Distraction #25654

Goldstein, J. (2025, August 20). Judge denies release of Epstein grand jury transcripts. The New York Times. 

 

Would you like a side with your side?

 

Goldstein, J., & Ashford, G. (2025, August 20). Eric Adams’s aide asked a city contractor for cash, a reporter for help. The New York Times. 

But, will it hurt?

Will the Dominion verdict make a dent in Newsmax's bottom-line?

Breakdown of the Settlement

• Total Amount: $67 million
• Payment Schedule:
  • $27 million paid on August 15, 2025
  • $20 million due by January 15, 2026
  • $20 million due by January 15, 2027

Impact on Newsmax’s Bottom Line

While Newsmax hasn’t publicly disclosed detailed financials like annual revenue or profit margins, several indicators suggest this settlement is a major dent:

• Newsmax’s ratings are roughly one-tenth that of Fox News, which paid $787.5 million in a similar settlement. That suggests Newsmax operates on a much leaner budget.
• Newsmax already paid $40 million to Smartmatic in a separate defamation case, bringing total legal payouts to $107 million within a short span.
• The staggered payment schedule implies Newsmax needed to spread the financial burden across multiple fiscal years—often a sign of constrained liquidity or cash flow management.

Estimated Financial Strain

If we assume Newsmax’s annual revenue is in the ballpark of $100–150 million (a generous estimate based on industry comparisons), then:

• $67 million represents 45–67% of annual revenue.
• The immediate $27 million payment could consume a large portion of operating cash flow or reserves.

Strategic Implications

• Reputational Damage: The court had already ruled Newsmax defamed Dominion, and while the settlement avoids a trial, it reinforces the narrative of journalistic misconduct.
• Operational Pressure: With two major settlements in under two years, Newsmax may face pressure to tighten editorial standards, reduce legal risk exposure, and possibly restructure finances.
• Political Positioning: Despite the financial hit, Newsmax continues to defend its coverage as “fair and balanced,” signaling it may not pivot editorially despite legal consequences.

A Search for Greatness

I came to America searching for a story I thought I already understood. 

I felt encouraged to abandon opportunities at home by an idea of a great country that was shaped by postwar photographs, speeches recalling the Marshall Plan’s resolve, and the quiet dignity of families working to rebuild. Woven through these images was a sense of greatness that needed no grand display. Sacrifice, restraint, and collective effort made this greatness visible, even when it went unspoken.

For a long time, my American Dream had a personal symbol. Lee Iacocca was my personal anchor, as he stood out as an icon of what American ambition could achieve. Saving Chrysler, supporting the restoration of the Statue of Liberty, championing consumer safety—his actions formed a narrative that suggested progress was as much about character as ingenuity. I saw in Iacocca the possibility that solving problems and protecting people could coexist with honoring a shared history.

For me, the Marshall Plan was more than a program—it became a blueprint for a certain kind of American character. In the late 1940s, with Europe in ruins, the United States faced a pivotal choice: retreat into isolation or invest in global reconstruction. By electing the latter, American leaders—most from the so-called “Greatest Generation”—channeled their Depression-era hardships and wartime experiences into a sweeping, civic-minded project. 

Generational theorists would later characterize this cohort as institution builders, their legacy marked by faith in shared sacrifice and the deliberate construction of long-lasting frameworks for stability. The Marshall Plan didn’t simply rebuild a continent; it set a precedent for what national responsibility could look like, embedding values of discipline, patience, and communal effort into the postwar order. Yet even as these values became touchstones for how America was seen abroad, another shift was already underway. My most enlightened friends outside the United States continued to believe that the country’s postwar ethos of opportunity and morality endured unchanged. 

They—and often our elders—offered advice based on the starry-eyed assumptions of abundance and access that defined the First and Second Turnings. In truth, by the time I arrived, the America I found was already in the long dusk of those eras, quietly preparing to enter the more tumultuous Fourth Turning. That mismatch in perception would have consequences: the encouragement I received to pursue the American dream was shaped by memories and ideals of a nation that had largely moved on, leaving me to discover a very different reality than the one I’d been promised.

When I arrived in the United States, the country was already in the midst of change. The years after 9/11 and before the 2008 financial crisis had strained the old sense of order. I left behind real opportunities in my home country, thinking I was stepping into an era of American stability and promise. Yet the landscape felt unsettled. Familiar institutions were losing their authority. The broad consensus I imagined seemed fragmented. The certainty I expected had given way to something less firm, as if I had stepped not onto solid ground, but a moving fault line.

Looking back, I wish I had better understood what I was joining. The optimistic narrative that drew me across the ocean was already dissolving. In its place, a louder and less unified story emerged. The rise of the Tea Party, which reached its apex during the Obama presidency, hinted at deeper divides—an early signal of the “Make America Great Again” movement to come. What followed was a period not of restoration, but of upheaval and generational confrontation.

