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‘Friend for Life’

That was what then-Vice President Joe Biden said regarding people seeking business with his son Hunter Biden, according to Ken Vogel’s newest book, “Devils’ Advocate: The Hidden Story of Rudy Giuliani, Hunter Biden, and the Washington Insiders on the Payrolls of Corrupt Foreign Interests”

And that, frankly, is quaint compared to the unchecked pay-to-play industry in Washington under the second Trump term.

Vogel is that rare reporter who blends deep experience in data, records and research with on-the-street reporting chops to uncover uncanny stories of how power really works in #ThisTown.

And this book is filled with them.

We had a great chat earlier this week (which I finally got around to editing and cleaning up)

• The long history of people like Paul Manafort, who pioneered the style of pay-to-play access in the ‘80s, landed him in jail, but ultimately came storming back more unchecked than ever. And why it’s long been a bipartisan hustle

• What the press got right and wrong in covering Hunter Biden then (in 2020 *and earlier*) and now.

• The January 6th squad of Schlapps, Ric Grenell and Caroline Wren globetrotting to cash in unfettered.

• And more

Catch the clip linked at the top to get a sense of the full show. And like, share and subscribe!

YouReport

I just finished talking with a great group of aspiring journalists — young and old — at The Leadership Institute. It was a blast. And it got me thinking a ton.

The core of my lecture was: How do we report?

As someone who’s been doing this awhile, I hardly think about it much directly anymore, it’s second nature. Which is why it was so good to think and ruminate on this most essential of crafts with purpose.

How do we, journalists, know what’s correct? What can be printed? How do we verify and then publish a story with confidence? How do we sift the through the scuttlebutt, chatter and rumors which fill any government building to find the big story? And how can we be so confident it’s correct?

As an example, I thought back to the process of editing excellent piece earlier this week detailing what the heck happened with Rep. Tony Gonzales and his former staffer who died after catching fire (yes, that wording is quite intentional.)

The answer did indeed fill an hour, but for our purposes here in this humble email, it comes down to trusting and verifying. Trusting sources — are they close enough to know something, have they proven themselves reliable? — and verifying, through techniques like a blind check (don’t prompt your source w/ information you’re vetting, ask the question open-ended to see if the source comes back with the same information independently. Or not. And then report further.)

Mark It

Big thanks always to my friends at CBS News’ “The Takeout with Major Garrett”. In case you missed us last Friday, I’m honored to have born the paisley proudly and now hold the title of Best Button Down Ever Worn on The Takeout! (If you’d like to arrange a title fight, just email my promoter: tom@24sight.news.)

24sight News YouTube. LIKE, SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE so we can do this fulltime and bring back even better shows for you!! And catch the pod, up now on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.

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“No Sh*t”

As a proud parent, I’m betting the odds that Forbes the actually watched said South Park episode referenced in the above graphic are 6 7.

Welcome back to the week, friends. I hope your weekend was restful and lacking in phone. I unplugged as best I could and came back feeling like a 7 8.

After a really stunning weekend in which America was overrun by radicalized jihadists millions of Americans took to the streets to reaffirm our founding principle (No King), the president seemed to hammer on it saying the Insurrection Act lets him do whatever he wants (it doesn’t) and then saying he’s only joking. Har har.

In other words, just another Trump news cycle.

So here’s some news that matters: The First Amendment of our Constitution, grants us free speech, free practice of religion and peaceable assembly for redress. And there was quite a bit of peaceable assembly last weekend.

I’m reupping my recent chat with Charlie Sykes in honor of the past weekend, we taped this in the wake of the White House, FCC, Disney, Nexstar and Sinclair media censoring Jimmy Kimmel.

“If you don’t get the politics right, everything else can be destroyed,” said on an episode of the show we aired about a month ago, channeling Charles Krauthammer and John Adams.

A reminder you can catch the show on Spotify

And Apple

Give it five stars and help spread the word.

Here’s why I’m independent:

• I’m not going to sugarcoat what’s happening, what we are living through. One of the great joys of reporting is writing the first draft of history, but an often terrifying aspect of it is bearing witness to things which grate the soul.

• I use my news judgment to distill what’s important, and what’s not. I’m just not interested in chasing clicks, that’s disrespectful to you and it’s really f***ing boring. talked about this a bit on his show recently, in response to a caller question, and it really stuck with me: Not everything is terrible, not everything is a five-alarm fire. I’ll add by saying that crying wolf on every nano-story crushes the ability of all of us to register (and respond to) news which truly is important and will deeply affect us.

• It’s fun. If it’s a joy, it is no work. And that’s why I’ve always loved journalism and reporting.

Programming notes

Ian and I are pulling back from the daily 12p live show for now. We’ll still be posting a handful of new shows at Noon ET every week, but we’re shifting away from quantity, in favor of quality. Better content, deeper chats and more revelations ( ← yes, indeed, a good endtimes Dad joke.)

We’ve got some more wild ones in the works, including a deep dive on the oldest corruption in D.C, a check-in with a dairy farmer and the administration’s efforts to brand “terrorism”. (No sh*t.)

You’d be shocked how much work it takes to build 45 minutes or so of quality programming everyday (unless of course you’re in broadcast. And to my broadcast friends, thanks for all your guidance as we’ve gotten this rolling.)

As always, you can catch up on previous shows, clips, shorts and more at the 24sight News YouTube. LIKE, SUBSCRIBE AND SHARE so we can do this fulltime and bring back even better shows for you!!

