The President’s Latest Dictatorial Move Against the News Media; the L.A. Times Reports on Ricardo Lara’s Questionable Travel–Coachella Valley Independent’s Indy Digest: Dec. 4, 2025

Indy Digest: Dec. 4, 2025

Back in February 2017, Arizona Sen. John McCain commented on a statement President Trump had just made—one that was quite controversial at the time. According to Reuters:

U.S. Senator John McCain, defending the media against the latest attack by President Donald Trump, warned that suppressing the free press was “how dictators get started.”

The Arizona Republican, a frequent critic of Trump, was responding to a tweet in which Trump accused the media of being “the enemy of the American people.”

The international order established after World War II was built in part on a free press, McCain said in an excerpt of an interview with NBC’s Meet the Press that was released in advance of the full Sunday morning broadcast.

“I hate the press. I hate you especially,” he told interviewer Chuck Todd from an international security conference in Munich. “But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital.”

“If you want to preserve—I’m very serious now—if you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and (at) many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That’s how dictators get started,” he continued.

“They get started by suppressing free press. In other words, a consolidation of power. When you look at history, the first thing that dictators do is shut down the press. And I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator. I’m just saying we need to learn the lessons of history,” McCain said.

In the nearly nine years since, Trump and his allies have exponentially intensified their attacks on the news media—and if the late Sen. McCain were still alive today, I think he’d probably take back the “I’m not saying that President Trump is trying to be a dictator” comment.

Anyway, Trump has launched yet another attack in his war against reporters. The Washington Post says:

The White House launched a page on its website Friday devoted to naming and shaming media outlets and reporters that publish stories it disagrees with.

“Misleading. Biased. Exposed,” the site reads, naming the Boston Globe, CBS News and the Independent as “media offenders of the week” for allegedly misrepresenting President Donald Trump’s call for six Democratic members of Congress to be hanged for a video saying that military personnel should not follow illegal orders.

“The Democrats and Fake News Media subversively implied that President Trump had issued illegal orders to service members,” the site reads. “Every order President Trump has issued has been lawful. It is dangerous for sitting Members of Congress to incite insubordination in the United States’ military, and President Trump called for them to be held accountable.”

As of this writing, the site lists about two dozen different news organizations who are supposedly “misleading, biased, exposed,” ranging from The Washington Post to USA Today to Los Angeles TV station KTLA. The stories about which Trump and co. take umbrage are all over the place.

Keeping this in mind, let’s go back and again look at one of the things Sen. McCain said back in 2017: “I hate the press. … But the fact is we need you. We need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital. If you want to preserve … democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and (at) many times adversarial press. And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time.”

It’s extremely clear that Trump and his acolytes do not feel like McCain did: They hate the press … and that’s it. The fact they’ve launched a government website to snivel about reporting is just the latest way in which they’re showing that they don’t want journalists sniffing around.

Trump would love to do nothing more than shut down the press—just like a dictator.

—Jimmy Boegle

More News

• The Los Angeles Times just published a fantastic—and pretty damning, to my eyes—investigation regarding state Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara. The story says: “(Lara) under two new investigations for potential campaign finance and ethics violations, and accused by consumer advocates of cozying up to those he regulates. Lara has asked companies to make donations to favored charities, including those that have business before his agency, according to a Times investigation. The investigation found Lara logged at least 32 trips to 23 countries and territories—spending over 163 days abroad on state time—but consistently failed to disclose who paid for the five-star hotels, premium airline seats and fine dining. California ethics laws mandate that elected officials like Lara disclose reimbursements for such travel to the state Ethics Commission and agency websites. Lara says he followed all state ethics and campaign spending rules and acted in the best interest of sustaining a private insurance market. Payment records for two-thirds of Lara’s trips are unreported or incomplete. The Times filed multiple public records requests for the full records, but the Department of Insurance at first said it didn’t have receipts for most of Lara’s spending.” This is a subscriber-only piece—and a good reason why publications like the L.A. Times deserve your support, despite the at-times not-great actions by the billionaire owner.