During this time, my understanding of greatness needed reexamination. For years, the achievements of Lee Iacocca had embodied for me the American ideal. But on the day I traveled to Detroit to take my citizenship oath, something shifted. As I drove, I listened to Jim Collins’s From Good to Great. His argument questioned the value of dramatic corporate rescues and the myth of the solitary hero. Instead, Collins described leadership as an act of building—steady, patient, often unrewarded, but essential for lasting progress. Even Iacocca’s own legacy looked different when framed this way. Chrysler survived, but persistently struggled. Its future was less secure than the mythology suggested.

That morning, it became clear that what I admired was not always what endured. Real greatness, I realized, is often measured in the decades that follow the exit of a great leader.

There is a certain irony in the timing of my arrival. My outlook was shaped less by the era I entered than by the values I brought with me. If set on a generational timeline, my temperament would be closer to that of the Silent Generation than my own peers. I valued institutions, believed in patience over disruption, and found meaning in stability more than spectacle. Builders, more than iconoclasts, captured my admiration. For me, progress was something nurtured rather than forced.

This made adjusting to my new home more disorienting. I came looking for continuity and found conflict. I expected to join a shared project, only to discover heightened fragmentation. Yet, the American moment I entered was preparing for upheaval, while I was still clinging to the hope that institutions could be repaired and preserved.

Perhaps the greatest surprise has been watching my children, born here, inherit a temperament that echoes the one I carried from abroad. They come of age in a world shaped by uncertainty, yet their steadiness seems innate. In their lives I sometimes glimpse the beginnings of a different kind of renewal, one that finds strength in listening to the past without being pulled backward by it.

When considering the past decade through generational perspective, the contours become clearer. The Silent Generation recalls unity forged in crisis and careful rebuilding. For Baby Boomers, the idea of greatness splits between a longing for lost glory and skepticism about whether it existed at all. Generation X, to which I am closest by birth, tends to view grand narratives with detachment, looking instead for authenticity in smaller pursuits. Millennials focus on equity and sustainability, mindful of the ways old promises failed. The youngest, including my own children, live with the full weight of these burdens but also with fresh perspective, unencumbered by nostalgia.

We are now in a moment when American institutions are being tested as never before. Uncertainty touches public life and private hope alike. Finding a way through requires not slogans or spectacle, but the willingness to do slow, sometimes invisible work: to preserve what is essential, to adapt, and to know when to step aside. If my generation can serve as builders as much as critics, those who come next may not need to spend their energy on repairs. They could imagine something genuinely new.

Real greatness rarely announces itself. It arrives quietly, in legacies that last, in communities that care for each other, in leaders who recognize when it is time to let others lead. The future, as always, is uncertain, but perhaps that is where hope lies. 

Nuclear Artemis

 

Dostoevsky and The Devil’s Advocate

I recently rewatched The Devil’s Advocate, that devilishly over-the-top 90s legal thriller where Keanu Reeves makes deals with Satan himself, played by Al Pacino, who chews up every scene like a man on a mission. As the movie’s climax unfolded, when Pacino’s John Milton confronts Keanu’s increasingly desperate Kevin Lomax, I couldn’t shake the feeling that their confrontation mirrored a famous scene from Dostoevsky’s The Brothers Karamazov.

If you’ve read Dostoevsky—specifically the “Devil” chapter, where Ivan Karamazov is visited by a mocking, world-weary devil—you know what I mean. In the movie, Pacino’s devil isn’t a cartoonish villain. He comes across as urbane, witty, and almost relatable. He banters, seduces, and challenges just like Ivan’s hallucinated devil, who shows up in a shabby suit and spends an entire chapter needling Ivan about philosophy, morality, and the secret pleasures of evil.

Then Pacino delivers that unforgettable line: “I love humanity!” In that moment, I wasn’t just watching a legal drama. I was hearing echoes of Ivan’s devil, who also claims a kind of ironic affection for humanity. Both devils see humans as tragic and fascinating, sometimes worthy of mockery, sometimes deserving a perverse kind of admiration. They are fascinated with us in the way a scientist might be fascinated by a mouse in a maze.

I should be clear. I don’t think The Devil’s Advocate is a direct adaptation of Dostoevsky’s chapter. There’s nothing in the movie’s credits or in interviews that suggests the filmmakers or the original novelist, Andrew Neiderman, meant to recreate Ivan’s existential fever dream. The movie draws mainly from Milton’s Paradise Lost and follows the conventions of a legal thriller.
Even so, the parallels are hard to miss. Dostoevsky’s devil is not just a supernatural boogeyman. He is an intellectual adversary who feeds and exploits Ivan’s doubts and his hunger for meaning. Similarly, Pacino’s John Milton is not simply a villain. He is a philosophical provocateur who weaponizes both logic and temptation. Both devils hold up a mirror to their protagonists and force them to face the ugliest parts of themselves.

The moment when Pacino says he loves humans (unlike God), really made it click for me. It is a sardonic, twisted refrain from devils who see themselves as misunderstood antiheroes. They are as much a part of us as our ambitions and our rationalizations. Whether they are needling a Russian intellectual or an ambitious southern lawyer, their appeal isn’t just to our sins but to our sense of self-importance.

