Let’s do a wellness check on the First Amendment. All my calls are going to voicemail.

Let me explain.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr took to X this weekend to warn broadcasters that they’d better “correct course” on their Iran war coverage — or risk losing their licenses. His exact words: “Broadcasters that are running hoaxes and news distortions — also known as the fake news — have a chance now to correct course before their license renewals come up.”

It was a response to a long screed from President Trump complaining about war coverage — making the connection between a “correct course” and Trump’s desires.

On one level, legal experts are right that this is a hollow threat. TV licenses don’t even come up for renewal until 2028. The FCC hasn’t denied a license renewal in decades. Any attempt to pull a station’s license would trigger years of litigation, and any network worth its salt would mount a First Amendment case that would tie the government in knots.

So relax, right? Nothing to see here?

Not so fast.

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If you spend enough time reading history, a strange realization starts to creep in.

Human beings are very good at recording the past. We write books about it. We build museums. We make documentaries and podcasts and university courses explaining exactly what went wrong and why.

And then we go out and make the same mistakes all over again.

This pattern repeats so often that it raises an uncomfortable question. If the lessons of history are so clear — why do we keep ignoring them?

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A major AI story slipped under the radar this week. It deserves attention.

Palantir Technologies and Nvidia quietly announced something they’re calling a “Sovereign AI Operating System.”

The basic idea is this: they’ve built a complete hardware and software package — using Nvidia’s most powerful chips — that lets governments run advanced AI entirely on their own servers, completely in-house. No outside cloud providers. No third-party oversight. The government controls the data, the models, and the whole operation from top to bottom.

They’re marketing this as “data sovereignty,” which sounds reasonable enough on its face. Who wouldn’t want to control their own data? But let’s think about who this is actually being built for, and what they’re already doing with it.

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Tax Day is coming. And some Americans have decided they’re not paying.

Let me be clear: not paying your federal taxes is against the law. I’m not recommending it. If you try it, you’re looking at penalties, interest, wage garnishments, liens on your bank accounts, and in extreme cases, criminal charges. The IRS doesn’t care how principled your reasons are.

But here’s what I find worth paying attention to: a lot of people know all of that — and they’re doing it anyway.

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America has a long history of getting involved in the Middle East. It doesn’t have a great track record.

Iraq. Afghanistan. Libya. Syria.

The United States has often believed it could shape the political future of the region — remove a government, pressure a regime, install something friendlier to Washington.

The results rarely match the plan.

The latest development out of Iran shouldn’t surprise anyone. The Ayatollah’s son has been installed as the new supreme leader. Analysts say it’s a clear signal that hardliners are firmly in charge.

If the goal was to shake the Iranian system or encourage regime change, the opposite is happening.

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Good morning. Or at least, that’s what they tell us.

If you’re reading this right now and your eyes are held open by sheer willpower and the threat of a third cup of coffee, you’re not alone. This is the Monday morning after Daylight Saving Time kicked in — the one weekend a year where the country collectively loses an hour of sleep and then has to be somewhere on time anyway.

We’re all a little bleary this morning. The alarm went off, and somewhere in the fog between asleep and awake, most of us thought, “Wait — what time is it actually?” And honestly, that’s a fair question. Because as far as your body is concerned, it’s still last night.

The good news: you’ll adjust. Probably by Thursday. Longer, if you’re older.

The bad news: some AM radio stations don’t get that luxury.

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International Women’s Day always puts men in a slightly awkward position.

We can’t explain what it’s like to be a woman. We shouldn’t pretend we can. How dumb would we be to mansplain this day to women? (But sure as hell, some man will.)

But after more than 45 years working in radio studios and newsrooms, I can say this: some of the toughest professionals I’ve ever worked with were women who had to work twice as hard to get half the credit.

I saw it in meetings where a woman would make a smart point, only to have it ignored until a man repeated it ten minutes later. I saw it in newsrooms where women had to prove their competence again and again, long after their male colleagues were taken seriously by default. And I saw it in the quiet persistence of people who simply refused to accept the limits the culture tried to place on them.

Which makes the current moment feel a little strange.

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Artificial intelligence is already changing how wars are fought, even though most of the public debate focuses on killer robots. Autonomous drones. Machines deciding who lives and who dies.

That’s the nightmare everyone is arguing about.

But it isn’t where the real change is happening.

The Pentagon is already using AI in war. Just not the way most people imagine.

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The United States has just killed the most powerful man in Iran.

There was no declaration of war, even though President Trump used the word. Congress hasn’t declared war. Yet.

To understand why this moment is so volatile, you have to understand the history behind it.

The conflict between the United States and Iran didn’t start this year. It didn’t start with the Islamic Revolution. It didn’t even start with the hostage crisis.

In many ways, it began with a covert operation in 1953, when the United States helped overthrow Iran’s government and put a king back on the throne.

But even that is only part of the story.

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Usually, when the United States launches a major war — or even a significant military strike — the president addresses the nation live from the Oval Office.

We remember George W. Bush speaking to the country when military action began in Afghanistan, and again before the invasion of Iraq. Those were formal moments.

Instead, for this war with Iran — a conflict that remains unclear and open-ended — we got a pre-taped social media video in the middle of the night. Trump was wearing a cap, casually dressed, his eyes in shadow, speaking from Mar-a-Lago.

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