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This is a show I’ve been wanting to do for months, and if you catch that clip above you’ll understand why.

Matt Taylor knows the New Apostolic Reformation inside and out, and has a unique talent for translating the cultural and theological into layman’s terms so we can grasp the gravity of this moment. As he notes in our interview, this is truly a seismic shift in the religious right away from the televangelists of yore to hard right influencers, savvy in the dominant tools of the moment and preaching a story of spiritual warfare which already helped lead many adherents to attack the Capitol on January 6th.

The Appeal to Heaven flag? Peter Thiel seeing the “antichrist” around every corner? Tucker Carlson being visited by demons?? Sounds crazy if you’re like most Americans, but amid the growing New Apostolic Reformation network this *is* gospel.

As your resident “papist” (a derogatory term for Catholics) much of this *used to be* foreign to me. I started down this rabbit hole years ago while researching my biography of Mike Pence, “Piety & Power”, and am now pretty keenly tuned to the call-outs, from the White House to the pews.

Some topics:

• The self-proclaimed prophets and apostles of the NAR

• Why the Seven Mountains Mandate and Christian dominionism is a very different animal than the Moral Majority and Christian Right of decades past

• The perspective of NAR leaders who believed, and preached, that God had deemed Trump would win in 2020, and attacked the Capitol in the service of God

• How an end times prophecy went viral a few weeks ago, and why this “vision” of the word of God is distinctly detached from the older preaching of a rapture followed by the tribulation

Matthew Taylor, Ph.D., received his masters in theology at Fuller Theological Seminary (very important in the evangelical community) and his doctorate from Georgetown, and is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the New Apostolic Reformation. He has a great podcast which came out last year on this, I listened to it earlier this year. And, as he notes in the show, has a new one in production.

NOW, if you wanna catch this in the background, play it in the car, you can get the show on Apple:

AND Spotify

Today at Noon

Around the horn on the government shutdown and more w/ 24sight’s own and veteran Democratic communicator Mike Ceraso!

Later this week, we’ll check in with a Michigan congressional candidate and check in with the Garden State to see if MAGA really is headed for a shocking route of the Democrats.

And we’ll cap the week with mystery poll results which, by my reading, help explain why the Notorious MTG is now rebranding as Rep. Greene, stateswoman.

BIG Thanks MarCom friends!

I had a blast chatting with everyone last week at the MarCom Mid-Atlantic Summit.

What is the new frontier of independent journalism?? This!

Lots of great insights from , , Charlie Birney and Sarakshi Rai of The Hill!

As I mentioned, for all the comms, marketing, advertising folks, you’re adjusting the same way we are. Always happy to chat more, drop a line - tom@24sight.news.

Subscribe to the 24sight News YouTube HERE.

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

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Today at noon, ‘The Nut Graf’

So the weekly Monday show, which I debuted last week, will be called “The Nut Graf”, based on the poll results I was able to collect. (The Substack poll feature ain’t so hot. That was the first, and last, time I’ll be using that. Thanks to everyone who cast a ballot/was able to cast a ballot. Administering elections is tough work!)

The style and goal is catching us up on big stories which rocked our worlds at the time, yet seem to have vanished in the wash of other big stories (and more than a few non-stories).

🚨🚨🚨 You can now get Tom LoBianco Reports on Spotify! 🚨🚨🚨

I’m slowly cleaning up audio and adding shows (we’re at Number 34 already here on TLR!) I’m still getting Apple setup, look for that soon. The pod is typically the main interview minus the news top that starts each show, nice for if you want to catch up while you’re commuting, getting work done around the house, screaming quietly in your heart, what have you.

Reminder that you can catch full previous episodes of TLR at the 24sight News YouTube channel. If you’ve got someone you’d like to see on the show or a topic you’d like me to cover, drop a line: tom@24sight.news.

Tomorrow: The NEW Christian Right

Yep, you read that right. New.

I’ve been wanting to do this show for awhile, it’s related to reporting and themes I touched on in “Piety & Power” and a part of the conservative movement that I think is generally glossed over or combined into one broad category in most news coverage without truly appreciating some key differences.

And those differences — from the Christian Right and politicized evangelicals of decades past and the new brand and practice of the Christian Right — have some profound impacts.

I’m moderately versed in this stuff, so I wanted to get on someone who really knows it: Matthew Taylor, Ph.D. He received his masters in theology at Fuller Theological Seminary and is one of the nation’s foremost experts on the New Apostolic Reformation. He has a great podcast which came out last year on this, I listened to it earlier this year.

We’re going to be getting to a lot, but among other things I think this will help a lot of folks trying to figure out why one of the world’s most powerful tech titans, Peter Thiel, keeps bringing up the “antichrist”.

Subscribe to the 24sight News YouTube HERE.

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

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Mike Pence and Rahmbo walk into C-SPAN

Years ago, “Crossfire” set the tone for partisan combat on-air, foreshadowing a transformed media environment in which hyperpartisan is now the norm instead of an edgy new thing.

Now, C-SPAN, helmed by former CNN Washington bureau chief Sam Feist, is debuting the opposite of “Crossfire”, a new show which reveals just how much perceived “enemies” actually have in common.

It’s called “Ceasefire” and it premieres tonight (Friday) at 7p ET, with as unlikely a pairing as you’d expect to break bread — the former head of hand-to-hand combat for Barack Obama, Rahm Emanuel, and an archconservative crusader who’s never been known to curse, at least not in public, former Vice President Mike Pence.

