Recently, we reviewed several recent Disney films, two of which are highly recommended as very relevant to the present moment: Disney’s Wish article can be seen here, and Snow White’s review is located here.  Other films we have reviewed include Reya and the Last Dragon, which is such an important film in terms of learning to be a good human neighbor, the 2019 reimagining of the classic Aladdin, which was excellent. While we did not review Frozen 2, it was still an incredible film in every way. The newer Star Wars films are part of the Disney family of franchises, along with the television channel ABC, ABC News, and other intellectual properties.   This lawsuit is very important to the future of the Constitutional protections every American and every media company presently enjoys under precedent and Constitutional Law.  Lawsuits are not free (even for the administration and attorneys general, those lawsuits cost money – in those cases it is the people’s money, whereas here it is this company’s money). People wishing to support Disney’s efforts can buy their DVDs and on demand offerings, purchase a subscription to Disney+ for a few months, buy paraphernalia directly from the Disney Store, etc. 

Last year, ABC/ Disney settled with the administration over issues with their election reporting, which was clearly protected by the First Amendment.  When their late night talk show host, Jimmy Kimmel, made jokes about Charlie Kirk’s assassination that were admittedly in poor taste, he was temporarily suspended.  The fan uproar that ensued caused Disney to quickly change its decision and bring Kimmel back. The response to that choice has been increased persecution, resulting in the FCC’s order that they immediately reapply for their broadcast licenses, with the implicit outcome being that they may not, in fact, renew them, causing massive damage to ABC/ Disney. While it is the purview of the FCC to license the public airwaves so that there isn’t a free-for-all, where signals are stepping on one another, it is not their choice to decide who can and cannot broadcast.  Such a denial would appear to be a clear First Amendment case. However, now that Disney has seen that they cannot buy the administration or satisfy them without completely sacrificing their autonomy, they have chosen to stand for the freedoms that make America different – perhaps most clearly and uniquely the Freedom of the Press. 

The below is from the Freedom Press Foundation, based in Brooklyn:

Disney shouldn’t be the last to stand up to FCC’s Brendan Carr

The below was originally published on Common Dreams: 

Cinderella’s castle in Orlando. Image Credit – Kitera Dent

FCC Moves to Yank Disney Broadcast Licenses as Trump Demands ABC Fire Kimmel

by Jessica Corbett

Press freedom advocates on Tuesday forcefully condemned the Republican-dominated Federal Communications Commission—and FCC Chair Brendan Carr in particular—for moving to challenge Disney-owned ABC’s broadcast licenses as President Donald Trump again pressures the network to fire late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel.

“The First Amendment and the FCC’s mandate do not permit the agency to use broadcast licenses as weapons to punish broadcasters for constitutionally protected content they air,” declared Freedom of the Press Foundation chief of advocacy Seth Stern.

“Brendan Carr was once a serious communications lawyer, and has repeatedly and correctly said that the FCC has no role in policing content, whether news reporting or comedians’ late night jokes,” Stern pointed out. “Carr’s decision to abandon his principles to kiss up to Trump to advance his career does not change the law that Carr knows full well applies.”

“The FCC is neither the journalism police nor the humor police,” he added. “This is nothing but illegal jawboning intended to intimidate ABC into kissing the ring.”

Kimmel—whom ABC briefly suspended last year amid pressure from Carr over comments the comedian made about assassinated right-wing activist Charlie Kirk—joked last Thursday that the first lady, Melania Trump, had “a glow like an expectant widow.” Two days later, a gunman attempted to enter the White House Correspondents’ Dinner—and on Monday, he was charged with trying to assassinate the president.

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Also on Monday, both Donald and Melania Trump separately took to social media, calling for Kimmel to be fired. The comedian, meanwhile, opened his Monday night monologue to crowd chants of “Jimmy” and defended his joke, highlighting the Trumps’ age gap.

On Tuesday, Semafor reported the FCC’s plans to challenge the ABC licenses, which weren’t slated for review until at least 2028. Other outlets began confirming the reporting, citing unnamed sources, and the agency ultimately issued the anticipated order—which says that “the FCC has been investigating Disney’s ABC stations for possible violations of the Communications Act of 1934 and the FCC’s rules, including the agency’s prohibition on unlawful discrimination.”

