I'm sorry for my language on your board, Matt, but I can't fucking believe the incompetence of Bondi, Trump, and Carr here.
They've been fed the perfect alley-oop pass, and they botched it HARDCORE. First, Bondi saying they'll go after hate speech. HOW DOES THAT EVEN CROSS YOUR MIND? Hate speech isn't a thing! USE YOUR WORDS CORRECTLY and say you're going after ILLEGAL speech!
Then Trump doubles down the next day and insinuates he'll use "hate speech" to go after TV stations. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?
And to top it all off, you have Carr throwing around FCC threats while Kimmel is in the middle of being fired. All he did was give the left a rallying point. (The fact they're suddenly all for free speech is a different tangent all together.)
Now we're all talking about the guy who got fired for talking about the guy who got shot, and not about the guy who got shot.
Rookie-ball level mistakes from the admin the last few days.
This is my innate reaction as well. My hesitation is the recent history of this exact sort of thing working out really well for the Trump movement.
Every time Trump violates a principle, the resulting firestorm sheds a spotlight on how much worse the Left is in that area. It ends up being a net win, at least according to the next round of polls.
I don't like that it works this way, but do I have the choice?
Yes. The ONLY way I could MAYBE forgive this is if it were a giant troll to make the left stand up for free speech for like a week before clarifying. (This doesn't really apply to the Carr situation, though.)
How about the right takes this opportunity to reduce the scope of government and proposes that the FCC should be dismantled? Along with any other agencies and NGOs set up to monitor speech.
Invite all the lefties in hysterics over Kimmel to join us in this endeavor. And watch the tune change immediately. All those fine, decent government employees will lose their jobs!
I would prefer a flat out challenge to them. Give them what they claim to want. Dismantle FCC and any other agencies involved in monitoring speech. Cut funding to any speech monitoring NGOs. And watch them lose their minds.
Except that FCC also regulates in ways that encourage diversity of speech. A case in point sits in front of us today.
The two large local broadcast networks complaining about this are Nexstar and Sinclair. Nexstar is specifically in front of the FCC right now with a plan to acquire Tegna.
FCC rules require no ownership group control stations that have potential audience reach of more than 39% of US homes. The deal would take Nexstar to nearly twice that.
Thus they have an incentive to suck up to Trump and Carr, and it's hard to distill their true motives for their Kimmel stance.
AND, if the deal goes through, their power to insinuate themselves in a speech issue and influence TV production doubles - the power they are using today to influence their current FCC outcomes.
Right. One correction --- Thus they have an incentive to suck up to Trump and Carr, [so it is NOT] hard to distill their true motives for their Kimmel stance.
The FCC could just function as auctioneer and title company for spectrum. Right now it's full of lawyers. Probably should be mostly engineers and economists.
So anyone with a radio transmitter can just set up and broadcast? Anyone who doesn't like a cell tower near them can just set up a jammer and disrupt communications?
You might want to think that through a little better.
What kind of person relishes the thought of throngs of "fine, decent government employees" losing their jobs? Of anyone - unidentified groups of people - losing their jobs. How dead must your soul be to feel cute saying this publicly online? Jesus.
whether they have contemplated it or not, their jobs are used to pit the needs and wants of their lives against the rights of the people. its not a close contest on what should win out, though, like youve demonstrated its easy to see what actually wins out. these government jobs should not exist to begin with and your compassion for people losing jobs is another reason why.
This is the kind of faux intellectual rationalization that loses high school debates but somehow convinces *some* adults who can't really follow the through line that it's valid reasoning and solid argument supporting a lack of compassion as a positive trait.
Trump has never given a flying rat’s ass about reducing the federal footprint, he’s just an old school law and order D, like Richard Daley or Frank Rizzo, neither of whom should be remembered with high regard.
Today, Congressman Jim Baird (IN-04)’s legislation, the No Official Palestine Entry (NOPE) Act, passed the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. The NOPE Act expands existing funding prohibitions to include U.N. organizations that afford status, rights, or privileges to the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) beyond observer status. U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (TX-10) joined Congressman Baird as a co-lead on the legislation. U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced the Senate companion bill.
Edit to add -- this is the wrong bill but it's funny (and real) so I'm leaving it up anyway.
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and U.S. Representative Jason Crow (D-Colo.-6) on Thursday joined Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Representatives Greg Casar (D-Texas-35), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.-06), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.-10) at a press conference to announce their intent to introduce the No Political Enemies (NOPE) Act, legislation to protect individuals and organizations, including non-profits, faith groups, media outlets, and educational institutions, from politically motivated harassment and prosecution by the federal government. This bill would reaffirm the constitutionally protected right to free speech and establish clear and enforceable protections to deter abuse, empower individuals and organizations to defend themselves, and create meaningful accountability. The legislation would also prohibit the use of federal funds for any investigations or regulatory action that would suppress protected speech.
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I am all for that, so if this ends up being the law, great.
It's a disgraceful bill, and demonstrates the extent to which we are an occupied country. Zionist-occupied. Israel-First, not America-First. Just endless Israel bootlicking, to the abandonment of all human decency and any shred of respect in the rest of the world. The non-Zionist world, that is.
I know it makes me look very Pollyanna, but, yknow, the networks could just, like, be more balanced (fer realz) and like, eh...not crazy azzhoe shills for one side all the damn time. THEN there'd be peace in the valley.
Valid point with regard to Trump himself. He has a record of wild hyperbole familiar to everyone, including many threats to go after the media over the years which he has never followed up on. So it's reasonable not to take his threats seriously.
That said, I still think Bondi and Carr screwed up, because as domain specialists in government agencies, their pronouncements need to be taken more literally.
I realize Bondi has had wins at SCOTUS on behalf of the admin, but she keeps putting her foot in her mouth. I think she likes being on camera too much for an AG.
In 2017, a couple of NFL players were kneeling during the national anthem. Trump tweeted that he would fire them. The next Sunday, far more players kneeled, including some entire teams. Everyone was talking about what a mistake it was for Trump to have inspired them. Pundits said that kneeling was now a "referendum on Trump", and anyone who stood during the anthem was now "siding with Trump".
Then a new round of polls showed a large majority opposed kneeling, and Trump's approval rating increased a few points. The kneeling quickly returned to its prior level.
Donald Trump has been taught to make these "mistakes" because he keeps benefiting from making them. He's claiming credit for taking down Jimmy Kimmel even though he doesn't deserve it, just because he expects to win again.
CNN Business's report for one is stating that Carr's words directly led to a big important meeting where ABC said Kimmel you need to tone down the Wednesday night monologue and walk it back a bit and Kimmel said no way I'm going in hot and that's why his show was pulled. Meaning the Trump Administration very much precipitated this.
The best analysis I've seen is that Kimmel knew his show was about to be cancelled and decided to provoke his firing so he could go out as a Leftist hero rather than the loser he is. Says something about the Left's heroes.
No - "IT" doesn't "say something" about the Left's heroes. This is just YOU saying something about the "left's heroes" (Who? Kimmel is a hero?). Any citation to this "best analysis" you've seen? Is it fact-checked - or is that too "Legacy Media"?
Used to be the network people made mistakes, paid fines, issued an apology, and all was forgotten. He refused to play along with how things work and got what he got. It was a business decision. Kimmel showed he doesn't understand business. But after several years at $15M a year, maybe he doesn't have to....
The FCC demanded it, THREATENING OFFICIAL punishment, and the media conglomerate obliged. It doesn't get much more straightforward than that. The Trump administration is doing directly what it accused the Biden administration of doing indirectly.
09/20/25: Not to worry. Jimmy can now make $15,000,000 a year in summer stock theater doing his Howard Cosell impersonations (rude, overbearing, obnoxious and offensively self-centered/opinionated).
It's like sending the National Guard into Los Angeles. He did so only outside of federal buildings to defend them, well within the law. But then stated that he saved the whole city by having sent them in there for a few weeks and made it seem like they were broadly fighting crime and enforcing immigration. Rhetoric versus reality on the ground. He's very good at winning the rhetorical war and having solid optics for his brand.
Trump is very good about understanding the importance of "word on the street" and very good at manipulating it.
Immigration is the perfect example. "Word on the street" during Biden's term is that if you come here illegally you get a free apartment and a debit card and a job and endless bus rides--and worse worse worse worse worse case scenario is that you get to go back home.
Trump changed "word on the street" to be that if you come here illegally you will be either put in a concentration camp or shipped to some third country Hell Hole to disappear forever--you don't ever get to go back home to your family.
Both of those stories are much closer to stories than the truth, but word on the street directly effects behavior.
Every thing we are seeing now is to change the "word on the street" about what happens when you burn down the country with violence and terror under the guise of protest.
You might think this. But then you should also think that emails from ppl in the Biden admin making recommendations to Twitter concerning vaccine "disinformation" during a global pandemic was also not doing anything, really. Which indeed is what the Supreme Court said in Murthy v. Missouri, but don't tell Matt that.
This is totally accurate. Trump and the different strands of MAGA could've pointed to and shared all of the monstrous online reactions to Kirk's assassination, the defacing of murals, the disruption of vigils, and said "we don't censor" — allowing for school administrators to fire real offenders without encouraging it or the making of lists — and allowed a massive outpouring of support through genuine grieving.
