[Breitbart] The Federal Communications Commission on Friday opened public comment on a petition from the Disney-owned network ABC to declare its show The View as a “bona fide news interview program.”
Hahahahaha— oh wait — you’re serious???
Disney submitted the petition in early May on behalf of its television station KTRK-TV in Houston and its parent company ABC for the declaration in order to receive an exemption from laws requiring that non-news programming include equal time for representation of political candidates for office.
The equal time rule is part of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the FCC and regulations for the use of wire and radio, and later television, communications.
The rule is meant to ensure equal access to broadcast station facilities for all candidates for office — essentially, the same amount of air time — to prevent broadcasters from using the public airwaves to push one political candidate or party over another.
Disney and ABC’s request for an exemption to the rule, which are generally granted for news broadcasts, stems from years-long squabbling between President Donald Trump and various people who have hosted The View, which is a news and pop culture analysis program hosted by a panel of women.
“Is The View a ‘bona fide news interview program?” FCC Chairman Brendan Carr said in a post on X announcing the public comment period.
“Under FCC case law, tv shows do not qualify as ‘bona fide news’ if their decisions are based on partisan purposes, such as an intention to advance or harm an individual’s candidacy,” Carr said.
Disney compared the show to NBC’s Meet The Press and CBS’ Face The Nation, which feature interviews and roundtable analysis of political and news topics.
Carr, however, contends that The View does not meet the criteria of those shows as news programs, and so should be required to offer time to multiple candidates in a political race if they feature one of them.
In its May 7 petition to the FCC, Disney and ABC noted that the FCC’s actions could upend “settled law and practice,” as well as “chill critical protected speech both with respect to ‘The View’ and more broadly.”
The filing also notes that the show has “been broadcasting under a bona fide news exemption granted to it more than 20 years ago,” and that the exemption “remains valid.”
Maybe it was, once upon a time, but that was a very long time ago.
Posted by: NoMoreBS ||
05/25/2026 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[1787 views]
Top|| File under: Nut Jobs
#1
We don't have many news programs, they're nearly all opinion and editorial programs. About as close to 'news' as candy is to a health food.
#5
In memory of the 24 82nd Airborne Paratroopers that lost their lives and over 100 sustained critical injuries on March 23, 1994, at Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina.
Direct Translation via Google Translate. Edited by Andrey Bulkin
[REGNUM] 85 years ago, in the early morning of May 24, 1941, one of the most dramatic naval battles of World War II took place in the icy waters between Iceland and Greenland.
One of the symbols of British naval power, the battlecruiser HMS Hood, engaged in an artillery duel with the newest German battleship, the Bismarck. The engagement, which lasted less than 10 minutes, ended with a massive explosion and the instantaneous destruction of the Hood.
However, this success by the Kriegsmarine—the German Navy—launched the hunt for the Bismarck, which ultimately led to its destruction. As a result, a resounding tactical victory turned into a serious defeat for the Third Reich.
The cruiser HMS Hood, commissioned in 1920, remained one of the symbols of the British Empire's greatness for 20 years. Officially classified as a battlecruiser, it was in fact closer to a higher class of ship—a fast battleship.
But it also had an Achilles' heel: despite a series of upgrades, Hood by the early 1940s retained two design features from the 1920s: large open spaces and inadequate deck protection.
The eight 381mm main battery guns were a formidable force. However, outdated fire control systems and limited radar range reduced the effectiveness of the main battery's fire at long ranges.
The battleship Bismarck was much newer, launched in 1939, and embodied the achievements of German shipbuilding. While comparable in size to the Hood and carrying eight 380mm guns as its main armament, it had several significant advantages. High-quality heavy armor, modern optics, and precise fire control systems made it one of the most powerful ships of its time.
By the spring of 1941, Britain's situation was desperate: it found itself virtually alone in the face of Germany and its European allies. Vital supply lines carrying military equipment and food were under constant threat.
The commander-in-chief of the Kriegsmarine, Grand Admiral Erich Raeder, planned to launch a new attack on convoys in the North Atlantic.
