Republicans Furious That AT&T Is Cancel Culturing Newsmax, A Vital And Profitable News Source

Give me Greg Kelly, or give me death!

If we don't get to watch Newsmax loon Eric Bolling beat up Kermit the Frog as part of our basic cable package, then the terrorists win! This appears to be the position of 42 Republican Members of Congress. And yes, it's exactly the ones you think it is.

As first reported by the Washington Examiner (which is charging a subscription now? LOL!), freshman Rep. Wesley Hunt is leading the charge. In a letter to the CEOs of DirecTV, its parent company AT&T, and private equity firm TPG, Inc., he and his goons mention several wingnut conspiracy theories about media colluding with the government to censor conservatives, as well as DirecTV's decision not to renew its distribution deal with the One America Network:

Taken together, these two actions lead us to believe that DIRECTV, one of the nation's largest Multichannel Video Programming Distributors, is actively working to limit conservative viewpoints on its system. This is extremely concerning for Members of Congress because it suppresses political discourse and hamstrings our ability to connect with our constituents. If Newsmax is removed from DIRECTV, in less than a year House Republicans will have lost two of the three cable news channels that reach conservative voters on a platform that primarily serves conservative-leaning areas of the country.

Here on Planet Earth, conservatives aren't entitled to use a private company to distribute their message. That's kind of the whole point of the First Amendment, not to mention the free market conservatives claim to worship. And for its part, AT&T says that it was a business decision. It didn't want to pay what Newsmax demanded to carry its programming. And anyway, you can get that shit off the internet for free, if you're the kind of person who likes to drink brain Drano.

"We’ve discussed with Newsmax on several occasions that we’d like to offer their programming, however, the network is now seeking significant fees that we cannot pass on to our broad customer base," a DirecTV spokesman told the Examiner . "Additionally, the same programming offered by Newsmax today is already available at no charge to 100% of U.S. households including our customers via NewsmaxTV.com, YouTube.com and on multiple streaming platforms like Amazon Fire TV, Roku and Google Play.”

But Hunt and his team of dingbats are sure there's a more nefarious explanation. See, two years ago, in the fallout from the attempted coup by Trump supporters who'd been fed a steady diet of lies about a stolen election by their preferred media outlets, Democratic Reps. Anna Eshoo and Jerry McNerney wrote a letter to the head of AT&T asking him if the company planned to do anything about the dangerous lies coming out of OAN, Fox, and Newsmax. And Hunt is sure that this is the real reason Newsmax is being cancel cultured today.

"Given the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee over your companies' business interests, it is reasonable to assume you took this letter seriously and complied with these demands," he wrote yesterday.

In point of fact, it is not reasonable. We're all still subsidizing Rupert Murdoch's chaos machine, with Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity piped into our homes whether we like it or not, so clearly the companies have not "complied." And anyway, Eshoo and McNerney's demanded information and answers, not "censorship."

But Hunt is confused about a lot of things, including the First Amendment.

"Congress intends to conduct extensive oversight on the extent to which House Democrats and officials in federal offices colluded with private companies to limit, restrict, and circumvent First Amendment rights," he huffs, promising that "These investigations will not be limited to social media companies" and demanding ratings information from Fox, OAN, and Newsmax, as well as VICE, which he is sure is being subsidized to comply with the liberal agenda.

Because apparently the First Amendment means that private businesses have to lend their megaphones to conservatives to flog election lies and an endless stream of Hunter Biden dick pics. Meanwhile, conservatives are threatening to throw teachers in jail for normalizing the Marxist agenda by talking about gay penguins.

Have we mentioned that Republicans are not a real political party ? Because they are not .

[ WashEx ]

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