Instead, we get Jimmy Kimmel as a free speech martyr, and allow the Democrats to ignore their last 9 or so years of censorship? Ferociously badly played politics. Trump still has a chance to call all of this out, and say "we don't riot and we don't murder political opponents, and we don't censor," but he won't.
I get the "payback's a bitch" impulse, deep inside the heart of Trump and MAGA, but they may squander a generational opportunity
Worse yet, that interview with Bondi wasn't live. They had all sorts of people in the room and in the booth who saw what she said and didn't have an issue with it.
The IMMEDIATE firestorm from the right when the video dropped should have been a MASSIVE hint about the temperature in the room. But they doubled down!
Yeah, that was by the far the stupidest thing any Trump appointee has done. They should've given her her walking papers; her Epstein publicity stunts were likewise really dumb, and gave the Dems ammunition to jump in to Epstein conspiracy land, though you could argue that just made the Dems look crazy and conspiratorial. She's an ultra-Trump sycophant, so she's not going anywhere.
I totally understand the new right/Chris Rufo/Lomez-type idea that MAGA has to take this one opportunity to cleanse the media institutions of something that grew from media bias to pure state propaganda over the last decade, but as Taibbi points out here, it was already happening naturally due to markets (and Trump's people could have gentled helped that process along). Instead of giving the Dems a little piece of rope to hang themselves with, he may have given them a lifeline they don't deserve.
A close second is....Pam Bondi handing out binders of "Epstein Files" (that were already public information) labeled PHASE I.....then having Trump claim the Epstein Files are just a hoax.
I get that Trump wants somebody loyal as AG, but maybe get somebody who doesn't publicly fumble the ball every kickoff.
Yeah, I mentioned the Epstein thing with her. I'm personally of the belief that Epstein was a creep who did illegal shit, but that 99.99% of the Epstein lore is a conspiracy (though I'd bet the fabled "Epstein Files" do contain evidence of shady business deals). The fact that Bondi pushed it as far as she could before Trump said "enough" and all of MAGA turned it off, was dumb (though I think Dems jumping right into the conspiracy made them look even dumber).
My personal problem is the stupid phrasing like "there's no Epstein List" -- like....we don't really think Jeff had a laptop with "MyPedoPals.doc" on it, "the Epstein List" is shorthand for the information gathered during the many investigations and court trials. We're talking thousands and thousands of pages of information and evidence that quite obviously exists.
OTOH, the whole story makes perfect sense if Epstein were somehow 'protected' as an intelligence agent. The government isn't going to throw [whoever] under the bus because the blackmail is still useful.
Oh they deserve the lifeline. The country deserves the lifeline. This is not a low stakes game or online argument. This is the Constitution of the United States and if it is disregarded WE ALL LOSE. The Trump administration is taking a hatchet to the First Amendment. That's the issue here, not which "team" is scoring "points.? Which GOVERNMENT is threatening to punish Americans for making jokes they don't like or not mourning correctly. This is not the Soviet Union, though Matt increasingly seems to wish it were.
I tried to give her some slack at first, due to irrational emotions in processing Kirk's death, but then I saw her go on to share her skin care routine later in the podcast.
"...allow the Democrats to ignore their last 9 or so years of censorship?"
This has been my beef with all of these MSM pieces. It's like Biden admin mafia style threats to FB and Twitter have just been memory holed. Also, if I'm going to be handwringing over a cancelled comedian, it's going to be Dave Chappelle.
Or Graham Linehan, or Shane Gillis, or Roseanne, or Tony Hinchcliffe, and a whole host of other comedians who've had the axe come down.
We're going to have to admit that what's left of legacy media in its current form, is just not going to admit any wrongdoing on anything they've done. There's a who's who of politicians, journos and entertainment idiots acting like Trump just declared martial law because of Kimmel who've had statements gleefully celebrating cancellations and censorship over the last decade. There's no sense of shame or hypocrisy with any of them. It's a bloodsport, and the New York Times will only report one side's score.
The bottom was going to fall out sooner than later. If Trump gives them another Russiagate-type debacle to hang their hat on, their numbers could shoot back up, and it's going to be another 5 or so years before they disintegrate. (I doubt that this episode is going to get most eyes back on them, but who the hell knows?)
I totally get that comedy is in the funny bone of the beholder. But I'm failing to see any comedy on what I've heard of Kimmel's rant. It could have been an Olbermann rant that was supposed to be dead serious.
I 100% agree, and that's been the model of late night comedy during the Trump era. You could take Colbert's show and put it on after Maddow's on MSNBC without changing the format one iota.
But that model was failing! We've entered something of a new golden age of comedy, centered around Joe Rogan/Tony Hinchcliffe/Shane Gillis/Legion of Skanks/Theo Von and the rest. These guys do massive arenas, their comedy specials get millions of views on YouTube, and they've created a totally new comedy ecosystem that dwarves the TV network-related comedy scene. Hinchcliffe's "Kill Tony" show is essentially the new Johnny Carson: he can turn a no-name comic into a headliner instantly with a good appearance.
This is the market doing what it should: when the networks gave us warmed-over agitprop, a new group of upstarts used new tools to create something much bigger (probably the biggest comedy scene in history) that replaced them. The only people who watch late night are aging boomers, and not that many of them. The hammer was due to fall, and Trump should've just let it happen. (Though I think the networks wanted to get rid of them, and are using Trump as thier excuse.)
I agree with Matt completely but do have some question as to whether they would have cut Kimmel loose naturally. these corporate cut throats, would close a manufacturing plant in Ohio employing 1000 people in a small town to save a 1/4 point on the bottom line but they relentlessly shoveled millions of dollars to the hacks to lose money. they were scared of him and his allies in the company who have been busy wrecking the other corporate franchises that they inherited.
The cowardice is epic and if its not cowardice its much much worse.
Yes, they would be retained if it stopped Trump re elected. However, once not working ....Colbert failed in that and worse with a shitty show that did not pull it's financial losses.
yeah but Disney was never going to fire him, (though I disagree with the FCC forcing the issue,) As i said they dont give a shit about their rank and file but are scared shitless of the wokesters in the office. (and all of their friends in NYC 7 LA)
I'll disagree about that. Disney/ABC would definitely have fired him. The writing is on the wall that the old networks are going to have to adapt to the new media environment or die. The only people watching these shows — and most of what's on the networks — are boomers, and not too many of them (this is also a major problem with pro sports, who aren't developing young audiences). "Resistance" doesn't sell anymore, and new media is eating their lunch.
Lots of media companies are faced with a tough choice: adapt to what's happening with new media, and the kind of personalities and content younger people watch — and stop intentionally pissing off half of the voting public — or die out with the Dem boomers, who are the only people who actually pay for this stuff. It's more complicated by the fact that most Trump-deranged boomers will jump ship if they give up on #resistance, but many of their favorite grist-delivering scribes from the Post and the Times have already decamped to Substack and they followed them there.
Bezos trying to move the Washington Post towards something more libertarian, CBS trying to radically change its editorial voice, Lorne Michaels bringing in "forbidden" comics from the podosphere to his shows, Netflix hiring those same comics: it's happening. There's still a brief window for legacy media to fix itself, but getting rid of Kimmel, Colbert, the View, etc., is going to be a big part of that.
what you say makes sense. Its jus that they have not done this. this not just late night. Disney stock has tanked since 2021. Its at the same price as 2018 when these problems started to become apparent. . but they have continued to operate according to the principles of their wokest staff. It took outside interference for them to take action. i suppose if you consider that most of the corporate staff is well off, the disapproval of their peers may be worse to them than getting fired for tanking one of the most respected brands in history. But seriously, who purposely sets a market strategy that pisses off over 40% of your prospective audience? but they did.
Who did Democrats censor? random people getting mad and "cancelling" other random people does not count. Who did the Democratic leadership censor? And what do you mean 9 years? Biden was President for 4 of those years.
If Trump knew how to shut up and take the W, he wouldn't be Trump. He also, probably, wouldn't be president.
I'm sure all of us here have been sighing and rolling our eyes a lot at the Democrats' latest opportunity to cosplay La Resistance, which Trump never should have given them, but we take the bad with the good.
I agree but I also turn this in my mind: How can the "not-left" stop the dominant (legacy & independent) and predominately left/progressive/woke media train that drives much of the narrative for the country. Most people are not that tuned in & often form half-baked opinions based on headline news. I learned this the hard way when my npc friends and family, who were unfamiliar with Charlie Kirk, repeated the cherry-picked information they learned about him after his murder. I don't know how the "not-left" can fight this. I don't think this is going to change unless the whole ship is overturned, which is unlikely to happen.
Trust in the mainstream/legacy media has been falling for years and is already at a point that I'm not sure there needs to be much more "intervention" other than continuing to point out the lies and fabrications they tell.
A February Gallup poll found that 59% of Republicans, 42% of Independents, and ONLY 6% of Democrats have "NO TRUST AT ALL" in mass media! The only group that still has faith in legacy media is the Dems that they cater to. Independents are 7x more likely to NOT trust the media than Dems.
I forget where I grabbed this quote but it speaks volumes: “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.”
And I would bet big that the democratic numbers are just straight up lying--no one trusts the media--they are just saying what they are supposed to say given the circumstances.
The second the media doesn't submit completely they will burn down Disneyland and the polling numbers will follow.
