But I don't for a second believe that the Democratic Party would cooperate with "their" person being impeached now either, except if it was politically advantageous for them (for instance, to remove an unpopular Democrat for an embarrassing misstep when there was a popular VP ready to go). No way would they impeach for crimes of overstepping presidential authority to do something the President from The West Wing would be proud of, for instance.
If he did the thing you ask, he would just be 'grandstanding' on something he has no vote to bring forward, which your statement would appear to damn him for.
>"supports impeachment and conviction"
As it stands now, Rand has no vote on any impeachment conviction and no ability to bring one, so I don't see the point in asterisking on the "and conviction" as it doesn't change the situation beyond shoehorning a connived reason in to blame Rand for not making a public statement on the non-existent impeachment.
But a Project 2025 co-author felt he wanted to illegally use his position in government to silence those who he disagreed with.
I don't understand what you're taking from this, and I'm guessing you didn't read it.
There’s also more than two sides to an issue.
The supposed fairness doctrine was utter nonsense for many many reasons.
When everyone is given a loudspeaker, and the power to create an audience of millions; when "journalism" is equivalent to any random opinion; when anyone with the will and a negligible amount of resources can promote their agenda... No amount of oversight can bring back balanced discussion about actual facts. Reversing a post-truth society cannot happen without radical disruptions to the system that got us here in the first place.
Whatever you think it did, it almost certainly did not do that. In practice it meant that J. Random Crazypants would be allowed to give an editorial -- sometimes in the middle of the night, and sometimes as 60 second after the news. Additionally the Doctrine never applied to Cable TV for obvious First Amendment reasons.
Source: https://www.fcc.gov/sites/default/files/the_fcc_and_freedom_...
"Last Reviewed: 12/30/19" (Trump's first term)
As I said, the FCC is allowed to enforce a certain morality. It seems clear that the morality being enforced would fall in line with the ruling power of the day.
What part of that sentence qualifies as either indecent or profane?
Please quote Jimmy to clear up what you think the lie was.
Jimmy Kimmel said that Charlie Kirk was killed by someone with the same political views as Charlie.
That is the lie.
Trump has been trying to get Kimmel removed for a while for making fun of him. This was just an opportunity.
The thing about the FCC threatening Kimmel for this speech, is that someone needs to identify what was problematic about the speech other than "I didn't like that he said it." I would love for someone to explain to me what the problematic part of the statement was, because I think then we could have a more substantive discussion. As is, this is pretty clearly a 1st amendment violation by the FCC chair as his statements demonstrably chilled speech (it's hard to get much clearer an example than this legally).
https://www.fcc.gov/consumers/guides/obscene-indecent-and-pr...
Kimmel's performance was clearly not obscene or indecent - it did not depict or describe sexual conduct or excretory organs - and it aired after 10 PM, so whether it was profane is irrelevant.
>As I said, the FCC is allowed to enforce a certain morality. It seems clear that the morality being enforced would fall in line with the ruling power of the day.
I also assert that the morality being enforced by the FCC [in a given time period] will fall in line with the morality of the rulers of [that time period]. That is a descriptive statement.
Which part am I wrong about?
> The FCC is allowed to enforce a certain morality.
As I said previously, the FCC is bound by the First Amendment. They do not have the power to restrict speech, whether on grounds of "morality" or otherwise.
Obscenity is not considered speech as far as 1A is concerned, so the FCC is able to ban it. I disagree with this categorization, but it is what it is.
Olive Garden isn't given access to something it requires to operate at the pleasure of the government. Broadcast TV on the other hand...
All of broadcast TV is allowed because the government says it is. ABC/CBS/NBC/FOX don't own the radio spectrum they are operating on, the government does and they grant the right to use it to those companies. There's a long list of things that the government requires them to do in order to keep this pleasure. One of them used to be the Saturday morning cartoons. I miss those.
A list of words you can't say is about morality; it's a drag but at least it's objective. You either said the word or you didn't.
This is far more subjective.
Why do California and Mississippi have to follow the same standards?
So the justification for federal intervention (interstate commerce) is there.
Of course, that doesn't prevent the feds from letting the states handle it, but it does create an incentive for some states to want the feds to handle it.
I think the New England states could manage this together fine.
I agree, the constitution grants the authority to the federal government to. But more and more, I think we should just let the states deal with as much as possible. It seems pretty clear we are far from a national consensus on many basic issues, and the constant winner take all grab for power is making things worse.
As a separate matter, it's long been clear the FCC was created to serve a very time, context and needs - most of which either no longer exist or have changed substantially. Most media no longer travels through the limited shared resource of "airwaves". The agency's whole charter is in need of a major rethink.
Your next point about the FCC needing a major rethink is interesting. What are you thinking here? FCC also regulates internet-based communications (e.g. Youtube or podcasts)?
[1] https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2025/09/22/j...
> Following a suspension of the show for host Jimmy Kimmel's comments about the death of Charlie Kirk, Disney says "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" will return to air on Tuesday, Sept 23.
Edit: apparently HN readers are unaware that there's a viral belief going around that the Rapture is happening between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week.
While it's certainly being talked about a lot on TikTok, but I'm not sure how many people are posting there about how they really think it's going to happen. Last I looked a couple of days ago it looked like a few dozen accounts at most were posting original content about it, but there were tons of people making content satirizing it.
In general I think "trends" on TikTok get treated as though they're far more widespread than similar phenomena on other platforms, like Twitter.
To be honest I don't understand how you can miss that. People like Kimmel and O'Brien and Hannity and Maher and all the others are really of no interest outside of the US borders while people like Kirk and Shapiro and Friedman and Lindsay (just to name a few) have worldwide reach.