On today’s show, the woman who turned it into a reality at a time when America could use some healing, “Ceasefire” executive producer Michele Remillard. She takes us behind the scenes of the program’s creation (with a new focus on showing the realness and human interaction in D.C., which has been presumed dead for years now) and teases a few scoops before the show’s launch tonight at 7p ET.

Pence offering up presidential campaign advice for “Rahmbo”?? Indeed, though as Michele notes in the show, Emanuel does demur — 2028 is a long way away.

Make sure to watch live when it debuts at 7p ET! (I’ll be tuning in!)

(Very Newsy) Show Notes

12’20 - The genesis of Cease Fire!

13’10 - Sneak peak at the Cease Fire premier tonight on C-SPAN at 7p ET

Convos w/ Emanuel and Mike Pence, former House office neighbors

14’50 - Pence gave some advice to Emanuel on running for president

Candid talk between former Bernie Sanders campaign manager Faiz Shakir and former Trump White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer

17’55 - The new tone in uncovering and showing authenticity

it’s a different discipline as we were crafting our

19’50 - A wild start at the McLaughlin group

23’20 - House Speaker Mike Johnson and the crowd-sourced wisdom of C-SPAN’s callers

24’20 - C-SPAN in talks w/ Jeffries for a Ceasefire w/ Mike Johnson and Jeffries

26’10 - The authenticity and trends in C-SPAN’s callers, including a wave of voters in 2020 deciding between Trump and Bernie

Subscribe to the 24sight News YouTube HERE.

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

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🚨🚨 Tomorrow (Friday) we preview a show which could begin healing our country, “Ceasefire”, with longtime C-SPAN executive producer Michele Remillard who will take us behind the scenes ahead of the big rollout 7p ET. 🚨🚨

Subscribe to the 24sight News YouTube HERE.

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

Full Pint

“If there’s one thing I agree with Trump on,” Ben Cohen told me on the show.

*Record scratch*

Eh? Ben of Ben & Jerry’s agrees with Trump on an issue? The same Ben who made two exclusive flavors of his famous ice cream for Bernie Sanders’ White House bids? The same Ben who built peace and social justice, as he notes in our chat, into the very fabric of one of the world’s most popular brands?

Yep. There’s an item of agreement, even if Cohen is very clear-eyed and candid about the authoritarian moves by Trump, the damage being done across the nation and the need to stand up for American values and our Constitutional bedrock.

Today’s show premieres at 12p ET on the 24sight YouTube, just click the video above

I’m at the MarCom Mid-Atlantic Summit today, stop by and find me if you’re there!

Show Notes

0’00

Ben Cohen agrees with Trump???

4’10

The world’s worst ice cream flavor

6’30

Why Jerry Greenfield left the company … Jerry has a really big heart, but we all have different tolerance for conflict

8’40

What’s going on now is authoritarian. In the US we used to look at other countries doing this and say oh that’s really horrible stuff

11’10

DOGE was subterfuge

19’10

Trump just plays the room … but if you look at his actual actions, it’s just enriching the elites at the expense of everyday regular people

23’20

Incredibly proud of Ben & Jerry’s statement after the George Floyd murder, we must dismantle white supremacy … I think about all those companies that jettisoned their DEI programs

24’50

When the DNC put their foot on the scale against Bernie Sanders, I think the country would have elected Bernie

28’20

Ben Cohen’s interview w/ Tucker Carlson and the surprising amount they agreed on, like wasteful spending by the Pentagon. The power of finding common ground.

32’30

How did Hippies turn into RFK Jr MAHA? On eliminating food chemicals and the fight against bovine growth hormones

38’00

The secret process of developing a new ice cream flavor … Cherry Garcia took a year to develop!

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🚨🚨 Tomorrow (Thursday), THE Ben in Ben and Jerry’s, Ben Cohen! We talk military spending, hanging out with Tucker Carlson, ** the super secret process of making a Ben and Jerry’s ice cream flavor ** and more.

And Friday we preview a show which could begin healing our country, “Ceasefire”, with longtime C-SPAN executive producer Michele Remillard who will take us behind the scenes ahead of the big rollout 7p ET. 🚨🚨

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

Subscribe to our YouTube HERE.

Today on the show, veteran HuffPost White House correspondent S.V. Dáte, he’s in the trenches every day and fearless. I originally asked him on to chat about Venezuela and sea-faring and why speedboats can’t make runs from Venezuela to mainland U.S., but then we went deep on what happens in authoritarian countries and why living in a dictatorship completely sucks

SHOW NOTES

• The moment Dáte learned that this second Trump term would be just as bad as so many of us feared

• The wishful thinking of Republicans who thought Trump would just vanish after the January 6th insurrection

• The potential for a third Trump term, seriously and literally

• Why the White House is targeting Venezuelan speedboats, and why the Pentagon is pushing questions on it to the White House

• The lessons of Venezuela on how long it takes before you realize you are living in a dictatorship and it completely sucks

• Why dictators attack free speech and comedy first

What should I do??

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m starting a weekly feature catching us up on Whatever Happened To? big stories which “rocked our lives” months, weeks, even days ago. But which have been lost to the sands of algorithm.

Keep voting here for the best name, I’m seeing some traction for The Nut Graf, which I am totally with. (It also basically populates the show graphic itself.)