Which is also a big part of the violence angle. When two people are yelling at you, the squeaky wheel is the guy with the gun.
"I agree but I also turn this in my mind: How can the "not-left" stop the dominant (legacy & independent) and predominately left/progressive/woke media train that drives much of the narrative for the country."
That media train has been doing a very good job of killing itself. The snowball only rolls in one direction. Nobody here is going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly trust CNN again. (Traumatic brain injury aside)
CNN, et al, yes. But others have stepped in those shoes, which hold the "legitimacy" in the eyes of the average American. While legacy media may be dying, the digital world is still dominated by the left and progressives who have inherited that legitimacy.
I get it. Media people don’t like this. Not a lot of people have been censored like Matt. It sucks. I think people just want some sort of recalibration where half of America is not called Racist and Fascist by the legacy networks from breakfast until bedtime. Who knows if the networks finally spoke up or it was the FCC.
Given the high-stakes battle ongoing with the forces of censorship worldwide - and the fact that those on the other side are already incarcerating folks for speech and thought violations, one might have thought we have larger concerns than purity tests and slippery slope arguments re: what government "might" do.
What the US government has done is spy on dissidents MLK, etc, rehabilitate left-wing terrorists and place them in academia to promote terrorist and violent ideologies, turn over the airwaves to BIG PHARMA, illegally leak classified and false information to skew/manipulate the American public (Russiagate), work with the social media to police social discourse etc.
Now the forces of good (relative to others) finally get a chance to say quit fucking around within the sole domain the public has real control over, Matt and others clutch their pearls and weep - no, no, no we can't protect ourselves and the public - just let the corporations keep fucking with us all?
Charlie Kirk is dead and Trump was nearly hit twice, and half the country lived in terror of losing their jobs for a decade, not to mention the solitary-confinement of the J6 "insurrectionists" and Matt's response is "we must let the corporations use the public airwaves to fuck us and warp the minds of our kids without constraint."
Had the FCC stepped in more aggressively years ago to demand balanced coverage of the news on the public airwaves we'd all be living in a MUCH MORE PEACEFUL reality, a less-divided world, and Charlie Kirk would likely still be alive.
And Matt's solution and that of others is: "now is the time to lie down?"
"If only censorship of comedians happened sooner!" What a joke that is. When you say the "other side" is "incarcerating folks for speech and thought violations," what specific incidents are you referring to? Who has been incarcerated for a speech or thought violation? That's a serious accusation.
Thank you for the reply. I read your contributions up thread which, frankly, convinced me only that you're an asshole adding nothing to the current debate.
I did not and do not see any need to censor comedians, thanks.
The "other side" refers to national and international censorship efforts tied to the US government via US AID and other organs (see the GEC, Greenwald, Shellenburger, Taibbi, Weiss, and others) which have resulted in the arrest and incarceration of citizens of various nations for speech and thought crimes.
Look it up, I suggest, as you're evidently unfamiliar with Matt's work on the subject. So, that's my civil reply which you've done nothing I can see on this thread, and reply to my comment, to merit. Fuck off now and educate yourself on any topic of your choice. Best of luck and have a nice day.
I consider Matt to be wrong and full of shit on this issue. For the first time, I've questioned Matt's intelligence and actual commitment to free speech.
Failing to understand something as basic as the difference been the FCC the public and the private media, does not inspire confidence.
If Matt actually believes in what he claims to believe he needs to sharpen his thinking and his rhetoric. This is our first exchange, I believe, and you're not winning me over.
I have sadly concluded Matt has an inferiority complex not "principles." It was never about Free Speech for him, it was about his personal exclusion from the ranks of legacy journalism - and his very hurt feelings about it.
I only realized recently how unqualified Matt Taibbi is for for the work he is doing. He seems to suffer from a class case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
His background? He went to Concord Academy boarding school for rich fuck ups whose parents don't want to deal (I had friends there); tried NYU for 6 months but was "unable to deal with being just one of thousands of faces in a city of millions"; transferred to the middling-yet-expensive private liberal arts college Bard, but spent his last year at Leningrad and then he worked and lived in the Soviet Union for a while. (It's not clear why or what connection he had to the Soviet Union?.) He studied literature at Bard and does not appear to have graduated with honors or received any special recognition.
After graduating from Bard (or Leningrad) "Taibbi moved back to the U.S. doing part-time landscaping work before suffering a nervous breakdown and moving north, where he had an affair with a married woman." (wikipedia) "He then moved back to Russia to play pro baseball for two Russian clubs, Spartak, and the Red Army, in 1995." He worked as a private detective for 7 months in the US, Taibbi moved Back to Russia to "write a book about serial murder" and began working for The Moscow Times, moved Back to the US again for 5 months to make it work with his now-divorced affair partner then moved back to Russia again. (Why Russia?)
He left Russia for a few months to play professional baseball in Mongolia for $100/month; then returned to Russia again to work as an editor of a Russian Tabloid.
Heroine addiction followed and Matt admits he wrote a book while on heroine: The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia. When a Vanity Fair journalist interviewed him about the "The Exile" book, calling it "redundant and discursive," Taibbi became enraged, threw his coffee and a "Fuck you!" in Verini's face, followed him for half a block after he left the restaurant, and said "I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with you!" The Exile book was not well received and became controversial in part for his mis-designation as "nonfiction." The publisher, Penguin Random House, dropped him after the controversy.
He then started working as a freelancer for various publications doing serious work like "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope" which was lambasted. Tabbi said he was surprised at the vehement reactions to what he wrote "IN THE WANING HOURS OF A VICODIN HAZE."
He wrote some great pieces for Rolling Stone and his literature-major chops really shine in his writing. He once did a 3 minute segment on Bill Maher. But his big break came from Elon Musk and the Twitter Files reporting (which in hindsight is not the bombshell he pretended it was - particularly in light of his tepid response to the more egregious direct threats of the Trump Administration).
But Matt Taibbi has ZERO qualifications to cover serious beat concerning threats to democracy, the rise of authoritarianism, or even violations of the First Amendment, which even that he doesn't appear to understand. He never attended graduate school. He has never studied journalism or political science or law or philosophy or any field relevant to his current "work." He does not seem to understand basic tenets of the Constitution and common law and yet writes as if he's an authority.
I had mentally placed Taibbi in a similar camp as Glen Greenwald -- but that was a huge mistake. Glen Greenwald, by contrast, got a degree in philsopshy from GWU and a JD from NYU. He then worked at Wachtell one of the best law firms in the world, where he litigated civil rights and constitutional law cases then started his own firm; then he started writing and of course shepherded the Snowden Files.
About his work in First Amendment speech cases, Greenwald told Rolling Stone magazine in 2013, "to me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy ... not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate."
By contrast, Taibbi has posed as a First Amendment champion without really having the faintest clue how the Constitution works. And now - that it is "not easy" to advocate for speech protection when the speakers are people Taibbi wants to see suffer - as he apparently did - when he was not in the journalist-in-group (and seemingly for good reason).
It's easy to see in light of all this that Taibbi is a classic populist and prototypical Trump supporter. (1) Under educated. Although he went to college (3 different ones to be precise) no one would call him particularly "well educated" and certainly not in his field of work. (2) No consistent family or professional life. Dad left, single mom, multiple schools, multiple low stakes jobs (baseball, private investigator, freelancer); back and forth from russia, affair with a married woman, hasn't really ever held down a job (3) Demonstrated history of drug addiction including to heroine and vicodine (4) demonstrated anger management issues (5) allegations of sexual assault (6) writings that increasingly celebrate pettiness and revenge for personal hurt feelings (replacement theory ideations?).
I have been working on writing this to share with a law and politics group I am in, so I saw your post and dumped it here first.
I feel like I was tricked. This guy is just another yahoo blowhard (albeit with a cute lisp and love of literature). He should stick to Literature!
Thanks for the run down of Matt's life, I didn't know any of that apart from the sexual assault stuff which was bullshit and which he has repeatedly addressed as being satire. I can't agree with your premise that Matt is full of shit because he doesn't have a bunch of degrees. Who cares, he's a journalist who's dedicated a lot of his time researching stories that nobody else would, credentialism doesn't matter the truth does. Just because you don't like what Matt has uncovered through his research and journalism doesn't mean his work is not valuable.
I also want to add I don’t write off his research skills. He does seem to be a decent investigator. And he is trained for that with his PI work and journalism on-the-job training.
Fact gathering is one thing. Interpreting facts, drawing conclusions about those facts, and applying the law to those facts is another.
I read everything
Matt wrote/said Twitter Files. I was concerned- as a lifelong Democrat - about the encroachment of the government on social media companies. The 1A is sacrosanct to me.
I also followed the Supreme Court case on this and its 6-3 decision that evidence of the Twitter Files did not support the claim. Murthy or something like that. I did not see Matt mention that.
In the case of the comments of the FCC chair’s direct threats of enforcement actions and licensing removal- essentially ordering Disney to fire Kimmel is so far beyond anything in the Twitter files. Matt makes light of it, which is a good reminder that he is an entertainer, not a serious thinker or 1A scholar.
I understand what you’re saying and to be clear I have no info to have an opinion about the SA charges. In part this is because he filed his defamation case against the congresswoman who made statements about sexual assault Under Seal, so that no one can read the charges or her responses. That’s unusual. The default is that all cases are open to the public. But he filed under seal so no info there.
