The Dictatorship

What Brendan Carr’s media threats are really about

Published

4 weeks ago

March 17, 2026

Mar. 16, 2026, 6:27 PM EDT

Brendan Carr, the Federal Communications Commission chair appointed by President Donald Trump, has threatened to take away TV licenses over news coverage he doesn’t like. Legally, he can’t do that.

But in the age of Trump, a threat can sometimes be as effective as the law — which is probably why Carr keeps jawboning media owners and reporters with statements unlikely to hold up under legal challenge.

In a presidency known for flouting norms, this is yet another way the Trump administration exercises power.

The most recent incident occurred on Saturday. Reacting to Iran conflict coverage, Carr warned broadcasters that airing “hoaxes and news distortions” could lead to the loss of their federally granted licenses. Broadcasters are at risk, Carr posted on X, if they don’t “correct course before their license renewals come up.”

Carr wasn’t overly specific, but he didn’t have to be. As FCC chair, Carr has issued several warnings that echo his patron’s complaints about the three legacy broadcast TV networks: ABC, CBS and NBC. (The FCC grants licenses to individual broadcast stations, not national broadcast networks; cable networks such as MS NOW or BLN and streaming services including Netflix aren’t licensed at all.)

Indeed, Carr’s Saturday post quoted Trump’s own social media complaint that some news reports about the military action he initiated against Iran were “intentionally misleading.” Trump endorsed Carr’s threats Sunday in another Truth Social rantthis one suggesting that media outlets that report inaccurately during wartime should be tried for treason — a crime punishable by death.

Carr’s fist-shaking at broadcasters generates headlines and alarm, but it’s notable that his threats have resulted in exactly zero license-revocation hearings to date. Carr, an experienced telecommunications lawyer, surely knows that taking away any station’s license would involve a yearslong legal battle — one that he’d be highly likely to lose once the FCC’s decision were subject to independent judicial review.

That’s because broadcasters have broad free-speech protections that prohibit the government from penalizing them for what they put on the air. “The FCC can issue threats all day long, but it is powerless to carry them out,” Anna Gomezthe FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, posted Sunday on X. “Such threats violate the First Amendment and will go nowhere.”

The FCC can issue threats all day long, but it is powerless to carry them out. Such threats violate the First Amendment and will go nowhere.

Broadcasters should continue covering the news, fiercely and independently, without fear of government pressure.

— Anna M. Gomez (@AGomezFCC)”https://twitter.com/AGomezFCC/status/2033216662498103531?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>March 15, 2026

In its nearly 100-year history, the FCC has rarely gone after a license. Typically, the commission acts only in instances in which a station owner has been convicted of a felony or has repeatedly lied to the agency, according to Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a veteran media attorney. Not once has the FCC sought its highest penalty for a station that, as Carr put it, “distorts” the news.

Contrary to what Trump and Carr suggest, the agency can’t penalize a broadcaster for merely reporting inaccurately or holding an opinion the president and FCC chair dislike. To meet the FCC’s own standard of distortion, the agency must find that a station deliberately tried to trick viewers or listeners by, say, re-enacting a drug bust and presenting it as the real thing or using “file” footage as if it were part of a breaking news story. The FCC has cited stations only eight times over the past 50 years, mostly in the 1970s and 1980s.

Still, Carr’s devotion to Trump’s media bashing produces results. After late-night host Jimmy Kimmel commented on the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk in September, enraging conservatives, Carr threatened ABC’s station licenses. Here, too, the threat was legally dubious, but ABC’s parent, The Walt Disney Company, took Kimmel’s show off the air for a few days after local affiliates said they would preempt the show themselves.

The backdrop to all this is another action Carr took shortly after taking office. In January 2025, Carr revived a previously dismissed complaint alleging news distortion by CBS News over a “60 Minutes” interview with Kamala Harris in 2024 — one that was already the subject of a lawsuit filed by Trump. The investigation effectively tied up the FCC’s approval of an $8 billion proposed merger between Skydance Media and CBS’ parent company, Paramount. To remove the regulatory roadblock, Paramount settled Trump’s lawsuit by paying him $16 million and making other commitments, such as installing an ombudsman to review CBS News’ reporting. Once the suit was settled, the FCC approved the Skydance-Paramount merger.

If Carr thought he had the law on his side, presumably he’d initiate proceedings and face whatever challenges arise in court. But he has a short cut to his and the president’s preferred outcome.

Even the prospect of regulatory trouble can lead to preemptive and conciliatory action. In December 2024, Disney agreed to pay $16 million to settle Trump’s lawsuit against Disney-owned ABC News and anchor George Stephanopoulos, a move widely read as a decision not to challenge the power of the incoming president and risk an uncertain fate at an FCC headed by a key Trump ally.

Carr has also publicly accused Comcastthe parent company of NBC News and former parent of MS NOW — both a frequent target of Trump bashing — of news distortion in reporting its outlets did about Kilmar Abrego Garciathe Maryland immigrant wrongfully deported last year by the Trump administration.

Carr’s weaponization of news distortion prompted a bipartisan group of former FCC officials to petition the agency last year to repeal the policy. So far, the agency hasn’t acted on the petition.

