Jackie Fabulous

Not one of my guests tonight.

That's Texas State Representative James Tallarico.

He was supposed to be here, but we were told in no uncertain terms by our network's lawyers, who called us directly, that we could not have him on the broadcast.

Then I was told in some uncertain terms that not only could I not have him on, I could not mention me not having him on.

And because my network clearly doesn't want us to talk about this, let's talk about this.

You've probably heard.

He's a hero.

He's a renegade.

You might have heard of this thing called the equal time rule, okay?

It's an old FCC rule that applies only to radio and broadcast television, not cable or streaming, that says if a show has a candidate on during an election, they have to have all that candidate's opponents on as well.

It's the FCC's most time-honored rule right after no nipples at the Super Bowl.

There's long been an exception for this rule, an exception for news interviews and talk show interviews with politicians.

Now that's crucial.

How else were voters supposed to know back in 92 that Bill Clinton sucked at saxophone?

But on January 21st of this year, a letter was released by FCC chairman and smug bowling pin Brendan Carr.

In this letter, Carr said he was thinking about dropping the exception for talk shows because he said some of them were motivated by partisan purposes.

Well, sir, you're chairman of the FCC, so FCCU.