I also know there is s current zeitgeist where it doesn’t matter if people ate experts or have education about their subject matter. I disagree. Matt is a great writer, so sure write things people like to read, fine. You don’t need a degree for that.
But Matt has positioned himself as a quasi expert on Free Speech issues yet seems to grossly misunderstand how the Constitution and American legal system works. He began his career in Russia writing for a tabloid and about sports. He is qualified for that level of writing. And I love his ATW literary reviews. He would be a great lit professor.
But he is not qualified to write as an authority on Constitutional, legal issues. He seems to lack a basic understanding of how the separation of powers operates, and especially how the First Amendment operates.
He also has no education on journalism protocols or best practices regarding fact checking etc.
I respected him for his writing, bc it’s good, and he’s clever. But it’s like RFK being head of HHS. He might say some things I agree with, but he’s unqualified for a position of leadership in the medical space.
Taibbi is remarkably unqualified to write about the constitution or financial markets, or american government.
Bravo Sim and well stated! And so far Matt, Mattias Desmet, and Sasha Stone are among the few to stand up for free speech principles even when it’s hard. The Charlie Kirk assassination exposed the depravity of many to the left, but the dysregulated emotional response by some on the right is grotesque and won’t lead to an effective response. I’d like to see my allies being strategic and not having full on spasms of an amygdala hijack.
I'm not as convinced (for Carr and Trump at least) that this is as bad as you might think. See my previous post on the main thread. The resulting Dem sponsored legislation is actually a pretty good idea. Once again, Trump has outsmarted all of these guys. Although, I do agree in general that at this point, the reaction to the shooting is becoming a much bigger story than the shooting itself...
I’m agreeing with you, but while watching the entire Charlie Kirk memorial yesterday with the bulk of the cabinet speaking, I kept hearing theme. Free speech. I’m thinking, and hoping it’s true, they recognize their missteps here
Exactly. Kimmel was on the way out and this gave ABC the excuse to end the disaster. Carr's late hit on the QB who just threw an INT is no help to say the least. Ditto on Bondi. Thank goodness the midterm is not this year (though I am getting emails and fundraising texts like it is). They are in danger of overplaying this and I would not be surprised if the Kirk memorial is reminiscent of the Wellstone Memorial in 2002 that ended up electing Republican Norm Coleman because of its overreach. On the other hand, I just got an email from my idiotic county executive Stuart Pittman (AA County MD) saying Trump had no evidence the shooter was a lefty...
I wish EVERYONE would calm the FUCK down. Kimmel was FIRED, not censored. He is free to say whatever he wants on whatever platform he chooses to use...He was not kicked off TV....if another network or NetFlix, etc wants to pick him up, they can.
Unlike Trump, who WAS kicked off a major platform and then gag ordered about trial proceedings, or Alex Berenson who was, at the direction of the White House, deplatformed from Twitter. These were not firings.
You boss has every right to tell you to shut the fuck up when you are jeopardizing the business. Quite frankly, ABC was likely ELATED when he kept his nonsense going.....his show was tanking and now they had a solid insubordination to fire him with.
The FCC did NOTHING. The dude made some comments that were vague threats, but took no action....UNLIKE the Biden White House which sent specific instructions to FaceBook, Twitter and God knows who else about who to censor and how.
There is NO comparison.
Trump is not suggesting censorship. Pam Bondi is a HORRIBLE public speaker and no one should ever base anything on her spoken word. She may be good at her job, but they need to let someone else speak.
I'm pretty right wing. I don't want censorship...but I do want consequences. It's the lack of consequences for ANYONE saying nasty shit on the left that got us here. They can still talk all they want. They can still say the most vile things.....but, and this is coming as an employer....if one of my employees is standing outside my business with a megaphone, pissing off half my clientele, you better be sure I will fire them.
The First Amendment does NOT protect anyone from the consequences of free speech, it simply says, say whatever you want, we won't stop you.
Kimmel is NOT funny now...not sure if he every was, but he isn't right now. He was hired to be funny. He did not fulfill that obligation. Case Closed. It's not censorship...it's stupidity and arrogance.
And he will be just fine.....he made more money in a month that I will likely make in 10 years and I'm a veterinarian...I have little sympathy for him and no one else should either.
No one should EVER shut the other side up.......if we silence them, how do we know what they are planning?????
BTW, as far as I can tell, Carr made his "hard way" comment after the syndicates began pulling the plug on Kimmel. So, not only vague threats but, possibly just piling on to get some credit for what was already inevitable.
Because the broadcast spectrum is limited, there must be a means of controlling access, or otherwise the air would be filled with competing signals that would drown out one another. The means we have chosen is to license broadcasters, and the government is the licensor. Fairness requires some standards more than just first come first served, or who is the most politically connected. It is regrettable to have government in this role, but there seems to be no workable alternative. Jimmy Kimmel was not just promoting some matter of opinion, but rather stating a clear and obvious falsehood (that the Kirk murderer was "MAGA," i.e., a supporter of President Trump). This was egregiously harmful, as it was inflaming an exacerbated situation. I am close to being a free speech absolutist, but this seems to me to be a situation which would justify license cancellation, or at least a threat to take action if remedial action were not taken. In fact, no cancellation took place; Kimmell was fired most likely for his poor ratings.
And evidently is getting his job back for some weird reason...now, will all the lefties boycott their boycott? Kimmel is gonna eat crow to keep his salary....such a principled man.
No, he was FIRED for POOR performance. If you have ever run a business, you would understand. The FCC did bupkis. The FCC direct said a couple of things that meant nothing......Also, the FCC COULD do something if they found sufficient grounds but they did nothing......he was gonna be fired anyway....See Stephen Colbert. The late night, bitch about Republicans nonstop model is not making the networks any money and that is what they care about.
If he was going to be fired, the FCC didn't need to threaten his employer. They made the threat because he wasn't going to be fired and they wanted to censor him. It's pure censorship.
blah blah blah blah blah....who actually cares? So tired of all of it....to be clear. I bust my ass 5 days a week with no lunch break and actually do medicine and I get paid a pittance compared to this no talent loser who is basically just a Democrat cheerleader. And we all know Dems NEVER get censored, censured, or indicted.
There is no meaningful "scorecard" of which "side" is worse on any of this, because it's clear we live in completely different realities. One of Trump's first discoveries as a politician is that he was already damned as if he had done every conceivable "bad thing" even if he actually did none of them. That's simply how the Left's rhetoric works.
I wouldn't do this if I were a politician, but Trump has had a lot of success with "tastes of their own medicine", simply because the resulting firestorm contains a lot more left-wing self-beclowning than anything else.
My preference would be a strong First Amendment. We're far from that now, and we'll get further without cultural redirection. It's clear that the left-wing online community grooms murderers, and we need to both kill that community and open the general public's eyes to its existence. Drawing attention to it is paramount. There will be no freedom of speech if the boil isn't lanced.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This is why deals were made thru FCC. So "Strong" how? By adding "except the 72 million liberals"?
“You are a liberal. You've been sentenced to ten years in prison over a meme. You are a liberal. Your truck left skid marks on an American flag mural and you're charged with a hate crime. You are a liberal. You trained your pug to do a communist salute and now the government has some questions for you. You are a liberal. You've been kicked out of school. Your kidney transplant was denied. You're on a no fly list. You can't get a bank account. You've been fired. Your friends are denouncing you. Protestors are at your front door. You are a liberal. And the right has gone bananas.”
This is the dystopian play flickering in the minds of people ignoring that it has really never happened, will never happen... but that the "you are a conservative" version has been at the theater for the last decade or more.
Do you work for the Babylon Bee, or are you just natural at sarcasm? I hope it's one or the other rather than that you actually are making that statement thinking it is true.
I am a liberal liberal and I was told not to make plans passed 2011 in 2009 by my surgeon at Fleurimont Hospital and I had my Nashville born Wife beside me. I was offered an experimental cancer treatment and we accepted to experiment. My wife was a experimental rat for Ensure at McGill where Kamala Harris' mother led breast cancer research when KamaLA ATTENDED SCHOOL IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD. AT Kamala's High school GENDER IS ANALOG, RACE IS HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS???? AND RELIGION IS not Common Sense AS Thomas Paine ONCE WROTE:
Westmount High is still the best high school public or private North of the Rio Grande. It educated Leonard Cohen. I am old, almost blind , senile, demented and terminally autistic from my UN-immaculate human conception. I too dreamed I heard the secret chord.I was almost as stoned as I am this Friday evening listen to America going out of business on September 30th, I am looking forward to LaTribune's, the Guardian and The Times of London Cartoons but I wondering what the Washington Post and LA Times have to say cartoon wise. The Toronto Star and Montreal Gazette get their orders from Wall Street but we speak only French judiciously.
Sadly the reality is that the side in power always becomes more authoritarian and the side out of power always becomes more libertarian. High-minded principles (to the extent politicians have any) in practice go out the window once you have the power to stop evil (which is what both sides always claim they are doing).
This is why I think government should be minimized to the extent possible (to minimize both the incentive and capability for authoritarianism), and also devolved to the lowest level capable of handling it, as mayors are more sensitive to their constituencies than Senators.
