An imperious talk show host won the love of Hollywood and the ACLU, but to stop government pressure on companies, speech defenders need to recognize Alex Berenson
You seem to be under the misimpression that the left is actually cheering on freedom of expression. As always, what they are cheering on is rules for thee but not for me, as they are on the right side of history doncha know.
Man, the minute I have to share my house with not only my wife and obnoxious teenage son, but also a platoon of smelly and loud soldiers, that's when I'm finally outta here.
Biden actually tried to usurp the 3A during Covid-it didn’t actually come to court, but something about military personnel stiffing landlords and not being held accountable.
The Berenson and Kimmel cases are not analogous. There's a distinction between the clandestine and illegal censorship by the Biden Administration and the legal and above-board regulatory approach taken Brendan Carr on behalf of the Trump Administration.
On one hand you have the Biden Administration secretly and illegally weaponizing intelligence agencies against independent journalists (their only opposition) and setting up government-funded NGOs in order to monitor and bully social network platforms into silencing the few voices being raised against their almost-complete monopolization of information reaching the public.
The Trump Administration, on the other hand, is using the appropriate regulatory authority (the FCC) to remind the giant networks that their leases on certain broad radio and television frequency bands are monopolistic in nature, and are a very unique privilege, a privilege which comes with a responsibility to make sure they are used in the public interest (yes, I know, vague term, but not my words).
The reason that the Biden Administration never used the FCC for this purpose is because they didn't have to. The major television networks were already marching in lockstep with virtually every edict and policy coming out of the Biden White House.
Chairman Carr also reminded the networks that their leases on those frequencies are not permanent, and that the fact that they have them also means that someone else does not. Why wouldn't it be in the public interest to terminate the lease of one of them, and allow a REAL competitor, say OAN, to lease its frequency instead? The hope is that perhaps someone at ABC will conclude maybe it's not such a good idea to use its privilege to spread lies on behalf of one political party, effectively silencing 77 million voices.
This is absolute nonsense about the Kimmel situation. If the Fairness Doctrine was still in force, you might have somewhat of a point. But it isn't and you don't. Never mind the pending mergers that were put at perceived risk under not-so-veiled threats. Regardless, if you had actually cited any FCC regulations that might be relevant or germane to the ABC Jimmy Kimmel affair, we could be having a meaningful conversation. Instead you provided a generic description of how the FCC ostensibly regulates broadcast licenses over the "public" RF spectrum.
To wit: What did Kimmel actually say that could possibly be deemed unprotected or illegal and which relevant FCC regulations could possibly be brought to bear in an actual proceeding or in consideration of a broadcast license renewal evaluation as a result? Which FCC bylaws specify or define the nature, degree or amount of on-air speech which might qualify as sufficient to deny licensure or to take other punitive actions against a broadcaster?
This isn't an issue of a corporation making a business decision to fire an employee free from the threat of governmental interference in its business or operations. That is precisely what Carr did, in as public a manner as possible - and - while merger actions were underway (to further consolidate control of our media into even fewer hands, but that's another topic).
Focusing on just the one monologue is part of the problem. Kimmel for 9 years has a had sustained promotion of a single political party and a sustained critique of another. Throughout the 9 years there has been inaccurate and erroneous accusations, interpretations, characterizations of a single party couched as “jokes”. Not to mention the endless guest list of a single party of congressmen, senators, governors , FBI chiefs, formerly semi anonymous bureaucrats. For the networks I’d consider it in-kind contributions to a single party. That’s a problem.
The point I'm making is that only three major networks have enjoyed a near-monopoly over the public television broadcast spectrum for decades. All three of those networks have worked hand in hand with government (and by that I mean the permanent government - or deep state, if you will) regulators to control the information reaching the public. In exchange, their former officers and directors are given the top positions in the FCC. That's called regulatory capture. Witness the lockstep reporting (or non-reporting) between the three networks on every major issue. Can any Racket News reader doubt that the networks intentionally de-amplified strories on official corruption like Russiagate, The Twitter Files, or Alex Berenson's exposing official lies about COVID and the mRNA vaccines?
After what we've learned in recent months, can we continue to believe that these leviathan corporations are somehow doing the public a service by turning what used to be entertaining late night television into political propaganda? Should we, as American taxpayers, forced to help support programming designed to control us, to harm us, and even to kill us . . . in order that certain giant corporations can make obscene profits? Should the very people who have declared the First Amendment to be a "problem" and a "roadblock" now be saluted for running underneath its skirts the minute their stranglehold on power is threatened?
Now, with Donald Trump in office, and a new FCC Chariman, their monopoly is threatened, as it should be. The Jimmy Kimmel kerfuffle was merely a shot across the bow. I'm waiting for the FCC (and maybe DOJ, as well) to REALLY lower the boom on these evildoers, and on entire incestuous relationship between these networks and the halls of power in Washington.
Don't have time to address the rest right now, but the concept of "regulatory capture" as it normally applies (to say the FTC or FDA) doesn't really apply when it comes to the FCC auctioning off bandwidth licenses. There is plenty of useable RF spectrum for almost anyone to purchase a chunk and begin broadcasting. Also, I defer to you because again I don't have the time at the moment to do the research, but I didn't think that the FCC board was typically made up of television network honchos or c-suite or board members, but you could be right. The ones who I can think of off the top of my head have zero experience in broadcast media or ownership of those network or sub-networks of multiple local affiliates like Sinclair or the other one. More later...
But since I can add to this right away: "Can any Racket News reader doubt that the networks intentionally de-amplified strories on official corruption like Russiagate, The Twitter Files, or Alex Berenson's exposing official lies about COVID and the mRNA vaccines?"
Or "Iran-backed Houthis" or October 7 or "Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine" or "massive SIM spam texting farm" etc. - so yeah obviously there is massive coordination between the "networks" (which really means both 'newswires', major conglomerates (that own NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and all their local affiliates), etc. But it's for reasons and using methods that would be incredibly difficult / unprecedented for the FCC to regulate.
And the current court system has been captured! The courts which recognize 1A are cautious with their rulings. Then we have Revolutionary Judges Gone Wild! Maybe they will put out a 2026 calendar in their robes! Do NOT trust this court system as currently employed.
The morons in California will lose when someone takes this to the Supreme Court if not sooner. Who wants to be first in line to insult Newsom and his woke, trans friends? They are so buried in their own a-holes that they don't know states cannot enact laws that contradict the US Constitution!? Time to grab the popcorn, but I'm wondering if Newsom will even sign it. Is he that stupid? Will someone tell him this will be front and center in his next presidential campaign? I really think you folks are getting all in a lather over something that's not gonna happen and won't come to pass.
Of course SCOTUS will strike it down. That's obvious. I assume the motive for passing it is essentially performative, like all the right-wing anti-abortion laws that had no hope of standing under Roe v. Wade.
The next SCOTUS, though? After the Ds appoint five Sotomayors to the Court?
Kind of like how 4A and 6A have been rendered dead over the course of a few decades thanks to mostly Republican appointed SCOTUS justices? Yet 2A seems just fine even in the most maximalist interpretations despite all the wailing from conservatives and 1A has mostly weathered plenty of other Republican and Democrat attacks over the years.
When their leading intellectuals (if you can call them that) espouse Critical Theory, which views politics and society as an unrelenting power struggle between groups, take them at their word. That is how they view politics, and they play the game accordingly. That philosophy fits hand in glove with the amoral ladder climbers that make up the heart of the professional managerial class and who were the biggest cheerleaders of COVID restrictions + the post-Floyd mania. Not a true civil libertarian to be found among them.
Matt seems frankly delusional on this issue. Using violence to end free speech is now the norm for a significant subset of self-described "good people." You're exactly right.
Trump's speech was and is the threat and the globalists and their dupes still pray that some nut will take Trump out. Violence and censorship are their tools and they're not about to put them down.
I watched Trump's speech and then listened to a UK pundit offer 10 seconds of criticism followed by "Putin coming to getcha!"
Update: Just want to be clear. I respect Matt's effort and support for Alex - but corporate sock-puppets in the media are never, ever, ever going to go off script and actually tell any truth.
I seem to remember you are entitled to say anything you want you're just not entitled to a platform to do it on or for an employer to continue to employee you.
I seem to remember that mantra when Gina Carano got tossed from The Mandalorian , Rosanne got removed from the hit show she created and when Scott Adams got his comic strip removed from all syndication .
.1) Media, censorship and the "blob"? The just posted Mike Benz 12 minute illustrated: "The Blob's Role in Media Literacy" on Youtube should dispel doubts and suspicions. --(I would have posted the link but the link won't open. )
.2) Hooray for RACKET forever in their attempt to call out the hypocrisy and hold the system to account.
.3) People who lie to your face are not your friends. This is political theatre-- ( A LIE IN COSTUME)-- and Disney took the entire country for a ride, rattled the Constitution, stuffed their pockets and promptly went to sleep.
.4) It is the intent of the perps to loot and eventually starve the citizens of our Republic into submission.
.5) Print is the only un-manipulated and un-surveilled future Subscription journalism has. Start building the fall-back now!!
.6) Next week--new crisis--new anxiety--new manufactured fears --no solutions forthcoming.
