On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced his scheme to repeal a limit that Congress set on the national reach of broadcast-television conglomerates. Lifting the cap from its congressionally mandated limit of 39 percent of national audience is key to a proposed ...
On Wednesday, Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brendan Carr announced his scheme to repeal a limit that Congress set on the national reach of broadcast-television conglomerates.
Lifting the cap from its congressionally mandated limit of 39 percent of national audience is key to a proposed merger between two giant broadcast conglomerates: Nexstar and Tegna.and hope to monopolize the broadcast dial. But the FCC’s power grab ignores the law in pursuit of Carr’s partisan and self-aggrandizing aims.asked for public comment on changing or eliminating the national broadcast-ownership rule that Congress set.
The rule prohibits any television-broadcast conglomerate from exceeding the 39 percent cap that’s designed to limit the size and national reach of giant broadcasters — like Fox Corporation, Nexstar and Sinclair — that already own hundreds of stations across the country. At the time, Free Press explained that the agency has no authority to change the numerical limit Congress set in statute.
Free Press’ filing notes that Carr’s goal is to fulfill the Trump administration’s desire “to use the Commission’s licensing authority to exert total control over the media. ” “Media consolidation and deal approvals are now explicitly a way for President Trump to further consolidate his dictatorial power, through explicit loyalty tests and pledges to use the public airwaves as a propaganda tool against the American public,” the filing reads.
Indeed, in March the FCC tried to waive this limit to approve Nexstar’s acquisition of Tegna Inc. That merger would give Nexstar access to 80 percent of U.S. households over the nation’s broadcast airwaves. Although the companies rushed to close the transaction on the basis of the FCC’s unauthorized and unlawful waiver, federal courts in California halted the transaction in light of theas the FCC chairman works to bend or break every rule to grow his own power and aid his political allies.
But just as the FCC had no power to waive a congressional statute to grease the skids for Nexstar’s merger with Tegna, it has no power now to completely obliterate the limit Congress set.
“It’s not just advocacy groups like Free Press who’ve called out Carr’s hypocrisy and hubris. Republican Senator, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee that oversees the FCC, held an entire hearing in February to probe this question. Cruz himself eviscerated and embarrassed broadcast lobbyists over their implausible reading of the law.
Chris Ruddy, the CEO of the conservative cable-news outlet Newsmax, testified at the same hearing about the difficulties other outlets face when they must compete against larger and larger broadcast conglomerates. Ruddy also noted that Congress explicitly set the national cap — and stripped the FCC of the authority to change or abandon it.
“Carr claims that FCC heads in both parties have agreed that the agency still has the power to ignore and override Congress’ will, but his fabrications and spin don’t stand up to scrutiny.and claim that they should be allowed to reach the entire country the way that online platforms do, they already can. Nothing prevents a company like Nexstar from having a national website or cable-news channel. The national cap is not a special disadvantage for broadcasters.
In fact, broadcasters have a special advantage with their exclusive licenses to use precious national airwaves the way they do.
“As Free Press has shown many times, the national cap remains good policy. It promotes competition, localism and diversity in broadcasting, incentivizing stations to preserve local newsrooms and local-journalism jobs instead of duplicating stories nationwide and passing that off as local news. But whatever the law’s merits may be, the key point is that Brendan Carr cannot undo the limit that Congress set just because he feels like it.
” Free Press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. We believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse and independent ownership of media platforms, and journalism that holds leaders accountable and tells people what's actually happening in their communities.
"Maine does not need a senator who signs the checks and hopes for the best from Donald Trump," said one Democratic US Senate candidate. "Hi senator, how are you? " Thakker began. "I was wondering, do you regret giving ICE more money, given the killings, including the one in your state?
" Collins, who was waiting for an elevator with an aide, did not reply, while her staffer asked what outlet Thakker was with before saying the senator had to leave.ask Sen. Susan Collins if she regrets funding ICE given its recent killings, including of 26-year-old Maine resident Joan Sebastian Guerrero. Collins defends herself, saying it went to bodycams & training.
ICE wasn’t wearing bodycams when they killed Guerrero.of at least four people since the beginning of 2026 and the deaths of dozens of people in ICE detention and during deportation operations in 2025. She referred to "money I got for body-worn cameras and training"—but as Thakker pointed out, that money didn't stop agents from killing Guerrero on Monday morning.had legal status in the US and was married with a 3-year-old daughter, was killed in his vehicle Monday morning.
The Department of Homeland Security ICE had been “conducting targeted surveillance on the last known address of an illegal alien with a final order of removal,” and details that have emerged since the shooting suggest Guerrero was not the person agents were looking for. DHS said Guerrero "attempted to flee the scene" and bullet holes were seen in the windshield of Guerrero's car.