That said however, it is a bit rich for people who cheered on Trump himself being deplatformed (not to mention Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen, Gina Carano, Dave Chappelle, etc.), people getting fired for not taking the shot or misgendering someone, the pile-on of Nick Sandmann for having the gall to smile at a protestor getting in his face, etc, to now all of a sudden have a hard-on for civil liberties. While of course I would prefer to live in a world where the Constitution is observed by both sides, it can’t be one rule for one side and a different one for the other.
If only I thought they were ACTUALLY worried about civil liberties instead of using them as talking points because the immediate political moment demands it.
They’re not — as noted above, the side with power invariably becomes more authoritarian and the side without becomes more libertarian, principles be damned. The lefties who looooved cancel culture before now are cosplaying as flaming libertarians because they feel their power slipping. But the right does the same thing when it is in power or out of power as well.
nope. rights are just another tool in their toolbox. same as a violence. theyll use whatever they think will get the job done, but their is no commmitment to philosophy or principle.
It deserves to be said that Democrat administrations created a vast speech control apparatus to suppress people saying TRUE things about Covid, etc. Meanwhile, the Trump administration in this case has been cracking down on people saying demonstrably, irrefutably FALSE things.
I know this has next to no legal bearing, and that handing the Trump admin this power over false and inflammatory speech would inevitably lead to rights abuses and censoring the truth. I am a dyed in the wool civil libertarian like Matt on this issue. But it is cathartic to at least point out this difference between the sides in this case.
It's also worth pointing out that we were literally screaming that the giant censorship complex was going to be handed over to Donald Trump, but they didn't care.
Honestly, I think they massively expanded the censorship industrial complex under the assumption there would never be an anti-regime Republican who would win an election and take the reins back.
It was a parallel strategy to the lawfare: destroy opponents with the legal system while muzzling their supporters’ speech. The regime couldn’t finish the job as much as they tried, thank goodness, but left all the tools sitting around when they got run off the construction site, so to speak.
It’s been repeated ad nauseam, but one turn of the head in Butler changed world history.
The Democrats fed themselves a lotus dream about a permanent majority obtained by catering to the various intersectional groups plus immigrants who would become citizens and vote Democrat. Trump turned that around by actually delivering policy wins to those groups, but for a long time Democrats discounted the possibility entirely.
Alas, I see the same thing going on now with the Right. Charlie Kirk's death was a tragedy, but I don't believe it's going to be the watershed people expect. The Democrats even now don't seem to have learned Trump's lesson, but that blindness cannot go on forever. Eventually the Democrats will be in power again, and any time Trump shifts the window toward more Executive authority, we have to acknowledge that eventually that authority will be in the hands of the Left.
And, face it, we would not want it otherwise. One-party states are not good places to live.
Yep. The left loves to rage against "The Great Replacement Theory", but it was literally just "Demographics is Destiny." It's just that people aren't lines in an excel spreadsheet, and they don't vote the way you think they'll vote simply because they've voted that way in the past. Democrats are catering to the very fringe (boys in girls sports) and that's losing them the normie middle.
I'm always rooting for the return of the sane left, but I am increasingly pessimistic they will actually take this chance to shake off the crazies instead of embracing them.
Suddenly my friends in the Blue Bubble are shocked and appalled by censorship and by people being bullied or fired for unpopular and/or unsavory opinions.
Every writer, artist or professor I know has spent the past decade walking on Social Justice eggshells, spending sweaty sleepless nights wondering if they used the wrong word or unintentionally insulted a member of a protected victim class, making sure to repeat all the mandatory political dogma and (if they're producers of any kind) doing all they can to find a BIPOC to employ. Now all these same people have suddenly been transformed into ACLU fundamentalists and look back on the Social Justice Cultural Revolution like it was some weird dream in a soap opera, where they did and said some things, but can't quite remember. (Only bigots remember!)
If you only honor certain principles when it's cheap and easy and comes at no cost to you but ignore them when it would require standing up to your tribe, then you don't really have these principles, you just know how to weaponize them when it becomes necessary. Very few people give a shit about free speech, thought and expression anymore—and certainly not our progressive clerisy, who are absolutely intolerant and refuse to lift a finger to help anyone not on their team. Reflexive tribalism has rotted almost every brain.
It sure does seem to be a completely different narrative than The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.......In fact, I am getting "Hunter laptop vibes". The other two basically stating that Kimmel was completely bound and determined to double down. I used to trust the Times implicitly when critical stories like this came forth. Those days are long over.
Trump will regret making Kimmel a martyr. I guess he forgot that you don't interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake. What Kimmel said was utter nonsense.
totally agree. i have no problem w/ABC canceling b/c of ratings or economic concern. listened to the show and i agree with walter’s argument in theory, and it’s a close call on kimmel b/c i REALLY dislike him—but i’d rather see him squirm and i’d rather the fcc/fed govt didn’t interfere based on politics (which this will set a precedent).
if they’d kept quiet then the economic argument could’ve been made w/o conflict.
Matt, you’re misguided that Kimmel was censored. The FCC Head Carr made a statement on a podcast. He had nothing to do with Kimmel being fired. Sinclair and EchoStar have had a merger on the table for a little bit of time now. They said they weren’t airing Kimmel’s show anymore. They wish for this merger to go through. Disney was heading to contract negotiations with Kimmel as his deal was almost up. The FCC had not a damn thing to do with his firing. You bringing this up and pushing this narrative is short sighted and honestly I expect more from you. If you took a minute and investigated this for a bit you’d clearly see Kimmel did this to himself. I’d also add the tide is turning and these types of jackasses are going to be falling to the wayside. Walter was also right saying these are public airwaves and what Kimmel has been selling for the past decade certainly isn’t in the public interest.
All this worry over how this may be “perceived”? By who? The Left? They have their narrative going on gang busters: “the Right are McCarthyites! The Right want to censor free speech!”
They wish. But they want you to believe it.
The market spoke, and the people don’t want to buy what the Left have been trying to sell and they’re all mad we refuse to play along anymore.
I do agree Carr could have handled this better - but he has also conveniently been grossly misreported and misunderstood, because of it.
But he also has made a number of important points that go missed due to such misrepresentation.
The FCC’s literal job description is to maintain certain standards for the networks. It’s a tricky dance but there it is.
Bottom line: for the Left to be all up in arms about free speech rights now is worth this price for admission.
"The FCC’s literal job description is to maintain certain standards for the networks"
It is not. They have no authority and no control over "networks". The only controls they have are over TV and radio stations that transmit over radio spectrum licensed from the federal government. Those licenses are held by local stations, i.e. the people with transmission towers. Those stations are, in turn, owned by many different companies, including large players Nexstar, Sinclair, and Tegna, and those companies hold the licenses. ABC can have Jimmy Kimmel up there lying like a chimp 24x7 if they want to, and the FCC has nothing they can do about it even if they wanted to. What they can do is threaten those local stations, and that's what has happened here.
I haven't listened to the podcast yet. But what he said in this article was that while Kimmel was canceled for most likely business reasons, Carr throwing his opinion into the mix just gives the other side ammunition to claim 1A violation.
All Carr did was make an off handed comment on a podcast. Carr is a firebrand and is doing things that the FCC should have been doing for decades. He had nothing to do with Kimmel being fired. He didn’t call Disney.
You mean "to falsely claim 1A violation." What boggles my mind here is the notion that any of the response is organic.
Walter is right - America's corporations are calling the tune, with their millionaire bubble-head sock puppets doing their bidding.
Which means of course a never-ending torrent of false claims irrespective or the facts or specific issues. You get that, I'm pretty sure.
They're always fucking lying and Walter is making the case that we can and should refuse to hold their dicks while the corporations piss all over us and our kids in the one domain which Americans actually own and have legal right/duty to act.
FCC Chief Carr was out of line IMO. The marketplace was doing the job via the infuriated affiliates and their customers. The real solution is for the FCC to go away. Will the Republicans actually do what they always campaign on: "less government and "fewer regulations" or is it all BS?
That's an argument, but as long as the FCC does have the duty of care - let them get on with the job where need be. As Carr noted, there's an easy way and a hard way.
This sort of petulant purity test is exactly how and why "we" lose. Somehow folks here believe that the bad days are in the past. They are - but far worse days are just over the horizon - and your single issue focus guarantees a complete log-jam, with the non-sclerotic WH ready to ramp up executive authority in ways nobody wants to see.
The forces that turned America over to the corporations are still in place and simply waiting Trump out - you get that don't you?
Think the progress of less than a year is permanent and carved in stone?
There's an excellent chance Charlie Kirk will be remembered as a far-right racist and terrorist shot by one of "his own." And that Jimmy will be resurrected as a truth martyr and maybe elected president?
That's the world we lived in until Elon bought Twitter and Trump won in November and the world we go back to the moment these creeps get their boots on our necks once more.
Paul I have been involved in GOP campaigns since 1986 and am an elected official in AZ. My party is somewhat less bad at the national level than the Dems, but not by much. Exhibit 1 is the national debt which is a purity test for me. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point with $37 trillion outstanding and $1 trillion annually on debt service. No Empire can survive what we are doing-the rest of your rant that spins you up is a diversion from the iceberg.
