This isn’t quite Peak Obnoxious, but it’s climbing quickly. Without getting too deep into the weeds of Carlson’s contract with Fox it would seem like it’s Fox who breached that contract first, and yet they’re busily trying to silence him?

Fox News has sent a new cease-and-desist letter to Tucker Carlson after the release of his second episode of “Tucker on Twitter,” a massively successful new venture for the network’s former primetime host.

The letter, as first reported by Axios, boasts an all-caps “NOT FOR PUBLICATION” at the top and comes shortly after Carlson released his second episode of “Tucker on Twitter” which has drawn nearly 55 million views as of Monday morning. His combined audience for just two episodes has reached 169 million views.

At issue is Fox’s assertion that Carlson must refrain from essentially all public commenting on news of the day while he continues to draw a salary from Fox through the end of 2024. Carlson’s attorneys have pushed back with force, citing his First Amendment right to speak out while claiming material breaches by Fox of its contract with the former primetime host.

Harmeet Dhillon, the lead attorney for Tucker Carlson, gave a classic takedown of Fox News on Monday morning.

Here’s what Dhillon said…

For all the friends who have been asking “why don’t we see you on Fox anymore?” — This is why. I am passionately committed to free speech and a free flow of information necessary for a free society. Until Fox stops trying to silence Tucker, it’s not a place for me. And I feel for…

— Harmeet K. Dhillon (@pnjaban) June 12, 2023

Tomorrow, Carlson has an episode planned which will comment on the Donald Trump Mar-A-Lago indictment, which is bound to top 100 million views on Twitter.

My last American Spectator column talked about what you can do if you’d like to see this Fox/Carlson fight go away…

Look, this is simple, and it’s even fun. You can play, too. It’s easy.

Stop watching Fox News until it drops the lawsuit.

If it dumps ratings badly enough, it’ll get the message that this is a bad idea, and it’ll drop the suit. Either that or, if Fox’s management to too stubborn and stupid to see clear market signs, then Fox will collapse and take the whole cable news industry with it.

Which, honestly, would be a great thing. Cable news has done more to dumb down the American populace than anything outside of the newspapers. If that whole industry got wiped out and replaced by streaming media dominated by independent podcasters, you’d see a night-and-day difference in the quality of our electorate.