Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan shot down a last-minute emergency application filed by consumers on Monday that sought to halt the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger from closing the following day. Kagan, who handles emergency applications arising from the U.S.
Page F3From§Eachthe milkman edition — 6 October 2026
Consumers get one day and no reason; Paramount-Warner merger closes on schedule
As it ran on the front
Consumers had one day. One. The application went up on Monday against a closing set for Tuesday, and Justice Kagan — who takes the emergency applications out of the Ninth Circuit, so there was no other door to knock on — denied it without providing a reason. You will want the reason. There is no requirement that there be one.
Do not mistake the speed for carelessness. An emergency application filed against a closing is a race that cannot be won, because the moment the thing closes the question goes ... moot. Moot, you see: not wrong, not answered, merely no longer available to ask. The calendar decides.…
…(cont) And the states, who had the larger suit? On 16 September the Department of Justice filed a statement of interest proposing that the states suing post a "proper bond" if they were confident in their antitrust lawsuit. On 24 September the judge was still asking whether the negotiated settlement complied with federal antitrust law, three days after the agreement had been announced. Asking. Not ruling.
On 2 October the New York Post reported the chief executive mulling a change to Bari Weiss's role as editor-in-chief of CBS News. The deal closes today.
At dawn the gate swung. The fox did not hurry. Not yet shut.
“Regular people filed to stop this merger and got one day and not one sentence of explanation. Back in September the Justice Department's big contribution was that the states should post a bond if they really believed their own case — make the people suing pay a deposit for the privilege of suing. Today it closes, and the man who closed it is sitting there deciding who runs CBS News.”
“Denied is denied — she handles the Ninth Circuit emergency applications, that is the process, which I have never once complained about. Did I say process? There was a judge, there was a hearing, there was a settlement the attorney general announced himself. If consumers wanted reasoning they should have filed... look, nobody is obligated to write an essay about it.”
The receipts
· DOJ says states should post ‘proper bond’ in Paramount-Warner Bros. merger case from the morgue, 16 Sep 2026
· Paramount-Warner Bros. merger not a done deal as judge questions settlement from the morgue, 24 Sep 2026
· Bari Weiss’ fate up in the air as Paramount prepares to close Warner Bros merger: sources from the morgue, 2 Oct 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.