Operation Rhine Exercise was conceived as a raid by the Bismarck and the heavy cruiser Prinz Eugen. They were to be joined by the battlecruisers Scharnhorst and Gneisenau—the namesakes of the ships that harassed the British during World War I.
But the Bismarck needed boiler repairs, and the Prinz Eugen had been seriously damaged by a British torpedo in April 1941. Despite the objections of the division's commander, the experienced Admiral Günther Lütjens, who suggested waiting for the commissioning of the Tirpitz, the second Bismarck-class battleship, Raeder insisted on an immediate departure.
The operation went awry from the very beginning. Due to a burst hose during refueling, the Bismarck departed Gotenhafen (Gdynia in occupied Poland) 200 tons short of fuel. Then, in Bergen, Norway, Lütjens' ship, for unknown reasons, failed to replenish its supplies, even though the Prinz Eugen had fully fueled.
The stop in Norway was a necessary measure: on May 20, the force was spotted by the Swedish cruiser Gotland. The Germans feared that neutrals would immediately report this to London. The British did indeed receive the information—but through another means.
Aerial reconnaissance and reports from the Norwegian Resistance gave the Admiralty information about the composition of the Bismarck group.
Admiral John Tovey, commander of the Home Fleet, ordered the heavy cruisers Norfolk and Suffolk to begin patrolling the Denmark Strait—where London had predicted the Germans would be heading. Suffolk was equipped with a state-of-the-art all-round radar, making her indispensable for detecting the enemy in poor visibility.
New information came in on May 22, when a Maryland bomber made a daring flight from Hatston Air Force Base to Bergen and recorded the German squadron leaving its parking lot.
Fleet Commander Tovey sent a force under Vice-Admiral Lancelot Holland, who was on the Hood, to the Denmark Strait area.
Holland planned to employ a classic tactic: intercept the enemy by approaching from the west, so that the German ships would stand out clearly against the dawn sky. At the same time, he hoped that his heavy cruisers would engage the Prinz Eugen, allowing the Hood and the newest battleship, Prince of Wales, with ten 356mm guns, to concentrate their fire on the Bismarck. This plan was never communicated to the captains of the Norfolk and Suffolk, as radio silence was required.
BATTLE OF THE DENMARK STRAIT
On the evening of May 23, the Suffolk sighted a German squadron. Admiral Holland began maneuvering to close in, but the British force found itself in a disadvantageous position.
Instead of intercepting them, the British were forced to close with the Germans at acute angles, allowing them to fire only from their forward turrets. Holland knew that if Hood remained at long range, German shells would easily penetrate her thin decks.
Therefore, the commander took a risk, ordering them to rush at full speed towards the Bismarck in order to get closer, get out of the range of high-angle fire, and only then strike with all guns with direct fire.
When the range closed to 25,000 yards (almost 23 km), Hood began firing. And here the first critical mistake occurred. The British mistook the lead ship, Prinz Eugen, for Bismarck. However, Captain John Leach of Prince of Wales correctly identified the primary target and ordered his gunners to ignore the flagship's orders and fire on the other ship.
While the Hood continued to fire unsuccessfully at the German Prinz Eugen, the British Prince of Wales had already scored its first hit on the Bismarck's bow. The shell penetrated completely, causing a massive fuel leak, which would prove fatal to the entire German mission.
German Admiral Lütjens hesitated to give the order to open fire. Only when British shells began landing dangerously close did Prinz Eugen's commander, Ernst Lindemann, exclaim angrily, "I won't let my ship be blown to pieces right under my backside!" and the German guns began to speak.
Almost immediately, the Hood was hit by a shell from the Prinz Eugen. The shell struck the boat deck at the base of the mainmast, igniting a massive fire among the ammunition. Vice-Admiral Holland, unwilling to endanger the sailors responsible for the fire, ordered the fire to be left burning until all the ammunition had burned. The bridge crew took cover from the flying shrapnel.
The second hit from the Bismarck destroyed the fire control post, which practically deprived the Hood of centralized fire adjustment.
Realizing the desperate nature of the situation, Holland ordered a turn to bring the aft turrets into action. It was while he was executing this maneuver that the Bismarck's fifth salvo struck the Hood.