** IF you’re not seeing a Poll right above, sometimes it’s hinky, just email me: tom@24sight.news - big winner so far is The Nut Graf, but it’s voting season and we won’t know till ALL the votes are counted **

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🚨🚨 We’ve got a jampacked week here on the show! Tomorrow (Wednesday) Huffington Post White House Reporter S.V. Daté lays out what’s really happening with these White House strikes on Venezuelan speedboats. Thursday, THE Ben in Ben and Jerry’s, Ben Cohen! And Friday we preview a show which could begin healing our country, “Ceasefire”, with longtime C-SPAN executive producer Michele Remillard who will take us behind the scenes ahead of the big rollout 7p ET. 🚨🚨

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

Subscribe to our YouTube HERE.

On the show today, , of Virginia Scope. He broke the latest story in the stunning Jay Jones saga down in Virginia, news that Republican Del. Carrie Coyner said Jones called her in 2020 and said that some police would need to die before policy begins changing. (Jones says this call never happened.)

Read Brandon’s scoop here: “Coyner alleges Jones told her in a 2020 phone call that a few police officers dying would stop them from killing other people”

The scoop from the National Review (which finally succeeded in drawing President Donald Trump into the Virginia elections) is here for any who missed it.

SHOW NOTES

14’25 - Why the Republican who received the threatening texts handed it off to the victim and it didn’t show up until three years later

16’20 - “‘Maybe a few of them need to be killed’” ?? ... the latest twist on calls to push Jay Jones out of the Virginia race, including a threat from Jones’ lawyer against Jarvis

25’04 - “I think it will have an impact” ... maybe Ds lose AG’s race

31’00 - If he still wins it’s going to be hard for him to do the job

33’25 - Why the Nazi Porn hit on the Republican candidate for Lt. Gov. completely flopped

35’00 - Why Winsome Sears doesn’t like showing up with her gay running mate

40’27 - There is supposed to be a debate with the guy who sent the text threats, Jay Jones, and the Republican AG next week!

What should I do??

As I mentioned yesterday, I’m starting a weekly feature catching us up on Whatever Happened To? big stories which “rocked our lives” months, weeks, even days ago. But which have been lost to the sands of algorithm.

Keep voting here for the best name, I’m seeing some traction for The Nut Graf, which I am totally with. (It also basically populates the show graphic itself.)

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Support independent journalism, $5/month, $50/year. No breaking or bending; neither billionaires, nor bribes. Just the facts.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel. When we hit 1,000 subscribers, we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam.

Subscribe to our YouTube HERE. LET’S GET TO 1,000!

It’s not every day you get to gather up your thoughts and ground yourself before diving into an absolute shitstorm.

But it is every Monday here, starting now.

I’ve been toying with this idea in some form or another for more than two years now, and I think I finally have the proper home for it. I’ve been covering the Trump shitstorm for a decade now, and I had plenty of experience with political shitsplosions before, but it used to be you had a chance to slow down at some point, take a breath and figure out what you just witnessed.

It sure *seems* like every day, every minute brings an exhausting new emergency in the second and final term of President Trump. Of course most of it is just bluster and “TACO” filling, while some of it really is DefCon 1 for America — extraordinary renditions from domestic soil to a South American gulag, the elevation of Tammany Hall-style corruption to the White House, mass firings, expansive new taxes levied with political war in mind and nonstop attacks on the First Amendment right to free speech. (I’m sure I missed a few.)

Back when I jumped in for my third straight presidential race reporting on Trump, in May 2023, at a new outlet which I have now outlived almost three times over here at 24sight (RIP The Messenger, more famous in death than in life) I kept thinking about my own exhaustion at covering the fleeting insanity of each new mini-scandal.

Some things truly mattered a great deal, in recording this first draft of history: the first attempt by a sitting U.S. president to deny the peaceful transfer of power (January 6th), the absconding with reams of classified documents and playing footsy with the FBI until they conducted a court-ordered search of a president’s country club (it’s shorter to type “raid”, but also wrong), the decision by the Supreme Court that a president could not be found criminally liable for “official” acts taken while in office, the near-assassination of the previous and current president, and more.

Other things generated fleeting laughs and temporary outrage without any follow-through from the subject of the story and the sense that the “kayfabe” of WWE politics had only us reporters suspended in disbelief while the populace fled to TikTok and YouTube where “newsfluencers” “told it like it is.”

News is about prioritizing for the public. It’s not “All the news”; it’s “All the news that’s fit to print” and a lot of the melodrama from our current crop of “outrage entrepreneurs” — retrofitted to a communications revolution which prioritizes racist shitposting over engagement — is not fit to print.

And worse than that, the ephemera only clouds the true scandals, the revolutionary abuses of power.

A couple years ago, I couldn’t shake the idea of the “nut graf” as the cure for all this. It’s the newspaper reporter’s equivalent of the catch-up montage at the start of each HBO serial. It is journalistic grounding and a distillation of why you should give a shit, especially in a world where everything seems to be fighting for your attention, from your watch to your fridge.

So each Monday, here on the show and in the newsletter of the show, I’m going to catch us up on stories of monstrous import to help us all stay grounded.

As I build this newest feature of Tom LoBianco Reports, I want to hear from you. “The Memory, Whole” is just the latest tagline I’ve come up with for this. I’m gonna keep this poll up for a week and then we’ll circle back before Monday’s show and settle on the name.

If you’ve got ideas, just comment on any of these wonderful publishing platforms where you find good 24sight News content or email me at tom@24sight.news.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

So, who’s carrying the weight?

The future of America rests in the hands of an important group of voters, you probably know some of these folks, heck this mystery crowd may not even realize how important they are.

