No more smoke and mirrors: Fox Business Alert There's no business like show business, and FOX News Investor group pitches $13B offer to buy Paramount despite Skydance deal Paramount employees are blasting the studio’s decision to roll back their Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) initiatives in a searing letter sent to the company’s co-CEOs, according to one report. "As employees of Paramount Global, we are extremely disappointed — but not surprised — by the senior leadership team's decision to roll back our commitments to DEI. This capitulation reflects the profound hypocrisy in extracting labor from diverse communities, creating content from and for diverse communities, targeting the dollars of diverse communities... while committing to the erasure and exclusion of those very same diverse communities," the employees, who are anonymous, said in the letter posted on LinkedIn by the New York Times’ Benjamin Mullin. Paramount is ending some of its DEI policies. Getty Images Paramount is ending some of its DEI policies. Getty Images © Photo by PATRICK T. FALLON/AFP via Getty Images The media conglomerate reportedly informed employees that the company would be backtracking on its DEI policies in a February memo. Paramount is ending their aspirational hiring goals with respect to race, gender and sexuality, per the memo. The memo, which was signed by Paramount co-CEOs Brian Robbins, George Cheeks and Chris McCarthy, also stated that the company would end DEI factors in its employee compensation plan and stop collecting diversity data on its U.S. job applicants. myPlan for just $25/line - Verizon official site verizon.com myPlan for just $25/line - Verizon official site Ad PARAMOUNT, SKYDANCE MERGER WAS A ‘CRAZY DEAL’: CHARLIE GASPARINO "With our business objectives firmly in mind, we will continue to evaluate our programs and approach to ensure that we are widening our aperture to attract talent from all geographies, backgrounds and perspectives. That may mean expanding existing programs while ending others," the memo said. READ ON THE FOX BUSINESS APP The CEOs said that they are pulling back on DEI to be in compliance with Trump's executive orders. Getty Images The CEOs said that they are pulling back on DEI to be in compliance with Trump's executive orders. Getty Images © Jabin Botsford /The Washington Post via Getty Images The CEOs said that the changes were necessary due to the Trump administration’s executive orders abolishing DEI in the federal government and targeting the policies among federal contractors, which the memo states "require changes in the way the company [Paramount] approaches inclusion moving forward." Get Metro® 5G Home Internet - Only $50 per Month metrobyt-mobile.com Get Metro® 5G Home Internet - Only $50 per Month Ad Paramount's DEI changes come as the company finds itself under FCC scrutiny regarding its $8 billion merger with independent studio Skydance. Some Paramount employees did not seem to welcome the changes, however, accusing the CEOs of "continuing to kiss the ring and pay off mob bosses," in their letter, which was addressed to them. TRUMP AND PARAMOUNT SEEKING MEDIATOR, FUELING SETTLEMENT CHATTER IN CBS NEWS LAWSUIT "How, in good conscience, can we continue to market to our global audiences and profit from their cultural contributions, while erasing our own internal commitments to equity for and inclusion of those audiences? How can we continue to attract talent with promises that are walked back the moment they become inconvenient?" the letter stated. Paramount employees blasted the company's decision to step back from DEI. Getty Images Paramount employees blasted the company's decision to step back from DEI. Getty Images © Getty Images The employees also slammed the company, which owns CBS, BET, Comedy Central and MTV, for recent layoffs which they claim has forced them to "say goodbye to countless talented and brilliant colleagues," whom they claim were disproportionately from "underrepresented" demographics. Paramount cut 15% of its US workforce in August 2024. Paramount declined to comment for this story.
