Before diving into CNN Commissioner Brendan Carr's thread, here's a bit of broadcasting news that's happening in the U.S.:
George Soros is poised to take a massive stake in the nation’s second-largest radio company, which owns more than 220 stations nationwide, according to court filings and sources close to the situation.
The left-leaning billionaire’s Soros Fund Management has bought up $400 million of debt in Audacy — the No. 2 US radio broadcaster behind iHeartMedia with stations including New York’s WFAN and 1010 WINS, as well as Los Angeles-based KROQ, according to bankruptcy filings.
One insider close to the situation, noting that he was a Republican, said he believed it was possible Soros was buying the stake to exert influence on public opinion in the months leading up to the 2024 presidential election.
The Soros connection provides a fitting lead-in to this next part.
FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has a thread about what broadcasters have been ordered to start doing that starts this way:
The FCC just ordered every broadcaster to start posting a race & gender scorecard that breaks down the demographics of their workforce.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 22, 2024
Activists lobbied for this b/c they want to see businesses pressured into hiring people based on their race & gender.
Courts have already… pic.twitter.com/4Mvb2sLMKj
Carr points out that's not legal, but since when has that ever stopped the Left?
The Civil Rights Act of 1964 requires that the government keep this type of data confidential when it is collected by the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
But the FCC goes another way—one that violates the Constitution, as courts already found in two prior FCC cases.
This is no benign disclosure regime either.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
The evidentiary record makes clear that the FCC has chosen to publish these scorecards for one and only one reason—to ensure that businesses are targeted and pressured into making decisions based on a person’s race and gender.
It's unconstitutional, but, not unlike Biden going forward with student loan "cancellation" even after SCOTUS struck it down, they don't care:
Let’s start with the FCC’s track record of pressuring broadcasters into discriminating on the basis of race and gender in violation of the equal protection guarantees of the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
In Lutheran Church, the court reviewed an earlier FCC effort to use the same scorecard at issue here.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
The court determined that the FCC’s decision in that case to mandate that broadcasters compare their employees with the general population in their area across race and gender…
After that court loss, the FCC went back to the drawing board. But it drew up the same plan — to pressure broadcasters into hiring based on race and gender in violation of the Constitution.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
As with the first set of rules, these second ones made clear that if a broadcaster’s…
The FCC's history of unconstitutional conduct is not a trivial matter.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
The Supreme Court has stated that “[d]istinctions between citizens solely because of their ancestry are by their very nature odious to a free people whose institutions are founded upon the doctrine of…
The FCC takes an ostrich-like approach to this third go around with rules that pressure broadcasters.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
The FCC simply asserts that “we find no basis to conclude that the demographic data on a station’s annual Form 395-B filing would lead to undue public pressure.”
No evidence?
The record is overflowing with it.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
For instance, one filer states:
“We, the undersigned investors, with collective assets under management or advisement of approximately $266 billion, write to urge the . . . [FCC] to require the disclosure of equal opportunity employment…
It is obvious to everyone what is going on here—or it should be.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
By requiring the public disclosure of these race & gender scorecards, the FCC is ensuring that broadcasters will be targeted—and pressured—by activist groups, media campaigns, & predictably the government itself.
As if the government wasn't giving enough help from prog activist groups to censor social media, they're now trying to force broadcasters to do the Left's bidding.
Indeed the only justifications the FCC offers for publicly posting these scorecards are what we would call pure pretext in the discrimination context.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
First, the FCC claims that it is publishing these scorecards to “increase the likelihood that erroneous data will be discovered and corrected.”
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
But that makes no sense. How exactly does the FCC anticipate that a member of the public will verify the reported race, ethnicity,…
For another, the FCC argues that it is publicly disclosing this demographic data to eliminate the risk that it might leak out accidentally one day.
— Brendan Carr (@BrendanCarrFCC) February 23, 2024
What?
That is like deciding to scuttle a ship to avoid the risk that it might spring a leak someday.
Just... wow.
This is absolutely nuts. https://t.co/5KzrhKAnsX
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) February 23, 2024
"Absolutely nuts" perfectly sums up what's happened these last three-plus years.
This is like Google’s Gemini but manifested at a federal agency. https://t.co/ETtQiBIJGY
— Nathan Leamer (@NathanLeamerDC) February 22, 2024
Scary stuff happening.
This is a violation of the civil rights act. https://t.co/27fzpmB3pf
— Dan Hollaway (@DanHollaway) February 23, 2024
Isn't it great to have the "respect for the rule of law" people back in charge?
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Related:
The FCC tries to resurrect Net Neutrality; Drew Holden has the receipts.
Former FCC chair reminds us it's been almost 6 years since we all died from net neutrality repeal
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