The facts
A lawyer for ABC asked a federal judge on Tuesday to prevent the Trump administration from conducting an unusual, early review of its broadcast licenses. The lawyer likened the action to a looming execution by guillotine, stating it was chilling the network's editorial decisions weeks before the U.S. midterm elections. U.S. District Judge Loren AliKhan did not immediately rule on ABC's request for a preliminary injunction. ABC argued the review by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) was unconstitutional, a violation of free speech, and retaliation for content President Donald Trump dislikes. A government attorney argued the court lacks jurisdiction over the case, stating it belongs in a different venue. The government also challenged ABC's First Amendment arguments and said the network failed to show it suffered irreparable harm. ABC and its parent company, Disney, sued the FCC and FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr in August after the commission ordered eight ABC-owned stations to submit renewal applications for their broadcast licenses years ahead of schedule. ABC attorney Beth Wilkinson stated the renewal process was having a chilling effect, forcing the network to watch everything that we do. Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel, a Department of Justice attorney, rejected the guillotine analogy and argued that ABC had not established a likelihood of success on the merits or irreparable harm. A ruling was not expected until at least mid-October.
Our take
ABC’s lawyers went to court to beg a judge to stop the Trump administration from using the FCC as its personal content-bashing meat grinder, and the whole fucking hearing was a masterclass in bureaucratic sadism. The network’s attorney, Beth Wilkinson, actually had to stand there and compare an early license review to a guillotine blade hanging over their neck. Not a metaphor you pull out for a friendly audit. It means your client is so scared of Trump’s pet regulators they’re ‘watching everything that we do,’ which in news-speak translates to ‘we’re bending over for the orange bastard so he doesn’t revoke our right to exist.’
The government’s counter-argument, delivered by some DOJ dickhead named Dimitar Georgiev-Remmel, was essentially ‘nah, it’s cool, it’s just some paperwork.’ He actually had the balls to reject the guillotine analogy. Of course he did. To a government lawyer, a guillotine is just an inefficient, French-themed paper cutter. The sheer, weaponized boredom of arguing ‘jurisdiction’ while a network gets politically waterboarded is the kind of shit that makes you want to piss on a copy of the Federal Register.
Let’s be clear: the FCC, under Trump’s cowardly flunkies like Commissioner Brendan Carr, decided to yank eight ABC stations in for ‘early renewal’ like a teacher making the smart kid stay after class for being a know-it-all. The unspoken threat is ‘be nicer to the president or you lose your license.’ It’s retaliation dressed up as procedure, a hall monitor’s power trip funded by your tax dollars. The fact that the judge didn’t immediately tell the FCC to go fuck itself means ABC has to sweat it out for weeks, which is exactly the chilling effect they’re bitching about. Mission accomplished, you petty, thin-skinned cunts.
So now we wait for a ruling, sometime after mid-October. In the meantime, ABC will keep ‘watching everything,’ which is news-executive code for ‘the sycophancy will continue until morale improves.’ The whole spectacle is a perfect snapshot of this administration: a vindictive toddler with the levers of state power, his lawyers dutifully arguing that the boot on your neck is just a therapeutic foot massage, and everyone else forced to pretend this is normal. It’s not a guillotine. It’s just the slow, bloodless death of principle, one legal filing at a time.
