US Sen. Bernie Sanders on Friday joined a growing chorus of critics angered by the Federal Communications Commission's approval of foreign investment in the company that would be created if Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery are allowed to merge.
Page F2From§Eachthe midnight edition — 23 September 2026
California extracted concessions from the $111 billion Paramount merger; the merger closes at $111 billion.
As it ran on the front
You are meant to hear "settlement" and picture something wrung out of a buyer. Wrung. Nothing was wrung. A settlement is the instrument by which the party able to say no agrees to stop saying it, and the consideration — what each side gives so that a bargain binds — ran one way only. The states gave up the suit. Paramount Skydance gave up concessions that the writer Cory Doctorow described on Medium: "Every! single! one! of these concessions is meaningless bullshit." Another critic called it "a settlement that promises less than nothing." And the purchase price? One hundred and eleven billion dollars, unaltered. One hundred and eleven.
Do note what the states were looking at when they signed. In September the Federal Communications Commission, chaired by Brendan Carr, approved Paramount's petition to let foreign investors hold over 25% of the company, and found that in the "public interest." The Justice Department filed a statement of interest arguing the states should post a "proper bond" if they were confident in the case; Paramount asked a federal judge in California to require it. The New York Post said Rob Bonta "should reach an agreement — and he did." ... He did.…
…(cont) Kara Swisher is leaving CNN. "F–k these guys!" The deal closes as filed. That is what the lawsuit bought.
At dusk the farmer shook the fox's paw. The hens are not counted yet.
“They spent months suing over a hundred-and-eleven-billion-dollar merger and walked out with concessions one writer called meaningless bullshit — and the price tag did not move a dollar. Days before that, the FCC waved through foreign investors holding over 25% of the thing and wrote down that it serves the public interest. Your news, your movies, one buyer, and the only people who paid anything here were the ones who thought the lawsuit was going to stop it.”
“Look, the attorney general got real, meaningful, enforceable commitments — did I say enforceable? That doesn't sound like me, I wouldn't characterize them. The Post said he should reach an agreement and he did, so where's the outrage, exactly? And the foreign ownership thing, that's the FCC's public interest finding, not mine, I'm just telling you what the filing says.”
The receipts
"A settlement that promises less than nothing." That's how one critic of Paramount Skydance's planned acquisition of Warner Bros. Discovery on Tuesday described the paltry concessions extracted by Democratic California Attorney General Rob Bonta and other state officials to enable the proposed $111 billion media megamerger. Critics argue…
The Paramount-Warner Bros. deal is going through — and that’s a good thing. We said California Attorney General Rob Bonta should reach an agreement — and he did.
CNN staffers reveal mixed emotions as Paramount's merger with Warner Bros. Discovery moves forward following the settlement with State Attorneys General.
Podcaster and CNN contributor Kara Swisher isn’t mincing words about her feelings after Paramount’s settlement with California Attorney General Rob Bonta.
· DOJ says states should post ‘proper bond’ in Paramount-Warner Bros. merger case from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· California’s war on Paramount continues the state’s self-sabotage from the morgue, 14 Sep 2026
· Mark Ruffalo lets his mask slip on the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger from the morgue, 1 Sep 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.