FCC Chairman Brendan Carr sent Verizon a letter inquiring about their DEI practices in February.
Verizon has been trying to acquire Frontier Communications, and it's the FCC that has to approve the deal.
Carr has said that he will prevent mergers and acquisitions that promote "invidious DEI." Which brings us up to today.
Verizon sent back a letter on May 15th that not only did it say they were getting rid of DEI, but how they were going to do it.
One more large and important company has caved in order to get what they want, an acquisition of another telecommunications company in a $20 billion deal. The same problem Paramount-CBS faces in being allowed to merge with Skydance.
Remember, Carr wrote the Project 2025 chapter on the FCC, and it's all laid out how the regulatory controls of the FCC can be weaponized.
For Brendan Carr, everything is going according to plan. Trump has defined DEI as discrimination to white people, and now the Civil Rights Division of the Dept. of Justice is ready to go after offenders. Carr gives his victims a chance first. Capitulate, and you get to keep doing business. Fight, and you've got the DOJ on your tail by way of referral.
Here's what Verizon's DEI page looked like on April 3rd.
Now, their new page is totally different, with no mention of diversity or statistics of diverse employees.
Usually, it takes time for rights to be taken away, but the freedom for companies to operate as they want is being removed right out in the open. They want future victims to know how to act to survive. It all started with the Supreme Court deciding that racism had ended, so affirmative action was no longer necessary.
The planned attacks on DEI are all over the place in Project 2025.
Another story you didn't hear about is the FCC leveraging the same DEI removal so T-Mobile could buy Lumos, a fiber optic carrier. They capitulated at the beginning of April.
You can expect the same sudden change of heart at Charter as they want to acquire Cox. Charter's career page says they promote "a supportive and inclusive workforce," with women, LBGTQ+ individuals, and people with disabilities. Expect that "inclusive" part to disappear and maybe everything else.
You don't have to be trying to merge or acquire another company to get the wrath of the FCC. You can just be on Trump's enemies list like Disney-ABC. Over time, Carr will wipe out this "invidious DEI" whenever he's got spare time to hunt and destroy. Every communication industry is under its purvue. Internet service providers, microwave relays, cell phone towers, satellite communications, and, of course, radio and television broadcast stations.
Expect a wholesale review of NPR and PBS affiliated stations to suddenly need to be reviewed to see if them having licenses is in the "public interest."
ABC, CBS and NBC all have broadcast stations they own and operate in all the major markets like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. Many of the stations are also carried on cable systems and streaming. On cable, just to have a representative of the networks. It is the over the air that makes them an FCC target. Licenses are at stake.
Notice there has not been anything negative ever said by Brendan Carr about the Fox Network. They own 29 stations and 227 affiliate stations. Trump has voiced his displeasure at Fox News on occasion, but never has threatened them like the other networks.
ABC has eight owned. 242 affiliates.
CBS owns 15 stations. 236 affiliated stations.
NBC has 12 owned stations and 223 affiliates.
Parent companies are targets. Disney with ABC. Paramount with CBS. Comcast owns NBCUniversal which owns NBC. Mention DEI and all have cause to worry.
The network you never hear about is the Sinclair group. They own or operate 294 stations across the United States. In January, they restructured the company to allow for more acquisitions if the Trump administration removed ownership caps. If the Trump administration actually did that, you can bet it would only be for them or any other network group that follows their rules of the road. There are other small network groups, but nothing compares with the size of Sinclair. They actually worked actively to get Donald Trump re-elected last year. They had canned text for news anchors to read on air. And that wasn't all. There were also news stories prepared to be run unedited. They were for Trump. Sinclair won't be touched.
Every communications company the FCC has control over has reason to fear.
FCC Chairman Brendan Carr is on a crusade and he is being allowed to use DEI as a weapon. The only thing to stop him and the DOJ are the 15 federal cases about DEI against the Trump administration. DEI has to be proven to be non-racist in the courts. It should be the other way around, but it's not.
It all started with Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard. Suddenly affirmative action violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. It was a 6-3 vote. You know the routine. The 3 liberal ladies against Trump's packed court.
Trump has taken that to automatically say that DEI is the same thing as affirmative action, even though it's not.
It's so strange that civil rights have been turned on their head by Trump. The good turned into bad.
We've got to win in court and stop this reverse racism theory before it spreads out of control. I just can't tell you which of the 15 cases will do the trick. It has to be turned around before we lose our ability to care for and treat each other as human beings. The other side doesn't care. It's all about power to them. To control with fear.
It's truly a battle of good versus evil. Stay tuned for good news. It has to come soon.