The ACLU generated a lengthy statement (with 400 signatories) supporting Kimmel's right to free speech after Disney suspended (not fired) him for accusing conservatives of a crime, murdering Charlie Kirk [https://www.aclu.org/defend-free-speech-letter-kimmel].
However, this is all the ACLU had to say after Charlie Kirk was shot dead on a college campus, a place where free and open speech is supposedly welcome: “There is never any place for violence in our politics. The only way to work out differences in a democracy is to work them out together – peacefully through our political system. The ACLU condemns this horrific act and extends its sympathies to the family of Charlie Kirk.”
Thanks to the ACLU and Disney, Charlie's ultimate sacrifice, his life-long dedication to free speech, is buried faster than a modern news cycle while Jimmy Kimmel, who lost a few hours of airtime, is paraded as an icon of free speech. Amazing.
That said, I thank Kimmel for his apology, which appeared to be genuine, but I won't waste time watching his show. For Charlie Kirk, I absolutely will find time to watch some of his many exchanges with students.
I don't think for a moment this challenge is indicative of any true credulity. Though Mr. Taibbi is an optimist. But then, so am I, and I don't hold out much hope that many on the left, or any in positions of power, would lift a finger for Berenson. They'd go 100 miles out of their way to avoid doing so. But a few of the rank and file might be reachable, and a few more eventually.
You have no idea what you're talking about if you conflate the corporate Democratic party and its apparatchiks in the MSM with "the left" if in fact the terms "the left" and "the right" are even to have meanings anymore.
And if you want to go back in US history, it has consistently been the right who has used governmental powers to stifle any speech that they didn't like. Needless to say, corporate Democrats like Obama did nothing to reverse stuff like George W. Bush's "free speech zones" and Trump will do nothing to reverse the governmental tampering with the social media platforms so often written about at this site, but in order to squelch criticism of Israel or "mean" comments about Charlie Kirk.
Only total morons believe that this is a left-right affair. This is a top-down situation in which both center-right to right-leaning political parties will abuse governmental powers whenever they have control of the necessary levers to squash speech that's inconvenient to their narratives and especially so when the speaker/writer has a large enough platform to actually reach a certain number of people. The fact that your comment got so many "likes" is testament to how blinded American partisans have become to the realities of US history and political power, and how wrapped up in the partisan winner-take-all zero-sum two-party Red Team Blue Team politics and "culture wars" people have become.
When is Matt going to cover the free speech Holy Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk do you think? Matt is leaping out of his socks with anger over Kimmel's new celebrity status, but are you telling me that Matt has zilch to say about the stadium-filling Pazuzu summoning ceremony that was the Charlie Kirk Memorial Extravaganza and Reichstag Fire?
This makes, by my count of lefties-hyperventilating-into-paper-bags news events, six Reichstag Fires, eight Anschlussen, four annexations of the Sudetenland, three invasions of Poland, and one literal genocide.
At least have the decency to start calling him UltraMegaHitler.
You forget that sending troops into Los Angeles was literally Operation Barbarossa on crack. And then I count literally three additional Operation Barbarossa's on crack since then. Nobody's ever seen carnage like that before.
I gotta say, I am tickled pink that so many people get the ref', as well as tickled black and blue that so many people think this can be used as a dig against me! (Did you think you were the first, you off-brand Richese ghola?)
They’ll never post under their real name. They are cowards, total opposite of a Charlie Kirk and with the attention at his memorial that should be obvious even to a simpleton
Not anytime soon. We're talking about Matt "nothing-to-see-here" Taibbi, the same Matt Taibbi who, with his uncanny prescience, characterized anyone who said Russia would invade Ukraine as a paranoid warmonger. There's a reason he's hanging out here in the bowels of cyberspace.
If what Colbert means by "We are all Jimmy Kimmel" is that they are all assholes, then I agree. The support for "free speech" is temporary and limited to their side. And this is not free speech, it is expensive speech if rumors are that Kimmel makes $10-20 million a year for his crappy show that no one watches. I am honored to be a subscriber to Matt, Alex, and Kimmel's much wiser friend, Adam Carolla.
It's very similar to the Me Too movement. If it's Monica Lewinsky - Hillary Clinton is bullying, demagoguing and destroying that "she's a narcissist looney tunes" and the left/media's response silence or she's right. But if it's someone who said she was accosted approx. 35, 36, 37 years ago in a Bergdorf Goodman's we celebrate changing the law to protect the fallen angel/innocent victim.
Yes- and the three women who claimed Kavanaugh did something to them with no evidence. The first one couldn't even say what year it allegedly happened and the third one was in college when she was supposedly partying with high school kids. But yes, very similar. And look at how they latched on to Epstein when the thinnest connection to Trump arose. They forgot that we already knew they knew each other and all the other context. Clinton on the Jet? Just catching a free ride, nothing to see here but Trump and Epstein in a picture together from 20 years ago- what more evidence do you need?
I have, a week or two ago, but I forget where (Yahoo News?) She's one of those testifying against Epstein, but in this case, stated that Clinton was "a perfect gentleman." Maybe his wife was on the plane, as that was not his rep in general.
Still, had to drag that out from the memorybank. We're seeing endless representations of Trump with Epstein. It's the vogue narrative. It has gotten old.
They have half the country claiming it’s all conspiracy theories. But having former and active IC on your speed-dial of corruption is always a nice bonus.
Here’s what doesn’t add up and I’d love to hear what Matt thinks. At $20M per year just for Kimmel’s pay check, and then how much more for the studio, broadcasting to local affiliates around the country, etc - let’s say just twice that, I’d imagine it’s more - his 100k or whatever audience is costing $400 per viewer. Even if many in his audience were all hopelessly addicted to big pharma, that would still be an insanely expensive price to pay for potential customers. It just doesn’t add up. It’s as if someone or entity is backing a propaganda machine that has nothing to do with free market economics, price be damned. I’ll bet the math is even worse for Colbert. In surpaies I haven’t seen more forensic analysis on this. As an entrepreneur this is a glaringly weird issue.
True, and here is the way to know that it's so. The networks would be glad to continue losing that money if their regime was still in charge, led by der Fuhrer Harris in the White House. It's too expensive otherwise.
Yes, I do not think it is about getting customers. Owning these shows and all the others add up to controlling what the public hears and believes. It serves the drug companies corporate interests and it serves the corporate overlords' interests who make their money elsewhere. So, the propaganda arm doesn't need to make money so long as their control of the public perception continues to serve the corporate and political interests. They buy everyone in town so they continue towing the line.
True, with regard to MSM, including mainstream "print" media (Ex: NYT). They also controlled social media until Elon bought X-Twitter, and platforms like Substack developed. With declining MSM consumption, a leveling social media playing field, and alternate media sources, their domination is dwindling. They are, to put it simply, screwed.
I hope so but as I have recounted in the past, there are still places including WBAL TV Baltimore and 1010 WINS in NYC, where I have heard Kilmer Abrego Garcia referred to as the Maryland Dad wrongfully detained by ICE months after it was clear he was a gangbanger wife abusing trafficking illegal. So the talking points still filter down and get disseminated across the country. This last election should not have been as close as it was. So if it is anything, to quote or paraphrase Churchill, it is not the end or the beginning of the end but rather the end of the beginning. I don't even know what to say about Twitter though I am glad openness has been restored for the most part. What I see there that troubles me, is evidence of how many people are still being seriously misled. These people should not be censored, they should be heard so that they can be debated. Some of them are so unhinged that I can't even bring myself to engage. But it is disturbing how many people believe the absolute craziest things that have no factual support and are not even plausible. To be fair, I hear it from people I think I would otherwise agree with as well.
You make many reasonable points. If there is a chance to keep us from going the way of Europe, it is in a sustained long term rollback of the encroachment of government over decades, and probably centuries. The Constitution is under constant assault.
Alex Berenson didn't emcee the Academy Awards. His case was too complex to be covered by The Hollywood Reporter.
Berenson v. Biden should be one of the landmark decisions by the Supreme court.
On Sept. 18 Derek Thompson wrote on X--"The Biden administration working with social media companies to throttle what they considered COVID misinformation might or might not have been legally principled, but it did at least pretend to have a substantive moral argument that was something like, "We don't want people to die and we're willing to take drastic steps to block information we believe might lead to their death." Weaselly.
Thank you for your loyalty and continued analysis of Alex Berenson's case.
After watching videos of pregnant liberal women eating Tylenol while giving Trump the finger, I would literally pay money to see Trump release an ALL CAPS post forbidding Americans from walking around with dog shit on their heads.
Since I am thankfully not stuck in a room with them I'll have to take them at their word. For all I know there's a "Handmaids App" that makes everyone look like an oppressed breeder.
In addition to mocking those who want to protect their unborn, they still have time to strap their born children on their backs and join the herd of libtard lemmings off the cliff. We are going to have to start taking children away from these dangerous things with wombs very soon. Save the children.
“ Unreported Truths,” and “Racket News” are my Substack go to’s for my need-to-know takes on what’s happening in America. God bless Alex, Matt, and Walter.
The first and last question regarding every dispute or issue now is: Whose side are you on? Postliberal tribalism has eaten almost every brain, with our thinking classes being most opposed to thinking. An ideological lobotomy is mandatory if you want to maintain your career and social status.
