The Last Bubble Rises - Release the Epstein Files! (@lastbubblerises.bsky.social)

Open-Air Extortion Markets FCC Chairman Brendan Carr, photographed in 2022 during a congressional hearing. (Photo by Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) 1. The Hard Way What would have happened if Brendan Carr had threatened ABC/Disney in private instead of on a podcast? Or, to put it another way, are we lucky that the Trump administration carried out unconstitutional extortion in public? This is an interesting question because it elucidates how power works, how much power Donald Trump currently possesses, and how he may wield it next. Let’s game out the counterfactual: What would have happened if Brendan Carr had simply called Perry Sook, the CEO of Nexstar, and told him that if the company’s affiliates did not refuse to air Jimmy Kimmel’s show, then approval for the Nexstar-Tegna merger would go “the hard way”? And what if Carr then called Bob Iger, the CEO of Disney, and told him that local affiliates were bailing and that if Kimmel’s show wasn’t pulled off the air, then ABC’s FCC licenses would be re-examined “the hard way”? Then last week would have gone something like this: Read more https://www.thebulwark.com/p/open-air-extortion-markets-brendan-carr-trump-fcc-kimmel