Episode 7 - Nearly_ The Word That Covers Every Lie

In this episode, Richard Schreiber and Tom Martin dismantle the synthetic reality of April 2026. The week began with a "lightning bolt" ceasefire announcement that calmed the markets, but as the 88-minute deadline passed, the reality on the ground told a different story. From the closing of the Strait of Hormuz to the continued bombardment of Lebanon, we analyze why official statements are increasingly using "weasel words"—a term coined by Edward R. Murrow—to bridge the gap between policy failures and public perception.

We dive deep into the "Digital Mask"—a world where the Commander-in-Chief must call his generals to verify if war footage on his feed is real or a server-generated deepfake. We also tackle the systemic dismantling of the Fourth Estate, from the defunding of NPR and PBS to the corporate "defanging" of legacy institutions like 60 Minutes.

Drawing on the standards of the 1970s and 80s, Richard and Tom contrast the "News as a Public Service" era with today’s "Profit-at-all-Costs" model. This isn't just a news brief; it’s a briefing for your survival in the information war.

Topics Covered

• The "Nearly" Test: A breakdown of the April 10th ceasefire and how qualifiers are used to manufacture a sense of "Mission Accomplished."
• The $1.5 Trillion Pivot: Analyzing massive surges in defense spending paired with 10% cuts to healthcare and social services.
• The Deepfake Battlefield: How AI-generated disinformation is successfully deceiving the highest levels of government.
• The War on Access: A review of the federal court ruling against Secretary of War Pete Hegseth regarding the sequestering of Pentagon reporters.
• The Death of the Independent Newsroom: How corporate mergers and "Vulture Funds" have turned local news into syndicated propaganda machines.
• The 60 Minutes Overhaul: Discussion on the shift from investigative reporting to "cultural relevance" and punditry.

"Truth is not a preference; it is a foundation. Build your week on it."

About the Hosts

Richard Schreiber

Richard Schreiber is a strategic AI consultant, journalist, autism advocate, and fiction writer based in New York City. With a background spanning investigative reporting, technology consulting, and over 25 years in legal technology and procurement, Richard brings a rare combination of real-world experience and analytical depth to every conversation. He is the founder of a growing autism advocacy foundation and the author of multiple books, including Autism Care Revolution. His journalism is guided by one principle: facts first, always.

Tom Martin

Tom Martin is a veteran television news producer with more than 20 years at some of the most respected names in broadcasting. He got his start at the CBS News Washington Bureau in 1982 — where he witnessed history firsthand, including being in the room when Nixon delivered his infamous "I am not a crook" statement. The son of a legendary newspaper editor who helped launch USA Today, Tom grew up believing journalism is a sacred public trust. He carries that belief into every story he tells.

Our Mission

True Journalism exists because facts still matter. The press is a watchdog — not a lapdog — and the American public deserves reporting that shines a light rather than throws a shadow. This is not a political show. We do not have a party. We have one principle: if it is not a verified fact, we will say so.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

It's Friday, april tenth, twenty twenty six. Eighty-eight minutes before his own deadline, the president announced a ceasefire with Iran. Within hours, Iran accused the U.S. of violating it. Israel said it doesn't apply to Lebanon and proceeded with bombing Lebanon. The same week, the president asked Congress for one point five trillion in defense spending while slashing health care by 10%. And also the post office and Amtraker in his sites as well. The Vem Dem Institute declared the United States is no longer a liberal democracy. So when everything is nearly fine, you need a different kind of lens. I'm Richard Schreiber.

SPEAKER_00 0:43

Thanks, Richard. Yeah, the fairness doctrine died in 1987. This week we're not dealing with missing balance, we're dealing with a vocabulary trick. Nearly complete, nearly contained, nearly transparent. Edward R. Murrow called Weaselword, quote, the fog between the public and the truth. This week the fog is thick. I'm Tom Martin, and this is True Journalist.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Yes, welcome everybody. Well, it was an interesting week. I think all of us breathed a sigh of relief when the ceasefire was announced, but I think the reporting is interesting in the way of interpreting what has been said by the administration and the counterpunch by the Iranian folks. And then the outcome, I guess, of Israel persisting its bombings on Lebanon is that briefly the Strait of Hormoz was closed, but Iran was open rather, but Iran closed it after the bombing proceeded in Israel. And there was an argument between the two countries, America and Israel and Iran, about whether Lebanon was included in the scope of the ceasefire. So that that kind of strikes me as being pretty unusual, don't you? And that's not the kind of detail you'd think would be not covered. Well, fog is a good word.