The FCC licenses hundreds of radio stations, including those that broadcast conservative talk radio programs, most of them routinely supportive of the Trump administration. There’s no record of Carr second-guessing anything these stations have broadcast. Nor has he questioned the reporting of local TV stations owned by Sinclair Inc. and Nexstar Media Group, the two companies that temporarily declined to air Kimmel’s late-night program after Carr’s criticism. Nexstar is seeking the FCC’s approval to buy a rival station owner, Tegna Inc., for $6.2 billionin a major consolidation of the business.

If Carr thought he had the law on his side, presumably he’d initiate proceedings and face whatever challenges arise in court. But he has a shortcut to his and the president’s preferred outcome: He’s put the bully in the bully pulpit.

Paul Farhi is a former media reporter for The Washington Post, where he was a staff writer for more than 35 years. He writes about the media industry for The Atlantic, The Daily Beast and Columbia Journalism Review, among other outlets.

The Dictatorship

Newly created Polymarket accounts bet big on US-Iran ceasefire in hours before Trump’s announcement

Published

20 hours ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Newly created Polymarket accounts bet big on US-Iran ceasefire in hours before Trump’s announcement

NEW YORK (AP) — A group of new accounts on the prediction market Polymarket made highly specific, well-timed bets on whether the U.S. and Iran would reach a ceasefire on April 7, resulting in hundreds of thousands of dollars in profits for these new customers.

These bets were made even though, in the hours before a two-week ceasefire was announced on Tuesday, President Donald Trump’s rhetoric had escalated sharply and there were few signals that a ceasefire deal was imminent. Early in the day Trump had issued a warning on social media that “a whole civilization will die tonight” if Iran did not meet his demand to open the Strait of Hormuz by his 8 p.m. ET deadline.

An analysis of publicly available blockchain data from Polymarket, using the crypto analytics platform Dune, shows that at least 50 accounts, or wallets, placed substantial “Yes” bets Tuesday before Trump announced the ceasefire in a Truth Social post at around 6:30 pm ET. These were the first bets made by these particular wallets.

One of these wallets, created Tuesday around 10 am ET, placed roughly $72,000 in bets at an average price of 8.8 cents. The buy-in for each betting event ranges from $0 to $1 each, reflecting a 0% to 100% chance of what users think could happen. This Polymarket user then cashed out for a profit of $200,000.

Another, which joined the platform on April 6 and traded on this exact event, shows a win of $125,500.

Another wallet, created 12 minutes before Trump’s post, made $31,908 of “Yes” bets at 33.7 cents, and is estimated to have earned a profit of $48,500. The higher price for “Yes” at that time may have reflected the efforts late Tuesday by the government of Pakistan to get Trump to extend his deadline by two weeks.

There is also the possibility that these individual Polymarket users placed their bets expecting Trump to back down, given his habit during his second term to make bold threats only to retreat — a phenomenon his critics have derided as “Trump Always Chickens Out,” or TACO.

While some users took handsome profits, others must wait for payouts because Polymarket has labeled the April 7 Iran-U.S. ceasefire contract as “disputed,” given that Iran was still placing restrictions on ships passing through the Strait of Hormuz and missile attacks in the region continued. That dispute could take 48 hours to resolve.

Public blockchain data cannot identify who controls the new wallets. Polymarket uses proxy smart contract wallets, meaning a single user can create multiple accounts. Only Polymarket has the internal data needed to determine whether these were new users or existing users opening additional accounts.

Polymarket did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Blake Moore, R-Utah, who has introduced legislation to regulate prediction markets, released a statement Wednesday saying: “It’s highly unlikely that these are good-faith trades; it’s much more likely that these are insiders with access to information ahead of the public. Without some kind of restrictions, there is nothing stopping government or military officials from profiting from their positions.”

The trading pattern of newly created Polymarket accounts placing strategic, well-timed bets mirrors earlier episodes on the platform. Newly created accounts placed large wagers hours before the January capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, and made hundreds of thousands of dollars in profit. Similar clusters of accounts have also repeatedly profited from well-timed bets on military actions involving Iran.

Such bets have repeatedly raised questions from the public as well as members of Congress about whether some traders are using inside information to profit in these prediction markets. Bipartisan groups of senators as well as representatives have introduced legislation that would broaden the definition of insider trading to include prediction markets.

Even the two biggest platforms in the industry, Kalshi and Polymarket, have said they see a need to broaden the definition of insider trading on their platforms.

“This is why these markets need regulation,” said Todd Philips, a professor at Georgia State University who has written on prediction markets and the industry’s regulations. “We can’t have people trading with inside information and expect other traders are going to be OK being in these markets.”

_____

Keller reported from Albuquerque, N.M.

The Dictatorship

Trump administration looks to sanitize George Washington’s slavery history

Published

1 day ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump administration looks to sanitize George Washington’s slavery history

Apr. 9, 2026, 5:39 PM EDT

The Trump administration’s fragile white ego is in focus yet again thanks to newly proposed changes for an exhibit in Philadelphia centered on George Washington and slavery.

