Ellison's firing of Scott Pelley seals an ideological takeover of once respected CBS

From my Facebook posting today. CBS, once the beacon of credible and traditional journalism, has a new meaning to its initials: Conservative BS. It was acquired by David Ellison, son of the founder of Oracle, a family of liogarch techies, and a vocal supporter of Trump. Since 2025, Ellison has set about to make it a voice of MAGA and Trump and the ideology of the right. No pretense of independent journalism there. The destruction of 60 Minutes, capped by the firing yesterday of an embittered Scott Pelley and the end of Stephen Colbert's show, was the bookend of a Trumpian plot that began in 2025 and was backed by the Trump-appointed loyalist head of the Federal Communications Commission, who approved the transaction. Ellison has cleaned house and made it clear that now CBS was going to be a media outlet that would not tolerate a bad word about their dear leader in the White House..FOX and MSNOW are on cable, and we know their perspectives. However, broadcast TV does not require you to pay to get it. It reaches not only cable viewers but also those who can access it through other non-cost methods and who may mistakenly believe the standards of journalism and equal time are still being observed. Ellison has turned the broadcast network into another dedicated MAGA voice, like.FOX cable. Cable is not required to be objective or even to adhere to equal-time requirements, as broadcast media did in the past. Cable, because viewers pay a bundle for getting to receive it, can find the views and slants they want. Broadcast media is free; however, it is available to all freely. Broadcast news and talk have been expected to permit a variety of viewpoints, though equal time enforcement is no longer. CBS's overt slant to one ideology has broken any trust that the news it delivers is objective and unbiased.

Trump wants to use the post office to control who votes by mail.: another sneak attack on the Constituion

 Trump wants to use the post office to control who votes by mail. It is: another sneak attack on the Constitution. One of Trump's plans to control federal elections in order to turn a loser into a winner for him is to target mail-in voting, a blatant sneak attack on the Constitution that puts control of elections in the hands of states instead of the federal government... The pretext for this extreme power grab is based on the totally unproven lie that there is " widespread fraud" in mail-in voting or that illegal migrants are voting.  MAGA has swallowed that BS hook, line, and sinker. without questioning. It works for them. 

Update 6/3/2026 per my Facebook post:.Trump's threat to force the post office to screw up mail-in ballots in time for November got a response from the Colorado legislature in a bill Gvo. Polis signed. It would increase the time mail-in ballots can be counted so that if the feds try to play footsie with the post office and take over the November election count, they will face extended time for Colorado clerks to correct. Trump wants the post office to be the arbiter of which mail-in ballots to count...only those on federal registration lists..which do not exist, clearly an unconstitutional act and and a violation of the Constitution, which gives states the power. https://coloradosun.com/2026/05/12/colorado-mail-ballot-elections-change/

There are reasons why this attack on mail-in voting has failed so far. It is an extremely popular voting method among both Democrats and Republicans. Not only is the pretext a lie with no proof, but it's also a sneak attack on another unconstitutional attempt to use his executive orders to gain federal access and control over voter rolls and who votes.  

Trump has already tried to get states to turn over the personal details of those on their lists. like driver's licenses and social security numbers. It is pretty obvious why this is important to Trump's turning a predicted election against him into a victory for him by such underhanded methods. Twenty states have refused. https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/trump-administration-has-sued-more-20-states-refusing-turn-over-voter.  He has tried to force them to do so by depriving them of the federal funds they need, among other pressure tactics.

One reason Trump fears mail-in voters is to force in-person voting so he can intimidate with armed ICE at a swing polling place. If those who fear they will be harassed, they can vote by mail. They can also avoid in-person mailing by dropping ballots off in designated places, and that one does not even require stamps. Another reason is that it gives Trump access to more personal data than state lists contain, so he can target those who support him or oppose him with individualized suppression/support methods, from TV ads to targeted scare-tactic mail to attempts to kick off and challenge those with certain last names, especially Hispanic, off the lists that are unjustified.  Like Trump's unevidenced lawsuits (no proof, just theories), the attempt alone creates a burden on voters to fight it, even if he loses in court. 

He also tried to get the SAVE Act passed. It is better known as "show me your citizenship papers to get registered," and unrealistically limits what kinds of papers would be accepted. That act also included a clause prohibiting universal mail voting, requiring all mail voters to submit an application to receive a mail ballot. The SAVE Act was killed in the Senate on March 23, 2026, because it suppressed both Republican and Democratic voters.

Here is why universal mail ballot systems are so secure and why Trump would love to get it under his thumb.