The order, signed by David J. Brown, chief of the Video Division, directs ABC to “file license renewals for all of their licensed TV stations within 30 days—in other words, by May 28, 2026.” Those stations are WABC-TV (New York), KABC-TV (Los Angeles), WLS-TV (Chicago), WPVI-TV (Philadelphia), KTRK-TV (Houston), KGO-TV (San Francisco), WTVD-TV (Raleigh-Durham), and KFSN-TV (Fresno).

As CNN chief media analyst Brian Stelter explained: “The order will not affect the local stations right away. It is just the start of a protracted legal process, and ABC has broad legal protections. Nevertheless, the FCC order is an extraordinary escalation by the Trump administration.”

“The FCC had not filed an early renewal order in decades, according to a source familiar with the matter, until Monday, when the agency took action against a small station license holder called Bridge News,” Stelter noted. “Both Bridge and Disney will now go through a lengthy hearing process, giving the stations multiple chances to respond.”

Disney said in a statement that “we have received the Federal Communications Commission’s order initiating an accelerated review of the licenses held by ABC’s owned television stations. ABC and its stations have a long record of operating in full compliance with FCC rules and serving their local communities with trusted news, emergency information, and public‑interest programming.”

“We are confident that record demonstrates our continued qualifications as licensees under the Communications Act and the First Amendment, and are prepared to show that through the appropriate legal channels,” the company continued. “Our focus remains, as always, on serving viewers in the local communities where our stations operate.”

Commissioner Anna Gomez—currently the FCC’s only Democratic appointee—said that “the effort to challenge the licenses of ABC/Disney-owned stations is the FCC’s most egregious attack on the First Amendment to date. But it will fail. This should be a lesson to media companies that no amount of capitulation to this administration will buy them protection.”

This is unprecedented, unlawful, and going nowhere.

This political stunt won’t stick.

Companies should challenge it head-on. The First Amendment is on their side. https://t.co/ST0R68uUAh

— Anna M. Gomez (@AGomezFCC) April 28, 2026

Jessica J. González, co-CEO of the advocacy group Free Press, was similarly optimistic. She said that “Carr will try to dress up this latest attack like a legitimate FCC procedure, but his motivations are clear. He is using his position of power to silence dissent at the president’s beck and call. This extraordinary and unconstitutional attack on the media is nothing more than another favor to the most fragile president in U.S. history.”

“The FCC’s ongoing attack on lawful and important diversity, equity, and inclusion programs is immoral,” she argued. “The timing of this move suggests unconstitutional retribution for a joke Donald Trump didn’t like. Either way, this dangerous attack on free speech won’t stand up to any First Amendment test. We’ve seen Carr violate his oath to uphold the Constitution again and again. It’s time for Congress to impeach him.”

González added that “for its part, ABC and Disney leadership need to stand strong on behalf of their First Amendment right to air content without government intrusion and censorship. Buckling in advance to pressure by this administration and its obsequious FCC chairman didn’t work for the broadcaster when it suspended Kimmel last year. It would be a grave mistake to buckle in advance again to these kinds of chilling government threats from Trump’s censorship czar.”

The organization MoveOn has launched a petition in support of Kimmel, which already has over 257,000 signatures.

“The Trump administration’s targeting of ABC’s broadcast licenses sends a chilling message: Fall in line or face consequences,” said MoveOn Civic Action chief communications officer Joel Payne. “This is a clear attack on the First Amendment and a political stunt designed to intimidate critics, retaliate against a comedian practicing free speech through satire, and send a message to anyone who dares to speak out.”

“ABC and Disney must not back down to Donald Trump or any bureaucrat in his administration doing his bidding,” Payne stressed. “This is bigger than just an attempt to bully Jimmy Kimmel—this is about telling the American people what to think, what to laugh at, what to say, and what to criticize. Our members will fight any efforts to weaponize the government to punish speech and will hold corporations who bow to this pressure accountable.”

Credit – Brian McGowan

From the CATO Institute:

FCC’s Punitive Review of ABC-Disney’s Broadcast Licenses Shows Need to Protect Free Expression

On April 28, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) announced an unprecedented review of ABC-Disney’s broadcast licenses. While the stated reason for the review accuses ABC of illegal discrimination, sources say that recent statements by Jimmy Kimmel calling Melania Trump an “expectant widow” drove the announcement of this review.