Christine Matthews, the president of Bellwether Research, has been getting voter sentiments spot on for decades, she previously polled for former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan and for former Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels. As she notes in today’s show, she, like the best reporters out there, follows the reporting and the facts to find the story.

And the story now is how health influencers may decide the fate of our country. (Emphasis here mine.)

Show notes:

• Why are we watching weight vests so intently?

• What animates the weight vest voter?

• The occasional Hoosierland detour, with some hilarious stories about Indianapolis’ ritzy suburb, Carmel

• Why women swayed by major health and culture podcasters don’t fall neatly into either major political party

• Some insights on the upcoming Virginia elections and a bit on the insane story regarding the Virginia candidate for lieutenant governor, John Reid, and his apparent Nazi Porn Blog.

• And more!

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel to 1,000 subscribers. When we hit 1,000 we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam.

Subscribe to our YouTube HERE. LET’S GET TO 1,000!

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Support independent journalism, $5/month, $50/year. No breaking or bending; neither billionaires, nor bribes. Just the facts.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

A Shutdown, but How Long?

Nobody knows Congress better than , so I was pumped to get her back on the show to explain just what the heck is going to happen when the government (very likely) shuts down at midnight tonight.

The question now is not so much will it happen but how long will it last: Longer than it takes White House AI to put out a meme? Shorter than a 24-hour Russia/Ukraine peace negotiation?

The news is a mile-a-minute, but JG breaks it all down for us. (Make sure to catch her latest here, in case you missed. And look for our report overnight whenever this lands.)

Show notes:

• How long could this shutdown last? JG has some intel from a top Dem

• What’s the exit strategy from the shutdown?

• Who takes the blame for a shutdown? Ds or Rs?

• Is the White House sombrero for House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries some kind of 4chan meme? What’s the hidden meaning?

• Quick look at the upcoming Midterm battles, which could determine a lot — not least of which is whether we end up writing this shutdown story another dozen times or just a handful.

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel to 1,000 subscribers. When we hit 1,000 we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam.

Subscribe to our YouTube HERE. LET’S GET TO 1,000!

***

The Democratic Battle Plan

Thanks again to the newly elected DNC Vice Chair for joining the show yesterday. Beyond on-the-ground insights into shifting sentiments among Asian American voters, I was surprised to hear the new turn from national Democrats to empower state and local party leaders. Well worth your time.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. If you’re with us live, producer Ian B. Walters will gather up your comments and send them along so I can get to them at the end of the show.

If you have someone you’d like to see on the show or for booking or business inquiries, email: tom@24sight.news.

New tactics?

I asked the DNC’s newest vice chair, , on the show to talk about how they’re working to win back Asian Americans, an effort she has focused on for years. But we ended up going deeper, with some interesting insights on the DNC’s strategy in the states working to revive the party and fight back against Trump.

Shasti is chairwoman of the Washington State Democratic Party, recently elected as vice chair in the party shakeup. We talked about what Dems are doing differently now, including their new strategy in the states.

Show notes:

• Republicans’ success in 2024 in getting inside Asian American businesses, mosques, elsewhere stoking fear and outrage

• Dems need to be showing up too. Asian Americans have played pivotal roles swinging elections across the country

• Findings from Shasti’s town halls in Virginia and New Jersey. If Republicans make up stuff whole cloth, should Dems use the same tactics?

• The algorithms are feeding the backslide into authoritarianism

• Trying to figure out if Linda Yaccarino quit X before or after “MechaHitler” And

• Democratic Party Chairman Ken Martin’s battle plans in the states to win and fight back against Trump

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***

***

Russia. Russia? Russia!

So the president launched an unprecedented legal attack on one of his staunchest perceived enemies, former FBI Director James Comey. I did a deep dive Friday, in case you missed it, on the origins of this historic blood feud. It all comes back to the Trump-Russia investigations, something I covered extensively. This is part one of a developing series.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. *** My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters and wife Carin have a new BABY!! Congrats to the whole Walters clan, we’re proud of you. Ian’s out being an excellent dad. ***

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The Trump Russia Story, Pt. 1

President Donald Trump did not just wake up and decide recently he hated former FBI Director James Comey, he’s been seething about him for almost a decade now.

Why? Because Comey opened the FBI investigation of Trump’s 2016 campaign amid questions of whether they worked at all with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and his online troll army to swing the election through sophisticated hacks and online propaganda.

The first president to order a prosecution of a perceived enemy, despite his own prosecutors saying not enough evidence exists, started with a foundational story in Trump’s White House legacy, The Trump Russia Investigations.

On today’s show, I dig back to my own roots covering these amazing investigations, by the House and Senate and special counsel Robert Mueller, first when I was at CNN and then with The Associated Press.

The partisan furor at the time, with unproven allegations that Trump was co-opted by Putin from the left and Trump’s bogus fabrication of a Deep State attack on him, formed much of what we’re living in now.

But the reality of what happened, a clever and persistent Russian campaign of online propaganda and sophisticated digital targeting, would prove eerily prescient of what we now live through every day in America.

Join me, as we Return to Oz. It’s not fun, but it is important.

This is Part 1 of “Russia! Russia? Russia.”

***

What a week it has been, friends. We’re all old enough to remember when the White House did its best mafia impersonation to attempt to cancel ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel, and see that effort fall flat on its face — after an astonishing capitulation.

The coda on this? Even conservative network Sinclair finally buckled to popular pressure and brought Kimmel back on its ABC stations today.