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Fred and Edward are there again heading into this a number of weeks ago. Oh thank God. It's only been a number of weeks, not months and years. See how it all unfolds now. But the reasons for launching the attack were never that clear. We generally, yes, I've heard it all, but uh certainly this fog on the regarding the resolution, and now the Iranian government saying we're going to charge every ship that goes through the Strait of Hormuz. And is that really what Donald Trump had in mind? Funding war terrorism, etc. So it's fog is a good word.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

Yeah. And of course, Trump is often accused or characterized as someone who thinks and exchanges ideas and thoughts from a currency perspective.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

So while charging ships, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Right. The Iranians charging money for ships in and out of the Strait of Hormuz may not affect or impact America as much as other countries, but it's yet another financial uh impact on the rest of the world. And the U.S. as well. Even though the U.S. is more than capable of producing 100% of our oil, apparently we still import about 40% of our oil from the Middle East. For whatever reason that is, it's no doubt tied to economics. Probably cheaper to buy it there than it is to refine it. I'm sorry, to extract it in the U.S. These self-imposed deadlines during wartime negotiations have a documented history of producing fragile agreements. In 73, the Paris Peace Accords gave Richard Nixon peace with honor headline a peace with honor headline of all things, while fighting continued for two more years in Vietnam. And Trump's equal seventh deadline created kind of the same dynamic, ultimately resulting in a photo opportunity attached to a countdown clock, not really conditions on the ground. And then the interesting dichotomy in addition to that is both sides declared victory. And Tom, this this whole war proceeding has been kind of rubber stamped by this dichotomy of President Trump reports one thing, i.e., that some kind of negotiations are in place and some kind of contact or whatever it may be, and the Iranians turning around saying, no way, this never happened. This is the pipe dream. And given Trump's proclivity towards falsehoods and misinformation, as we said on an earlier program, it kind of forces Americans into the uncomfortable position of do I believe as you made the comment last week, do I believe in a totalitarian, authoritarian brutal regime? We're not talking about America.

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Yeah, his Pinocchio rating. I mean, that now we'll live on through the ages. That doesn't help at a time like this.

SPEAKER_01 5:30

I remember an old old cartoon, I think it was in Mad magazine, which had a picture of Pinocchio, his nose grew every time he told a lie, and his mother would simply hang additional wash on it. So she was encouraging him to lie. But no, let's talk about two. In April 6th, President Trump told a press conference that Iran has no anti-aircraft weaponry. This was days after the Iranians shot down two military aircraft, including an F-15, that famously we thankfully had a wonderful rescue mission. But sorry, politic fact called that a false claim. The same press conference included assertions about U.S. oil independence that just don't hold up against our refinery capacity data. Again, earlier mentioning that we're dependent on the Middle East still for oil for a variety of reasons.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

We're starting to see some Republican representatives and perhaps even senators breaking a little bit with being in lockstep with Donald Trump because misleading us in this way or lack of the accuracy. And I think they feel that if you're being asked to if you're asking the American military to put their lives online and lives have been lost, obviously, let's be honest and straightforward instead of put spin manipulation on it. And I certainly agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Yeah, and there was a report. Again, we're not here to pass supposition innuendo or rumor, but on basis it seems to make sense. There was a report that Jared Kushner was actually very influential in having President Trump continue with the Iran intervention, in spite of the fact that we've mentioned numerous times that the former Ayatollah Ami Khan Ali Khamani had two fatwas against the use of nuclear weapons in Iran. So if you know anything about that process, they were Iran was not in a position to use nuclear weapons.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

But the stated goals sit on the I I know I've heard you say that Mahate, I'm fairly not backing up Donald Trump here, but I don't I'm not sure I put 100% trust in that statement. I yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:57

On paper, that that's what it's supposed to mean because yeah, we know that Iran that I think the Iranians put a fatwa on Solomon Rushdie, and sure enough, we they there was an assassination attempt on him. So the core intent of the meeting is exactly that punishable by death if you stray the course. But I think you're right. It push came to shove. I'm sure the I'm sure there's an exclusive clause that to be may negate that. But the stated goals of the Iran campaign, though, were dismantling their nuclear program, destroying their military. Well, it was obliterated last year, remember that? Exactly. And then a regime change.