So next time you watch The Devil’s Advocate, remember this. Sometimes the most chilling devils are the ones who sound a little too much like us. Maybe, just maybe, they owe a little something to old Dostoevsky. 

Pacific Suction

Pacifiers soothe adult minds under neon city lights,

Childhood comfort reborn to ease modern frights.

In bustling China’s haze, stress meets a gentle friend—

A soft shield of quiet, where youth and healing blend.

Smoke in the Capital

In the heart of D.C., the stage is set,
A magician arrives with a bold vignette.
With a flourish of hands and a booming decree,
He conjures up danger that few can see.

“Crime!” he cries, “It’s out of control!”
Though stats say it’s dropped, he plays his role.
With sleight of speech and a fearsome glare,
He summons the Guard from thin, clean air.

The crowd looks on, some clap, some jeer,
As he spins his tale with smoke and mirror.
“Liberation Day!” he proudly proclaims,
While numbers quietly whisper other names.

The trick’s in the timing, the optics, the show,
A spectacle grand, though the facts say no.
For in this act, truth takes a bow,
While illusion rules the stage—for now.

   

Sweeny Jeans

 

Shouting Scarlett, Dipping Driver

It’s official: wolves now fear Adam Driver more than fire. Wildlife rangers, desperate to stop wolves from treating suburban cul-de-sacs like buffet lines, blasted audio from Marriage Story. That’s the film where Driver and Scarlett Johansson yell about IKEA shelves and emotional neglect for two hours.

 Apparently, wolves hear this and think, “Nope, not getting involved in custody battles.” It’s unclear if this also works on bears, raccoons, or teenagers. One ranger reported a moose fled so fast it left its antlers behind. The next experiment? Playing Les Misérables. If Hugh Jackman can’t scare them off, we’re doomed.

Hide and Seek, the Lone Star Version

 

Texas politics, as always, resembles a rodeo held inside a malfunctioning waffle iron. Recently, in a bold move reminiscent of that time your uncle Randy fled to Reno rather than return Aunt Patty’s ceramic poodle, a herd of Democratic lawmakers bolted from Texas. 

Their goal? To avoid voting on a redistricting plan so creatively lopsided that even Picasso would’ve said, “Guys, that’s excessive.”

These lawmakers are now holed up in states like New York and Massachusetts, where apparently the extradition laws for rogue Texans are looser than the elastic on Congress’s fiscal responsibility. Meanwhile, back in the Lone Star State, Republicans are issuing civil arrest warrants, which sounds serious but mostly involves being gently tackled by a guy named Hank who smells like brisket.

Governor Abbott, channeling his inner Clint Eastwood, threatened to remove the absent lawmakers from office. He also mentioned daily fines, which would fund exactly two gallons of gas and a Whataburger combo.

So what we have here is a tense legislative showdown, a multi-state game of hide-and-seek, and possibly the beginnings of a Netflix docuseries called Flee Club. It’s democracy in action—or at least democracy on caffeine, duct tape, and an expired GPS. Yeehaw.

"In what political analysts are calling 'bold leadership' and ordinary Californians are calling 'Tuesday,' Governor Gavin Newsom issued a statement involving no fewer than three metaphors, seven hand gestures, and one oddly placed reference to quinoa. 

He called for ‘proactive resilience,’ which sounds like a yoga pose but is actually a policy. Newsom emphasized unity, accountability, and something about broadband expansion, while a confused intern in the back googled whether resilience is a fruit. The governor’s remarks were praised for their tone and promptly dissected by twelve think tanks and a local book club in Fresno."

Lies, Damned Lies, and ...

 

Borter, G. (2023, August 2). Trump fires US labor official over data, gets earlier-than-expected chance to name successor. Reuters. 

Harlow's Horror

In the muted half-light of the laboratory, the infant monkey clung to the twisted wire mother. Its small, clever fingers found no warmth, only the hard geometry of steel. Nearby, the cloth mother, soft as a cloud, stood silent and aloof, her embrace forbidden except in moments allotted by rules the monkey would never understand.

Days blurred into days. The hum of machines and the shuffle of white-coated figures became the rhythm of existence. Food came from the wire mother, a thin stream with a metallic taste, never enough to still the shiver beneath the monkey’s skin. Each hour, the longing for softness, for warmth, for something just out of reach, pressed in like the ache of cold.

Sometimes, the man with the rimless glasses—Harlow—appeared at the edge of the cage. He watched without speaking, taking notes in a steady, unreadable hand. His face remained unmoved, a pale moon above a world of small, trembling creatures. The monkey learned to shrink from his gaze; it brought memories of dreams where he was always falling.

Once, when the shadow passed near, the monkey reached through the bars in a pleading gesture. The man did not flinch. He only wrote something and walked on.

Night returned, cool and endless. The monkey pressed closer to the wire, looking for warmth it never found, and stared through the glass at the universe beyond, where perhaps there were mothers made of fur, arms that soothed, and gods who wept.

Association for Psychological Science. (2020, April 2). Harlow’s classic studies revealed the importance of maternal contact. Observer. 

The Little Gen Alpha Prince