If you think that’s it for the attacks on free speech and the First Amendment, guess again. But, for now, enjoy the weekend. I’ll see you back here Monday, I’ll have DNC Vice Chair on the show with some key insights ahead of the Virginia and New Jersey elections.

It’s a pleasure to be with you every day, but also our right as Americans. Thanks for exercising our most basic of human freedoms with me.

Tom

A Special Request

We are at a crossroads in our nation’s history, with more threats to a free press and our First Amendment rights than anything I’ve witnessed in my lifetime. I do this because I believe in our rare and beautiful American experiment, and because I want it to be strong and flourishing for all our families, no matter color nor creed.

I’m able to do this show with the generous support of our paying subscribers, to bring on a diverse range of smart, thoughtful guests. I don’t do the hair-on-fire thing because of what I hear from you, you’re exhausted by it. Me too.

I need your help to do this. If you’re here and you appreciate this, please spring for $5/month.

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Civility Now

Thanks again to for a thoughtful, nuanced discussion of what exactly is civility and how we can work to restore that. Her book, “The Soul of Civility” draws on ancient wisdom from around the world, to bring some hard truths of what it takes to build civility and why it is more than just papering over real and needed interactions with politeness.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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On today’s show, at a time when the country is at each other’s throats, how do we achieve civility? I bring on author Alexandra Hudson, whose book, “The Soul of Civility” details the WHY and HOW of building civility.

On our news top:

Jimmy Kimmel continues showing blockbuster numbers, while Trump and Brendan Carr continue making new threats

Trump is racing against the clock to try and force a criminal prosecution of James Comey

The ICE shooter in Dallas? Possibly another video game culture shooter, like suspect Tyler Robinson. Joshua Jahn described as an “edgelord” dialed in on 4chan whose political leanings, if any, used to be libertarian, per

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel to 1,000 subscribers. When we hit 1,000 we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam.

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LET’S GET TO 1,000!

Tune every weekday here on Substack and YouTube at Noon ET or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. *** My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters and wife Carin have a new BABY!! Congrats to the whole Walters clan, we’re proud of you. Ian’s out being an excellent dad. ***

Civility is a Muscle

Lexi Hudson published her book, “The Soul of Civility” two years ago, but it feels more powetful and relevant now, in the wake of the Charlie Kirk shooting and a national discourse which has grown worse and more toxic than any time since the late 1960s, and perhaps earlier.

During our chat, we get to:

• Civility is a muscle, how can we develop it?

• The pandemic really killed our basic social functions, showing up can restore them What is “porching”?

• A Renaissance philosopher noble Erasmus was snubbed by a child once, so he wrote the very first guidebook on manners and civility

• How do you reach civility when our nation’s most powerful people are pushing hate and division?

• And more

A Special Request

We are at a crossroads in our nation’s history, with more threats to a free press and our First Amendment rights than anything I’ve witnessed in my lifetime.

I do this because I believe in our rare and beautiful American experiment, and because I want it to be strong and flourishing for all our families, no matter color nor creed.

I’m able to do this show with the generous support of our paying subscribers, to bring on a diverse range of smart, thoughtful guests. I don’t do the hair-on-fire thing because of what I hear from you, you’re exhausted by it. Me too.

I need your help to do this. If you’re here and you appreciate this, please spring for $5/month.

Subscribe now

America’s Final President?

is a legend. In decades of broadcast, activism and entrepreneurship, he’s learned a lot and distills it tirelessly for three hours every day. I was honored to have him on yesterday to discuss his new book, “The Last American President”. We talked at length about the White House threats on our free speech, how we got to this point, and what happened to the health food movement to give rise to Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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If you’re stuck inside an algo bubble, haven’t had much time or just completely tuned out from the world, it is time to break through, tune back in and watch the entire Jimmy Kimmel monologue from last night.

The whole thing. There’s no way I could do it justice. This was an Edward R. Murrow moment in American history.

***

Ok, back to today’s show.

Our news top: Trump *seems* to be supporting Ukraine now as it defends against the Russian invasion. Trump is also reportedly promising to block any effort by Israel to take the West Bank, per Politico.

Are your healthcare costs about to double? has the answer.

And wery excited to have on America’s top progressive talkshow host His new book, “The Last American President: A Broken Man, a Corrupt Party, and a World on the Brink” is out now. It’s a sweeping, yet crisp, review of the institutional “rot”, greed, and guilelessness which created the environment in which we are now.

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel to 1,000 subscribers. You can do that here, I just started putting more effort into building our YouTube presence.

Subscribe to our YouTube HERE.

When we hit 1,000 we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam. LET’S GET TO 1,000!

Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters and wife Carin have a new BABY!! Congrats to the whole Walters clan, we’re proud of you. Ian’s out being an excellent dad.

The End of America?

We have a wide-ranging talk about what’s new (or not) and the long history of the wealthy gutting democratic guardrails to ultimately clear a path for Donald Trump. (As Thom points out, this has been decades coming, well before even Citizens United)

Notes:

• Knowing how we got here means knowing about the merger of America’s wealthy with the Republican Party in the ‘70s, starting with the Lewis Powell Memo.

• Right-wing billionaires have taken over how we see the world, with algorithms and social media companies.

• The long war by the GOP on America’s middle class The details of the long-running efforts of Republicans to rig elections by blocking lawful voters before they even reach the ballot box, including the new SAVE Act How did health food suddenly turn into Trump??

• And more.

Get all of Thom’s latest at https://thom.tv/ and follow him on all major platforms, including right here on YT.

