by Steve Benen | Apr 13, 2026 | Maddowblog, Media, News, Politics
Last summer, after The Wall Street Journal reported on Donald Trump’s alleged 2003 birthday letter to Jeffrey Epstein, the president responded with unsubtle threats. “President Trump will be suing The Wall Street Journal, NewsCorp, and Mr. Murdoch, shortly,” he wrote online, referring to himself in the third person for reasons unknown.
The Republican added soon after, “The Wall Street Journal printed a FAKE letter, supposedly to Epstein. These are not my words, not the way I talk. Also, I don’t draw pictures. I told Rupert Murdoch it was a Scam, that he shouldn’t print this Fake Story. But he did, and now I’m going to sue his ass off, and that of his third rate newspaper.”
In mid-July, the president did, in fact, file the defamation suit, seeking a jury trial and a judgment of at least $10 billion. At least for now, it now appears he will get neither. The Journal reported:
A federal judge on Monday dismissed President Trump’s defamation lawsuit against the publisher of The Wall Street Journal.
U.S. District Judge Darrin Gayles, based in Miami, Fla., ruled Trump hadn’t made a valid legal claim that he was defamed by an article about a letter to financier Jeffrey Epstein bearing Trump’s name.
“Because President Trump has not plausibly alleged that defendants published the article with actual malice, both Counts must be dismissed,” the jurist wrote.
We’ll learn soon enough whether the president’s lawyers appeal and/or file an amended lawsuit, but as things stand, his highly dubious and historically unusual civil case is no more.
If it seems as if Trump has faced related failures before, it’s not your imagination. Indeed, one of the most striking things
by Mike Ludwig | Mar 26, 2026 | Brendan Carr, censorship, Corporate Media, Donald Trump, FCC, Federal Communications Commission, First Amendment, free speech, Larry Ellison, Mainstream Media, Media, media censorship, media consolidation, News, press freedom, Social Media, Trump Administration
Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chair Brendan Carr made a social media post on March 15 that free speech advocates say will go down in history as a blatant attempt at wartime censorship. Instead of warning consumers about current efforts by billionaire oligarchs to consolidate cable news broadcasters under their control, the FCC chair threatened the broadcasters by suggesting they…
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by Amy Goodman | Mar 20, 2026 | Beirut, Displacement, France, Gaza, Hezbollah, humanitarian crisis, Interview, Israel, Journalists, Lebanon, Media, War
As Israel continues to pummel Lebanon in its resumed war against the country and the Hezbollah paramilitary, we get an update from Associated Press reporter Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut. “If you compare this particular war to the last one, less than two years ago, what happened in the past three weeks is what happened in the past seven or eight months,” says Chehayeb, who describes masses of…
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by Kourosh Ziabari | Mar 18, 2026 | Corporate Media, Environmental disasters, humanitarian crisis, Iran, iran war, Israel, Mainstream Media, Media, News Analysis, Social Media, Tehran, War, war in Iran
Residents of Iran’s sprawling capital, Tehran, woke up earlier this month to scenes that they could probably imagine only in horror films. Clouds of smoke had shrouded the metropolis of 10 million, toxic rain blended with oil poured down from the sky, and the sun remained invisible through noon on the morning of March 8. Hours earlier, Israel had launched airstrikes on 30 oil facilities in Tehran…
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by Jake Johnson | Mar 16, 2026 | AI, Brendan Carr, censorship, Donald Trump, FCC, Federal Communications Commission, free press, Iran, iran war, Media, News, press freedom, treason, War, war in Iran
US President Donald Trump late Sunday floated “treason” charges against media outlets that he accused of reporting false information about the Iran war as the human and economic costs of his illegal military assault continued to mount. In a tirade posted to his Truth Social platform, Trump wrote that media outlets he accused of circulating “fake news” should “be brought up on Charges for…
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by Jesse Hagopian | Mar 13, 2026 | Academy Awards, culture, film, history, Media, music, Op-Ed, Oscars, Racial Justice, Slavery
Warning: This article contains spoilers. Near the end of Sinners, there is a moment that Hollywood rarely permits. The character Smoke guns down a gang of Ku Klux Klan members who have come to murder his people — and then, with hands still trembling, he cradles his newborn child in his arms. Watching it, something strange and powerful stirred within me — as if the film were bending time…
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