SPEAKER_02 8:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

None of which have really been accomplished. Yeah, there is a regime change. They hired the the Iranians promoted Ali Khamani's son, who's more radical. So that's hardly a regime change.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

That's a regime change.

SPEAKER_01 8:49

Yeah. So how do we declare victory when really none of those objectives have been accomplished? It's rather curious. And then the human cost of the war, or and the Iranian rights group, again, it's an Iranian group, Harana, puts the total killed at nearly 3,400, including more than 1,600 civilians. Over 1,500 have been killed in Lebanon, additionally, which I don't know, is that outside the scope of this war? It seems like Israel has chosen to use the cloak of the Iranian war to continue their perhaps justified assault on Hamas and Hezbollah. Again, Lebanon being a primary breeding ground for those terrorist organizations. 23 Israeli deaths and 13 U.S. servicemen killed. These numbers are rarely, if ever, mentioned in the same context of this victory speech that we keep hearing.

SPEAKER_00 9:49

Remember, Carolyn Levitt told us to be not to be disrespectful to the president and his victories.

SPEAKER_01 9:59

The same Carolyn Levitt said to one CNN reporter that you keep uh making you keep getting the president upset for trying to embarrass him. As if that's the major criteria for news reporting. That can be annoying annoying, certainly, to Commander-in-Chief, but the news is the news. So the BBC Verify calls this the first major conflict where AI-generated disinformation exceeded traditional disinformation. The New York Times, who recently published an article, I believe it was yesterday, where they attempted to basically detail all of the various elements and details of what led us into the war, including an internal survey that reportedly revealed that Vice President Vance was against the Iranian inter intercession, but told the president he would go along with it to support him, which was interesting in its own right.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

You remember that other guy, vice president, what's his name, who didn't go along with what the president wanted. That ended ugly.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Yeah, for sure. So the New York Times also identified a hundred and more than 110 unique deepfakes that were that pushed pro-Iranian narratives. And some of those I saw a couple of disparaging videos on on Instagram that were absolutely viscerating to Donald Trump using cartoon-like imagery. And uh I know it went viral. And so this is the first war, I think, where AI and all of the disinformation and the deepfakes have influenced the narrative.

SPEAKER_00 11:56

I heard the other day that in China they had also created uh videos again portraying Donald Trump as reckless, unpredictable force and destruction, whereas it's the Chinese who are the responsible ones. So they it clearly fits they're ready to step in as the responsible party, which should worry us, I would say.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, they I don't know about the responsible party. If you've read the The Art of War, it's all about timing and not overreacting, sizing up your opponent, as I think the Chinese have done an accurate job, certainly with President Trump and his tendencies. And when you sit back and analyze and look for access points and weak points, right now the Chinese are handing us our breakfast.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

There's something also in the art of war about if your opponent is busy destroying himself, don't interfere with that process.

SPEAKER_01 12:52

Let it play out. Yeah, for sure. So one example of these deep fakes was uh there were some videos of the USS Abraham Lincoln burning that were so convincing that the president himself called his generals to verify whether it was accurate or not. And it's concerning when the commander-in-chief himself can't distinguish real battlefi battlefield footage from fabrication. It's how it's it give it really poses some serious questions about you know what we're seeing out there.

SPEAKER_00 13:26

Absolutely, absolutely. This might be a good opportunity to mention the whole issue of Pentagon reporting. I got my start in the CBS Washington Bureau, David Martin was just getting his start. He's been there for 40 years now, something like that. He's the one who Mary Walsh, who recently resigned, was his longtime producer. But just the other day, a federal judge said, remember two months ago, I said you can't the Pentagon can't restrict reporting on what's really going on. That is a violation of our First Amendment rights. The public has to know to receive that reporting.