We don't need no cable TV
We don't need no thought control
No propaganda on the TV (or PC or mobile, they all fit, take your pick)
Media leave your shit at home
Hey, media, leave your shit at home
All in all you're just another brick that will fall
All in all you're just another brick that will fall
So the current exclusive use of radio frequencies is very much an artifact of government intervention.
SilverElfin•4mo ago
There is also some allowance for the FCC to regulate content under some circumstances, and it has been upheld as constitutional previously. Brendan Carr, the FCC chair, rejected doing anything about online content because it would be unconstitutional.
In spirit I don’t think government or large companies should be moderating or censoring speech. But Rand Paul should be focusing on the precedence of FCC being able to regulate things like “obscenity”.
eesmith•4mo ago
Did FCC chair Carr use the threat of regulatory power to intervene in internal business at ABC? Getting ABC to obey in advance sure seems like the implied "easy way."
Both fit the first definition of "intervene" at https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/intervene - "To become involved in a situation, so as to alter or prevent an action"
willmarch•4mo ago
stretchwithme•4mo ago
You have freedom of the press, when you own a press. But the spectrum is not owned by the licensees. There are rules. Limits.
I am not for government owning the spectrum. But that's the current situation.
willmarch•4mo ago
Sparkle-san•4mo ago
legitster•4mo ago
The FCC chair's statement was a bit of an indirect threat ("Pity if someone looked into your affiliates licenses"). But the timing makes it clear they were at least aware of and complicit in the backroom dealings that led to the show being taken off the air.
potato3732842•4mo ago
tw04•4mo ago
Under any normally functioning government, the head of the FCC would never threaten a television station because it's both an obvious violation of the first amendment, and under literally any other administration would have resulted in immediate dismissal.
bmelton•4mo ago
In 1963 the FCC passed the Cullman Doctrine, which was an attempt to double-down on those efforts by bankrupting those who literally couldn't afford to cover equal time
Nixon used the FCC to threaten the Washington Post with licensure revocation in an attempt to get them to squash coverage of Watergate
Presidents on both sides of recent history have used the might of the government to demand abject censorship on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
The prior sitting president attempted to establish a ministry of truth, slated as a new entity intended to reside within the department of homeland security so as to supercharge those efforts, and appointed Nina "I believe I should be allowed to edit other people's tweets" Jankowicz to executive director
None of these are healthy, but the idea that Carr's actions are somehow the result of the modern Supreme Court's actions requires us to ignore all of American history before Trump's second election
AnimalMuppet•4mo ago
Wait, what? The Washington Post is a newspaper. Are they licensed by the FCC in any way?
bmelton•4mo ago
One of the stations (WPLG) still operates in Florida, and is (IIRC) an ABC affiliate
tw04•4mo ago
>Later in 1963, Henry issued a new legal requirement, the Cullman Doctrine, which stipulated that radio stations that aired paid personal attacks had to give the targets free response airtime.
So to be clear - you think the head of the FCC publicly threatening to revoke a stations license if they don't fire a COMEDIAN they don't like, is the same as the fairness doctrine requiring a station to give free airtime for politicans to respond to baseless political attacks if they are paid for those attacks?
>Nixon used the FCC to threaten the Washington Post with licensure revocation in an attempt to get them to squash coverage of Watergate
And Nixon was impeached...
>Presidents on both sides of recent history have used the might of the government to demand abject censorship on Facebook, Twitter, and other social media platforms.
Facebook and Twitter were caught taking money from nation states to spread lies to cause political strife while hiding the source of both who was spreading the message and who was paying for it. Excuse me if I'm not concerned the government is telling them to stop. While our laws are not directly written to address the issue, they are toeing the line of treason and trying to use Free Speech as an excuse for doing so. Let me guess: you also think it's wrong RT was labeled a foreign actor?
>The prior sitting president attempted to establish a ministry of truth, slated as a new entity intended to reside within the department of homeland security so as to supercharge those efforts, and appointed Nina "I believe I should be allowed to edit other people's tweets" Jankowicz to executive director
Ahh, there we have it. Russian influence on US politics isn't an issue as long as they're supporting your side. The "ministry of truth" is a department appointed with policing and attempting to prevent China and Russia from meddling in our elections. Let me guess: the government is suppressing China and Russia's constitutionally protected first amendment rights?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disinformation_Governance_Boar...
>None of these are healthy, but the idea that Carr's actions are somehow the result of the modern Supreme Court's actions requires us to ignore all of American history before Trump's second election
It really doesn't, nothing you cited resulted in a lawsuit that landed at the Supreme Court who promptly ignored all precedent to side with the President. Which is exactly what this one has done, and there are people discussing whether or not they think the current Supreme Court would actually side with the constitution or decide there's some reason it's OK for the President to ignore the constitution entirely. The fact you're bending in circles to try to act like the current situation is just more of the same is baffling.
bmelton•4mo ago
I think that a government representative abusing their perceived power to coerce private entities to quell free speech is equivalent to another government representative abusing their perceived power to coerce private entities to quelling free speech, yes.
> Let me guess: you also think it's wrong RT was labeled a foreign actor?
I think it has nothing to do with my argument
> Russian influence on US politics isn't an issue as long as they're supporting your side
Russian influence on US politics is a wide non-sequitur from the subject
> nothing you cited resulted in a lawsuit that landed at the Supreme Court who promptly ignored all precedent to side with the President
Neither has anything you cited. Neither is Carr the President. /shrug
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