Background Briefing: February 17, 2026
A Close Friend Who Worked With Jesse Jackson for 40 Years On Jesse’s Fight to Give Peace a Chance
We begin with the death of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, a protege of Martin Luther King Jr. who ran for the presidency in 1984 and 1988 and speak with his close friend of 40 years who accompanied Jackson on peace-keeping and rescue missions to war-torn Yugoslavia and the Middle East. Joining us is Rabbi Steven Jacobs, who has spent over five decades as an advocate on behalf of social change, spirituality, and civil rights. The founder of the Rabbi Steven B. Jacobs Progressive Faith Foundation, he also served as the spiritual leader of Temple Kol Tikvah, a Reform congregation he founded in 1984. Active in the anti-war and civil rights movements of the 1960s and 1970s, he has traveled internationally with Reverend Jesse Jackson to promote peace, justice, and global understanding in locations such as the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East. He has worked to promote tolerance and cooperation among the African American, Jewish, and Muslim communities of Los Angeles.
The Bloodbath at The Washington Post and Censorship at CBS
Then we examine further evidence of what happens when Trump-friendly billionaires like Larry Ellison buy CBS and now try to buy Warner Brothers and CNN and speak with Paul Farhi, who was a reporter for the Washington Post for thirty-five years covering business, presidential campaigns, and the news media. He left at the end of 2023 and has been a freelance writer, contributing to The Atlantic, The Athletic, Nieman Reports, The Daily Beast, and Columbia Journalism Review. We discuss his article at The Washingtonian, “Actually, the Washington Post Layoffs Were a Bigger Bloodbath Than You Thought” and CBS’s censorship of Colbert who was stopped from interviewing a Democratic candidate for Senate.
The Trump/Republican Crackup Has Begun
Then finally we speak with Sasha Abramsky, who writes regularly for The Nation, and is the author of several books, including Inside Obama’s Brain, Breadline USA, American Furies, The American Way of Poverty, and Chaos Comes Calling: The Battle Against the Far-Right Takeover of Small-Town America. His latest book, just out is American Carnage: How Trump, Musk and DOGE Butchered the US Government and we discuss his latest article at his column Authoritarian Watch at The Nation, “The Republican Crack-Up Has Begun.”