The notion that the actors and journalists of our progressive aristocracy are champions of free speech, thought and expression is a grotesque lie based on media gaslighting and their bottomless capacity for self-worship.
Our liberal classes have spent the past decade introducing speech codes, bias response teams, sensitivity readers, mandatory pronoun declarations plus demanding people be censored and/or fired for causing "harm", which is the great lie of our age (or at least one of them).
They will go back to censoring their opponents as soon as they're able to—and will lie and deny it—because residing on the Right Side of History™ means never having to say you're sorry. How can they be wrong when they're rich and famous!?
"Postliberal tribalism has eaten almost every brain"
The real problem is that when tribalism is this pronounced, the only rational thing is to be a tribalist yourself. It's not rational for any political actor on either side to cling to principle at the expense of harming the enemy, because they correctly believe the enemy will feel no such compunction themselves.
Good old-fashioned Hobbesian dilemmas never go out of style. It is, in a nutshell, why humans feel tribal affiliations in the first place.
To go tribalist on this rationale is to cede that the nation has indeed devolved into the "state of nature."
For my part, I judge that we remain a bit healthier than that, even while taking various wounds, and even while riding the rocking pivot of dramatic, mostly unreal catastrophizing.
We can still save the higher principles of civilized life (which Hobbes said was the goal) if we demand their preservation by the institutions that govern us (which he called the solution). We do still have that opportunity. The right calling out the right, so far as this has happened, is a good sign.
The shocking truth, despite this comment section and others elsewhere, is that for most Americans everything is mostly fine. Reading American history it's hard to find this last decade much worse or better than most.
Not to mention that the ABC over-the-air broadcast license has many built-in speech limitations (as Matt and Walter Kirn so ably demonstrated). Do you think if Kimmel had gotten thrown off the air for using swear words, that the outcry would have been the same from the ACLU Hollywood elite crowd?
Nothing matters except 6 degrees of Trump. If it can't be used to fuel the eternal tantrum against the man that rules the brains and souls of his opponents, it doesn't matter. He is their fatal attraction.
While Berenson was obviously wronged, the far more important case for the American people was that of Doctors Jay Bhattacharya and Scot Atlas. The 2 Stanford MDs had the brilliant idea early in Covid to sample the Palo Alto sewers. They sampled fecal matter to determine the rate of infection in a town of 60K that immediately embraced lockdowns, with zeal found in few areas of the US.
Their results showed the rate of infection was far higher than anticipated, and the rate of serious harm was far lower. Had their simple experiment been replicated across the nation, Covid would have likely been little more than blip in history. While Berenson showed the flaws in the vaccines, the intrepid Stanford MDs showed the vaccine was probably not necessary for many young and healthy, likely already swimming in an ocean of natural immunity derived from antibodies they possessed, without ever realizing they had already been infected with Covid.
Despite their academic pedigrees, Stanford credentials and the ease their experiment could have been replicated, they were immediately censored and treated as heretics. The publication of their study was blocked at every turn. Their careers, livelihoods and families were threatened by both DC and CA State government, along with lockdown proponents. Their research was barred from dissemination, in a manner reminiscent of 1980s Russia.
Americans were instructed it was gospel ,only lockdowns and vaccination of all Americans age birth -death would prevent tens of millions of deaths. The loss of liberty for 335 million Americans was unprecedented. People needlessly lost jobs and businesses.The elderly perished alone. The well being of an entire generation of children was sacrificed for no reason.
In the end, everything the Stanford MDs proposed about infection and the likely limited harm for healthy adults under age 70 and children was true. They could have saved the US wasted trillions. Most importantly they would have prevented a generation from being needlessly emotionally and academically scarred for life..
To this day, apologies to the doctors and the American people have never been forthcoming. Americans still have no idea how many people perished from Covid, as opposed to with Covid. No one has any idea how many people developed lifelong drug, alcohol, obesity or mental health problems from being locked down for the better part of 2 years in some areas, or were negatively effected by vaccines. Nor has the Press been nearly as concerned about the story of the century, as they are about a failing talkshow host bloviating actual "misinformation".
The most important unanswered question about covid is "When did it actually show up in the USA?" And by all accounts, that's somewhere around December 2019 -- four months before we did anything at all to slow the curve. Winter months full of holiday travel and going to basketball games and all the stuff they said was too dangerous in 2020.
Yet we didn't even notice the bug until governors threw covid patients into nursing homes, effectively infecting all the at-risk at once.
Trump should’ve fired Fauci the second he flipped from the truth (a bad flu) to pandemic. And he should’ve known China was playing out a huge asymmetric PsyOp with their lockdown immediately.
Yep. Very early in the pandemic, Fauci was actually pretty much on the money. There was never any real data that suggested the initial data was incorrect, but he flipped completely around on the issue. In February 2020 (before a single school closure!) he wrote about how kids didn't get sick with covid. He said that because we're missing mild cases, the IFR was probably closer to a bad flu.
Amen, Ronda Ross. A virus with a 99%+ survivability rate, and we locked down the world for years, killed people, and crippled at least one generation of school children.
I heard or read early on in the pandemic -- and I wish I had marked the location -- about a prison somewhere in the U.S. where one or two inmates and guards began showing up with symptoms. Makes sense: close quarters, a "captive audience."
But instead of just testing the symptomatic patients, the warden decided to test the entire prison population and -- guess what -- EVERYBODY tested positive. Surprise, surprise.
This story has probably been memory-holed at this point, but I would love to find it again.
The Left is, and has always been, the ideological declaration that principles are for rubes. That truth and morality are “subjective”. That the ends justifies the means. That winning is justification for all tactics.
In her most eloquent/courageous House floor speech, did not the congressperson from Queens refer to dead Charlie Kirk as “uneducated?” Seriously, I think she used that word. So the double major matriculated from BC, bartender (pronouns, wet/dry), insults assassinated man as “uneducated.” Maybe she didn’t say that. That would be cruel and ignorant. That must be disinformation.
I hope you will find this as a humorous aside - the link below gets you to an episode of The Man Show - and shows who Jimmy Kimmel really is - an amoral clown in it for the attention and money.
If this tickles your fancy - google "girls on Trampolines" for more insight. It always amazes me this doesn't get more airtime as it so represents what a buffoon Kimmel was and still is.
My vote - keep him on the air. He hurts more than helps the causes he espouses.
There is reporting tonight that Sen. Warren is complaining Obama edited her speech at the Dem convention in 2012. Obama, if he replies, will no doubt pontificate that “Michelle and (he) . . .”
If true, this is the final death throes of the Dem Party I belonged to my whole life. Social Dem all the way, Baby! Now willing to call out Obama, Inc.? Finally, the Dem Party has been captured. Justice.
Ditto paragraph 2. No sympathy for the Dems of the uniparty. Go Social Dems! Just a little preview of what happens when there isn't a DNC Dem party that's viable -- because none of us are going center or right. I think it interesting that there was a GOP rep today talking about how tariffs are hurting combine sales in Nebraska. So let's count the ways the last 9 months may have adversely hurt the republican party.
* Tariffs are taxes 90% of which will be passed onto consumers, left and right, adding to economic woes.
* Tourist industry, and red state Florida, beyond broken repair due to international outrage at being bullied
* Hispanic vote which put Trump over the top, GONE.
* Black vote, having watched the federal govt go for black, liberal inner cities, Gone.
* Red state farmers and ranchers, in deep financial trouble, without any migrant help, Gone.
* Epstein files suppressed again. Still seems to be an issue with the base, you know, abuse of women and children and all that.
* Red states dependent on Federal funds and Medicaid, Gone. [Steve Bannon warned you].
* The ongoing outlay of $$$s to keep Israel first.
That is amazing, even for Trump. Grandpa Joe prolly still wins as the final destroyer of a political dynasty that needed to die, but still... credit where it's due.
If the Left is now so powerless and Republicans control everything, why are they so pissy and whiny all the time? Why are they so beaten down? Pathetic. S-A-D.
Call the bluff by fining Google and criminally charging co-conspirators. The left only cares about exercising power, not any free speech principles. Don’t forget about the regime’s persecution of Douglas Mackey, they tried to throw him in jail for a decade over memes.
The whole thing is sort of hilarious timing, as the left is suddenly rediscovering their love for free speech. Now they have to explain how they missed the biggest violation of free speech in recent memory.
I still don’t get how Kimmel’s situation is a 1A violation. I’ve read all of Matt’s work on this, including the recent discussion between Matt and Walter Kirn. It seems to me a large group of affiliates decided, on their own (without Carr) to not air Kimmel’s nightly diatribe after offending the affiliate’s market demographics. To me this is not freedom of speech, but freedom of association. A FAFO moment for Kimmel and Disney.
I know Matt feels different, but I side with Walter on this. ABC and its ilk are using air wave licenses to print money, and have violated the basic agreements by nearly 100% broadcast of left narratives, without any attempt at counter. They’ve been allowed to run amok for a decade, hiding under the banner of free speech. The fact that Kimmel is an insufferable douche nozzle, and hasn’t had a “find out” moment yet, speaks to the background powers keeping a money hemorrhaging show on the air, simply to reinforce a narrative.