When paired with past frustrations with Jimmy Kimmel and recent demands by President Trump and the First Lady, it is pretty clear that this review is politically motivated. And rather than just threats or investigations, this review directly puts ABC broadcast licenses at risk. This action by the FCC is a dangerous escalation that makes clear the need to fundamentally change the FCC’s authority to protect free expression.

A Pattern of FCC Abuse

FCC Commissioner Brendan Carr has frequently used his authority to threaten news organizations for speech disliked by the Trump administration. At the very start of the administration, the FCC investigated CBS’s 60 Minutes for news distortion, alleging CBS favorably edited an interview with Kamala Harris in order to protect her campaign during the 2024 election.

Following the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk, Jimmy Kimmel made an unclear joke that seemed to imply that the murderer was a MAGA supporter. Even as various ABC affiliates were expressing their frustration with Kimmel’s comments, Carr demanded that ABC take action against Kimmel, saying, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way.” Kimmel was suspended for a short time before being put back on the air.

And more recently, during the conflict in Iran, President Trump was frustrated by what he viewed as inaccurate or incomplete reporting by news organizations in the fog of war. Chairman Carr warned broadcasters “to correct course” on potential news distortions or hoaxes before their license renewals come up. Making the threat clear, Carr stated that “Broadcasters must operate in the public interest, and they will lose their licenses if they do not.”

Of course, previous administrations have abused this power as well. During the Biden administration, a news distortion complaint against FOX was left open by the FCC for over a year. The Obama administration extracted various concessions during mergers. And the Fairness Doctrine was used by various administrations to require broadcasters to adhere to whatever the government of the day viewed as “fair” until stopped by President Reagan.

But the revival and expansive use of the FCC’s regulation of content raise serious questions about why the FCC is even allowed to police speech.

Bad Jurisprudence Opened the Door

Unfortunately, the FCC has exercised broad powers over broadcast speech because of decades-old Supreme Court rulings. The New Deal court in the 1943 NBC v. United States blessed the FCC’s extremely broad powers. Citing “public interest, convenience, or necessity” standards, the court found that the law “puts upon the Commission the burden of determining the composition of that traffic.”

In 1969, the Supreme Court continued this precedent in Red Lion Broadcasting Co. V. FCC, upholding the fairness doctrine as a valid exercise of the FCC’s authority to regulate in the public interest given the “scarcity of broadcast frequencies.” In so doing, the court found that the FCC could require broadcasters to air various perspectives, essentially controlling the speech and editorial decisions of broadcasters.

This power over broadcasters has created what my colleague Brent Skorup calls “junior varsity” First Amendment rights for broadcasters. Skorup and I have argued that the public interest standard and its various rules, such as the “news distortion rule,” are “hopelessly subjective and liable to abuse for political ends.”

As Chairman Carr continues to prove our point, the courts should revisit these flawed decisions, especially in light of the vast new ecosystem of media that people have access to. It is impossible to argue that there is a scarcity of media available to Americans today. Even the existing statutes governing the FCC should forbid this, with 47 U.S.C. § 326 clearly stating that nothing gives “the Commission the power of censorship” and “no regulation or condition shall be promulgated or fixed by the Commission which shall interfere with the right of free speech.”

It is wrong, unlawful, and unconstitutional to trample on the expressive rights of Americans and grant the government the power to interfere in their expression. We don’t accept this when it comes to the speech rights of other Americans or other forms of media—we shouldn’t accept it for broadcast media.

Stopping Major Censorship Requires Major Reforms

Punishing a media organization, no matter what one thinks of their reporting or programming, is an affront to the right of Americans to speak and listen to whatever speech they wish. To be clear, the media will often get things wrong and will be biased. Entertainment may be unfunny and offensive. But the promise of the First Amendment is that we leave it to Americans to figure out what is good and true. You can find the jokes to be extremely distasteful, the reporting to be misleading or false, and the editorializing to be hopelessly biased— and still believe that Americans have a right to hear that speech, discuss it, praise it, or condemn it.

And this doesn’t matter what your politics are and what the government of the day is. While many Democrats are correctly criticizing these actions by the FCC, even Senator Cruz, Chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee, condemned the move, saying clearly that “It is not the government’s job to censor speech, and I do not believe the FCC should operate as the speech police.”

Regardless of whether the courts act to rectify their mistakes, it is past time for Congress to strip the FCC of its censorial powers.

Banner Image: Mickie and Minnie Mouse. Image Credit – Héctor Vásquez