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In a 6-3 ruling this week that overturned nine decades of precedent, the Supreme Court granted President Donald Trump the power to fire and replace officials at independent government agencies like the Federal Trade Commission. But in a separate 5-4 decision, the justices ruled that Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can stay in her job as she challenges Trump's efforts to fire her.
The seemingly contradictory rulings suggest a two-tier system of regulation, says Alvaro Bedoya, a former FTC commissioner who was fired by Trump last year. The independence and stability of the Federal Reserve is important to "billionaire Wall Street Bankers," and therefore remains protected, says Bedoya. "But then you have this whole series of other agencies that keep your toys safe, that keep health insurers from robbing people blind, that keep supermarkets from merging to make milk, eggs and beef … even more expensive. The court said that all those regulators can report directly to the president and be entirely beholden to his whims."
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New financial disclosures by President Donald Trump show that he made more than $1.4 billion from his family's various cryptocurrency ventures last year, reaping a windfall after pulling back on regulation of the industry and promoting the United States as "the crypto capital of the world." Other Trump businesses, like his resorts and golf courses, have also flourished since his return to the White House, while the Trump Organization has also licensed the family name to properties in countries that are crucial to U.S. foreign policy interests, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
"It's been an incredibly successful period for the Trump family," says Reuters investigative reporter Tom Bergin.
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(First column, 2nd story, link)
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(First column, 3rd story, link)
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The Trump administration has approved media conglomerate Paramount's $111 billion bid to acquire Warner Bros., one year after Paramount and Skydance Media signed a similar merger that placed Paramount's movie studio, streaming service and broadcast network CBS under the control of the multibillionaire Ellison family, founders of Skydance and close allies of Donald Trump. The Warner Bros. merger, if completed, would bring an even larger slice of the industry's market share into Ellison control. It's been contested for months as a likely violation of antitrust laws amid a wider trend of corporate consolidation in the media and entertainment industry. "This has been one of the most shallow and corrupt merger review processes we've ever seen," says Craig Aaron, co-CEO of the advocacy organizations Free Press and Free Press Action (not to be confused with Paramount Skydance's conservative news outlet The Free Press), about the Justice Department's greenlighting of the merger.
The deal will place two of the largest U.S. broadcast news networks — CBS News and CNN — under the control of a single company that "has shown it is willing to warp and manipulate news coverage to please the president," Aaron says. He warns that the many violations of press freedom committed by CBS News since its acquisition last year could soon be seen at CNN, including "getting rid of independent journalists asking hard questions [and] spiking stories about crimes being committed by the Trump administration." In a consolidated media landscape, he adds, "we get fewer and fewer choices, and we get more and more of the same kind of cookie-cutter content produced."
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