.

I hope you'll catch a screening (and maybe a community conversation) in your city.

3 days ago (edited) | [YT] | 3,894

Robert Reich

4 days ago | [YT] | 41,337

Robert Reich

6 days ago | [YT] | 35,975

Robert Reich

Friends,

Trump and Republicans just wrapped up their two-day midterm Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas — a.k.a. “Trump-a-Palooza.” It’s a golden opportunity to remind voters of all Trump’s greatest blunders and self-enriching scams, and Inequality Media Civic Action is ready to take advantage.

We’ve created a series of highly effective voter-persuasion videos that are moving even Trump voters by as much as eight points on the question of who they want to control Congress. Now we just need to raise enough money to get these videos in front of the voters who will determine the outcome of this all-important midterm election.

Will you donate today to educate the public and help take back control of Congress in November’s midterm elections?

Donate here: secure.actblue.com/donate/trumpconvention_imca_yt0…

Donald Trump says he wants this fall’s midterm elections to be all about him.

Well, I never thought I’d say this, but I agree with Donald Trump 100%.

Trump’s approval ratings are absolutely abysmal. Voters are furious about his disastrous war with Iran, inflation, and his nonstop flagrant corruption.

So if Trump wants the midterms to be a referendum on his job performance, let’s give him what he wants.

In early August, according to The Atlantic, Trump told advisers they should follow the same strategy as the Democrats — making the election all about him.

That’s exactly what he did this week at his midterm party convention in Dallas. Trump’s super PAC has also begun spending the $400 million it’s stockpiled on ads promoting Trump himself. He also plans to travel all over the country to hold rallies in October, according to Fox News’ Peter Doocy.

But as Karl Rove recently told the Wall Street Journal, given how unpopular Trump is, making the election even more about him only helps Democrats.

Trump is effectively handing us a gigantic gift. Now we need to seize the opportunity and take full advantage.

So with your help, we’re pushing out our scientifically tested, super-effective voter persuasion videos across social media as part of our biggest midterm election campaign ever.

Together we can — and must — elect a Congress that will do what’s necessary to constrain the madman and the enablers around him.

Will you donate today to educate the public and help take back control of Congress in November’s midterm elections?

Chip in here: secure.actblue.com/donate/trumpconvention_imca_yt0…

Thank you for your continued support.

1 week ago | [YT] | 26,617

Robert Reich

1 week ago | [YT] | 36,414

Robert Reich

Friends,

I can’t call it an anniversary, because it’s not something to be celebrated. I can’t describe it as a commemoration, because it’s not something I want to recall or commemorate. Nor do the words eulogy or remembrance or memorial or tribute feel right, because the words don’t convey the trauma and horror.

Perhaps merely the 25th year of observance.

Twenty-five years ago today, my family and I walked in silence to a Friends meetinghouse a few blocks away from our home in Cambridge, Massachusetts. We’d never been to that meetinghouse before, but it seemed fitting and necessary. We needed to sit in silence with others.

That morning, I’d been scheduled to take a plane from Boston to San Francisco. I remember feeling momentarily irked that it had been canceled because of the attack, as if to tell myself that the world could and should go on as before, as if to pretend I couldn’t have been on one of the planes that went down.

The nation’s coping mechanisms were soon in full flight and fight. George W. Bush had been rushed away from a photo op and whisked onto a plane that went into a secret flight path.

Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld started to plot the fight that would take the lives of some 4,500 American service members and hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, and the detention — inside a network of overseas prisons known as “black sites” — of 119 Muslim men, at least 39 of whom were tortured. About 15 of them remain to this day at the Guantánamo Bay military prison.

Nativism and islamophobia soared in America.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was established on November 15, 2002, when Bush signed into law the Homeland Security Act, designed to fight terrorism. It officially began operations on March 1, 2003.

ICE was created in 2003 and placed within DHS. Fighting terrorism quickly became the framework by which ICE approached immigration.

Trump’s police state is a direct descendant, along with its ICE agents deployed across the country, detention centers now imprisoning 65,765 people, mass deportations, and surveillance technology — including some 120,000 Flock cameras in 49 states that capture 20 billion license plates a month, along with dents, bumper stickers, and other identifying features.

For the past quarter century, opportunistic politicians and pundits — not the least, Trump — have encouraged Americans to fear Muslims and Islam, a religion practiced by 1.6 billion people around the world.

It is our solemn duty not just to remember what happened 25 years ago but to acknowledge and repudiate the brutality it summoned in America.

What are your thoughts?

1 week ago | [YT] | 7,049

Robert Reich

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Robert Reich

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