• Costco is yet again showing it’s not afraid to battle the Trump administration. NBC News reports: “Costco Wholesale has sued the Trump administration before the Court of International Trade, asking it to consider all tariffs collected under the International Emergency Economic Powers Act unlawful. The company said in a filing Friday that it is seeking a ‘full refund’ of all duties under the act paid as a result of President Donald Trump’s executive order that imposed what he called ‘reciprocal’ tariffs. ‘Because IEEPA does not clearly authorize the President to set tariffs … the Challenged Tariff Orders cannot stand and the defendants are not authorized to implement and collect them,’ Costco’s lawyer writes in the lawsuit. The Supreme Court is reviewing the legality of Trump’s sweeping tariff agenda. In oral arguments in early November, justices appeared skeptical about the government’s case.”

• The state has set up an online portal where residents can report wrongdoing by ICE and other federal agents. KTLA reports: “Videos, photos and other information submitted through the portal will be treated confidentially and will ‘help the California Department of Justice create a record of potential unlawful conduct by federal agents and inform possible legal actions the state may take to protect Californians’ rights,’ according to California officials. ‘We’re not going to stand by while anyone—including federal agents—abuses their authority in California,’ Gov. Gavin Newsom said in a statement. ‘This new portal gives Californians an easy and safe way to speak up, share what they see, and help us hold people accountable. No one is above the law.’ The announcement is the latest clash between California and federal officials over President Donald Trump’s crackdown on immigration.” The link to that portal is here.

• Plastic grocery store bags will no longer be offered in stores as of the first of the year. SFGate says: “Starting Jan. 1, 2026, grocery stores, pharmacies, liquor and convenience stores are set to be banned from distributing any type of plastic bag at the checkout line, even the thicker reusable ones that became common during the pandemic. Moving forward, only paper bags made from recycled material will be offered at the point of sale. Senate Bill 1053, which was co-authored by state Sen. Catherine Blakespear of District 38 in Southern California, eliminates the thicker plastic bag exemption from previous law. Under SB 270, the language of ‘single-use carryout bags’ allowed for a loophole that plastic bag manufacturers seized on. SB 1053, which was signed into law in 2024, now defines ‘single-use carryout bags’ as simply ‘carryout bags’ and closes that loophole.”

• The Trump administration has been urging immigrants to self-deport. Well, many of the immigrants who have tried to do so have found themselves in the midst of a mess. Wired reports: “The Trump administration has been virtually begging immigrants in the US to self-deport. It’s self-deportation, the White House says, or risk the wrath of ICE, the country’s Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. But self-deportation has been nearly impossible for this woman and others like her, lawyers and immigration activists tell WIRED. Guidance from the US government for those who have decided to self-deport has been confusing and sparse, leaving many immigration attorneys and advocates in the dark. Some immigrants trying to leave the country voluntarily through government-endorsed mechanisms say they have found themselves in limbo or, worse, detained. CBP Home, the app from Customs and Border Protection that’s supposed to help immigrants self-deport, is only somewhat helpful, and it launches some immigrants into a confusing and drawn-out bureaucratic process, says Jessica Ramos, an immigration attorney practicing in Ohio. … That, coupled with little help from the US government, has made getting out of the US ‘an odyssey,’ Ramos claims.”

• And finally … today’s recall news involves … shredded cheese! Yahoo! News says: “The Food and Drug Administration has elevated a mass recall of more than 1 million bags of shredded cheese sold at major retailers, including Aldi, Publix, Target and Walmart, across 31 states (including California) and Puerto Rico. The shredded cheese manufacturer, Great Lakes Cheese Co. of Hiram, Ohio, initiated the voluntary recall back in October, saying the products may be contaminated with metal fragments, which may cause internal injuries if consumed. The FDA this week upgraded the recall to a Class II, which means the product could ‘cause temporary or medically reversible adverse health consequences.’ … Nearly 236,000 cases of low-moisture part-skim mozzarella shredded cheese make up the biggest portion of the recall.”

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