Thanks for the information, candor, and for stepping into the muck - a thankless job. Apologies for the rhetorical excess - but my basic point stands - be it the debt, or any other issue, the folks that got us in this mess are simply waiting Trump out. Perhaps the GOP will not sell out the American public once Trump leaves the stage, but we may agree that many will. Tis the nature of the beast and not unique to American pols.
This is why what happened with Russiagate and the main stream media was such a disaster. Of course Trump was going to get revenge. The dems opened up the pandora's box. If Trump is smart he will take Matt's advice and let the MSM die on its own accord. No reason to give them martyrs to claim fascism as if they need any help!
I think the issue should be examined but I do not think this amounts to government censorship. First Carr said something to somebody. Other than that there is no indication he took any action. Second by your own admission you acknowledge Congress has authority to act and Carr referenced Congressional action in the second statement you cite. Third, you know that the broadcast networks lean left. Up until Trump's re-election so far left as to have lost all appearance of objectivity. They have fostered mis-, dis-, and malinformation. Repeatedly. I will not recite the details because you have written about it often. The moderation of the presidential debates by the network hacks was a farce. So now the pendulum is swinging the other way. You are welcome to urge caution and are to be commended for doing so. You were one of the few who did so before the pivot. But Kimmel is not a worthwhile hill to die. IMO he was not joking (Don Imus' nappy headed ho crack was a joke and he paid heavily), he was at best lecturing and at worst - and IMO this was the goal - deliberately disseminating malinformation to influence the public. Some of whom were in Utah. Some of whom will sit on Mr. Robinson's jury or be witnesses at his trial. Kimmel conduct was deliberate. IMO it was criminal as jury and/or witness tampering. My guess is the ABC/Disney lawyers are sweating bullets over this.
I think this is a great comment. ABC settled with Trump re. Stephanopolous. Now days after the murder, Kimmel is “joking” about the motive of who killed Kirk to slander more than half of the country. BTW, how did his audience re-act? Did they accept it? If his audience didn’t even appreciate it —- gong.
Agree 100%. The balance sheet of free speech abuse by the Democrats and their armed agency careerists is so lopsided vs. the Republicans. President Trump, just give them more rope please.
I'm sorry for my language on your board, Matt, but I can't fucking believe the incompetence of Bondi, Trump, and Carr here.
They've been fed the perfect alley-oop pass, and they botched it HARDCORE. First, Bondi saying they'll go after hate speech. HOW DOES THAT EVEN CROSS YOUR MIND? Hate speech isn't a thing! USE YOUR WORDS CORRECTLY and say you're going after ILLEGAL speech!
Then Trump doubles down the next day and insinuates he'll use "hate speech" to go after TV stations. WHAT ARE WE DOING HERE?
And to top it all off, you have Carr throwing around FCC threats while Kimmel is in the middle of being fired. All he did was give the left a rallying point. (The fact they're suddenly all for free speech is a different tangent all together.)
Now we're all talking about the guy who got fired for talking about the guy who got shot, and not about the guy who got shot.
Rookie-ball level mistakes from the admin the last few days.
This is my innate reaction as well. My hesitation is the recent history of this exact sort of thing working out really well for the Trump movement.
Every time Trump violates a principle, the resulting firestorm sheds a spotlight on how much worse the Left is in that area. It ends up being a net win, at least according to the next round of polls.
I don't like that it works this way, but do I have the choice?
Yes. The ONLY way I could MAYBE forgive this is if it were a giant troll to make the left stand up for free speech for like a week before clarifying. (This doesn't really apply to the Carr situation, though.)
How about the right takes this opportunity to reduce the scope of government and proposes that the FCC should be dismantled? Along with any other agencies and NGOs set up to monitor speech.
Invite all the lefties in hysterics over Kimmel to join us in this endeavor. And watch the tune change immediately. All those fine, decent government employees will lose their jobs!
It would be priceless.
The way that NOPE Act summary is worded, they may have accidentally undermined their own censorship complex.
*crosses fingers*
I would prefer a flat out challenge to them. Give them what they claim to want. Dismantle FCC and any other agencies involved in monitoring speech. Cut funding to any speech monitoring NGOs. And watch them lose their minds.
Except that FCC also regulates in ways that encourage diversity of speech. A case in point sits in front of us today.
The two large local broadcast networks complaining about this are Nexstar and Sinclair. Nexstar is specifically in front of the FCC right now with a plan to acquire Tegna.
FCC rules require no ownership group control stations that have potential audience reach of more than 39% of US homes. The deal would take Nexstar to nearly twice that.
Thus they have an incentive to suck up to Trump and Carr, and it's hard to distill their true motives for their Kimmel stance.
AND, if the deal goes through, their power to insinuate themselves in a speech issue and influence TV production doubles - the power they are using today to influence their current FCC outcomes.
Right. One correction --- Thus they have an incentive to suck up to Trump and Carr, [so it is NOT] hard to distill their true motives for their Kimmel stance.
Like taking a sad song, and making it better. ;)
The FCC could just function as auctioneer and title company for spectrum. Right now it's full of lawyers. Probably should be mostly engineers and economists.
Engineers and economists? God help us. Abolish the FCC.
So anyone with a radio transmitter can just set up and broadcast? Anyone who doesn't like a cell tower near them can just set up a jammer and disrupt communications?
You might want to think that through a little better.
What kind of person relishes the thought of throngs of "fine, decent government employees" losing their jobs? Of anyone - unidentified groups of people - losing their jobs. How dead must your soul be to feel cute saying this publicly online? Jesus.
whether they have contemplated it or not, their jobs are used to pit the needs and wants of their lives against the rights of the people. its not a close contest on what should win out, though, like youve demonstrated its easy to see what actually wins out. these government jobs should not exist to begin with and your compassion for people losing jobs is another reason why.
This is the kind of faux intellectual rationalization that loses high school debates but somehow convinces *some* adults who can't really follow the through line that it's valid reasoning and solid argument supporting a lack of compassion as a positive trait.
Alas! My dirty secret has been revealed.
Luckily, only someone as astute as yourself could diagnose it from a single sentence.
I think I’m safe.
There are 2.3M government employees/positions - they can be absorbed into the blob.
Trump has never given a flying rat’s ass about reducing the federal footprint, he’s just an old school law and order D, like Richard Daley or Frank Rizzo, neither of whom should be remembered with high regard.
I mean, as I saw someone note on X: Trump is getting the Left to boycott Disney. 😂
Seems like an obvious troll to me to get the left all riled up about free speech.
Trump is lucky in his political enemies. Those progs never fail to step on a rake..haha
Joe Rogan compares them to Charlie Brown and Trump is Lucy with the football.
https://youtu.be/hjObJEqAUxE?feature=shared
They are more like wiley coyote and roadrunner to me. Trump keeps handing them the dynamite that blows up in their faces
beat me to it, thank you
I wonder how far this shallow thinking will get you. How much will you excuse under this superficial guise?
Look into the NOPE act...
Today, Congressman Jim Baird (IN-04)’s legislation, the No Official Palestine Entry (NOPE) Act, passed the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. The NOPE Act expands existing funding prohibitions to include U.N. organizations that afford status, rights, or privileges to the Palestinian Authority (PA) or Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) beyond observer status. U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee Chair Michael McCaul (TX-10) joined Congressman Baird as a co-lead on the legislation. U.S. Senator Jim Risch (R-ID) introduced the Senate companion bill.
Edit to add -- this is the wrong bill but it's funny (and real) so I'm leaving it up anyway.
I think this must be the correct one....
U.S. Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and U.S. Representative Jason Crow (D-Colo.-6) on Thursday joined Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), and U.S. Senators Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), Alex Padilla (D-Calif.) and Tina Smith (D-Minn.) and Representatives Greg Casar (D-Texas-35), Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.-06), and Maxwell Frost (D-Fla.-10) at a press conference to announce their intent to introduce the No Political Enemies (NOPE) Act, legislation to protect individuals and organizations, including non-profits, faith groups, media outlets, and educational institutions, from politically motivated harassment and prosecution by the federal government. This bill would reaffirm the constitutionally protected right to free speech and establish clear and enforceable protections to deter abuse, empower individuals and organizations to defend themselves, and create meaningful accountability. The legislation would also prohibit the use of federal funds for any investigations or regulatory action that would suppress protected speech.
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I am all for that, so if this ends up being the law, great.
You take potential wins however you can get them, but if this isn't the pot calling the kettle black, I don't know what is.
Funny how the sauce for the gander is always served late.
It's a disgraceful bill, and demonstrates the extent to which we are an occupied country. Zionist-occupied. Israel-First, not America-First. Just endless Israel bootlicking, to the abandonment of all human decency and any shred of respect in the rest of the world. The non-Zionist world, that is.
I know it makes me look very Pollyanna, but, yknow, the networks could just, like, be more balanced (fer realz) and like, eh...not crazy azzhoe shills for one side all the damn time. THEN there'd be peace in the valley.
Valid point with regard to Trump himself. He has a record of wild hyperbole familiar to everyone, including many threats to go after the media over the years which he has never followed up on. So it's reasonable not to take his threats seriously.
That said, I still think Bondi and Carr screwed up, because as domain specialists in government agencies, their pronouncements need to be taken more literally.
I realize Bondi has had wins at SCOTUS on behalf of the admin, but she keeps putting her foot in her mouth. I think she likes being on camera too much for an AG.