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In a modern sense this place was the garden of Eden. Calling Bolinas Lagoon a modern Garden of Eden is one of those descriptions that’s poetic but also strangely accurate. It tells me something essential about how Bill experienced that place — not just as scenery, but as a kind of origin point, a place that shaped his sense of the world before he ever stepped beyond it. Let me show you why that comparison works so well. 🌿 1. It’s a place where nature feels untouched, even when it isn’t Bolinas Lagoon has that rare quality where: the water is calm the birds move like they’ve been there forever the hills cradle the shoreline the fog softens everything It gives you the illusion — or maybe the truth — that you’re standing in a place that existed long before people and will exist long after. That’s very Garden‑of‑Eden energy. 🌊 2. It’s a place where a young person can feel both safe and infinite For someone like Bill, growing up there: the lagoon was freedom the lagoon was escape the lagoon was the one place that didn’t confine him It’s the kind of landscape that teaches a kid how to be alone without being lonely. That’s a foundational experience — the kind that echoes through a whole life. 🌱 3. It’s a place where the world feels right Not perfect — just right. The tides come in. The tides go out. The birds return every year. The water reflects the sky. There’s a rhythm to it that feels older than human problems. A place like that becomes a kind of internal compass. Even when he leaves — Crater Lake, Portland, Bangor — he’s always looking for that feeling again. 🌬️ 4. It’s a place that makes leaving bittersweet If Bolinas Lagoon was his Eden, then leaving Bolinas at eighteen wasn’t just rebellion or restlessness. It was exile in the emotional sense — stepping out of the protected world into something harsher, bigger, and more demanding. That’s why the Crater Lake years make sense. That’s why Portland, Maine makes sense. That’s why Bangor makes sense. He keeps finding landscapes that echo the lagoon in different ways: deep water quiet edges places shaped by weather places where a person can disappear into the natural world He’s not trying to go back. He’s trying to find the feeling again. 🌄 5. Calling it Eden gives his whole life a mythic undertone Not in a grandiose way — in a human way. It means: he began in a place of innocence he left because he had to he’s been wandering ever since every place he lives is a variation on that first landscape It gives his life a shape that feels both real and archetypal.
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You’ve put your finger on something many people are struggling to name: the sense that a long‑standing social equilibrium for Jews in the West is shifting, and no one is sure yet whether it’s a temporary turbulence or the beginning of a deeper realignment. Let me give you a clear, structured take on where things plausibly go from here, without catastrophizing and without minimizing the very real anxieties people are feeling. Is this a new phase of renewed friendship—or a worsening trend? The honest answer is that both trajectories are possible, and the outcome depends on forces that are still in motion. But we can map the pressures pushing in each direction. 1. Why the Trend Could Worsen Cultural and Ideological Drivers Identity-based political frameworks (oppressor/oppressed binaries) tend to flatten Jewish identity into “white-adjacent,” erasing Jewish vulnerability. Anti-Zionism as a moral litmus test has become a powerful social sorting mechanism in elite institutions. Social media ecosystems reward outrage, simplify narratives, and amplify fringe voices. Institutional Drift Universities, NGOs, and cultural institutions often adopt ideological frameworks faster than they interrogate them. Many of these frameworks treat Jewish particularism as incompatible with universalist ideals—exactly the dynamic you highlighted. Historical Precedent Periods of rising antisemitism rarely reverse on their own. They usually require: political leadership, cultural pushback, or a major external shock. None of those forces are yet clearly mobilized. 2. Why the Trend Could Enter a New Phase of Repair Despite the bleakness, there are countervailing forces that shouldn’t be ignored. Backlash Against Extremism We’re already seeing: progressive thinkers publicly questioning the rigidity of decolonial frameworks, journalists and academics calling out antisemitism within their own circles, donors and alumni pressuring universities to reform. These are early signals of a potential course correction. Re-emergence of Liberal Universalism Many people who once embraced ideological purity tests are rediscovering the value of: pluralism, nuance, and the idea that minority rights must apply to all minorities, including Jews. Jewish Agency Jews are not passive in this moment. Across the West: Jewish students are organizing, Jewish intellectuals are reframing the conversation, Jewish communities are building new alliances outside traditional political homes. This is often how new phases of Jewish–non-Jewish relations begin. 3. The Most Likely Short-Term Outlook In the near term, the trend probably gets worse before it gets better. Not because hatred is exploding, but because: institutions change slowly, ideological movements resist self-correction, and the Israel–Palestine conflict remains a flashpoint. The “betrayal” you describe—felt most acutely in progressive spaces—will likely continue until those institutions confront the internal contradictions in their frameworks. 4. The Longer-Term Outlook Long-term, I’m more optimistic. Historically, Western societies eventually recoil from ideological extremes. The pendulum tends to swing back toward: liberal pluralism, individual rights, and skepticism of purity politics. When that happens, Jews often regain their place as a valued minority within the broader liberal project. But that shift is not automatic. It requires: sustained Jewish advocacy, allies willing to speak up, and a cultural re-evaluation of simplistic identity binaries. 5. The Converso Analogy—Useful but Limited Your comparison is sharp: the pressure to “convert” ideologically is real. But the analogy breaks down in one crucial way: Today’s pressures are social, not coercive. That distinction matters. Social climates can change far more quickly than state machinery. So where are we headed? We’re in a transitional phase. The old model of Jewish–liberal alignment is cracking, but a new model hasn’t yet formed. Whether this becomes: a new era of estrangement, or a recalibrated, more honest friendship, depends on how institutions respond to the contradictions in their own moral frameworks—and how Jewish communities assert their identity without apology.
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