The judgment against the former President for $83.3 million for his defamation of E. Jean Carroll is one of the first headlines about him in recent days that I have paid close attention to.
Nobody really knows how much money the man has. Most of his wealth is tied up in real estate rather than in more fluid assets. The amount of the judgment is more than he currently has in his campaign war chest, and he needs that money to continue campaigning.
Contrary to what everyone fears, this isn’t something that he can just weasel out of. It may take a while, and a good long while at that, but eventually that money will be paid.
To appeal the original verdict that found him guilty of sexual abuse against Ms. Carroll and awarded her $5.5 million in damages, he had to put that amount plus quite a bit more into a bond that is held by the court. To appeal this latest judgment, he will need to do the same thing.
He will either need to pony up that amount from out of his own pocket or find a bank that would be willing to loan it to him for which he would then accrue interest. Were this the only legal trouble he was in, there might be a bank somewhere that would be willing to take the chance, but this one is just the tip of the iceberg. He’s not a very safe bet at the moment.
The New York Attorney General is making a case that he and his family and their business perpetrated fraud by raising and lowering the stated value of their assets as was needed to either avoid paying taxes or secure loans using said assets as collateral. She is seeking $370 million in damages from the family personally as well as from their business entity. She is also attempting to bar the man and his company from being able to ever operate in the State of New York. The banks will be watching to see what happens there.
I keep testing negative for the virus, so I guess I am just going to go about my day. If I don’t get outside today, though, I will lose my mind. Our apartment is on a corner of our building and the wind whistles past our windows and makes them rattle. It’s all very bleak and Bronte-esque especially when it’s coupled with the grey skies I can see out outside. Nothing about today makes me want to leave the living room and yet I am desperate to just go somewhere.
During the pandemic while we were at home all day the television was on nearly all the time. I switched between news channels to try and get a balanced overview of what was going on but, for the most part, avoided the right-leaning stations because I just couldn’t take it for very long.
One of the channels I watched a lot was CNN.
CNN was founded in 1980 as the first all-news channel and was broadcast 24/7. It called itself, “The Most Trusted Name in News” and aimed to be non-partisan. In truth, they leaned to the left.
Five years after CNN debuted, the Discovery Channel began broadcasting. In the beginning, their goal was to provide educational programming. They showed wildlife documentaries and stories about indigenous tribes in the Amazon jungle. Specials were created around science and history topics.
Eight years before CNN, a new cable channel called Home Box Office began streaming. It’s hard to believe now, but subscription TV didn’t exist yet. They were the first premium channel. In exchange for customers paying a monthly fee, they would get access to unedited and uninterrupted film content.
Each of these media outlets grew and began gobbling up other smaller companies. My sister used to work for a company called Scripps that was based in Knoxville. They produced a whole range of HGTV programming. Just before the pandemic, they were bought out by Discover. Warner Brothers and Time, Inc. merged and became Time-Warner. HBO started a splinter company called Cinemax and entered an exclusive deal with Warner. They all became hopelessly intertwined.
On April 8, 2022, Warner Brothers and Discovery merged and became Warner Brothers Discovery. This ONE company now owns and controls: Warner Brothers film and television studios, DC Comics, Home Box Office, Inc. (including HBO, Cinemax, and Magnolia), U.S. Networks Group (including ad-supported channels Discovery, Scripps Networks, Turner Broadcasting, and Warner), Discover + and Max streaming services, TNT Sports (including Motor Trend Group, TNT Sports UK, and Eurosport), Warner Brothers Games, They hold a majority stake in the Television Food Network (Food Network and Cooking Channel) and a minority stake in The CW (the initials of its two founding companies CBS and Warner), and, last but not least, they own and control CNN Worldwide (including CNN and CNN International).
In February of 2022, two months before the mega-merger, the President, and CEO of CNN Jeff Zucker abruptly resigned. In a memo to his employees about an ongoing relationship he was having with a coworker he said, “I acknowledged the relationship evolved in recent years. I was required to disclose it when it began but I didn’t. I was wrong. As a result, I am resigning today.”
At the time that this was all going on, then-New York Governor Andrew Cuomo was embroiled in his #metoo scandal. Cuomo’s brother, Chris, had a show on CNN. Chris was apparently advising Andrew on how to deal with his problems in terms of how he presented to the media. Warner Brothers Discovery has since admitted that Jeff Zucker’s handling of the subsequent firing of Chris Cuomo for this from Chris’s own news show violated CNN’s standards and practices. That, more than the inter-office scandal contributed to Zucker’s dismissal. This was gleefully reported by Fox News.
