Our Getty Image du Jour is a wacky stunt from MoveOn, which (back in April) projected it on the FCC's building in D.C. I don't think they did anything similar when the Biden Administration tried "censorship by proxy" measures against social media sites. But I could have missed it.
The FCC's efforts are still in full swing, as described by Jacob Sullum: Brendan Carr's Vendetta Against ABC Conflates the 'Public Interest' With Trump's Personal Grievances: The FCC Chairman Is Punishing the Network for News Coverage and Programming Decisions That Offend the President.
Last April, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it was reviewing the broadcast licenses held by ABC's eight network-owned TV stations years before they were scheduled for renewal. The FCC had not conducted an early review of any broadcast license in more than half a century, and it had never done so simultaneously for all the stations operated by a particular network.
That unprecedented action, ABC and its parent company, Disney, argue in a federal lawsuit filed last week, is part of an unconstitutional intimidation campaign that has already had a chilling impact on broadcast journalism. A bipartisan group of former FCC officials, including commissioners appointed by Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, agrees that the agency has launched "an assault on free speech disguised as regulatory process" to "punish speech disfavored by the Trump administration."
I think I've already mentioned … maybe dozens of times … that this should be an impeachable offense for President Bone Spurs. But before my blogging license is revoked for failure to abide by the Internet Fairness Doctrine, let's try to find a defense… ah, here's one from Tim Graham: ABC News Is a Bubble, Not a Free-Speech Paragon.
The folks at Disney and ABC News are parading around, suing the Federal Communications Commission and boasting about how they are the paragons of freedom of speech and courageous reporting that President Donald Trump can't stand. What they're really celebrating is putting out a product that resides solidly inside a liberal bubble. They are the ones who cannot stand an opposing point of view.
Former ABC reporter Terry Moran recently went on the podcast "The Fifth Column," and host Michael Moynihan asked if ABC News was a liberal institution. Moran said, "Yes, but I think like a lot of mainstream media, it's because of lack of viewpoint diversity. That was one of the problems in covering Trump — nobody had voted for him."
Just kidding: there's no "Internet Fairness Doctrine". Tim Graham is a partisan hack, and his bottom line is still the same nonsense "public airwaves" justification used by all wannabe censors:
The central irony of this whole struggle is that ABC doesn't believe in conservative speech. They want the FCC to leave them alone as they use the public airwaves to only broadcast one point of view — one view on "Jimmy Kimmel Live," one view on "The View" and one view most of the time on the "news" programs.
Disclaimer: Tim Graham has provided Pun Salad ammo a few times over the years: here; here (where he wasn't as complimentary to Terry Moran); and here.
But the underlying problem is nailed by Dominc Pino at the WaPo: The FCC’s power over broadcasters was a mistake from the start. (WaPo gifted link)
In the early 1900s, when Congress was figuring out how to regulate broadcasting over a newfangled invention known as radio, it faced a crossroads. It could extend existing ideas about private property to a new domain. Or it could reject that in favor of a quasi-socialist system prone to government efforts to restrict speech and freedom.
ABC can tell you which one it chose.
Under the system set up a century ago, a government agency, initially the Federal Radio Commission and since 1934 the Federal Communications Commission, issues licenses for broadcast frequencies. Who gets these is based not on market forces but rather on what the FCC deems the public interest. Broadcasters don’t actually own their frequencies — licenses must be renewed after a set term — and they can’t transfer them without FCC approval. This system has long since been expanded beyond radio to broadcast TV.
Dominic relates the history of the FCC's censorship, all based on that long-ago "public interest" mistake. Unlike MoveOn, I'll put it in G-rated language: Abolish the FCC.
Also of note:
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With interest. Erick Erickson notes past profligacy: They Spent Our Trust. Now the Bill Is Due.
In April of 2020, San Clemente, California, dumped 37 tons of sand into a skate park to keep teenagers out of it. Other California cities followed suit. Down the coast, sheriff’s deputies arrested a man for paddleboarding by himself in the Pacific Ocean. Cities unbolted basketball rims. The mayor of Los Angeles told people that snitches get rewards, and, God help us, people snitched, calling the tip lines on the neighbors whose grandkids came over. While that was happening, Gavin Newsom enjoyed a dinner at The French Laundry.
The sand, the paddleboard, the missing basketball rims, the rewarded snitches, and the elite hypocrisy explain a lot about where we are as a nation, including things that look like they have nothing to do with COVID, like data centers and Flock cameras.
In March 2020, Americans did as they were told. People closed businesses, local governments closed schools, and families canceled funerals. They waited for instructions from their elected leaders and public health officials because those officials said we needed two weeks to stop the spread. People generally trusted their institutions. Civic trust is a limited resource in a free nation. The press, politicians, bureaucrats, experts, and elite violated that trust until it was gone.
Unfortunately, a lot of that distrust seems to be reflected in utter cynicism: "Yeah, I know I'm voting for a lying scoundrel. But he's my team's lying scoundrel."
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Not rich enough for my blood. Jim Geraghty debunks: Trump says he’s ‘the affordability president.’ That’s rich.. (WaPo gifted link)
Don’t worry, America. As you lament the high cost of living, the president is here to protect you from the menace of … imported goods from Canada that he has decided are too cheap.
After U.S. trade talks with Canada broke down on Friday, a new tariff of 50 percent is going into effect on Crown Royal whisky, Canadian milk, ice hockey equipment, cement, furniture, lighting fixtures, various tools, fence components, lumber, wood moldings, and a variety of plywood, fiberboard and veneered panels, among other goods. This is separate from the existing U.S. tariffs on steel, lumber and automobiles.
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says his country will initiate retaliatory tariffs against U.S. imports starting Sept. 8. Hey, Canada is only the United States’ second-largest trading partner, so no big deal.
Our whimsical president. Whatever ABC says about him is almost certainly too lenient.
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So let me be fair. The National Review editorialists mildly chide the know-nothing inducers of moral panic: Opposition to Data Centers Is Self-Destructive. But there's a stopped-clock admission buried a few paragraphs down:
As has occasionally been his wont, President Trump seems to be the only politician in the United States who is wholly unmoved by these broader trends. Asked recently about the issue, Trump said, “If I were the mayor of a town or the governor of a state, and I had a chance to get a big plant in, an AI plant or a data center, I would absolutely want it because the jobs are enormous, and the money paid, the taxes paid, are just enormous.” Trump added, “It’s going to create success. It’s going to create tremendous innovation medically.”
On PBS, James Henson, the director of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, described these words as “tone-deaf.” And perhaps they are. But politics is about more than merely following the crowd, and when Trump insists that “if you don’t take it, you’re going to be left behind because there are plenty of places that want it,” he is undoubtedly correct. The internet — and, more specifically, artificial intelligence — are here to stay. As such, the question is not whether more data centers will be built, but where. The answer to that question can be, “In America, by Americans.” It can be, “In China, by the Chinese.” It can even be, “In space.” But make no mistake, there will be an answer. At the risk of also being “tone-deaf,” we believe that the answer ought to be, “In America, built by Americans, for Americans, with the jobs, economic benefits, and tax revenues benefiting Americans.”
Yes, I don't say it enough. Because it is so rarely true: Trump is right about this.
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