This anti-universal mail-ballot clause is essentially what the abuse of the post office would accomplish under Trump's executive order. Eight states, including Colorado and the  District of Columbia, have this universal system. For the horrified: everyone gets a ballot mailed to them; a potential cheater, FYI. Just getting a ballot sent to you because you appear on a state registration list does not mean it is counted in the vote totals, whether the ballot is returned by mail, dropped off at a secure official box, or at a polling station. That is, because county and state election officials only count ballots in totals from registered voters on their rolls when they scrutinize mail-in ballots they receive. They compare handwriting signatures on the ballots and other data with state data and a voter's signature on record at the state, gotten when the voter registered.  Modern computerization makes this possible.  No wonder Trump would like to get his hands on those state rolls. He could throw the entire election process into chaos and lo delay well after election day.   While this attempt to pass SAVE failed in Congress, he is trying to back door it with an executive order to have the post office only to accept a voter on a FEDERAL voting roll to which he does not now have full access, nor is there a complete one with all data from all the states that exists. 

So, let's try it another way: he proposes, by executive order, that the post office accept ballots only from those on federal voting lists, not only on state voting lists, but FEDERAL ones. Let's see how far that gets by judicial scrutiny.  My guess is he is not fooling the justices either: it is just another unconstitutional method he can use to subvert the outcome of elections he fears will not go his way.

ttps://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/postal-service-trump-attack-mail-voting-proposed-rule/

Here is where Colorado fits into Trump's unconstitutional subversion scheme: https://mufticforumblog.blogspot.com/2025/04/trumps-power-grab-includes-federalizing.html

Why both political parties attract ideological extremists? . It is the system . but it is not set up by the Constitution

Ever ask yourself why both political parties attract ideological extremists? It is the way the US system works. It is not set up by the Constitution but has developed over time and is set in sand by state and federal statutes and Supreme Court decisions. It does depend on the protections afforded by the First Amendment and the Voting Rights Act. It is unlike the parliamentary politics of Europe, where ideology is the identifying brand of political parties, and coalitions form the majority, and voters have a branded ideological menu to choose from. In the US, extremists in our representative two-party gerrymandered system have to coalesce at the primary stage and support the party with which they feel at home, or otherwise, they have no input into the system.

Neo nazis and white supremacists have found a home in MAGA. Socialists like Bernie Sanders caucus with Democrats even tho they are not the majority of the Dems. The quandary is where do libertarians and pragmatists, and those who care more about cultural, racial, religious identity, business advantages, or family affordability go who are not ideologically self-identifying or party or political leader loyal? Midterm and presidential elections are where the sorting eventually and finally takes place in one of our two parties

What is an ideological extremist, anyway? It depends on definitions and on where you sit on the political spectrum.

What is my definition of ideological extremism? Generally speaking, it is a view outside the mainstream with certain characteristics. Depending on how you search for the definition, it can mean many different things. I searched for extremism as just a common word in common usage. It can also mean someone who is way past radical. It can also depend on the eye of the beholder. Politically, some on the right like to claim that anything to the left of them is a communist, socialist, etc.(That is one I have seen posted even on a Facebook site that is supposed to not be about politics, and which prompted me to do this post.) Those on the left may claim that MAGA is a bunch of racist fascists, which may apply to some of their supporters, and a majority, I suspect, but not all.

There is one AI view that comes closest to mine, reproduced below.: By this definition, whether Democratic Socialists (those achieving a single-minded political goal using the democratic processes) are extremely probably not fully like those who want to overturn the system to get their way. Those on the right, like the memes I am seeing from MAGA, think Democratic Socialists like Sanders and Maldonado-Torres probably are extremists to them. They even have the word socialists in their party affilitation name though they also run as Democrats to get throiugh the primary system.. Democratic socialists' support of the working class permeates their rationales for public policy advocacy.. However, they advocate and work within the Democratic system as it has existed for the past 250 years in order to try to get their viewpoints heard and taken seriously. and many registered Democrats accept some part of their ideology, as witnessed by the success of Bernie Sanders and Mayor Zoran Mamdani,, who ran for office successfully under the Democratic Socialist banner. They and even some center-right independents caucus with Democrats in legislatures.

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From a left-of-center viewpoint, advocates for a "unitary' form of government, putting legislative and judicial power in the hands of one powerful executive, or advancing White Christian nationalism, while attempting to rid the country of those of a particular race, like Hispanics, are extremist and fit this definition. They virtually turn a democracy into an autocracy using de facto means. Also fitting this definition, those who constructed Project 2025 and now run much of Trump's day-to-day operation are ideological extremists in my view. (Their technique was to turn as many Congresspeople, and administrative positions, and replace justices with loyalists to Trump himself, who would turn over their power to them voluntarily, which is what has happened.

There is another kind of extremism that has to do with the methods used to advance an extremist cause. The advocates of violent overthrow, such as J6, adjudicated crimes of violence against police officers, definitely are, both by ideology and methods, extremists, fully welcomed into the GOP MAGA by Trump. So are neo Nazi's, and even Trump called them some fine people, as he invited them into the MAGA tent after Charlottesville, 2017, though at times he has condemned them, too. Neo Nazi praised Trump and even saluted him in rallies before then..