I, for one, take your point. And more or less agree with it. As Matt said on an earlier post, the Trump admin should have just stayed out of it and let them just hoist themselves on their own petards.
My guess is ABC brought Kimmel back because there is a little buzz around him just now and they can get credit with Democrats who might tune in. But, I expect ABC will let him go for good within the year since affiliates won't carry him and any temporary spike in ratings will be over.
Most interesting to me: shouldn't the politically motivated shooting at the ABC affiliate Sacramento, CA (state capital) be big news on ABC?
"A man accused of shooting at an ABC affiliate’s office in northern California left handwritten notes that criticized the Trump administration and a calendar reminder to "Do the Next Scary Thing," prosecutors said on Sept. 22."
"ABC station shooting suspect had note criticizing FBI and AG Bondi, prosecutors say"
Also, the man who tried to assassinate Justice Kavenaugh 3 years ago is going by "she/her" and "Sophie" in court. I think this is interesting given the number of trans ideology related shootings lately including the Trump adjacent Charlie Kirk. Does ABC cover that? Or, is the crumby comedian more interesting? Roske has been "Sophie" online for years.
"The Department of Justice is recommending that the defendant, 29-year-old Nicholas Roske, be sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to kill the Supreme Court justice in 2022, according to a Friday filing outlining the case against Roske. Roske pled guilty to the attempt to kill a United States Supreme Court Justice in April 2025, three years after authorities arrested him in Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, carrying a bag full of weapons and burglary tools.
A filing from Roske’s defense attorneys shows that Roske now goes by “Sophie Roske” and that his legal team will refer to him using female pronouns. A footnote on the filing, obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, explains that the defense will not use Roske’s legal name “out of respect” for the would-be assassin." ...
"A source familiar with the legal proceedings in the case told The Daily Wire that Roske was using female identities online before the attempted murder, and now goes by the female name reflected in the defense filings." https://www.dailywire.com/
Indeed, it sure seems like the mainstream media is in “protect the narrative” at all costs mode. That means suppressing stories like the Sacramento station shooting. El Gato Malo wrote a piece today the starts to make sense of this strategy; it’s about the left narrative and news capture not at all trying to convince the opposition, but continue to keep the left on board. Here’s the link https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/lies-damn-lies-and-post-truth-media?r=bivr4&utm_medium=ios
I am in 100% agreement that "the mainstream media is in “protect the narrative” at all costs mode".
Thank you for the El Gato Malo article. It's a good one for sure!
1) So true about Musk:
" i don’t think the world will ever understand the extent to which his acquiring and re-opening twitter saved it or the extent to which this changed forever the whole of the debate in america by bringing back the other side."
I believe Musk's turning point occurred when one of his sons decided he "was really a woman". Musk took issue with the Transgender Ideology Narrative^TM. And now:
"President Donald Trump promised Sunday that his administration is “very strongly” examining the string of transgender violence throughout the United States. " (Daily wire)
"reindeer games of “accuse then quietly retract” go on, but things are changing and changing fast."
"we the people are simply not willing to be lied to and baited into conflict with one another anymore and we will rise and we will take back the society that is ours.
and if this scares media, perhaps ask why."
Yes, it is quite a battle though. Ongoing. And, it's been a long time in the making.
Update: following Matt’s threads on X(twitter), he’s saying that by Carr making ANY kind of threatening statement, whether it affected Disney and the affiliates decision at all, opened the door to a free speech issue. That the best outcome was to let Kimmel return.
In great irony, while CA gov. Newsom was out screeching about the violation of Kimmel’s right to free speech, his state was busy passing through one of the most egregious censorship bills we’ve seen at the state level. Appears to be patterned after the kind of hate laws currently wrecking UK and the Eurozone. Just can’t make this shit up.
I knew Kimmel would be back. Bob Iger wouldn't be able to show his face at his country club.
Carr shooting his mouth off never had anything to do with it. It was between ABC and their affiliates, and the whole thing was probably about some kind of negotiating leverage.
Unfortunately, Carr shooting his mouth off gave the left the hook they needed to hang their defense of Kimmel on. Just like the January 6 riot gave the left the hook to scream insurrection (which they're still screaming about). If Carr had just let low-ratings Kimmel's suspension stand as a business decision the left would have been able to do no more than they were able to do when Colbert was dumped.
Matt has covered the First Amendment angles. Nothing I can add that'll amount to anything more than my own prattling. But turning back to the whole Kimmel brouhaha . . .
. . . why do we need the FCC anymore? Why do we need/want a government agency issuing licenses to broadcast over a certain slice of "airwaves," especially now that we have broadband, cable, streaming, podcasts, substacks, etc.? And following on that, why do we want this agency to have the theoretical right to regulate content?
I don't like Kimmel, but I think I may like Carr less, or at least his strident and (falsely) self-righteous horseshit. But if he didn't have licenses to issue or revoke, nor standards to regulate and enforce, none of this would even be in play.
Libertarians have been calling for the end of the FCC for a while. They are also very famous for accusing one another of not being "real" libertarians. The joke being that by me calling you not a libertarian, your acceptance into the libertarians is complete.
You seem to be under the misimpression that the left is actually cheering on freedom of expression. As always, what they are cheering on is rules for thee but not for me, as they are on the right side of history doncha know.
Just look at what they're trying to do in CA right now with SB 771: https://x.com/WallStreetApes/status/1970507754734497812
All we have left is the courts... and the minute Democrats get a Supreme Court majority, 1A will be a dead letter.
So will 2A
There are 400 million reasons in America it will not go down easily.
Just make sure we don't lose 3A.
Man, the minute I have to share my house with not only my wife and obnoxious teenage son, but also a platoon of smelly and loud soldiers, that's when I'm finally outta here.
3A explains the core reason for 2A.
Biden actually tried to usurp the 3A during Covid-it didn’t actually come to court, but something about military personnel stiffing landlords and not being held accountable.
When we lose the 4th Amendment, they are free to search my balls
Let the Liberal politicians come to my door and try to collect my firearms.
Good
The Berenson and Kimmel cases are not analogous. There's a distinction between the clandestine and illegal censorship by the Biden Administration and the legal and above-board regulatory approach taken Brendan Carr on behalf of the Trump Administration.
On one hand you have the Biden Administration secretly and illegally weaponizing intelligence agencies against independent journalists (their only opposition) and setting up government-funded NGOs in order to monitor and bully social network platforms into silencing the few voices being raised against their almost-complete monopolization of information reaching the public.
The Trump Administration, on the other hand, is using the appropriate regulatory authority (the FCC) to remind the giant networks that their leases on certain broad radio and television frequency bands are monopolistic in nature, and are a very unique privilege, a privilege which comes with a responsibility to make sure they are used in the public interest (yes, I know, vague term, but not my words).
The reason that the Biden Administration never used the FCC for this purpose is because they didn't have to. The major television networks were already marching in lockstep with virtually every edict and policy coming out of the Biden White House.
Chairman Carr also reminded the networks that their leases on those frequencies are not permanent, and that the fact that they have them also means that someone else does not. Why wouldn't it be in the public interest to terminate the lease of one of them, and allow a REAL competitor, say OAN, to lease its frequency instead? The hope is that perhaps someone at ABC will conclude maybe it's not such a good idea to use its privilege to spread lies on behalf of one political party, effectively silencing 77 million voices.
Amen! 💯🎯 Beautifully said!
This is absolute nonsense about the Kimmel situation. If the Fairness Doctrine was still in force, you might have somewhat of a point. But it isn't and you don't. Never mind the pending mergers that were put at perceived risk under not-so-veiled threats. Regardless, if you had actually cited any FCC regulations that might be relevant or germane to the ABC Jimmy Kimmel affair, we could be having a meaningful conversation. Instead you provided a generic description of how the FCC ostensibly regulates broadcast licenses over the "public" RF spectrum.
To wit: What did Kimmel actually say that could possibly be deemed unprotected or illegal and which relevant FCC regulations could possibly be brought to bear in an actual proceeding or in consideration of a broadcast license renewal evaluation as a result? Which FCC bylaws specify or define the nature, degree or amount of on-air speech which might qualify as sufficient to deny licensure or to take other punitive actions against a broadcaster?
This isn't an issue of a corporation making a business decision to fire an employee free from the threat of governmental interference in its business or operations. That is precisely what Carr did, in as public a manner as possible - and - while merger actions were underway (to further consolidate control of our media into even fewer hands, but that's another topic).
Focusing on just the one monologue is part of the problem. Kimmel for 9 years has a had sustained promotion of a single political party and a sustained critique of another. Throughout the 9 years there has been inaccurate and erroneous accusations, interpretations, characterizations of a single party couched as “jokes”. Not to mention the endless guest list of a single party of congressmen, senators, governors , FBI chiefs, formerly semi anonymous bureaucrats. For the networks I’d consider it in-kind contributions to a single party. That’s a problem.
The point I'm making is that only three major networks have enjoyed a near-monopoly over the public television broadcast spectrum for decades. All three of those networks have worked hand in hand with government (and by that I mean the permanent government - or deep state, if you will) regulators to control the information reaching the public. In exchange, their former officers and directors are given the top positions in the FCC. That's called regulatory capture. Witness the lockstep reporting (or non-reporting) between the three networks on every major issue. Can any Racket News reader doubt that the networks intentionally de-amplified strories on official corruption like Russiagate, The Twitter Files, or Alex Berenson's exposing official lies about COVID and the mRNA vaccines?