In 2017, a couple of NFL players were kneeling during the national anthem. Trump tweeted that he would fire them. The next Sunday, far more players kneeled, including some entire teams. Everyone was talking about what a mistake it was for Trump to have inspired them. Pundits said that kneeling was now a "referendum on Trump", and anyone who stood during the anthem was now "siding with Trump".
Then a new round of polls showed a large majority opposed kneeling, and Trump's approval rating increased a few points. The kneeling quickly returned to its prior level.
Donald Trump has been taught to make these "mistakes" because he keeps benefiting from making them. He's claiming credit for taking down Jimmy Kimmel even though he doesn't deserve it, just because he expects to win again.
CNN Business's report for one is stating that Carr's words directly led to a big important meeting where ABC said Kimmel you need to tone down the Wednesday night monologue and walk it back a bit and Kimmel said no way I'm going in hot and that's why his show was pulled. Meaning the Trump Administration very much precipitated this.
The best analysis I've seen is that Kimmel knew his show was about to be cancelled and decided to provoke his firing so he could go out as a Leftist hero rather than the loser he is. Says something about the Left's heroes.
No - "IT" doesn't "say something" about the Left's heroes. This is just YOU saying something about the "left's heroes" (Who? Kimmel is a hero?). Any citation to this "best analysis" you've seen? Is it fact-checked - or is that too "Legacy Media"?
You give him too much credit. More likely the company knew he would step in it & then they could get rid of a failing host without a huge payout..
Used to be the network people made mistakes, paid fines, issued an apology, and all was forgotten. He refused to play along with how things work and got what he got. It was a business decision. Kimmel showed he doesn't understand business. But after several years at $15M a year, maybe he doesn't have to....
The FCC demanded it, THREATENING OFFICIAL punishment, and the media conglomerate obliged. It doesn't get much more straightforward than that. The Trump administration is doing directly what it accused the Biden administration of doing indirectly.
09/20/25: Not to worry. Jimmy can now make $15,000,000 a year in summer stock theater doing his Howard Cosell impersonations (rude, overbearing, obnoxious and offensively self-centered/opinionated).
this makes some sense. Kaepernick also essentially lost his job because of Trump. And the NFL didn't mind getting political about Charlie Kirk.
Not sure Trump even violated the principle.
He said some shit, yeah, but what did he do, really?
It's like sending the National Guard into Los Angeles. He did so only outside of federal buildings to defend them, well within the law. But then stated that he saved the whole city by having sent them in there for a few weeks and made it seem like they were broadly fighting crime and enforcing immigration. Rhetoric versus reality on the ground. He's very good at winning the rhetorical war and having solid optics for his brand.
Trump is very good about understanding the importance of "word on the street" and very good at manipulating it.
Immigration is the perfect example. "Word on the street" during Biden's term is that if you come here illegally you get a free apartment and a debit card and a job and endless bus rides--and worse worse worse worse worse case scenario is that you get to go back home.
Trump changed "word on the street" to be that if you come here illegally you will be either put in a concentration camp or shipped to some third country Hell Hole to disappear forever--you don't ever get to go back home to your family.
Both of those stories are much closer to stories than the truth, but word on the street directly effects behavior.
Every thing we are seeing now is to change the "word on the street" about what happens when you burn down the country with violence and terror under the guise of protest.
Literally Word on the Street.
You might think this. But then you should also think that emails from ppl in the Biden admin making recommendations to Twitter concerning vaccine "disinformation" during a global pandemic was also not doing anything, really. Which indeed is what the Supreme Court said in Murthy v. Missouri, but don't tell Matt that.
seems like you do like it quite a bit.
This is totally accurate. Trump and the different strands of MAGA could've pointed to and shared all of the monstrous online reactions to Kirk's assassination, the defacing of murals, the disruption of vigils, and said "we don't censor" — allowing for school administrators to fire real offenders without encouraging it or the making of lists — and allowed a massive outpouring of support through genuine grieving.
Instead, we get Jimmy Kimmel as a free speech martyr, and allow the Democrats to ignore their last 9 or so years of censorship? Ferociously badly played politics. Trump still has a chance to call all of this out, and say "we don't riot and we don't murder political opponents, and we don't censor," but he won't.
I get the "payback's a bitch" impulse, deep inside the heart of Trump and MAGA, but they may squander a generational opportunity
Worse yet, that interview with Bondi wasn't live. They had all sorts of people in the room and in the booth who saw what she said and didn't have an issue with it.
The IMMEDIATE firestorm from the right when the video dropped should have been a MASSIVE hint about the temperature in the room. But they doubled down!
Yeah, that was by the far the stupidest thing any Trump appointee has done. They should've given her her walking papers; her Epstein publicity stunts were likewise really dumb, and gave the Dems ammunition to jump in to Epstein conspiracy land, though you could argue that just made the Dems look crazy and conspiratorial. She's an ultra-Trump sycophant, so she's not going anywhere.
I totally understand the new right/Chris Rufo/Lomez-type idea that MAGA has to take this one opportunity to cleanse the media institutions of something that grew from media bias to pure state propaganda over the last decade, but as Taibbi points out here, it was already happening naturally due to markets (and Trump's people could have gentled helped that process along). Instead of giving the Dems a little piece of rope to hang themselves with, he may have given them a lifeline they don't deserve.
A close second is....Pam Bondi handing out binders of "Epstein Files" (that were already public information) labeled PHASE I.....then having Trump claim the Epstein Files are just a hoax.
I get that Trump wants somebody loyal as AG, but maybe get somebody who doesn't publicly fumble the ball every kickoff.
Yeah, I mentioned the Epstein thing with her. I'm personally of the belief that Epstein was a creep who did illegal shit, but that 99.99% of the Epstein lore is a conspiracy (though I'd bet the fabled "Epstein Files" do contain evidence of shady business deals). The fact that Bondi pushed it as far as she could before Trump said "enough" and all of MAGA turned it off, was dumb (though I think Dems jumping right into the conspiracy made them look even dumber).
My personal problem is the stupid phrasing like "there's no Epstein List" -- like....we don't really think Jeff had a laptop with "MyPedoPals.doc" on it, "the Epstein List" is shorthand for the information gathered during the many investigations and court trials. We're talking thousands and thousands of pages of information and evidence that quite obviously exists.
OTOH, the whole story makes perfect sense if Epstein were somehow 'protected' as an intelligence agent. The government isn't going to throw [whoever] under the bus because the blackmail is still useful.
Oh they deserve the lifeline. The country deserves the lifeline. This is not a low stakes game or online argument. This is the Constitution of the United States and if it is disregarded WE ALL LOSE. The Trump administration is taking a hatchet to the First Amendment. That's the issue here, not which "team" is scoring "points.? Which GOVERNMENT is threatening to punish Americans for making jokes they don't like or not mourning correctly. This is not the Soviet Union, though Matt increasingly seems to wish it were.
I tried to give her some slack at first, due to irrational emotions in processing Kirk's death, but then I saw her go on to share her skin care routine later in the podcast.
"...allow the Democrats to ignore their last 9 or so years of censorship?"
This has been my beef with all of these MSM pieces. It's like Biden admin mafia style threats to FB and Twitter have just been memory holed. Also, if I'm going to be handwringing over a cancelled comedian, it's going to be Dave Chappelle.
Or Graham Linehan, or Shane Gillis, or Roseanne, or Tony Hinchcliffe, and a whole host of other comedians who've had the axe come down.
We're going to have to admit that what's left of legacy media in its current form, is just not going to admit any wrongdoing on anything they've done. There's a who's who of politicians, journos and entertainment idiots acting like Trump just declared martial law because of Kimmel who've had statements gleefully celebrating cancellations and censorship over the last decade. There's no sense of shame or hypocrisy with any of them. It's a bloodsport, and the New York Times will only report one side's score.
The bottom was going to fall out sooner than later. If Trump gives them another Russiagate-type debacle to hang their hat on, their numbers could shoot back up, and it's going to be another 5 or so years before they disintegrate. (I doubt that this episode is going to get most eyes back on them, but who the hell knows?)
I totally get that comedy is in the funny bone of the beholder. But I'm failing to see any comedy on what I've heard of Kimmel's rant. It could have been an Olbermann rant that was supposed to be dead serious.
I 100% agree, and that's been the model of late night comedy during the Trump era. You could take Colbert's show and put it on after Maddow's on MSNBC without changing the format one iota.
But that model was failing! We've entered something of a new golden age of comedy, centered around Joe Rogan/Tony Hinchcliffe/Shane Gillis/Legion of Skanks/Theo Von and the rest. These guys do massive arenas, their comedy specials get millions of views on YouTube, and they've created a totally new comedy ecosystem that dwarves the TV network-related comedy scene. Hinchcliffe's "Kill Tony" show is essentially the new Johnny Carson: he can turn a no-name comic into a headliner instantly with a good appearance.
This is the market doing what it should: when the networks gave us warmed-over agitprop, a new group of upstarts used new tools to create something much bigger (probably the biggest comedy scene in history) that replaced them. The only people who watch late night are aging boomers, and not that many of them. The hammer was due to fall, and Trump should've just let it happen. (Though I think the networks wanted to get rid of them, and are using Trump as thier excuse.)
Definitely a gift to the networks who want to lose the dead weight.