SPEAKER_01 14:04

That's right. We yeah, I want to come back to that story and just wrap up on all the war. The Council of Foreign Relations warns that a permanent deal between the U.S. and Iran and Israel requires major concessions for either Washington or Tehran. But neither side has shown any willingness. This two-week window may produce another deadline, another announcement, another banner, another photo opportunity. But essentially the underlying conflict is not resolved. And even though that's how the administration characterized it, and the reasons were obvious. The stock market was trending down. I think after the ceasefire was in place, I believe the Dow went up four and a half percent in a single day, and NASDAQ 3.2 percent. Well, I think uh just the other day, Pam Bonni said that's the most important thing, how the Dow was doing. Oh, yeah, and she called it four or five hundred dollars, too, right? Yes. But you mentioned the courts, yes, this week struck down the Pentagon on prohibiting reporters from participating really in the day-to-day news briefs. They were ushered into a sequestered room, they had to be constantly led around by chaperones. It was an odd kind of setting that diminished and severely limited their visibility. U.S. District Court judge Paul Friedman ruled the Pentagon violated a prior court order by attempting to enforce a revised policy that still unconstitutionally restricted journalists' access and news gathering abilities. So it wasn't this rule, this ruling was on top of a previous ruling against, and again, the judge struck down the Defense Department's efforts to move reporters to an annex, as I mentioned, in some kind of ancillary room, labeling these actions as transparent attempts to evade the March ruling that protected First and Fifth Amendment rights for these reporters. Total rebuke of Secretary of Defense, or sorry, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. Yeah, boy, what's what's going on there? I'm glad that reporters got their access. And I think at this point, who besides the judicial department is really supporting freedom of speech and our first right amendments, particularly in the area of journalism?

SPEAKER_00 16:36

Because we're just seeing one-by-one assault on it. Back in my school days, I certainly remember studying about the three division and three branches of government of the checks and balances that were created by our founding fathers. I don't know what the speaker in one Congress we called a meeker, Mike Johnson, has been up to, but it's like we can't really count on that check and balance. So it's I'm grateful. Again, you and I were discussing recently about the the birthright hearing, our oral argument where Trump was in the back of the room keeping his eye on his three appointees. I I saw another headline that another justice may be resigning later this year, which we'll see how that plays out. But again, maybe again the the questions from I think almost every justice on the panel at that oral argument was skeptical about the Trump administration's position. So maybe the judicial same the day. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

I think a lot of people looked at it as a Hail Mary. What's typical, I think, of a lot of the administration's legal perspectives is they try to take out outlying unusual rulings and somehow make that apply on a general basis and standpoint. And this is true of anyone trying to make arguments like that. For the most part, they're just not valid because it's just logically not consistent with legal proceedings and the duty of law and the rule of law in this case. So I know they don't rule until June, but it doesn't look good. And it shouldn't look good, frankly, because the both the Constitution and the law say that these people are entitled to birthright citizenship. And keep the this propensity to look for loopholes and try to make broad policy out of that. If you want the policy, then get Mike Johnson to pass a law. And then let's see how quickly it fails in the Senate. That's the reality. That's why the administration is resorting to largely executive orders and these kinds of laws, which or these kinds of steps. They're not even laws. They're just doing it in typical fashion until somebody says no.

SPEAKER_00 18:55

You know, well, from all appearances, Mike Johnson's very good at obeying commands. He jumps through hoops, she bends down and keeps going. Don't want to get sidetracked.

SPEAKER_01 19:05

Yeah, no, it's obviously the Congress, the House of Representatives, anyway, at this point, are in a holding pattern. And we've seen that throughout the uh the last year and change. And that will likely continue unless something shakes up in the November elections. And that's an interesting story, too, because there are a number of lawsuits that have been filed that have at this point checked some of the administration's attempts. I know there was something about write-in votes, that there was a lawsuit brought forth by the state of Arizona. Technically, each state's oversee the individual voting process in each state. And for the federal government to try to intercede on that is unconstitutional. But they continue to try. And I know there's some constitutional lawyers, some good ones, that continue to file lawsuits and win lawsuits to try to maintain the fair elections. And Arizona is one that in particular won recent court agreement against denying nail imbalance. Again, trying to disinfluence.