As part of his exit deal, Zucker was paid $5 million. If you believe the Fox Network and the Wall Street Journal, it was $10 million. In exchange, Zucker agreed not to sue them.
Jeff Zucker was replaced by a guy named David Licht who took over after the merger. Licht had been a behind-the-scenes force at the Stephen Colbert Show. Licht was a hot mess. He lasted at CNN for just over a year. His stated goal was to return CNN to its original mandate of presenting balanced news. To that end, he wanted to present more right-leaning programming. He revamped their broadcast schedule and got rid of several respected anchors. After promising not to downsize the company, he laid off hundreds of employees. None of this sat well with the people still working there. Morale among the remaining workers tanked.
The straw that may have broken the camel’s back was his decision to air a Town Hall event with the former President in prime time. It was chaos. 45 was essentially given an open forum in which to say whatever he liked. And he did. It was a travesty.
That’s when I stopped watching CNN.
Soon after, Atlantic Magazine published a lengthy piece in which they interviewed countless CNN employees – none of whom had a positive thing to say about Chris Licht. In June of last year, he was fired.
The current CEO and President of Warner Brothers Discovery is a man named David Zazlav who had once overseen Discovery. He’s the one who bought Warner Brothers for $56 billion and merged the two companies. To pay for his acquisition, he had to lay off hundreds of workers and cancel millions of dollars worth of programming. An almost-finished movie of Bat Girl was famously shelved, and he was able to claim a huge tax benefit for its loss.
Both the Writers Guild strike and the SAG-AFTRA strike have happened under his tenure. When members of the unions complained about executives crying poor when they were being paid millions, Zazlav was who they were talking about. In his first year as head of WBD, he was paid. $246.6 million. Let that sink in. $246.6 MILLION.
He likely would have been kicked to the curb were it not for the surprise success of a little film called Barbie. Instead, get ready for a slew of new films about 1960s-era toys.
As we head into this election year, our news will be coming to us from increasingly tainted sources. The major broadcasters are all controlled by gigantic corporations who have their own interests at heart, not ours, and certainly not the country’s.
CNN, even with their now new CEO from the BBC, is, and will always be, the mouthpiece of Warner Brothers Discovery.
The New York Times may be family-owned but its largest shareholders include The Vanguard Group and BlackRock which are gigantic multinational investment conglomerates. Looking further down the list, the major stockholders are all finance companies.
If you think that finance companies don’t care about what is being published in the news, think again. Our whole economy rests with the stock market. The only thing that ensures the strength and growth of the stock market is public perception. Nothing being traded has any real value; it is all just perceived value. Collectively we agree that something is worth a said amount and voila! It is! We are led towards believing something has value because the media tells us it is so. The value of certain stocks can be directly tied to our reaction to the news.
Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon owns the Washington Post. I don’t think I have to elaborate on that at all.
Oligarchy: government by the few, especially despotic power exercised by a small and privileged group for corrupt or selfish purposes. Oligarchies in which members of the ruling group are wealthy or exercise their power through their wealth are known as plutocracies. (Britannica)
This, I have to say, is not at all where I thought this post would go. It’s taken me down such a deep series of rabbit holes that I fear I may have gotten lost in the warren. I don’t want to poke around anymore because everything I am finding is just getting grimier and slimier.
It’s now starting to get dark, and I am even less motivated to get off my butt and go outside.
I do have a craving for Diet Coke, though. Michael can’t stand that I like to drink it and, truly, I cannot blame him. It has nothing whatsoever to recommend it. If I am honest with myself, it doesn’t even taste that good. For some reason, though, it doesn’t seem to matter. I don’t usually bring it into the apartment. Fountain soda is my preference. Like diner coffee, it doesn’t have much of a flavor, but it does the trick.
Diet Coke’s current slogan is, “Love what you Love. When the world feels bland, give it some flavor. However you love to make your life more delicious, Diet Coke is here for it.”
I didn’t just know that I had to look it up. As ridiculous as it is, now I really can’t stop thinking about it.
It seems to me that the deeper our 45th President dips into financial disaster the less these giant financial entities are going to want to support him. Let’s see what more headlines like the $83.3 million judgment against him does to the tenor of the news about him.
Maybe I will just go out and go around the corner to the bodega and get a small bottle of Diet Coke. Not a big one. I can then air-fry up some popcorn and watch the news while drinking it.
Since it all seems like a circus out there, I might as well treat it like one.
Love the rabbit warren, Richard! The figures are mind-blowing, back stories interesting and personal anecdotes entertaining.