The administration is being sued by the city over its efforts to whitewash Washington’s history of slave ownership from the President’s House Site, the nation’s first official presidential residence. The push has been put on hold by a judge who compared it to the censorship depicted in George Orwell’s book “1984.”

The attempted alteration of the exhibit came after a Trump executive order demanded a review of national parks and museums to bar any displays that “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living.” Last year, Trump also lobbed a puerile complaint that Smithsonian musuems focus too much on “how bad” slavery was.

And all that kvetching provides context for the changes that Trump’s administration is seeking to impose at the President’s House Site — alterations that The Philadelphia Inquirer said places the first president’s slave ownership “in a more sympathetic light.”

The Inquirer flagged government renderings showing plans for new historical panels to be installed at the site, and it seems clear that the administration’s goal is to make Washington out to be a loving patriot or conscientious objector to slavery, rather than a racist slave driver.

First, note what the Inquirer said has been removed:

The panels taken down by the Park Service in January included displays titled ‘The Dirty Business of Slavery’ and ‘Life Under Slavery,’ as well as illustrations about the Fugitive Slave Act and Ona Judge, who was enslaved by Washington and later escaped.

So the administration wants to omit detailed references to Washington’s slavery history — which Black activists fought for years to include — while also promoting a whitewashed narrative that he was a fundamentally moral man despite the whole “claiming dominion over other human beings” thing. Per the Inquirer:

For instance, on one panel titled ‘Presidents Washington and Adams on Slavery,’ the Trump administration writes that ‘Caught between his private doubts about slavery and his public responsibilities as president, George Washington navigated a nation deeply divided over slavery.’

‘Privately, George Washington often expressed discomfort with the institution and a desire to see it abolished,’ the panel continued. ‘Yet as a Virginia plantation owner, his wealth and livelihood were deeply tied to it.’

And another example:

And later in the same panel: ‘Slaves living in the President’s House experienced a greater modicum of autonomy than elsewhere in the South such as to explore the city and sometimes even attend the theater, with Washington buying the tickets.’

When a censorship regime like Trump’s sees fit to tout a slave owner’s generosity — and the “greater modicum of autonomy” he purportedly granted to those he subjected to brutal bondage and forced labor — it leaves little doubt that the fundamental goal is to sanitize history, rather than teach it thoroughly.

A White House spokesperson told the Inquirer that the administration wants to acknowledge “the full breadth of our nation’s history” and that “no piece of history should be washed away.”

But “whitewashing” truly is the most apt descriptor for a plan that includes touting George Washington as some kind of selfless, principled gift-giver while brushing past, or deliberately omitting, details about his well-documented — and extremely lucrative — history of enslaving human beings.

Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.

The Dictatorship

Thursday’s Mini-Report, 4.9.26

Published

1 day ago

April 10, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Today’s edition of quick hits.

* Crisis conditions in Lebanon: “Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel vowed on Thursday to continue striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, hours after he appeared to make a concession by saying his country would start talks with the Lebanese government about trying to disarm the Iran-backed paramilitary group.”

* In related news: “More than 80 countries — which did not include the U.S. — condemned Israel’s lethal strikes on Lebanon. … Several international leaders have condemned Israel’s intensified strikes on Lebanon, which killed more than 300 people yesterday alone, according to The Associated Press, citing the country’s health ministry.”

* This wasn’t a problem before the war: “Ayatollah Mojtaba Khamenei vowed today to tighten control over the Strait of Hormuz and claimed victory in the ongoing war between his country and Israel and the U.S. ‘We will definitely take the management of the Strait of Hormuz to a new phase,’ Khamenei said in a series of posts on X.”

* Inflation news: “Core inflation held above the Federal Reserve’s target before the recent surge in energy prices, according to a key gauge released Thursday that offers the central bank a snapshot of conditions leading into the Iran war. The core personal consumption expenditures price index, which excludes food and energy, rose a seasonally adjusted 3% in February, the Commerce Department reported. The all-items headline inflation measure increased 2.8%.”

* The good news is, the vaccine saves lives; the bad news is, the Trump administration doesn’t want us to know that: “The acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has delayed publication of a CDC report showing the covid-19 vaccine cut the likelihood of emergency department visits and hospitalizations for healthy adults last winter by about half, according to two scientists familiar with the decision.”

* Even for this White House, her remarks were weird: “First lady Melania Trump denied any ties to convicted sex offenders Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell on Thursday. … ‘The lies linking me with the disgraceful Jeffrey Epstein need to end today,’ the first lady began in remarks delivered from the White House. … It was not clear who or which statements or reporting she was referring to.”

* On a related note, Donald Trump told MS NOW that he didn’t know about his wife’s press statement.

* Trump’s animosity toward the NFL has reached a new stage: “The Justice Department has opened an investigation into whether the National Football League has engaged in anticompetitive tactics that harm consumers, according to people familiar with the situation.”

See you tomorrow.

Steve Benen is a producer for “The Rachel Maddow Show,” the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He’s also the bestselling author of “Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans’ War on the Recent Past.”