After what we've learned in recent months, can we continue to believe that these leviathan corporations are somehow doing the public a service by turning what used to be entertaining late night television into political propaganda? Should we, as American taxpayers, forced to help support programming designed to control us, to harm us, and even to kill us . . . in order that certain giant corporations can make obscene profits? Should the very people who have declared the First Amendment to be a "problem" and a "roadblock" now be saluted for running underneath its skirts the minute their stranglehold on power is threatened?
Now, with Donald Trump in office, and a new FCC Chariman, their monopoly is threatened, as it should be. The Jimmy Kimmel kerfuffle was merely a shot across the bow. I'm waiting for the FCC (and maybe DOJ, as well) to REALLY lower the boom on these evildoers, and on entire incestuous relationship between these networks and the halls of power in Washington.
Don't have time to address the rest right now, but the concept of "regulatory capture" as it normally applies (to say the FTC or FDA) doesn't really apply when it comes to the FCC auctioning off bandwidth licenses. There is plenty of useable RF spectrum for almost anyone to purchase a chunk and begin broadcasting. Also, I defer to you because again I don't have the time at the moment to do the research, but I didn't think that the FCC board was typically made up of television network honchos or c-suite or board members, but you could be right. The ones who I can think of off the top of my head have zero experience in broadcast media or ownership of those network or sub-networks of multiple local affiliates like Sinclair or the other one. More later...
But since I can add to this right away: "Can any Racket News reader doubt that the networks intentionally de-amplified strories on official corruption like Russiagate, The Twitter Files, or Alex Berenson's exposing official lies about COVID and the mRNA vaccines?"
Or "Iran-backed Houthis" or October 7 or "Russia's unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine" or "massive SIM spam texting farm" etc. - so yeah obviously there is massive coordination between the "networks" (which really means both 'newswires', major conglomerates (that own NBC, ABC, CBS, Fox and all their local affiliates), etc. But it's for reasons and using methods that would be incredibly difficult / unprecedented for the FCC to regulate.
And the current court system has been captured! The courts which recognize 1A are cautious with their rulings. Then we have Revolutionary Judges Gone Wild! Maybe they will put out a 2026 calendar in their robes! Do NOT trust this court system as currently employed.
Thanks for that link. I was totally unaware.
The morons in California will lose when someone takes this to the Supreme Court if not sooner. Who wants to be first in line to insult Newsom and his woke, trans friends? They are so buried in their own a-holes that they don't know states cannot enact laws that contradict the US Constitution!? Time to grab the popcorn, but I'm wondering if Newsom will even sign it. Is he that stupid? Will someone tell him this will be front and center in his next presidential campaign? I really think you folks are getting all in a lather over something that's not gonna happen and won't come to pass.
Of course SCOTUS will strike it down. That's obvious. I assume the motive for passing it is essentially performative, like all the right-wing anti-abortion laws that had no hope of standing under Roe v. Wade.
The next SCOTUS, though? After the Ds appoint five Sotomayors to the Court?
Doubt he’ll sign, but not on principle, rather after calculation…..
Kind of like how 4A and 6A have been rendered dead over the course of a few decades thanks to mostly Republican appointed SCOTUS justices? Yet 2A seems just fine even in the most maximalist interpretations despite all the wailing from conservatives and 1A has mostly weathered plenty of other Republican and Democrat attacks over the years.
When enough people start leaving California, the shrinking tax base might get their attention.
Along, eventually, with the Constitution as a whole, if we, the people, don't watch out.
When their leading intellectuals (if you can call them that) espouse Critical Theory, which views politics and society as an unrelenting power struggle between groups, take them at their word. That is how they view politics, and they play the game accordingly. That philosophy fits hand in glove with the amoral ladder climbers that make up the heart of the professional managerial class and who were the biggest cheerleaders of COVID restrictions + the post-Floyd mania. Not a true civil libertarian to be found among them.
I sadly learned this lesson in 2008 when Barack Obama finally got elected and ended all the wars.
And when he didn't, the left continued protesting.
But when the most famous anti-war voice DID continue protesting, at least the administration didn't viciously attack her.
https://hubpages.com/politics/When-Democrats-Viciously-Attacked-Gold-Star-Mother-Cindy-Sheehan-for-Protesting-Obamas-Wars
Man, you have difficulty ever saying anything that isn't buried beneath irony. You post is shot though with you saying the opposite of what you mean.
I'm training the next generation of AI!
You're killing me.
That's the best part!
May irony live forever!
If the whole post didn’t have the same tone, the sarcasm would be unclear.
Matt seems frankly delusional on this issue. Using violence to end free speech is now the norm for a significant subset of self-described "good people." You're exactly right.
Trump's speech was and is the threat and the globalists and their dupes still pray that some nut will take Trump out. Violence and censorship are their tools and they're not about to put them down.
I watched Trump's speech and then listened to a UK pundit offer 10 seconds of criticism followed by "Putin coming to getcha!"
Update: Just want to be clear. I respect Matt's effort and support for Alex - but corporate sock-puppets in the media are never, ever, ever going to go off script and actually tell any truth.
New EU project: Democracy Shield - Censorship Project and the Deep State plan to destroy Nigel Farage
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jSySe5m-GOE with Dominic Cummings on GB News
Worth watching.
The May 2025 Democracy Shield Legislation: https://caneurope.org/eu-democracy-shield-why-protective-gear-is-not-enough/ - take a look at the future even with Trump in the WH.
I seem to remember you are entitled to say anything you want you're just not entitled to a platform to do it on or for an employer to continue to employee you.
I seem to remember that mantra when Gina Carano got tossed from The Mandalorian , Rosanne got removed from the hit show she created and when Scott Adams got his comic strip removed from all syndication .
Exactly correct. I was about to say that if it weren't for double standards, these clowns would have none.
it's WHO/WHOM all the way down
(Borrowing your "reply" box Coco. Thank you!!)
.1) Media, censorship and the "blob"? The just posted Mike Benz 12 minute illustrated: "The Blob's Role in Media Literacy" on Youtube should dispel doubts and suspicions. --(I would have posted the link but the link won't open. )
.2) Hooray for RACKET forever in their attempt to call out the hypocrisy and hold the system to account.
.3) People who lie to your face are not your friends. This is political theatre-- ( A LIE IN COSTUME)-- and Disney took the entire country for a ride, rattled the Constitution, stuffed their pockets and promptly went to sleep.
.4) It is the intent of the perps to loot and eventually starve the citizens of our Republic into submission.
.5) Print is the only un-manipulated and un-surveilled future Subscription journalism has. Start building the fall-back now!!
.6) Next week--new crisis--new anxiety--new manufactured fears --no solutions forthcoming.
.7) The problem is psychopathy--not politics.
(Again--Thank you C.Mc.)
Yep. Let's not hold our breath for our "First Amendment defenders!" fair-weather friends.
The ACLU generated a lengthy statement (with 400 signatories) supporting Kimmel's right to free speech after Disney suspended (not fired) him for accusing conservatives of a crime, murdering Charlie Kirk [https://www.aclu.org/defend-free-speech-letter-kimmel].
However, this is all the ACLU had to say after Charlie Kirk was shot dead on a college campus, a place where free and open speech is supposedly welcome: “There is never any place for violence in our politics. The only way to work out differences in a democracy is to work them out together – peacefully through our political system. The ACLU condemns this horrific act and extends its sympathies to the family of Charlie Kirk.”
Thanks to the ACLU and Disney, Charlie's ultimate sacrifice, his life-long dedication to free speech, is buried faster than a modern news cycle while Jimmy Kimmel, who lost a few hours of airtime, is paraded as an icon of free speech. Amazing.
That said, I thank Kimmel for his apology, which appeared to be genuine, but I won't waste time watching his show. For Charlie Kirk, I absolutely will find time to watch some of his many exchanges with students.
RIP, Charlie Kirk.
I don't think for a moment this challenge is indicative of any true credulity. Though Mr. Taibbi is an optimist. But then, so am I, and I don't hold out much hope that many on the left, or any in positions of power, would lift a finger for Berenson. They'd go 100 miles out of their way to avoid doing so. But a few of the rank and file might be reachable, and a few more eventually.
Derek Thompson only moonlights as a writer.
his real job is a Siberian dungeon master.
You have no idea what you're talking about if you conflate the corporate Democratic party and its apparatchiks in the MSM with "the left" if in fact the terms "the left" and "the right" are even to have meanings anymore.
And if you want to go back in US history, it has consistently been the right who has used governmental powers to stifle any speech that they didn't like. Needless to say, corporate Democrats like Obama did nothing to reverse stuff like George W. Bush's "free speech zones" and Trump will do nothing to reverse the governmental tampering with the social media platforms so often written about at this site, but in order to squelch criticism of Israel or "mean" comments about Charlie Kirk.