Captain John Leach of the Prince of Wales, observing the flagship, recalled: "Something struck the Hood forward of the mainmast... Between one and two seconds later, the Hood exploded. A very strong tongue of flame shot upward in the shape of a thin funnel, and almost instantly the whole ship from stem to stern was enveloped in smoke."
The explosion of the forward magazines was followed by an instantaneous detonation of the stern magazines, breaking the Hood in half.
Of the 1,418 crew members, only three were saved. They managed to climb onto small life rafts and were picked up three and a half hours later by the destroyer Electra.
Having lost her flagship, the Prince of Wales found herself under concentrated fire from the German ships. The battleship sustained seven hits, including a 380mm shell that struck the command bridge. The shell, passing through without exploding, killed almost all the personnel inside.
Given the numerous failures of the main caliber guns and the damage, Captain Leach made the only correct decision - to leave the battle under cover of a smoke screen.
MISTAKES AND LUCK
Admiral Lütjens was satisfied with the outcome of the battle. But he rejected the proposal of the Prinz Eugen's commander, Lindemann, to pursue the damaged Prince of Wales: three hits had already put the operation on the brink of failure. Flooding in the forward compartments, a list, and a fuel leak made it impossible to continue the free hunt.
Therefore, Lütjens decided to split up. On the evening of May 24, Bismarck appeared in the sights of the British cruisers, drawing their attention. This allowed the undamaged Prinz Eugen to escape unnoticed, but Bismarck became the target of a naval hunt.
The German battleship was unsuccessfully attacked by British torpedo planes, but as the ship evaded the torpedoes, the protective patches from the holes sustained in the previous battle came off. Water began leaking more rapidly into the holds.
On May 25, the Bismarck managed to escape its pursuers, but only briefly: the following day, it was spotted by the crew of a British flying boat. Air attacks continued, but the pilots mistakenly attacked their own ship. Only a miracle and faulty torpedo fuses saved it from the effects of friendly fire.
The second British attack was successful. Under cover of a hurricane of anti-aircraft fire and at extremely low altitude, the biplanes broke through to their target. Torpedoes struck the Bismarck's stern, jamming the battleship's rudders. All attempts by the German crew to correct the situation—from using divers to blowing up the rudder with explosive charges—failed.
The Bismarck, completely out of control and unable to maneuver, began to circle, turning toward the approaching British battleships. On the morning of May 27, a salvo from their guns raked the upper deck and destroyed the bridge. Admiral Lütjens and Captain Lindemann of the Bismarck perished there.
By half past nine in the morning, all of the German battleship's main battery turrets were disabled. It was no longer a battle, but a finishing-off operation. But even the blazing hulk of the battleship did not sink. The Bismarck's first officer gave the order to scuttle the ship. Demolition charges were planted in the engine room. Only then, after three torpedoes, did the Bismarck capsize and sink.
Of the 2,220 crew members, British ships rescued 110. Rescue efforts were interrupted by a false submarine periscope signal, leaving hundreds of people stranded in the icy water.
The tragic end of this hunt is documented in the report of the weather ship Sachsenwald, which was sent to search for survivors. Arriving at the designated area on the morning of May 28, the sailors followed a trail of oil and soon encountered a horrific scene: "Numerous bodies in life jackets, debris, and empty life jackets." Closer to midnight, lookouts spotted the three red signal stars of a rubber raft. A cry of "Are you Germans?" elicited a faint but jubilant "Hurrah" from the raft.
These were the last surviving members of the Bismarck's crew. According to the latest estimates, only 115 of the approximately 2,220 crew members survived.
Berlin was shocked by the loss of its newest battleship, and the Reich leadership banned major surface fleet operations in the Atlantic, relying instead on submarine warfare. The wrecks of both ships, discovered by deep-sea expeditions at the turn of the century, remain on the seabed to this day.
The Battle of the Denmark Strait and the subsequent hunt for the Bismarck demonstrated to the world that the era of battleships and gun-carrying cruisers was inexorably passing. The outcome of the operation was decided not so much by the main guns as by timely radar reconnaissance, radio intercepts, and—at the decisive moment—by carrier-based air strikes, which disabled the Bismarck and doomed her.
