Mark Jacob

@markjacob.bsky.social

Former metro editor at Chicago Tribune and Sunday editor at Chicago Sun-Times. Co-author of 11 books, mostly on history. Writer of the Stop the Presses newsletter at www.stopthepresses.news. Subscribe!

The stock market seems like a reverse indicator of over-all national financial health: The worse things get for regular people, the better it looks for the connected few.

Graphic shows Dow up 12% in the last 6 months.

It's a fallacy to think that the Trump regime is pro-military. it's pro-violence and pro-stealing-from-foreign-countries, but it's anti-military-families. As Trump has demonstrated, he thinks soldiers are "suckers" and "losers."

AP Exclusive: Trump's immigration crackdown has detained more than 50 military spouses and parents

An Associated Press investigation reveals that President Donald Trump’s administration has detained dozens of parents and spouses of active-duty U.S. troops.

apnews.com

🧵🧵🧵 A scandal that hardly anyone knows happened is Trump giving traitor Michael Flynn $1.25 million in your tax money. Flynn, Trump’s 1st national security adviser, pleaded guilty twice to lying to the FBI but was pardoned by Trump. He sued, alleging "weaponization," and DOJ paid him in March. 1/4🧵

Justice Dept. Settles Flynn’s Wrongful Prosecution Suit for $1.25 Million (Gift Article)

The agreement was an extraordinary example of how the Trump administration has offered legal relief to those aligned with the president.

nytimes.com

Jennifer Schulze (@newsjennifer.bsky.social ): If you want to know what David Ellison would do w/ CNN, look at CBS, "a raging dumpster fire with non-stop controversies ... meddling in editorial content to make it more Trump-friendly and historic declines as the audience runs away as fast as it can."

David Ellison can’t be trusted with CNN

We've already seen how Ellison has wrecked CBS. Don't fall for his PR push on CNN.

jenniferschulze.substack.com

Trump flogs a book by “the highly respected Alan Dershowitz.” Maybe he says it that way so we’ll think it’s a different Alan Dershowitz from the one who was a lawyer for sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein and admitted getting a massage at Epstein’s house but insisted, “I kept my underwear on.”

Trump on Truth ocial: The Highly Respected Alan Dershowitz has written a powerful new book, “Why I quit the Dems and so should you! (confessions of a reluctant Republican*).” Alan is a Great American Patriot who understands the Wisdom and Courage it takes to defend Democracy from Communism, and it is our Honor to welcome him into the Party of COMMON SENSE! There are many others, like Alan, who feel abandoned by the Radical Left Dumocrats, and are fleeing the Dumocrat Party, and Blue States, for FREEDOM — This Book is for you. Preorder your copy today:

Harrowing stuff here: "'What time is it busiest in the FSU student union,' he asked next." "ChatGPT described specific activities and locations and said the busiest periods included 'weekday lunchtimes, typically between 11:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m.'"

Mark Follman@markfollman.bsky.social · 22h ago

My new investigation into a mass shooter’s harrowing history with ChatGPT reveals numerous red flags—and some very disturbing ChatGPT replies—from long before his attack on Florida State University www.motherjones.com/media/2026/0... 1x 🧵

When a news outlet claims to have the "inside" story and its report makes a certain person look good, you can guess who served as an anonymous source. I'd wager it was Jeanine Pirro – or one of her aides, in order to give Pirro deniability.

Inside the Oval Office Showdown Between Trump and Jeanine Pirro (Gift Article)

Jeanine Pirro, the U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told President Trump that his interior secretary, Doug Burgum, had misled him with a self-serving cover story for his own mistakes.

nytimes.com

I can see why Republicans are defending Max Miller, because if the party got rid of all the politicians accused of abusing women, there would be a lot of vacancies in key government positions.

Senate Republicans are confirming a man as "the nation's chief law enforcement officer" who is violating the law by covering up documents about the president's ex-friend sexually trafficking children.

When billionaires conspire with fascists to capture media outlets, the impact on journalism isn't always obvious. In this case, we know about a story that CBS killed. In many cases, we never find out what they don't want us to know.

60 Minutes Quietly Killed Story About Epstein’s Shady Banking Tactics

Senator Ron Wyden sat for an interview with correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi about Jeffrey Epstein’s bank transactions. Alfonsi was fired for other reasons shortly after, and the story never aired.

newrepublic.com

Who cares who Ellison voted for? His track record of appeasing Donald Trump speaks for itself including firing Trump critic Stephen Colbert & hiring unqualified Bari Weiss & watching her meddle in editorial content, sideline & fire journalists & wreck 60 Minutes. www.nytimes.com/2026/08/04/o...

Opinion | David Ellison: In Defense of the Paramount-Warner Deal (Gift Article)

The issue is whether I can be trusted as a steward of CNN

nytimes.com

Mainstream reporters can see MAGA is building a dictatorship. They don't tell the public because their newsroom leaders: A) hope irrationally that everything will fix itself B) fear being punished by fascists and/or C) are in league with fascists. That’s why they pretend this is normal “politics.”

It sure looks like the U.S. has spent $100 billion and left 18 Americans dead and 600 injured in order to hand control of the Strait of Hormuz to Iran and do nothing about nuclear proliferation except encourage it.