Only total morons believe that this is a left-right affair. This is a top-down situation in which both center-right to right-leaning political parties will abuse governmental powers whenever they have control of the necessary levers to squash speech that's inconvenient to their narratives and especially so when the speaker/writer has a large enough platform to actually reach a certain number of people. The fact that your comment got so many "likes" is testament to how blinded American partisans have become to the realities of US history and political power, and how wrapped up in the partisan winner-take-all zero-sum two-party Red Team Blue Team politics and "culture wars" people have become.
I don't think Matt is under that misimpression. That is the whole point of this piece and so many others.
Couldn't agree more.
When is Matt going to cover the free speech Holy Martyrdom of Charlie Kirk do you think? Matt is leaping out of his socks with anger over Kimmel's new celebrity status, but are you telling me that Matt has zilch to say about the stadium-filling Pazuzu summoning ceremony that was the Charlie Kirk Memorial Extravaganza and Reichstag Fire?
This makes, by my count of lefties-hyperventilating-into-paper-bags news events, six Reichstag Fires, eight Anschlussen, four annexations of the Sudetenland, three invasions of Poland, and one literal genocide.
At least have the decency to start calling him UltraMegaHitler.
And a fascist partridge in a Nazi tree.
You forget that sending troops into Los Angeles was literally Operation Barbarossa on crack. And then I count literally three additional Operation Barbarossa's on crack since then. Nobody's ever seen carnage like that before.
Hey, if the jodhpurs fit.
Funny that your troll name is a torture prison planet.
Fits a progressive like a glove.
I gotta say, I am tickled pink that so many people get the ref', as well as tickled black and blue that so many people think this can be used as a dig against me! (Did you think you were the first, you off-brand Richese ghola?)
I post under my name
Therefor I’m not a pos troll
Have a nice day
They’ll never post under their real name. They are cowards, total opposite of a Charlie Kirk and with the attention at his memorial that should be obvious even to a simpleton
Freak
Not anytime soon. We're talking about Matt "nothing-to-see-here" Taibbi, the same Matt Taibbi who, with his uncanny prescience, characterized anyone who said Russia would invade Ukraine as a paranoid warmonger. There's a reason he's hanging out here in the bowels of cyberspace.
If what Colbert means by "We are all Jimmy Kimmel" is that they are all assholes, then I agree. The support for "free speech" is temporary and limited to their side. And this is not free speech, it is expensive speech if rumors are that Kimmel makes $10-20 million a year for his crappy show that no one watches. I am honored to be a subscriber to Matt, Alex, and Kimmel's much wiser friend, Adam Carolla.
It's very similar to the Me Too movement. If it's Monica Lewinsky - Hillary Clinton is bullying, demagoguing and destroying that "she's a narcissist looney tunes" and the left/media's response silence or she's right. But if it's someone who said she was accosted approx. 35, 36, 37 years ago in a Bergdorf Goodman's we celebrate changing the law to protect the fallen angel/innocent victim.
Yes- and the three women who claimed Kavanaugh did something to them with no evidence. The first one couldn't even say what year it allegedly happened and the third one was in college when she was supposedly partying with high school kids. But yes, very similar. And look at how they latched on to Epstein when the thinnest connection to Trump arose. They forgot that we already knew they knew each other and all the other context. Clinton on the Jet? Just catching a free ride, nothing to see here but Trump and Epstein in a picture together from 20 years ago- what more evidence do you need?
There's a picture of Clinton getting shoulder rubs from one of Epstein's little girls. Haven't seen that in a while.
I have, a week or two ago, but I forget where (Yahoo News?) She's one of those testifying against Epstein, but in this case, stated that Clinton was "a perfect gentleman." Maybe his wife was on the plane, as that was not his rep in general.
Still, had to drag that out from the memorybank. We're seeing endless representations of Trump with Epstein. It's the vogue narrative. It has gotten old.
Well, if 400+ Hollywood-ers believe the rest of the country should follow their lead, who are us commoners to disagree.
That would be like arguing with the 51 former intelligence officials who assured us the Hunter Biden laptop story was Kremlin/GOP kompromat.
They have learned their lesson 51 people spouting bullshit is no longer enough. So they got 8X as many to spout it.
They have half the country claiming it’s all conspiracy theories. But having former and active IC on your speed-dial of corruption is always a nice bonus.
Here’s what doesn’t add up and I’d love to hear what Matt thinks. At $20M per year just for Kimmel’s pay check, and then how much more for the studio, broadcasting to local affiliates around the country, etc - let’s say just twice that, I’d imagine it’s more - his 100k or whatever audience is costing $400 per viewer. Even if many in his audience were all hopelessly addicted to big pharma, that would still be an insanely expensive price to pay for potential customers. It just doesn’t add up. It’s as if someone or entity is backing a propaganda machine that has nothing to do with free market economics, price be damned. I’ll bet the math is even worse for Colbert. In surpaies I haven’t seen more forensic analysis on this. As an entrepreneur this is a glaringly weird issue.
True, and here is the way to know that it's so. The networks would be glad to continue losing that money if their regime was still in charge, led by der Fuhrer Harris in the White House. It's too expensive otherwise.
Agreed. Short-term losses are secondary to attaining power.
And 60+ affiliates will not be carrying Kimmel's show, so that will decrease the value even more.
Yes, I do not think it is about getting customers. Owning these shows and all the others add up to controlling what the public hears and believes. It serves the drug companies corporate interests and it serves the corporate overlords' interests who make their money elsewhere. So, the propaganda arm doesn't need to make money so long as their control of the public perception continues to serve the corporate and political interests. They buy everyone in town so they continue towing the line.
True, with regard to MSM, including mainstream "print" media (Ex: NYT). They also controlled social media until Elon bought X-Twitter, and platforms like Substack developed. With declining MSM consumption, a leveling social media playing field, and alternate media sources, their domination is dwindling. They are, to put it simply, screwed.
I hope so but as I have recounted in the past, there are still places including WBAL TV Baltimore and 1010 WINS in NYC, where I have heard Kilmer Abrego Garcia referred to as the Maryland Dad wrongfully detained by ICE months after it was clear he was a gangbanger wife abusing trafficking illegal. So the talking points still filter down and get disseminated across the country. This last election should not have been as close as it was. So if it is anything, to quote or paraphrase Churchill, it is not the end or the beginning of the end but rather the end of the beginning. I don't even know what to say about Twitter though I am glad openness has been restored for the most part. What I see there that troubles me, is evidence of how many people are still being seriously misled. These people should not be censored, they should be heard so that they can be debated. Some of them are so unhinged that I can't even bring myself to engage. But it is disturbing how many people believe the absolute craziest things that have no factual support and are not even plausible. To be fair, I hear it from people I think I would otherwise agree with as well.
You make many reasonable points. If there is a chance to keep us from going the way of Europe, it is in a sustained long term rollback of the encroachment of government over decades, and probably centuries. The Constitution is under constant assault.
If I may paraphrase Colbert: "We're all jive-turkeys, now. <3 <3 <3"
wish Ralphie May was still alive....
Alex Berenson didn't emcee the Academy Awards. His case was too complex to be covered by The Hollywood Reporter.
Berenson v. Biden should be one of the landmark decisions by the Supreme court.
On Sept. 18 Derek Thompson wrote on X--"The Biden administration working with social media companies to throttle what they considered COVID misinformation might or might not have been legally principled, but it did at least pretend to have a substantive moral argument that was something like, "We don't want people to die and we're willing to take drastic steps to block information we believe might lead to their death." Weaselly.
Thank you for your loyalty and continued analysis of Alex Berenson's case.
After watching videos of pregnant liberal women eating Tylenol while giving Trump the finger, I would literally pay money to see Trump release an ALL CAPS post forbidding Americans from walking around with dog shit on their heads.
Fun would quickly follow.
Trump forbidding drinking urine is my favorite scenario
I think Trump should come at as transracial and transgender. First black woman president. What an accomplishment!
LOL!!
You mean pregnant liberal women actually exist? I thought that 90% of them aborted if and when they found themselves in the family way.
Nah. How else to get 6 months paid leave? If I could invest in fertility clinics I would - they’re going to need donated sperm and frozen eggs.
Better yet, he should come out against murder, child trafficking, drug smuggling, and... wait a minute
Are you sure that they’re pregnant. I mean, there’s a whole lot of seriously ugly fat liberal women out there.
Since I am thankfully not stuck in a room with them I'll have to take them at their word. For all I know there's a "Handmaids App" that makes everyone look like an oppressed breeder.
In addition to mocking those who want to protect their unborn, they still have time to strap their born children on their backs and join the herd of libtard lemmings off the cliff. We are going to have to start taking children away from these dangerous things with wombs very soon. Save the children.
Have to agree that they are not prime motherhood material.
They are like a bunch of overgrown adolescents, who can never stop rebelling against their parents.
“ Unreported Truths,” and “Racket News” are my Substack go to’s for my need-to-know takes on what’s happening in America. God bless Alex, Matt, and Walter.
Can we hope for a guest appearance by Alex on America This Week?
From your keyboard to Matt’s eyes!
Maybe he could appear on Kimmel?
And this piece needs to get into the Wall Street Journal please
The first and last question regarding every dispute or issue now is: Whose side are you on? Postliberal tribalism has eaten almost every brain, with our thinking classes being most opposed to thinking. An ideological lobotomy is mandatory if you want to maintain your career and social status.