Unlike the communist dictatorships like Russia of the past, in America, membership in a political party is a matter of both voter registration and acceptance of support from party leaders, or self-identification. It does not depend on a card signifying that the bearer has passed a litmus test. It is both self-identifying, like wearing a MAGA cap, or being supported by actions and words of allegiance to whatever the leader says it is, or being branded by adversaries, fairly or unfairly.

From my search in AI for the term" ideological extremism' that comes closest to my view, with some annotations and examples of how MAGA and Trump fit into that brand..as well as meet the definition of methods extremism.

1. Ideological Extremism.

• Rejection of Democratic Norms: Holding beliefs that seek to undermine, overturn, or replace established liberal democratic systems, human rights, and freedoms.( Example: Project 2025 and the critically powerful positions of Stephen Miller, who is credited with the ICE overreach and mass deportation methods, and Russell Vought in the Trump administration, who authored the project))
• Intolerance: Advocating for rigid ideologies rooted in violence, hatred, or the negation of the fundamental rights of those who disagree. ( Example: cruel treatment and false imprisonment of a Hispanic undocumented immigrant with no criminal record, and without access to due process, and ICE killing American citizen protestors.)
• Radicalization: The escalation of a belief system that characterizes an "in-group" (e.g., a race, religion, or political faction) as superior, requiring the suppression or elimination of an "out-group. . (Example: The SAVE Act, defeated in the Senate, or Southern white state legislators gerrymandering African Americans out of the Congressional seats). Using paramilitary and cruel treatment of migrants to force them to self-deport, even if they have the legal right to remain. It appears that this is the point of the concentration camps set up by ICE (see methods of extremism below)

2. Methods Extremism

• Use of Force: While having unconventional beliefs is not illegal, an extremist crosses a line when they endorse or employ extreme measures—particularly violence, intimidation, or coercion—to realize their goals. (Example: The slush fund to reward those adjudicated as violent criminals who acted on January 6 in support ot Trump is a way to express approval and to keep them in his tent)

Why Democrat James Talarico has a chance to win in Texas:? He speaks their religious lanuage

Here is why I think Democrat James Talarico has a chance to win the Senate seat in Texas. He speaks with many Texans' religious language, which also contrasts his persona with Ken Paxton's immorality and corruption.

While I am not a Texan, I am a native of the state more Texas than Texas: Oklahoma.  It is from that perspective that I wrote in July 2025 on this blog that  JamesTalarico was a unique Democrat who spoke the religious language of many in both states. He brought that to the table and was onto a potentially winning message.. He put his politics in Christian religious terms, even when his support of public policy deviated from the orthodoxy of the evangelical right. His morality is in sharp contrast to Ken Paxton's, and with Paxton's defeat of incumbent Sen. John Cornyn, he dumped the Bush era into the dustbin of history.

The contrast of Talarico with Paxton could not be more dramatic:  The overwhelming win yesterday by Paxton in Texas gives Democrats an even better chance to brand the GOP as the MAGA party (the Bush era is demonstrably dead) and the party of corruption. Paxton's long and well-documented past of corruption was ignored as Texas Republicans followed the orders of Trump, who himself is blatantly corrupt, as his slush fund source and crypto gains are evidence. The question I have is, if Texas voters do not care about corruption, is that true of the rest of the GOP outside of Texas? The first test of that will be whether the GOP members of Congress put their OK stamp on the slush fund and the clause exempting Trump and his family from IRS scrutiny, or a significant number jump the Trump ship and vote to bury the most open, corrupt self-dealing and pocket lining attempt by a president in the history of the US.

My July 2025 post: There is a new messenger who speaks the language of many in red states...James Talarico, a state legislator in Texas. He is a devout Christian who actually reads the Bible and who puts his politics into how he sees it related to the religion that is the compass for his very fundamentalist belief. He sees as the most important message Jesus delivered: Love God with all your heart and treat your neighbor as you would like to be treated. That is not only a standard for his life as a preacher in training and the son of one, but he ties his beliefs to issues of the time.. He is a super articulate, young, and attractive spokesperson for his point of view.

Above all, Talarico is the polar opposite of the current leader of the GOP/MAGA movement, Donald Trump. Trump has no moral compass but is a self-serving, self-identified transactional person. That is his standard for life's decisions: to get the best deal to keep his power and wealth and gain more of both using his political office to do it. By inference, if people followed his unmoored, self-centered interest, they, too, will become richer and more powerful. Trump is a person who uses fear of his power to keep his followers and everyone he can in line, including cruelty and lack of empathy for how his policies harm "the least of these" and those trying to keep their daily lives above water.

MUFTIC FORUM BLOG: For those who want to put into perspective a profound amorality of the MAGA movement. Updated 5/8/2025

Trump's followers and some powerful cohorts think empathy is the sign of a failing society, but it is empathy that keeps community from lapsing into tribal chaos and dog-eat-dog conflict. It is the glue that keeps civilization from falling...the fate of nearly every civilization in history with a written record. Bravo, Talarico...you got my attention and admiration

.https://www.npr.org/2026/05/27/nx-s1-5835292/texas-senate-runoff-takeaways