#1
There has been a remarkable amount of investigation over the last few years into what actually killed Hood. Two in particular - Oceanliner Designs and Drachinfel, both on YT - have done amazing videos on the subject.
The consensus seems to be that it was literally a thousand to one shot - Hood was turning to port just tightly enough that her armor belt on the starboard side rolled upwards, and the shell struck just BELOW the belt and penetrated the unarmored hull.
A heartbeat in either direction, and it would never have happened.
#3
#1 - I think the shot-through-the-deck theory is based on the experience of the Brit battlecruisers at Jutland as opposed to any observation or physical evidence.
Posted by: Matt ||
05/25/2026 12:05 Comments ||
Top||
Text written by Vladimir Orlov from his Live Journal page
[ColonelCassad] When we hear the word "war," we imagine tank columns, trenches, explosions, and soldiers storming the heights. This image comes from the 20th century, the century of industrial and maneuverable warfare. Today, everything is different. Modern armed conflicts are increasingly less like a clash of armies. They are a struggle... of architecture. Networks. Management.
Information. The winner is not the one with more tanks or planes, but the one who makes decisions faster, better connects intelligence with fire, and is able to disrupt the enemy's ability to coordinate their actions. We are accustomed to thinking that military power is primarily about the characteristics of weapons: range, caliber, armor, speed. But the reality of recent decades (from Desert Storm to the war in Ukraine) shows that the same weapons can be either a formidable force or useless hardware, depending on how they are integrated into the overall command, control, communications, and intelligence system. This simple idea undermines old military theories and demands a new approach. It is precisely this new framework that we propose—the 3C/4C model.
WHY DO OLD THEORIES NO LONGER WORK?
For a long time, military thinkers have tried to package the evolution of war into "generations." The first is hand-to-hand combat and bladed weapons, the second is gunpowder and linear tactics, the third is machine guns and the trenches of World War I, the fourth is tanks and blitzkrieg, the fifth is precision weapons, the sixth is network-centric systems...
This model looks beautiful, but it has fundamental flaws. First, it is linear: it assumes that a new generation completely displaces the old. However, in reality, military operations simultaneously utilize techniques from all eras.
Secondly, it is technologically determined: a new weapon automatically creates a new war. But practice refutes this: an FPV drone costing a few hundred dollars can destroy a tank worth millions if it is included in a reconnaissance and strike network, but will remain just a flying toy if such a network is not in place.
Another popular concept is network-centric warfare (NCW). It emerged in the 1990s and proclaimed that integrating sensors, headquarters, and weapons platforms into a single network provides a decisive advantage. This was a breakthrough. But NCW assumes that the network is always available, communications are resilient, and the enemy cannot disrupt it.
Modern conflicts (especially in Syria and Ukraine) have shown the opposite: communications are jammed, satellites are disabled, and data centers are destroyed. In a degraded environment, where communication channels are intermittent and GPS is unavailable, a centralized network architecture becomes a vulnerability rather than an advantage.
Finally, the modern concept of Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) is an attempt to synchronize actions on land, in the air, at sea, in space, in cyberspace, and in the information domain. It has advanced further, but remains an operational, not a theoretical, model. It doesn't explain why one system prevails over another, and it ignores the most important aspects: the ability to adapt in real time, maintain coherence, and make rapid decisions.
All these approaches share one flaw: they focus on individual elements—means, methods, and platforms. But 21st-century warfare is a systemic phenomenon. And it must be described as a system.
WHAT DOES THE 3C/4C MODEL OFFER?
Instead of linear classifications, we propose viewing armed conflict as the dynamics of four interconnected components:
Methods—how exactly the means are used: tactics, operational art, strategy, coordination algorithms.
The environment is the space in which everything happens: the physical domain, information, cyberspace, outer space, the electromagnetic spectrum, the cognitive sphere. The environment is not a passive backdrop—it is an active object of struggle.
The control agent is who or what makes decisions: command, headquarters, AI, distributed networks. This is the "brain" of the system, which connects everything else.