SPEAKER_00 20:11

Falsified voting is a major uh problem in our society, and they rounded up both of the perpetrators, and maybe those. Really, there were that many, two of them?

SPEAKER_01 20:21

It's silly because everyone, in order to vote, you have to have an ID. That's pretty straightforward. Whenever I vote, they they check my driver's license, and and that's that. And again, all of the analysis and studies in recent the last two or three elections have shown that the amount of falsified data is so minuscule, insufficient to even influence an election to any great degree. Wrapping up our segment, when officials use qualifiers like nearly or essentially or virtually, that strips the qualifier, and we really need to test the bare claim on that. If the president says Iran's military capability is nearly destroyed, but Iran just shot down two U.S. aircraft, the qualifier is the lie. This technique traces back to George Orwell's 1946 essay, Politics and the English Language, where he warned that political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable. Well, apply that nearly test to any official statement made this week or throughout this war or recent memory applied to Russia and Ukraine and Israel and the conflict going on in Israel as well with the Palestinians. So these are the days that we are in, my friend. What we'd like to do is take a look at the five most controversial news. Stories of the week where the reporting kind of straight and diametrically opposite directions. We talked about the Iranian ceasefire deal already, where both sides are reporting victory, and Fox News ran the banner Trump ends the Iran War. And I know that before that happened, and again, we're all giving a sigh of relief. I don't know if the ultimatum that the president gave Iran was the clincher. Fortunately, there was not a need to follow through on that because that would have, as many analysts have said, delved into war crimes. And that's never a good thing. And again, back and forth, we know, Tom, that both sides, Iran accused the US of violations within hours of the agreement. The war objectives were not achieved. So yeah, it depending on who you speak with, it's a mixed bag of reality there. Yes. And then the next item was about the million and a half trillion dollar defense budget that I mentioned that the White House is framing this request as keeping America safe and confronting continuing threats from China, Russia, and Iran. And the Pentagon called it necessary investment in military readiness. But that's a 44% increase over current defense spending. And the first time the base budget crosses a trillion dollars paired with cuts to health care, housing, social services, plan to Amtrak, to the post office. What kind of a message is that really sending to us uh to this nation? Very concerning. And next story is uh the Pam Bondy fire being fired. I know one of your favorite news stories, actually not. So she told Fox. So Bondi told Fox News that she had the Epstein client list sitting on her desk right now. DOJ later described the file release as the most transparent handling of the Epstein matter in history. Wow. But the DOJ and FBI said no client list exists. Pam Bondi was fired by Trump amid bipartisan frustration with obviously how the Epstein files were playing out.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Thank goodness there's a valiant crusader who has stepped forward by the name of Mulhania. So it's all I'm curious to see how what this all shakes up. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 25:00

Yeah, that was curious, Tom, because uh the reporting is that she did this entirely on her own without any knowledge afforded to the White House or advanced knowledge. What do you make of that? And is that a is that just another scenario of cut and run of someone trying to create some separation from the rest of the stuff, looking out for their own self-interest?

SPEAKER_00 25:25

Although I still need to catch up on her documentary, I she has my sympathy to some degree because of what she's done for over the years and in that marriage behind the scenes there. But uh, she does seem to have the pattern of speaking out many months of silence. But when things are just unacceptable, maybe criticism of her son and things like that, like reaches a point where she feels compelled to speak out. And I have heard with her previous press secretary from the first admin, first term, and I'm sure it was not coordinated with security what it may open up.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Certainly she's been very close with Baron, her son, and I'm the parent of an autistic daughter as well. I'm not saying or inferring in any way that he is, because I know the lawsuits will come. But we take care of our children, and the last thing we want is for them to feel the pinch of scrutiny that they don't deserve. So she certainly was within her rights to to do. But yeah, it's a just a curious story, and yeah, we don't wish any ill on anyone, but uh it's so the timing was curious, to say the least. Uh moving on to our next item, which is the NPR PBS defunding ruling. So Trump had passed an executive order ending taxpayers subsidized biased media, just another way of trying to silence our First Amendment privileges. Not to say that media in general doesn't have its bias, but to single out NPR and PBS for that and give right-wing media a pass obviously seems to be a double standard. But it was overruled. Judge Randall Moss permanently blocked the order as unconstitutional, as an unconstitutional viewpoint discrimination, noting that the government failed to cite a single case supporting such targeted speech-based exclusion. However, Republicans in Congress had apparently already separately rescinded the funding the funding, making the court victory largely symbolic. So the Congress said had already defunded it, taking the onus off the executive order, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Well, earlier today I was reminded, I guess this happened back in February, but our uh FCC chairman Tony Soprano was oh no, I'm sorry, what's his said we need to put more morality into our broadcasting, maybe broadcast the Plinge of Allegiance a little more frequently and things like that. I'm not sure where all things will fall on the unless our old friend Barry Weiss over at CBS News is trying to take that ball and run with it. She put Frank commentary on Easter. So we're playing on the airwave.