And I close with an update on the shooting at the Dallas ICE detention facility

An Election Without Latinos?

Big thanks again to for his key insights into what truly motivates Latino voters (hint, it’s not what Ds or Rs are selling). So what does that mean for the midterms? For any effort to stop the authoritarian slide here?? Mike’s got the goods.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters and wife Carin have a new BABY!! Congrats to the whole Walters clan, we’re proud of you. Ian’s out being an excellent dad.

On today’s show, our top headlines:

AP: Jimmy Kimmel set to return

CNN: Trump cancels shutdown meeting with Schumer, Jeffries

The Guardian: UK, Poland vow to confront Russia if more airspace incursions

***

joins to explain if Latino support is cratering for Trump and what that would mean for Democrats. (I’ll tell you, it’s not what you’ve been hearing, which is why it’s so essential to hear from Mike.)

And updates us on a pending government shutdown. Better start stocking up that Celsius, friends, we’re one week out.

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel to 1,000 subscribers. You can do that here, I just started putting more effort into building our YouTube presence.

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When we hit 1,000 we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam. LET’S GET TO 1,000!

LatiNO voters?

So, here’s a big shock in the world of politics: What if the Ds and the Rs both have the expansive, none-too-well-defined “Latino community” completely wrong?

A generational migration to Trump? A snapback to their rightful homes with Dems?

Maybe. Or maybe something entirely different, completely being missed by both major parties — with some big consequences for the midterm elections.

Listen for the top issue driving Latino sentiments.

Additional notes:

The GOP has long been morphing into the tribal, autocratic parties of Latin America. But are the Dems now, finally, pushing in the other direction like the socialist leaders to our south?

So who is winning the coveted, Latino Vote, if not the Dems and Trump?

And a wily dispatch from a political circus in Miami a few months back, grafted onto a very serious chamber of commerce-style meeting for Latino entrepreneurs. Crypto Timeshares anyone?

American Gods?

has long been one of the most thoughtful voices in explaining and interpreting the intersection of politics and religion. He had some very mixed feelings about the Charlie Kirk funeral, and very nuanced reasoning.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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🚨🚨 Jimmy Kimmel returning to ABC Tuesday, per multiple reports citing a statement from Disney communications reading in part: “Last Wednesday, we made the decision to suspend production on the show to further avoid inflaming a tense situation at an emotional moment for our country. It is a decision we made because we some of the comments were ill-timed and thus insensitive. We have spent the last days having thoughtful conversations with Jimmy, and after those conversations, we reached the decision to return the show on Tuesday.” 🚨🚨

Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters and wife Carin have a new BABY!! Congrats to the whole Walters clan, we’re proud of you. Ian’s out being an excellent dad.

Friends, help me build the 24sight News YouTube channel to 1,000 subscribers. You can do that here, I just started putting more effort into building our YouTube presence.

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When we hit 1,000 we’ll have a special event for the 24sight Fam. LET’S GET TO 1,000!

Now, to the show, with .

Matt and I go way back, I’ve often leaned on him to understand the intersection (and overlap) of religion and politics, including attending Bible Study with him at his church.

In this episode, I asked him what he saw that was new from the Charlie Kirk funeral Sunday. (We taped this before news broke of Kimmel’s return.”

Co-opting Christianity?

Matt said that he had mixed feelings watching the Kirk funeral Sunday. On one hand, he was heartened to see new people opening to Christianity, drawn in by the momentous event. But on the other, it was tarred by Trump claiming the religion as his own, and turning it to promises of violence.

In context, it’s hard to ignore the autocratic push by Trump and his team. Free speech is under attack, he’s demanding political prosecutions without sufficient evidence

And Matt also has a very candid moment, regarding the best response by Democrats: Trying to hold the institutional norms in place clearly failed. Maybe it is time for some of the same aggression Trump and MAGA have been using for years now, he says.

America’s New Late Night Comedy

I enjoyed this very insightful chat with on what it would like here if Trump and team successfully use Viktor Orban’s playbook in Hungary to squash free speech, our nation’s bedrock.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

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Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters, is manning the board and will gather your comments and we’ll get to them at the end of show. You can also reply to this email with any questions.

Read Elise’s important explainer of what’s coming, “Late Night with Viktor Orban”. Make sure to subscribe to her important global affairs Substack “Cosmopolitics”

This is a key moment in our nation’s history, and now more than ever the time to speak up. Free speech, the First Amendment, an independent press are in our national DNA.

Government Shutdown coming?

Read the latest from on whether the short-term government funding measure will make it through the Senate or the government will shutdown.

The Trenches of Freedom

In case you missed it, , public advocacy director for FIRE, joined me Thursday to discuss FIRE’s efforts to protect the First Amendment. Aaron and the team have been defending speech for years, recently expanding beyond college campuses on to the national scene, and none too soon. Left, right, up, down, whichever ideological leaning, FIRE’s team has been a bulwark in support of our First Amendment rights.

Big thanks to our friends at where you can catch the show every night at 8p ET.

Coming up next week, we’ll be staying on this foundational American story and checking in on races around the country. Rest up, we all deserve a weekend.

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It’s Thursday, Sept. 18. On today’s episode of Tom LoBianco Reports, , public advocacy director for FIRE (The Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression.)

We’re talking about the government’s efforts to stifle speech, escalated Wednesday with the canceling of Jimmy Kimmel under the threat of a blocked corporate merger from the Trump’s federal communications regulators.

Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters, is manning the board and will gather your comments and we’ll get to them at the end of show. You can also reply to this email with any questions.

News Top, Thursday Sept. 18

ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Wednesday, following Monday night’s show in which he made fun of Trump’s response to Charlie Kirk’s murder and said Trump’s partisans were trying to capitalize on the murder, The Associated Press reports.

Veteran media reporter Oliver Darcy reports at Status News, that ABC executives went into immediate damage control as they faced a wave of MAGA attacks this week, capped by the government’s threat. It’s part of a coordinated effort by the White House and its allies to cancel anyone deemed not sufficiently supportive of them, with firings from top media names like Matthew Dowd at MSNBC and Karen Attiah at The Washington Post, to educators across the country now being targeted.

America’s public health leaders are ringing alarm bells that the Trump administration’s opposition to vaccines could result in an uptick of serious infectious diseases among children. The continued warnings come as Trump’s former handpicked CDC Director Susan Monarez testified Wednesday that she was fired for fighting back against political pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The New York Times Reports.

Jimmy Kimmel, 1A Warrior

The president of the United States wants America’s late-night comedy hosts fired. That was his public statement, issued from his state trip to Britain.

And, with a threat issued by Trump’s federal communications czar, Brendan Carr, he seems to have nabbed Jimmy Kimmel’s scalp at ABC.

In normal times, an American late-night comedy staple may not have been expected to become a symbol of the government’s war on speech, but these are not normal times.

The Fight for Free Speech

After the government’s attack on Kimmel yesterday, I spent some time brushing up on my journalism history, specifically Edward R. Murrow, the legendary CBS newscaster who helped end Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts of the 1950s.

A lot of very smart folks have pointed out the clear throughline from McCarthy, the famous hard right populist demagogue, to Trump himself, starting from Trump’s tutelage by McCarthy’s own lawyer Roy Cohn. A new “McCarthyism” is a frequent phrase.

And it sure rhymes with history.

But this is something far bigger and more expansive, with political operatives squeezing our news outlets from within this time (as new owners) and instead of one virulent senator leading show hearings, it’s the president of the United States marshaling the force of the federal government to silence Americans.

Joining me for the show today, Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at FIRE. We’ve got a lot to cover.

Here is Terr’s latest over at the FIRE Substack, Expression, on why the nation’s top prosecutor, Attorney General Pam Bondi, completely flopped on free speech protections in her statements regarding “hate speech”.

Tune in live at Noon ET for our discussion here on the Stack.

It needs more crazy

It’s hard to find levity when you’re living in a dumpster fire, yet always seems to know just where the humor is. We talked at length about the sheer boredom of constant online attention grabbing, the need to stay in the debate when powerful forces want to cancel you, and more.

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It’s Wednesday, Sept. 17. Coming up on the 17th episode of Tom LoBianco Reports, from 24sight News and our friends at Political Voices Network, the reasoning of politics, and what lies on the other side of letting yourself be canceled with .

Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters, is manning the board as we launch into Week Four of the show.

I’d love to hear from you, you can reply to this email or bring your thoughts and comments on this moment in our nation’s history. If it’s a day that ends in the letter “Y”, it’s open phones here.

News Top, Wednesday Sept. 17

Utah prosecutors will seek the death penalty for Tyler Robinson, after submitting evidence which included a damning text message from the suspect saying he “had enough” of Kirk’s hate, CNN reports.

Former Trump CDC Director Susan Monarez testified today at the Capitol that she was victim of a political firing by HHS Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for refusing to accede to his new anti-vaccine vaccine panel’s recommendations, NBC News reports.

Trump is on a state trip to England today where he was given a royal welcome by the King and Queen of England and “given a leather volume celebrating the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence,” the BBC reports.

The Horseshoe Theory of Whack Money

Go far enough to the right or the left and the terminally online world of political influencers (from the White House to the wilderness) seems to have agreed on just making shit up in the wake of the Charlie Kirk murder.

“No one is buying these text messages”

Who said that? Right or Left?

How about both.

Longtime Trump adviser Steve Bannon says he thinks the texts from Robinson are made-up. Outrage entrepreneur Candace Owens says Israel killed Kirk because he was turning against the nation. And all the president’s men say the murder was a vast leftwing conspiracy.

Around the other side of the horseshoe, top progressive influencers, including (who made the above statement on X.com) say the one thing they can all agree on is the submitted evidence is bunk.

(H/T to our friends who have this excellent write-up with some much-needed clarity.)

America’s Magic Bullet Fixation

Travel back in time to the heady days of the start of Donald Trump’s second term (this year) and real political junkies may recall he delivered on his promise to finally release the JFK Files (no word yet on the Epstein Files).

In a world of politics flooded with mile-a-minute conspiracy theories, this had me thinking of the granddaddy of them all, the Kennedy assassination theories.

(The reality of it, of course, was published by the fabled Warren Commission.)

I’ll be chatting with about this and why Americans love the Hollywood conspiracy theory dramas rather than the contradictory, nuanced, uncertain stories unfolding in real time.

The Why of Persistence

Friends, I want to give a big thanks to whose wisdom and level-headedness is an anchor in modern American discourse. I always enjoy having him on, but yesterday was especially important for his message of speaking up now when powerful people are pushing silence and fear.

Listen for his recollection of what he learned from Charles Krauthammer, traversing the security perimeter at the RNC in Cleveland in 2016, the lessons of why it is more important than ever for cooler heads and our best angels to keep engaged as the antidote to the poison pushed by outrage entrepreneurs.

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