ICE agents arecandidate in Maine, noted that Collins' call for ICE to suspend its use of vehicle stops was ineffectual, with President"Susan Collins funds ICE and has given them a blank check," he added.
"Maine does not need a senator who signs the checks and hopes for the best from‘Isn’t It Humiliating to Be Unable to Answer? ’ Asks Ossoff After Trump Spy Chief Nominee Won’t Say Who Won in 2020 "You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election, but you asked to lead America's intelligence community?
" Sen. Jon Ossoff on Wednesday put President Donald Trump's nominee to be the next director of national intelligence on the spot by asking him about the results of the 2020 presidential election. During a confirmation hearing before the Senate Intelligence Committee, Ossoff asked Jay Clayton, nominated by Trump to replace former DNI"This is a job interview," Ossoff said.
"We have established that you have an obligation to be honest and forthright with the committee, yes? You do have an obligation to honest and forthright with the committee?
"won the 2020 election, Trump refused to concede, told multiple lies to sow doubt about the results, tried to enlist officials including Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and former Vice PresidentOssoff told Clayton that he would keep asking him about the 2020 election results because "you're not being honest and forthright with the committee. "After being pressed by Ossoff again, Clayton simply sat in silence, which appeared to make the Georgia Democrat incredulous.
"You refuse to answer a basic question about who won a presidential election," Ossoff said, "but you asked to lead America's intelligence community? Isn't it humiliating to be unable to answer this question, to have to indulge the president's delusions?
" "We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question," Ossoff continued. "Why can you not give it? ""Clayton’s trainwreck hearing showed us that he is willing to deny objective reality to avoid upsetting the president," Vitka said. "Someone like that must not be allowed to be the director of national intelligence, who wields vast power and must lead the intelligence community with nonpartisan integrity and independence from political pressure.
" Vitka added that Democrats serving on congressional intelligence committees need to understand "the clear danger someone like Clayton would pose as Trump’s point man on government surveillance. "One critic noted that Sahrawis "are beaten, arbitrarily arrested, and have their equipment confiscated for trying to make their own films of life under occupation. "over filmmaker Christopher Nolan's decision to shoot the film in the Western Sahara, whose people have suffered Moroccan occupation for over half a century.
"It is deeply disturbing that while Sahrawi journalists are imprisoned for exposing abuses, an international film production can use our homeland as a cinematic backdrop without addressing the reality of the occupation," Sahrawi journalist and filmmaker Mamine Hachimi—which was filmed in the Western Saharan city of Dakhla and opens on Friday—"is not a campaign against cinema or artistic freedom, it is a call for ethical responsibility. ", who is serving a 20-year sentence, are political prisoners simply because they documented human rights violations in occupied Western Sahara," Hachimi said.
Another Sahrawi filmmaker, Mohamedsalem Werad, told MEE that "choosing to film in occupied Western Sahara was not a politically neutral production decision—it meant operating with the permission of the occupying power in a territory where the Sahrawi people have long been denied the opportunity to exercise their right to self-determination.
" "A boycott sends a clear message that filmmakers cannot expect audiences to overlook decisions that risk legitimizing an occupation," he added. "For Morocco, the territories that make up Western Sahara are referred to as the 'southern provinces' and are an indisputable part of the kingdom," Yerkes noted. "But...
Dakhla is part of what is considered the occupied and non-self-governing Western Sahara under existingto the region and currently have no meaningful self-determination, have not consented to the film’s production—and the Moroccan government is reaping the rewards at their expense," she added. , led by the Western Sahara International Film Festival and signed by hundreds of artists, journalists, activists, and other human rights defenders, urging Nolan, Universal Pictures, and producers of the film "to break their silence and cease to be accomplices to Morocco’s 50-year illegal occupation.
" The government of the Sahrawi Arab Democratic Republic, which claims sovereignty over Western Sahara but is not recognized by thewhat it called "an attempt to film a cinematic work in occupied Dakhla, considering it a violation of international legitimacy and the ethics of cultural and artistic work. " Morocco has occupied Western Sahara since 1975, when Spanish forces withdrew from their former colony in the dying days of longtime dictator Francisco Franco's regime.
Moroccan warplanes bombed Sahrawis, many of whom fled into neighboring Algeria as the government under King Hassan II orchestrated a “the Sahrawi people under their rule, severely restricting freedom of expression, movement, association, and the press, and utilizing arbitrary arrest anda 1,700-mile mostly sand wall to keep Algerian-backed Sahrawi militants led by the Polisario Front out of the territory, while denying people inside their occupied homeland a United Nations-backed referendum they’ve been awaiting for decades. Moroccan sovereignty over Western Sahara, essentially in exchange for Morocco’s decision to normalize relations with Israel under the Abraham Accords.
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