Letting the tabs retire on their own -- maybe ...
They spend $100 million a year for epic humor like this:
— Christian Toto (@HollywoodInToto) July 22, 2025
“Sticks and stones may break our bones but presidential turds can never hurt us.” - Stephen Colbert
Hope CBS kept the receipt pic.twitter.com/ACIVZoaNpM
Ed: Hey, come on now. If anyone is an expert at dropping turds on late-night television, it's Stephen Colbert. He's been doing it for years! Imagine allowing this to go on your air time for the next ten months, though. I wonder if Skydance really wants to pay for this effluvium, literally.
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If Colbert’s show was wildly profitable, you might rightly suspect that it was politics to cancel him. If Colbert’s show was wildly profitable, the network would probably have looked the other way at him ripping the suits — just as CBS (and NBC before it) long tolerated David Letterman’s use of the Late Night and Late Show platforms to beat up on his own networks. But when you’re losing that much money, politics is an easier explanation for why he didn’t get fired much sooner. And when you’re costing the company a fortune, that’s the wrong time to also become a public-relations headache.
If anything, the more sensible conspiratorial explanation is one we’ve seen before from failing pro athletes deciding to get political when they were on the verge of getting cut: Colbert could read the writing on the wall that his show’s days were numbered, and decided to make a big public stink about the CBS settlement either in the hopes of making it radioactive to fire him, or at least with the intention of constructing a martyrdom narrative for his show’s failure.
Ed: As Christian Toto and I discussed on our Off the Beaten Path episode, I suspect that Skydance -- which is acquiring Paramount -- made the call on ending The Late Show. In any acquisition, non-performing units routinely get shut down or overhauled, and the red ink flowing from Colbert's show would make any acquisition manager blanch. Dan McLaughlin's theory is very plausible -- Colbert wants to make it political, when it's really about his own competence.
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For a guy who was fired for speaking truth to power, he sure did get a lot of runway, didn't he? https://t.co/d7xrnjPAqu
— Boo (@IzaBooboo) July 22, 2025
Ed: He sure did. And he sure doesn't appreciate it, either. Colbert is not exactly subtle in his contempt for the hand that still feeds him.
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Edith Chapin, who serves as editor-in-chief and acting chief content officer at National Public Radio, announced her departure on Tuesday.
Chapin told an NPR reporter she quit rather than being fired and that she was not leaving due to the funding cuts. ...
In her statement to NPR Tuesday, Chapin said Maher was left surprised by her decision, and that she would continue to stay with NPR until October the latest - the same month funding is set to cease to coincide with the next fiscal year.
Ed: Oh yeah, that's TOTES a coincidence. Whenever anyone tells you 'it's not about the money,' it's usually all about the money. Chapin's leaving as the ship is listing to port and about to sink into the private-sector sea that NPR must now navigate.
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Former NPR CEO Vivian Schiller acknowledges that "mixing journalism and federal funding is just a recipe for disaster" after Congress votes to cut funding for NPS and other outlets.
— Hotep Jeffiziah Charles🏴 (@jeffcharlesjr) July 21, 2025
"Let's just find a better way forward." pic.twitter.com/Vbp2MStObU
Ed: Maybe they should bring Schiller back. I was no fan of NPR under her leadership either, but at least she lives in the real world. At the very least, NPR's board should ask her advice on how to find the "better way," as long as it doesn't involve snouts in the public trough.
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Democrats spent $24 billion to combat homelessness, yet the result was more homelessness. State K-12 spending has risen by 50% since 2018, but student test scores have fallen. Electric rates have surged yet power has become less reliable.
California’s bullet train, whether or not it ever carries passengers, is a monument to the colossal failures of modern progressive government. From welfare programs to public schools, Democrats make illusory promises as they shovel out money without regard to the results. When will California voters decide they’re tired of getting taken for a ride?
Ed: When they run out of Other People's Money, and not a second sooner. That's why Newsom is suing to restore funding to the slowest high-speed rail project in history, because when the project shuts down, thar's when the audits will have to start. And there will be a lot of questions about where the money went, who benefited, and why no one did a damned thing to strangle this boondoggle in the crib.
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AOC is a con artist. Progressives and socialists need to stop falling for her tricks. Protecting the Iron Dome allows Israel to do what they're doing now, killing and starving Palestinians, with no accountability. Even DSA is calling her out. 2/2https://t.co/HJHqXIxJq4
— Sabby Sabs (@SabbySabs2) July 21, 2025
Ed: Via Twitchy. It's a couple of days old, but there won't be enough popcorn in the world to keep up with this DSA purity campaign.
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Newsom in July 2023 asked the James Irvine Foundation, a private foundation that supports low-income workers in California, to donate $500,000 to the Immigrant Defenders Law Center (ImmDef), a group that supports defunding the police. Though the funds didn’t come from Newsom’s own pocket, the James Irvine Foundation cut its check specifically at Newsom’s request, according to California’s "behested payments" database, which discloses whenever state elected officials solicit donations to a third party.
The Democratic governor "behested" the $500,000 contribution to ImmDef to support its efforts to "expand critical services offered to migrants crossing the US border," according to the California database. Those services include ImmDef’s Detained Immigrant Bond Fund, which helps illegal immigrants get out of federal custody. The group launched the bond fund on June 7, just one day after anti-ICE riots broke out in Los Angeles, the Free Beacon reported.
Newsom’s efforts to bankroll ImmDef in 2023 could come back to bite him as he works to distance himself from the Democratic Party's progressive flank.
Ed: Is that what Newsom is doing? I don't think so. He's offering lip service at times to the center -- such as his "deeply unfair" observation about males competing in female sports -- but then does nothing to follow up. I see Newsom as attempting to claim title to the "practical progressive" mantle in the 2028 cycle.
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Hunter Biden admits that Nancy Pelosi was the one who drove his dad out of the race:
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) July 21, 2025
"They already made a decision. They clearly made a decision. When I say 'they' I mean the Speaker." pic.twitter.com/nHjXlrB3Rs
Ed: Kind of a leftover from last night, but mainly notable for the opportunity missed by Hunter Biden. He should have gone the full Godfather and said, "Kamala was a pimp, but I didn't know until today that it was Pelosi all along."
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Legendary musician Billy Joel told Bill Maher he doesn’t care if the far left complains about his statements or music anymore.
During the latest episode of Maher’s "Club Random" podcast released Monday, the two discussed the "woke" left’s reaction to anything it disagrees with, with Joel admitting he is over being concerned about what that group thinks of him.
"At this point… I’m inured to it," Joel said in reply to Maher asking if he doesn’t care if woke people criticize him any longer.
Ed: At this point, EVERYONE is inured to it. No one's buying woke cancellation any longer. If they don't want to listen to Joel or buy his music for that reason, so what? He's no more entitled to an audience and a platform than Colbert, but Joel understands that. Colbert still hasn't figured it out. And neither has ...
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Finally, Cumming claims "Jesus would have loved trans people. He changed water into wine! Is that not itself an act of transition?... I mean, Jesus was followed around at all times by 12 hot single guys, all of them also sporting caftans...Imagine having to stockpile your… pic.twitter.com/wdhA0o8Kmo
— Alex Christy (@alexchristy17) July 22, 2025
Ed: Just in case you think the problem is limited to CBS.
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