SPEAKER_01 28:23

Yeah, let's talk about that because I know you have a close, long-time relationship with CBS and CBS News, and we've had people on our podcast in that space. But there was a story earlier in the month that Barry Weiss was reportedly preparing a massive overhaul of 60 minutes, which will no doubt lead to the removal of executive producer Tanya Simon, who had been there for a while, and likely produce a staff revolt. Interestingly, though, you know, Weiss aims to blow up the current format to make the program harder and more culturally resonant, rather, moving away from what sources describe as a lack of Monday morning relevance. What's your take on that?

SPEAKER_00 29:10

The Ellison family and with their Skydance, there's a Skydancer Corporation found Barry Weiss on Substack. I know you and I both teach for Substack. No one's offered me $150 million for my column, however, but that's where they found Barry Weiss. She had some media experience, not journalism experience, no journalism experience. But it's it seems consistent with that kind of background to look for other pundits and commentators, and that's not what 60 Minutes has been for the past 50 years. Like love it or don't love it. And yes, sometimes it does seem even even seem to me that there are some stories take a point of view, but at least they're documented and so on. I find it interesting to really I put a magnifying glass on some of the CBS news shows that I watch these days, 60 Minutes and CBS Sunday morning. Notice that they're not, they're they don't have their correspondence ever come out and criticize the president. God forbid that should ever happen. But they will run comments from other from other critics, so it's not totally whitewashed like everything, sunky dory and see the world through rose-colored glasses here and all that kind of a thing. But it's defanging the show. I don't know what Mike Wallace would think of what's going on here. I think he'd be concerned. And again, a lot of my friends, we had with that wonderful interview with our friend Henry Lenz, the other uh long long time CBS radio news engineer and producer. And they're talking about the Moro tradition and all of that. It's really it is defanging show that really was used for good. I grew up in a journalism family, and I was taught that journalists do have a civic responsibility in the US to shine a light upon what's not right. Sometimes the journalists can be uh can be found to be wrong. Every once in a blue moon, you find a journalist who is distorting something, and I'm not talking about Fox News, but I'm saying making things up, real fake news before we started hearing about it a million times, then that should not be allowed, and that's unacceptable.

SPEAKER_01 31:13

And CBS, I think, fired Dan Rather, right? Because of a story that we ran, I believe, on General Westmoreland, or maybe Florida W.

SPEAKER_00 31:23

Bush at Florida W. Bush's National Guard Service or something. Right. Yeah. It's like some of this fellow, and that's a real overreaction, but it called him out, so he was not immune from uh criticism and accountability. And so it shouldn't be, I think.

