Florida Sentinel Bulletin

Scott Mills, President and CEO of BET Media Group 

Paramount Global is reportedly putting BET on the market again, but this time for a price ranging between $1.6-1.7 billion.

Per Variety, the exclusive price will be offered to “buyers that include” BET CEO Scott Mills and others.

Mills joined BET in 1997 as senior VP of business development, before leading the company in 2018 and becoming CEO in 2021. He’s also led its Centric channel as COO and served as president of digital media. The 55-year-old has also held down the role of EVP and oversaw the launch of BET’s official website in the early 2000s.

In the past, Tyler Perry, Sean “Diddy” Combs, and Byron Allen were all prospective bidders of the longstanding Black Entertainment Television network. In 2023, Allen offered $3.5 billion for the network.

However, Paramount withdrew BET from the market in August of last year because, “a sale wouldn’t result in any meaningful deleveraging of its balance sheet,” according to Wall Street Journal. A source from Paramount also told New York Post, “We made this decision because the benefits of maintaining a majority stake in BET Media Group creates more value for Paramount than any of the proposals we received.”

Now, Paramount Global’s Co-CEO’s have given BET a new appeal for acquisition which has included asset sales, streaming partnerships, and unfortunately job cuts.

In addition of sales, Paramount sold its CBS’ New York headquarters for $760,000,000 million in 2021, as well as the CBS Studio Center lot for $1.85 billion. Additionally, Paramount Global sold Simon & Schuster for $1.62 billion to private equity firm KKR last October.

Donald Trump

Donald Trump questionably claims he’s an expert on everything else, but now he expects us to believe he has “no knowledge” of Project 2025 and its oppressive plans to give him unprecedented power as president. After the plan, directed by Trump’s former chief of staff, exploded online, that would make him the last person in the country to hear about it.

In his Philly campaign rally speech, Trump stated, “I know nothing about Project 2025. I have no idea who is behind it. I disagree with some of the things they’re saying, and some of the things they’re saying are absolutely ridiculous and abysmal.”

Project 2025: The Drastic Plan Trump “Doesn’t Know About”

Let’s break down what Trump is desperately trying to distance himself from. Project 2025 is a

922-page plan that proposes a massive expansion of presidential power. The project includes but isn’t limited to:

firing up to 50,000 government workers to replace them with Trump loyalists (JUST SICK)

National abortions ban

Birth control, IVF, and STD Testing restrictions

Patient Data exposure

Eliminating the Department of Education and free school lunch programs

Enforcing Christian principles

Removing Environmental Protection Agency and protections for endangered species

Implementing tax policies that benefit the wealthy

Weaken unions and workplace safety regulations

End FBI efforts to combat disinformation

Repeal Acts for Civil Rights, Voting Rights, Fair Housing

End gender equality protections

Getting rid of DEI workers and training programs

Criminalizing LGBTQ+ rights and homelessness

Using the U.S. military against the U.S. citizens

Yet Trump would have us believe he’s completely in the dark about it. It’s hard to swallow, especially given his past authoritarian actions and statements.

The Social Media Firestorm

What’s really pushed Trump into this awkward denial is the social media uproar. Project 2025 has been trending online and on television screens. As BOSSIP previously covered, celebrities such as Taraji P. Henson are taking part in the activism against it. 

Trump’s Ties to Project 2025 Figures

The key players behind Project 2025 are all Trump insiders:

Paul Dans, the project’s director, was a former chief of staff at the U.S. Office of Personnel Management under Trump.

John McEntee, a senior adviser, was the director of the White House Presidential Personnel Office.

Russ Vought, a significant contributor, is on the Republican National Committee’s platform writing committee.

Gov. Wes Moore

Washington — Maryland Gov. Wes Moore last Sunday that he will not seek the Democratic nomination this year and he does not foresee President Biden leaving the race, making clear that the president is staying the course despite the bruising debate performance that sparked concern among some members of the party last week.

“Joe Biden is not going to take himself out of this race – nor should he,” Moore said on
“Face the Nation,” making clear that he “will not” seek the nomination.

The Democratic governor, who’s been campaigning in Milwaukee for the president’s reelection bid, said he will “proudly be supporting the president” at the party’s convention in Chicago later this summer. Moore said he will work through November to “make sure [Mr. Biden] gets reelected,” despite suggestions in recent days that the president drop out of the race after the debate raised questions about his ability to serve. Moore, a rising star within the party, has been among a group of names floated should Biden leave the race.

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Maryland Gov. Wes Moore

President Joe Biden speaks during a campaign event with former President Barack Obama moderated by Jimmy Kimmel at the Peacock Theater, Saturday, June 15, 2024, in Los Angeles.

President Biden’s Hollywood fundraiser raked in $30 million over the past weekend for his reelection bid, the most of any Democratic fundraiser in history, according to the Biden campaign.

Biden was joined at the fundraiser Saturday by former President Obama, actors George Clooney and Julia Roberts, and comedian Jimmy Kimmel.

The president in his remarks warned against a second term for former President Trump and focused on the Supreme Court and his recent trip to Italy for the Group of Seven (G7) summit.

“The next president is likely to have two new Supreme Court nominees,” Biden said, repeating a prediction he has made before.

“The idea that if he’s reelected he’s going to appoint two more flying flags upside down,” he added, referring to Justice Samuel Alito, who has faced controversy over an upside-down American flag flying over his Alexandra, Va., home.

Viola Ford Fletcher, center, and Lessie Benningfield Randle at the Oklahoma Capitol, in Oklahoma City, on Oct. 5.

The Oklahoma Supreme Court last Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit of the last two survivors of the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre, dampening the hope of advocates for racial justice that the government would make amends for one of the worst single acts of violence against Black people in U.S. history.

The nine-member court upheld the decision made by a district court judge in Tulsa last year, ruling that the plaintiff’s grievances, although legitimate, did not fall within the scope of the state’s public nuisance statute.

“We further hold that the plaintiff’s allegations do not sufficiently support a claim for unjust enrichment,” the court wrote in its decision.

Messages left Wednesday with a spokesperson for the City of Tulsa and the survivors’ attorney, Damario Solomon-Simmons, were not immediately returned.

The suit was an attempt to force the city of Tulsa and others to make recompense for the destruction by a white mob of the once-thriving Black district known as Greenwood. In 1921 — on May 31 and June 1 — the white mob, including some people hastily deputized by authorities, looted and burned the district, which was referred to as Black Wall Street.

As many as 300 Black Tulsans were killed, and thousands of survivors were forced for a time into internment camps overseen by the National Guard. Burned bricks and a fragment of a church basement are about all that survive today of the more than 30-block historically Black district.

 West Virginia 

CHARLESTON, W.Va.  — Gov. Jim Justice issued a proclamation on Friday that officially declares Juneteenth 2024 as a West Virginia State holiday.

Juneteenth is recognized on June 19 each year and celebrates the ending of slavery in the United States. The day will be observed on Wednesday, June 19 as a full-day holiday for all public employees in West Virginia.

Juneteenth has already been a federal holiday since 2021 when President Biden signed the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act. The holiday comes from the same day in 1865 when news of the Emancipation Proclamation finally reached Texas after being issued by President Abraham Lincoln six months earlier on New Years Day.