August 11, 2026
One of the big negatives in the country today is that many members of some important professions have put their integrity in a drawer in their basement or attic, and replaced it with political motivation. This is especially harmful when those professionals are lawyers and judges, education administrators and teachers, and people working in news media and social media.
Where news is concerned, the heaviest distribution of these folks is on the left side of the political aisle. Liberal/socialist-leaning media are busy controlling what they air, print and post, happily and energetically pouring forth their preferred perspectives, and just as happily and energetically blocking opposing material.
Trying to find a balanced news outlet is not as easy as it used to be. And that can, and does, have an effect on how people think about things. When you only get one set of ideas of the many actually available, you are not able to make independent judgements, you are being controlled.
One small effort to impose some limit on how much control any entity or group of entities could gain over the populace occurred two decades ago.
Congress passed the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2004, placing a 39 percent cap on how much broadcast television ownership a company may have. That’s a pretty large number, allowing one owner to have more than one-third of all of the broadcast television stations. A tiny limit, but it is a limit.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) recently voted to eliminate that cap, undoubtedly thrilling the broadcast industry, as it swung open the door to more consolidation of TV station ownership.
Large television station companies have been urging this change since day one, and new FCC Chairman, Brendan Carr, has argued for the change, saying traditional broadcasting entities are unfairly regulated, while tech companies and streaming companies are not.
The TV people also say that restricting these purchases puts TV stations at risk of closure, due to the evolving technology of communications, which favors new media over traditional media.
Critics, however, counter that point, saying that television remains a unique market. With the decline in newspapers that has occurred, local TV stations are depended upon more and more for local news. Therefore, they should continue to be independent, and not become controlled by a few large companies.
The 2-to-1 FCC vote featured the Republican Carr, and Commissioner Olivia Trusty voting for the change, and Democrat Commissioner Anna Gomez opposing it.
The FCC position is that decisions by a company to purchase additional broadcast stations will be judged on a case-by-case basis, rather than through a blanket ceiling on total ownership. This is a much less likely way to restrict too much ownership.
Opponents of the FCC decision immediately responded, asking if an independent federal agency has the authority to eliminate a limit imposed by a federal law. They maintain that Congress must decide any changes to a federal law. This issue will undoubtedly go before a federal court.
But the government and the people must keep their eyes on situations where some individual or company, or group of individuals or companies quietly gain a high degree of control over an important aspect of our lives.
Here is another similar example: Three investment companies — BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street Global Advisors — control about 74 percent of the ETF (exchange traded funds) equity market, and that equates to being the largest shareholder in roughly 88 percent of S&P 500 companies.
Those three firms have enough voting power to influence how those companies operate. Is it a good situation when three firms have this much control over that many companies in America?
The term “diversity” has become a frequently used term recently. However, the United States has always had a fairly diverse atmosphere. Many options exist in nearly any subject you can name. Food, entertainment, jobs, clothing, vehicles, political ideas, areas of study, etc.
You won’t find that diversity in authoritarian nations, which are often communist or socialist. In those nations, you get what the government says you can have, and nothing more.
We should fight movements that limit our choices, whether that involves three companies that might one day pretty much decide what products we can buy, due to their high level of control over those large and important companies. Or having only a few media organizations that decide which of the many important ideas we will be able to access, and how much news we will accurately hear about.
In addition to the insane changes to the government they think are smart, the heavily anti-American agenda of the left — particularly the even-more-radical Democratic Socialists of America, which wants no police, no prisons, no U.S. Senate, no Supreme Court, no Electoral College, no ICE, to give amnesty to all illegals, to take over important industries, and more — lean heavily towards a government with little diversity, and an environment where nearly everything allowed in the land will be what is approved by, and imposed by government.
Our constitutional republic is under attack by enemies from both inside and outside the country. We must defeat them decisively and quickly.
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