The 3C (Means–Method–Environment) model expands to 4C by adding the Control Agent. And the key idea: a system's effectiveness is determined not by the power of a single means or the sophistication of a method, but by its coherence, the speed of decision-making, and the ability to maintain control in the face of environmental degradation.
Look at the history of military art—it's a series of shifts in which dominance prevails: the Industrial Age (World War I)—the means dominated. Machine guns and artillery made maneuver almost impossible. The winner was the one with the most shells, factories, and mobilization resources.
The era of maneuver (World War II and the Cold War) was dominated by method. Tanks and aircraft alone didn't decide the outcome—they were determined by their synchronization, speed, deep penetration, and the destruction of the enemy's command and control. Triandafillov's theory of deep operations and the German blitzkrieg represented the triumph of method.
The information age (1990s–2010s) saw the environment begin to dominate. Operation Desert Storm demonstrated that whoever controls the information space, communications, reconnaissance, and navigation can paralyze the enemy, even if they have many tanks.
Today, we are entering the era of systemic warfare, where command and control and connectivity dominate. The target is no longer the enemy's army, but its network of interactions. This network can be destroyed not only by fire, but also by cyberattacks, communications jamming, disinformation, and the disabling of satellites.
WHAT IS SYSTEMIC WARFARE IN PRACTICE?
Systemic warfare is a form of confrontation where the primary goal is to degrade the adversary's ability to coordinate, communicate, and adapt.
Consider the current conflict in Ukraine. The widespread use of FPV drones, digital targeting systems (such as Delta or Kropyva), tactical internets (Starlink), and distributed sensor networks has reduced the detection-to-kill cycle from hours to minutes and seconds.
A $500 kamikaze drone, controlled by an operator who sees the target through a screen with a split-second delay, hits the target not because it's powerful, but because it's connected to a network where reconnaissance instantly transmits coordinates and communications are resistant to jamming.
If this network can be suppressed (via electronic warfare, interception, or the destruction of repeaters), even expensive missiles and tanks become virtually blind. The winner isn't the one with the better weapons, but the one whose system restores connectivity faster and whose control cycle is shorter.
This is the main consequence of the 3C/4C model: the speed of the OODA cycle (observe-orient-decision-act) becomes an independent strategic resource. If your system completes this cycle faster than your opponent's, you impose your opponent's pace; they don't have time to adapt and ultimately become disorganized.
WHAT DOES THIS CHANGE?
If we accept the systemic warfare model, the implications for military development, command and control, and personnel training become radical:
From platforms to connectivity. There's no need to chase a super-tank. We need to develop a unified information space, standardize data exchange protocols, and protect communication channels.
From centralization to distributed networks. Rigid hierarchies are vulnerable. We need autonomous tactical nodes that can operate even when communication with the center is lost, and "self-healing" architectures.
From the tactical commander to the environment operator. A modern officer must not only issue orders but also process data streams, manage distributed drone systems, and make decisions in seconds under conditions of information overload and disinformation.
From fire to information. The primary target of attack is no longer positions, but C4ISR (command, communications, and intelligence systems). Cyber operations, electronic warfare, satellite interference, and cognitive attacks are not auxiliary means, but central elements of warfare.
CONCLUSION: WHY IS IT IMPORTANT TO UNDERSTAND THIS TODAY?
The proposed 3C/4C model does not claim to be the ultimate truth. But it provides a tool missing from older theories: a holistic view of war as a struggle between interacting systems, not individual platforms.
Many countries continue to build their armed forces along 20th-century lines—increasing the number of tanks, aircraft, and ships. But conflicts of recent years have shown that massive firepower is useless if the enemy disrupts your communications networks, jams GPS, and turns every maneuver into a blind alley.
Systemic warfare is not the future. It is the present. And whoever is first to rebuild their army as an adaptive, highly connected, multi-domain system will gain a decisive advantage before the first shot is fired.
The question is not whether war will be systemic. The question is whether we will realize this quickly enough to avoid ending up in the position of the French army in 1940—with superior weapons, but with outdated command and control logic.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