The notion that the actors and journalists of our progressive aristocracy are champions of free speech, thought and expression is a grotesque lie based on media gaslighting and their bottomless capacity for self-worship.
Our liberal classes have spent the past decade introducing speech codes, bias response teams, sensitivity readers, mandatory pronoun declarations plus demanding people be censored and/or fired for causing "harm", which is the great lie of our age (or at least one of them).
They will go back to censoring their opponents as soon as they're able to—and will lie and deny it—because residing on the Right Side of History™ means never having to say you're sorry. How can they be wrong when they're rich and famous!?
"Postliberal tribalism has eaten almost every brain"
The real problem is that when tribalism is this pronounced, the only rational thing is to be a tribalist yourself. It's not rational for any political actor on either side to cling to principle at the expense of harming the enemy, because they correctly believe the enemy will feel no such compunction themselves.
Good old-fashioned Hobbesian dilemmas never go out of style. It is, in a nutshell, why humans feel tribal affiliations in the first place.
To go tribalist on this rationale is to cede that the nation has indeed devolved into the "state of nature."
For my part, I judge that we remain a bit healthier than that, even while taking various wounds, and even while riding the rocking pivot of dramatic, mostly unreal catastrophizing.
We can still save the higher principles of civilized life (which Hobbes said was the goal) if we demand their preservation by the institutions that govern us (which he called the solution). We do still have that opportunity. The right calling out the right, so far as this has happened, is a good sign.
The shocking truth, despite this comment section and others elsewhere, is that for most Americans everything is mostly fine. Reading American history it's hard to find this last decade much worse or better than most.
Not to mention that the ABC over-the-air broadcast license has many built-in speech limitations (as Matt and Walter Kirn so ably demonstrated). Do you think if Kimmel had gotten thrown off the air for using swear words, that the outcry would have been the same from the ACLU Hollywood elite crowd?
Nothing matters except 6 degrees of Trump. If it can't be used to fuel the eternal tantrum against the man that rules the brains and souls of his opponents, it doesn't matter. He is their fatal attraction.
Because after all, "The first and last question regarding every dispute or issue now is: Whose side are you on?"
Excellent commentary as usual!
Thanks!
"An ideological lobotomy is mandatory if you want to maintain your career and social status."
Bingo!
The WOKE-folk are expert at Machiavellian Dark Personality strategies.
While Berenson was obviously wronged, the far more important case for the American people was that of Doctors Jay Bhattacharya and Scot Atlas. The 2 Stanford MDs had the brilliant idea early in Covid to sample the Palo Alto sewers. They sampled fecal matter to determine the rate of infection in a town of 60K that immediately embraced lockdowns, with zeal found in few areas of the US.
Their results showed the rate of infection was far higher than anticipated, and the rate of serious harm was far lower. Had their simple experiment been replicated across the nation, Covid would have likely been little more than blip in history. While Berenson showed the flaws in the vaccines, the intrepid Stanford MDs showed the vaccine was probably not necessary for many young and healthy, likely already swimming in an ocean of natural immunity derived from antibodies they possessed, without ever realizing they had already been infected with Covid.
Despite their academic pedigrees, Stanford credentials and the ease their experiment could have been replicated, they were immediately censored and treated as heretics. The publication of their study was blocked at every turn. Their careers, livelihoods and families were threatened by both DC and CA State government, along with lockdown proponents. Their research was barred from dissemination, in a manner reminiscent of 1980s Russia.
Americans were instructed it was gospel ,only lockdowns and vaccination of all Americans age birth -death would prevent tens of millions of deaths. The loss of liberty for 335 million Americans was unprecedented. People needlessly lost jobs and businesses.The elderly perished alone. The well being of an entire generation of children was sacrificed for no reason.
In the end, everything the Stanford MDs proposed about infection and the likely limited harm for healthy adults under age 70 and children was true. They could have saved the US wasted trillions. Most importantly they would have prevented a generation from being needlessly emotionally and academically scarred for life..
To this day, apologies to the doctors and the American people have never been forthcoming. Americans still have no idea how many people perished from Covid, as opposed to with Covid. No one has any idea how many people developed lifelong drug, alcohol, obesity or mental health problems from being locked down for the better part of 2 years in some areas, or were negatively effected by vaccines. Nor has the Press been nearly as concerned about the story of the century, as they are about a failing talkshow host bloviating actual "misinformation".
The most important unanswered question about covid is "When did it actually show up in the USA?" And by all accounts, that's somewhere around December 2019 -- four months before we did anything at all to slow the curve. Winter months full of holiday travel and going to basketball games and all the stuff they said was too dangerous in 2020.
Yet we didn't even notice the bug until governors threw covid patients into nursing homes, effectively infecting all the at-risk at once.
Trump should’ve fired Fauci the second he flipped from the truth (a bad flu) to pandemic. And he should’ve known China was playing out a huge asymmetric PsyOp with their lockdown immediately.
Yep. Very early in the pandemic, Fauci was actually pretty much on the money. There was never any real data that suggested the initial data was incorrect, but he flipped completely around on the issue. In February 2020 (before a single school closure!) he wrote about how kids didn't get sick with covid. He said that because we're missing mild cases, the IFR was probably closer to a bad flu.
When Trump repeated this, the media went APESHIT on him. https://simulationcommander.substack.com/p/experts-now-claim-we-didnt-know-but
(Orf has a tremendous video of this)
Edit to add his video -- https://x.com/0rf/status/1694370372005560377
Excellent writing.
Amen, Ronda Ross. A virus with a 99%+ survivability rate, and we locked down the world for years, killed people, and crippled at least one generation of school children.
I heard or read early on in the pandemic -- and I wish I had marked the location -- about a prison somewhere in the U.S. where one or two inmates and guards began showing up with symptoms. Makes sense: close quarters, a "captive audience."
But instead of just testing the symptomatic patients, the warden decided to test the entire prison population and -- guess what -- EVERYBODY tested positive. Surprise, surprise.
This story has probably been memory-holed at this point, but I would love to find it again.
The Left is, and has always been, the ideological declaration that principles are for rubes. That truth and morality are “subjective”. That the ends justifies the means. That winning is justification for all tactics.
Postmodernism + Consequentialism.
It must be recognized and dealt with accordingly.
In her most eloquent/courageous House floor speech, did not the congressperson from Queens refer to dead Charlie Kirk as “uneducated?” Seriously, I think she used that word. So the double major matriculated from BC, bartender (pronouns, wet/dry), insults assassinated man as “uneducated.” Maybe she didn’t say that. That would be cruel and ignorant. That must be disinformation.
Not BC, BU. You know the incubator for grifters such as Ta-Nehisi Coates.
Thank you for the fact check. I thought she was an Eagle. Per internet research, she is a Terrier. Hmm. 😊
She’s an idiot.
Ignorant and uneducated
If you really want to call a spade a spade, the Left are in Psychopath territory, to one degree or another.
Appreciate the detail - but this really is not that complicated. The left is simply complaining about loss of power, not loss of free speech.
I wonder how long their make believe world view can survive given they are rather rapidly losing control of reported news and opinion.
It's gotta suck to be them.
I hope you will find this as a humorous aside - the link below gets you to an episode of The Man Show - and shows who Jimmy Kimmel really is - an amoral clown in it for the attention and money.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=the+man+show+girls+on+trampolines+unedited&t=osx&ia=videos&iax=videos&iai=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DZgueoyfvxJQ
If this tickles your fancy - google "girls on Trampolines" for more insight. It always amazes me this doesn't get more airtime as it so represents what a buffoon Kimmel was and still is.
My vote - keep him on the air. He hurts more than helps the causes he espouses.
There is reporting tonight that Sen. Warren is complaining Obama edited her speech at the Dem convention in 2012. Obama, if he replies, will no doubt pontificate that “Michelle and (he) . . .”
If true, this is the final death throes of the Dem Party I belonged to my whole life. Social Dem all the way, Baby! Now willing to call out Obama, Inc.? Finally, the Dem Party has been captured. Justice.
Ditto paragraph 2. No sympathy for the Dems of the uniparty. Go Social Dems! Just a little preview of what happens when there isn't a DNC Dem party that's viable -- because none of us are going center or right. I think it interesting that there was a GOP rep today talking about how tariffs are hurting combine sales in Nebraska. So let's count the ways the last 9 months may have adversely hurt the republican party.
* Tariffs are taxes 90% of which will be passed onto consumers, left and right, adding to economic woes.
* Tourist industry, and red state Florida, beyond broken repair due to international outrage at being bullied
* Hispanic vote which put Trump over the top, GONE.
* Black vote, having watched the federal govt go for black, liberal inner cities, Gone.
* Red state farmers and ranchers, in deep financial trouble, without any migrant help, Gone.
* Epstein files suppressed again. Still seems to be an issue with the base, you know, abuse of women and children and all that.
* Red states dependent on Federal funds and Medicaid, Gone. [Steve Bannon warned you].
* The ongoing outlay of $$$s to keep Israel first.
That is amazing, even for Trump. Grandpa Joe prolly still wins as the final destroyer of a political dynasty that needed to die, but still... credit where it's due.
I should have used the sarcasm font.