SPEAKER_01 31:38

Yeah. I know that when Barry Weiss speaks of accountability in a harder vision, she's often referring to challenging the mainstream or the progressive consensus as opposed to what news reporting, especially with this administration, is doing, which is trying to hold them accountable in the traditional sense. And my concern is, yeah, to your point, is investigative journalism under siege, when it focuses its lens on either the administration or friends, billionaire friends in companies and organizations. It's not like this hasn't happened in the past, but in the past, if 60 Minutes ran a piece that was critical of the particular industry, no matter how much they contributed in campaign contributions, or if they were even advertisers on the program, that did not deter them from running that segment. But today it's like all bets are off, and yeah, your point is well taken. You have to be very mindful of not criticizing the president directly, because that's tantamount to having your license taken away. And it may seem disingenuous to have sound bites from other people criticizing him rather than the uh the anchors doing it themselves, but maybe there's a lesson to be learned in there. Tom, from a general standpoint, I believe demagoguery has become the primary news delivery vehicle on all cable news or all online news. Fox News, it's easy for liberals to rail against it, but with the exception of NCR, public radio, PPS, and possibly a few other more neutral or center news outlets, everything is about demagoguery and opinion. So in a sense, you would like that for one, wouldn't mind to see that reined in. The problem is it's being reined in one direction only. And that's a violation of our First Amendment rights. And if the FCC was constructed the way it used to be, uh when we were going through journalism school and whatnot, they would have the ability to enforce that parody.

SPEAKER_00 34:02

But these are not those days anymore. Two thoughts come to mind, and it's I didn't even prepare this one, but I remember we're certainly reading about the Lenny Bruce trial way back when was that the 1950s, late 1950s. Again, you might not like what somebody has to say. And again, the ACLU takes this stand also on slightly they haven't defended those awoke targets. Oh, the ACLU, we've got to get rid of that. But they have defended some people who've said some offensive things. But I think the Supreme Court has weighed in on that as well, as far as we might not like what we hear, but again, that's the price of the First Amendment. And George Carlin could get away with those eight words that I will not repeat.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

But that was a very controversial when he came up with those back in the I think the early 70s. I remember this. So, well, we'll sign off for this week. So look at the wire this week. Ceasefire violated the ceasefire the day it was signed. $1.5 trillion defense budget while gutting health care and other essential government services. An attorney general fired over files the DA DOJ now says doesn't exist. And who is also refusing to testify under oath, Pam Bondi was subpoenaed, but refused to testify, claiming that she's no longer attorney general. A court ruling protecting public media, rendered meaningless because Congress had already taken the money out. And an informational battlefield where the president continues to call his own generals to ask if a video on the war is real. The threat collecting connecting really all of it is nearly one, nearly transparent, nearly democratic. So when you turn nearly into mission accomplished, boy, you're making accountability impossible. Accountability is in short supply these days.

SPEAKER_00 35:55

Exactly. I totally agree with that. That nearly is quite a fuzzy word. Indeed, the V Dan Institute didn't use the word nearly, they said it quite plainly and directly. The United States is no longer a liberal democracy, which is shocking to hear any think tank say. Freedom of expression is at its lowest since 1945, which you can serve all of us. That's not a partisan talking point. That's a Swedish research tracking 202 countries since 1789. Very good. Legacy isn't built on ceasefire announcements that collapse by morning. It's built on whether you told the truth was inconvenient. If you aren't asking what nearly actually means, you're just consuming the fog that Henry Ormer was talking about.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Yes, and the fog was thick this week, and that's exactly why this lens matters the most. Strict the qualifiers, follow the money, check the casual reports against the victory speeches. Build your foundation on reality, and we'll see you out there on the next wire. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

Good night and good luck. All right.

SPEAKER_01 37:07

Thanks everybody. Have a great week.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 37:14

Great, thank you. Prepare that. You have lots to talk about. This goes good. Yeah. And I did I do have a guest for our next show or whatever. Yeah. Okay. I think I may have spoken with him. His name is Steve Patterson. His father owned a bunch of newspapers. He went into that. He converted uh some newspaper chains into digital media. Really thoughtful guy. He has a podcast of his own in Galveston, Texas. But his media background is more for more from the front office. And but again, had to make a lot of difficult decisions and transitions as print media began to wind down in the last couple decades. And but uh I should have thought of him soon as should have thought of him sooner. I just actually spoke with him before our get together. But yeah, and I'll be thinking of other guests too. I don't want to just lay that on you.

SPEAKER_00 38:06

No problem. Yeah, no, he sounds great. I'll look forward to that. That sounds great. He's a great guy. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:11

All right, my friend. Have a great weekend.

SPEAKER_00 38:14

You too.

SPEAKER_01 38:14

I really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_00 38:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 38:15

Talk to you guys. Talk to you Monday morning, same channel, same time.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Okay, thanks a lot.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Take care.