Not at all, just sarcasm for some is reality for others. I probably should have used the meh font.
It was in David Leonhardt's interview with her in the NYT yesterday.
Remember that Warren had a large part in tanking his TPP too. He probably doesn't like her much.
If the Left is now so powerless and Republicans control everything, why are they so pissy and whiny all the time? Why are they so beaten down? Pathetic. S-A-D.
This is weak name calling - if you are going to post - do better.
Call the bluff by fining Google and criminally charging co-conspirators. The left only cares about exercising power, not any free speech principles. Don’t forget about the regime’s persecution of Douglas Mackey, they tried to throw him in jail for a decade over memes.
The whole thing is sort of hilarious timing, as the left is suddenly rediscovering their love for free speech. Now they have to explain how they missed the biggest violation of free speech in recent memory.
"But there was a pandemic........"
They refuse to admit that there was previously a violation, calling the Twitter / Facebook Files a "hoax"
That was just a nothing burger when Matt Taibbi whored himself out to billionaires to get rich, right?
Something like that, anyway.
I still don’t get how Kimmel’s situation is a 1A violation. I’ve read all of Matt’s work on this, including the recent discussion between Matt and Walter Kirn. It seems to me a large group of affiliates decided, on their own (without Carr) to not air Kimmel’s nightly diatribe after offending the affiliate’s market demographics. To me this is not freedom of speech, but freedom of association. A FAFO moment for Kimmel and Disney.
I know Matt feels different, but I side with Walter on this. ABC and its ilk are using air wave licenses to print money, and have violated the basic agreements by nearly 100% broadcast of left narratives, without any attempt at counter. They’ve been allowed to run amok for a decade, hiding under the banner of free speech. The fact that Kimmel is an insufferable douche nozzle, and hasn’t had a “find out” moment yet, speaks to the background powers keeping a money hemorrhaging show on the air, simply to reinforce a narrative.
I, for one, take your point. And more or less agree with it. As Matt said on an earlier post, the Trump admin should have just stayed out of it and let them just hoist themselves on their own petards.
My guess is ABC brought Kimmel back because there is a little buzz around him just now and they can get credit with Democrats who might tune in. But, I expect ABC will let him go for good within the year since affiliates won't carry him and any temporary spike in ratings will be over.
Most interesting to me: shouldn't the politically motivated shooting at the ABC affiliate Sacramento, CA (state capital) be big news on ABC?
"A man accused of shooting at an ABC affiliate’s office in northern California left handwritten notes that criticized the Trump administration and a calendar reminder to "Do the Next Scary Thing," prosecutors said on Sept. 22."
"ABC station shooting suspect had note criticizing FBI and AG Bondi, prosecutors say"
https://www.desmoinesregister.com/story/news/nation/2025/09/22/abc-television-station-sacramento-shooting-suspect-charges/86301330007/
Also, the man who tried to assassinate Justice Kavenaugh 3 years ago is going by "she/her" and "Sophie" in court. I think this is interesting given the number of trans ideology related shootings lately including the Trump adjacent Charlie Kirk. Does ABC cover that? Or, is the crumby comedian more interesting? Roske has been "Sophie" online for years.
"The Department of Justice is recommending that the defendant, 29-year-old Nicholas Roske, be sentenced to 30 years in prison for attempting to kill the Supreme Court justice in 2022, according to a Friday filing outlining the case against Roske. Roske pled guilty to the attempt to kill a United States Supreme Court Justice in April 2025, three years after authorities arrested him in Kavanaugh’s neighborhood, carrying a bag full of weapons and burglary tools.
A filing from Roske’s defense attorneys shows that Roske now goes by “Sophie Roske” and that his legal team will refer to him using female pronouns. A footnote on the filing, obtained exclusively by The Daily Wire, explains that the defense will not use Roske’s legal name “out of respect” for the would-be assassin." ...
"A source familiar with the legal proceedings in the case told The Daily Wire that Roske was using female identities online before the attempted murder, and now goes by the female name reflected in the defense filings." https://www.dailywire.com/
Indeed, it sure seems like the mainstream media is in “protect the narrative” at all costs mode. That means suppressing stories like the Sacramento station shooting. El Gato Malo wrote a piece today the starts to make sense of this strategy; it’s about the left narrative and news capture not at all trying to convince the opposition, but continue to keep the left on board. Here’s the link https://open.substack.com/pub/boriquagato/p/lies-damn-lies-and-post-truth-media?r=bivr4&utm_medium=ios
I am in 100% agreement that "the mainstream media is in “protect the narrative” at all costs mode".
Thank you for the El Gato Malo article. It's a good one for sure!
1) So true about Musk:
" i don’t think the world will ever understand the extent to which his acquiring and re-opening twitter saved it or the extent to which this changed forever the whole of the debate in america by bringing back the other side."
I believe Musk's turning point occurred when one of his sons decided he "was really a woman". Musk took issue with the Transgender Ideology Narrative^TM. And now:
"President Donald Trump promised Sunday that his administration is “very strongly” examining the string of transgender violence throughout the United States. " (Daily wire)
See also "NOT JUST TYLER ROBINSON: The Latest in a Series of Violence Tied to Transgender Ideology" https://www.dailysignal.com/2025/09/20/transgender-ideology-is-motivating-violence-its-high-time-fbi-designate-such/
There was a powerful article today on the free substack "Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT):
"That Could Be My Son"
https://www.pittparents.com/p/that-could-be-my-son
With comments from the other parents:
https://www.pittparents.com/p/that-could-be-my-son/comments
2) Also from the El Gato Malo article:
it was a rescue.
It was a turning point."
"reindeer games of “accuse then quietly retract” go on, but things are changing and changing fast."
"we the people are simply not willing to be lied to and baited into conflict with one another anymore and we will rise and we will take back the society that is ours.
and if this scares media, perhaps ask why."
Yes, it is quite a battle though. Ongoing. And, it's been a long time in the making.
AND…you get bonus points for correctly spelling amok!
Update: following Matt’s threads on X(twitter), he’s saying that by Carr making ANY kind of threatening statement, whether it affected Disney and the affiliates decision at all, opened the door to a free speech issue. That the best outcome was to let Kimmel return.
In great irony, while CA gov. Newsom was out screeching about the violation of Kimmel’s right to free speech, his state was busy passing through one of the most egregious censorship bills we’ve seen at the state level. Appears to be patterned after the kind of hate laws currently wrecking UK and the Eurozone. Just can’t make this shit up.
I knew Kimmel would be back. Bob Iger wouldn't be able to show his face at his country club.
Carr shooting his mouth off never had anything to do with it. It was between ABC and their affiliates, and the whole thing was probably about some kind of negotiating leverage.
Unfortunately, Carr shooting his mouth off gave the left the hook they needed to hang their defense of Kimmel on. Just like the January 6 riot gave the left the hook to scream insurrection (which they're still screaming about). If Carr had just let low-ratings Kimmel's suspension stand as a business decision the left would have been able to do no more than they were able to do when Colbert was dumped.
Yep, open mouth and give the left leverage is the MAGA playbook.
There might be more to it than being able to show his face at the country club.
""Thin-skinned" Disney CEO Bob Iger relented on Jimmy Kimmel after criticism from Michael Eisner, whom he "loathes", insiders say"- NY Post 9-23-2025
There is no equivalence between Kimmel's and Berenson's situations. None.
Kimmel was lying (and lying to reinforce the previous lies that Robinson was a right-winger), while Alex was telling the truth.
Substack is one place where we know all about Alex's situation. Many of us lived it, too!
Matt has covered the First Amendment angles. Nothing I can add that'll amount to anything more than my own prattling. But turning back to the whole Kimmel brouhaha . . .
. . . why do we need the FCC anymore? Why do we need/want a government agency issuing licenses to broadcast over a certain slice of "airwaves," especially now that we have broadband, cable, streaming, podcasts, substacks, etc.? And following on that, why do we want this agency to have the theoretical right to regulate content?
I don't like Kimmel, but I think I may like Carr less, or at least his strident and (falsely) self-righteous horseshit. But if he didn't have licenses to issue or revoke, nor standards to regulate and enforce, none of this would even be in play.
Food for thought.
Welcome to the libertarians!
You're not a real libertarian.
SC - I think I’m missing a gag here.
(Happens more and more the older I get.)
Please help a brother out.
Libertarians have been calling for the end of the FCC for a while. They are also very famous for accusing one another of not being "real" libertarians. The joke being that by me calling you not a libertarian, your acceptance into the libertarians is complete.
Edit to add comics about this -- https://ibb.co/9HMVmF6T
https://ibb.co/TDzQK1mZ
Got it.
I think I’ve long considered myself pretty Libertarian. But the fact I didn’t get the joke suggests I probably wasn’t.
Just means you don't talk to many libertarians about libertarian things. That's a net positive in life, really.
LOL
There is reporting that a CA legislator now wants to dismantle Sinclair for not carrying the Kimmel show. That isn’t “fast.” That is — wow.
https://youtu.be/B2rygAhcgcI?si=PWsmtBagfcskhPa2 Steve Earle re: the fcc😂
Can we agree that anytime "Hollywood stars" sign onto something, it's probably a bukkake of bullshit?