I agree with Matt completely but do have some question as to whether they would have cut Kimmel loose naturally. these corporate cut throats, would close a manufacturing plant in Ohio employing 1000 people in a small town to save a 1/4 point on the bottom line but they relentlessly shoveled millions of dollars to the hacks to lose money. they were scared of him and his allies in the company who have been busy wrecking the other corporate franchises that they inherited.
The cowardice is epic and if its not cowardice its much much worse.
Like Colbert, his job was literally to stop Trump from being re-elected. They both failed, and now they're both disposable.
Yes, they would be retained if it stopped Trump re elected. However, once not working ....Colbert failed in that and worse with a shitty show that did not pull it's financial losses.
The worst downgrade in the history of late-night TV was Colbert's character on the "Colbert Report" to the actual Steven Colbert.
Send Colbert to Vegas and produce his own show.
yeah but Disney was never going to fire him, (though I disagree with the FCC forcing the issue,) As i said they dont give a shit about their rank and file but are scared shitless of the wokesters in the office. (and all of their friends in NYC 7 LA)
I'll disagree about that. Disney/ABC would definitely have fired him. The writing is on the wall that the old networks are going to have to adapt to the new media environment or die. The only people watching these shows — and most of what's on the networks — are boomers, and not too many of them (this is also a major problem with pro sports, who aren't developing young audiences). "Resistance" doesn't sell anymore, and new media is eating their lunch.
Lots of media companies are faced with a tough choice: adapt to what's happening with new media, and the kind of personalities and content younger people watch — and stop intentionally pissing off half of the voting public — or die out with the Dem boomers, who are the only people who actually pay for this stuff. It's more complicated by the fact that most Trump-deranged boomers will jump ship if they give up on #resistance, but many of their favorite grist-delivering scribes from the Post and the Times have already decamped to Substack and they followed them there.
Bezos trying to move the Washington Post towards something more libertarian, CBS trying to radically change its editorial voice, Lorne Michaels bringing in "forbidden" comics from the podosphere to his shows, Netflix hiring those same comics: it's happening. There's still a brief window for legacy media to fix itself, but getting rid of Kimmel, Colbert, the View, etc., is going to be a big part of that.
what you say makes sense. Its jus that they have not done this. this not just late night. Disney stock has tanked since 2021. Its at the same price as 2018 when these problems started to become apparent. . but they have continued to operate according to the principles of their wokest staff. It took outside interference for them to take action. i suppose if you consider that most of the corporate staff is well off, the disapproval of their peers may be worse to them than getting fired for tanking one of the most respected brands in history. But seriously, who purposely sets a market strategy that pisses off over 40% of your prospective audience? but they did.
Then they'll wither and die even faster than they're already withering and dying.
Kimmel may go back on the air but the show will lose even more money. Ad revenues will drop when whole swaths of the country stop airing the show.
Who did Democrats censor? random people getting mad and "cancelling" other random people does not count. Who did the Democratic leadership censor? And what do you mean 9 years? Biden was President for 4 of those years.
How about Alex Berenson
Agree but Carr also gave ABC/Disney cover. But now the left is boycotting Disney so now they are doubling down on stupid.
I have to admit, that part of the story is hilarious.
Awesome. 😎
If Trump knew how to shut up and take the W, he wouldn't be Trump. He also, probably, wouldn't be president.
I'm sure all of us here have been sighing and rolling our eyes a lot at the Democrats' latest opportunity to cosplay La Resistance, which Trump never should have given them, but we take the bad with the good.
I agree but I also turn this in my mind: How can the "not-left" stop the dominant (legacy & independent) and predominately left/progressive/woke media train that drives much of the narrative for the country. Most people are not that tuned in & often form half-baked opinions based on headline news. I learned this the hard way when my npc friends and family, who were unfamiliar with Charlie Kirk, repeated the cherry-picked information they learned about him after his murder. I don't know how the "not-left" can fight this. I don't think this is going to change unless the whole ship is overturned, which is unlikely to happen.
Trust in the mainstream/legacy media has been falling for years and is already at a point that I'm not sure there needs to be much more "intervention" other than continuing to point out the lies and fabrications they tell.
A February Gallup poll found that 59% of Republicans, 42% of Independents, and ONLY 6% of Democrats have "NO TRUST AT ALL" in mass media! The only group that still has faith in legacy media is the Dems that they cater to. Independents are 7x more likely to NOT trust the media than Dems.
I forget where I grabbed this quote but it speaks volumes: “If half the country has decided that Trump is qualified to be president, that means they’re not reading any of this media, and we’ve lost this audience completely. A Trump victory means mainstream media is dead in its current form.”
And I would bet big that the democratic numbers are just straight up lying--no one trusts the media--they are just saying what they are supposed to say given the circumstances.
The second the media doesn't submit completely they will burn down Disneyland and the polling numbers will follow.
Which is also a big part of the violence angle. When two people are yelling at you, the squeaky wheel is the guy with the gun.
"I agree but I also turn this in my mind: How can the "not-left" stop the dominant (legacy & independent) and predominately left/progressive/woke media train that drives much of the narrative for the country."
That media train has been doing a very good job of killing itself. The snowball only rolls in one direction. Nobody here is going to wake up tomorrow and suddenly trust CNN again. (Traumatic brain injury aside)
CNN, et al, yes. But others have stepped in those shoes, which hold the "legitimacy" in the eyes of the average American. While legacy media may be dying, the digital world is still dominated by the left and progressives who have inherited that legitimacy.
I don't know that this is true. Have you looked into the media ownership and control by political affiliation?
I live in a conservative state, but our last 'newspaper' is just AP article reprints, so readers are only getting progressive information.
Iryna Zarutska's killing merited two sentences, labeled as 'transit death.'
“never interrupt your enemy when he is making a mistake”
Matt is correct. the left is imploding at record speed. please let them.
going after shady funding like Soros is one thing, this is another.
no unforced errors…
I get it. Media people don’t like this. Not a lot of people have been censored like Matt. It sucks. I think people just want some sort of recalibration where half of America is not called Racist and Fascist by the legacy networks from breakfast until bedtime. Who knows if the networks finally spoke up or it was the FCC.
Who knows if the networks finally spoke up or it was the FCC.
--------
I'm actually in the process of trying to find out by tracking down and contacting the affiliates for a statement.
Please let us know. Thanks.
Given the high-stakes battle ongoing with the forces of censorship worldwide - and the fact that those on the other side are already incarcerating folks for speech and thought violations, one might have thought we have larger concerns than purity tests and slippery slope arguments re: what government "might" do.
What the US government has done is spy on dissidents MLK, etc, rehabilitate left-wing terrorists and place them in academia to promote terrorist and violent ideologies, turn over the airwaves to BIG PHARMA, illegally leak classified and false information to skew/manipulate the American public (Russiagate), work with the social media to police social discourse etc.
Now the forces of good (relative to others) finally get a chance to say quit fucking around within the sole domain the public has real control over, Matt and others clutch their pearls and weep - no, no, no we can't protect ourselves and the public - just let the corporations keep fucking with us all?
Charlie Kirk is dead and Trump was nearly hit twice, and half the country lived in terror of losing their jobs for a decade, not to mention the solitary-confinement of the J6 "insurrectionists" and Matt's response is "we must let the corporations use the public airwaves to fuck us and warp the minds of our kids without constraint."
Had the FCC stepped in more aggressively years ago to demand balanced coverage of the news on the public airwaves we'd all be living in a MUCH MORE PEACEFUL reality, a less-divided world, and Charlie Kirk would likely still be alive.
And Matt's solution and that of others is: "now is the time to lie down?"
"If only censorship of comedians happened sooner!" What a joke that is. When you say the "other side" is "incarcerating folks for speech and thought violations," what specific incidents are you referring to? Who has been incarcerated for a speech or thought violation? That's a serious accusation.
Thank you for the reply. I read your contributions up thread which, frankly, convinced me only that you're an asshole adding nothing to the current debate.
I did not and do not see any need to censor comedians, thanks.
The "other side" refers to national and international censorship efforts tied to the US government via US AID and other organs (see the GEC, Greenwald, Shellenburger, Taibbi, Weiss, and others) which have resulted in the arrest and incarceration of citizens of various nations for speech and thought crimes.
Look it up, I suggest, as you're evidently unfamiliar with Matt's work on the subject. So, that's my civil reply which you've done nothing I can see on this thread, and reply to my comment, to merit. Fuck off now and educate yourself on any topic of your choice. Best of luck and have a nice day.
You consider the consistent application of one's principles to be "lying down"?
I consider Matt to be wrong and full of shit on this issue. For the first time, I've questioned Matt's intelligence and actual commitment to free speech.
Failing to understand something as basic as the difference been the FCC the public and the private media, does not inspire confidence.
If Matt actually believes in what he claims to believe he needs to sharpen his thinking and his rhetoric. This is our first exchange, I believe, and you're not winning me over.
I have sadly concluded Matt has an inferiority complex not "principles." It was never about Free Speech for him, it was about his personal exclusion from the ranks of legacy journalism - and his very hurt feelings about it.
I only realized recently how unqualified Matt Taibbi is for for the work he is doing. He seems to suffer from a class case of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
His background? He went to Concord Academy boarding school for rich fuck ups whose parents don't want to deal (I had friends there); tried NYU for 6 months but was "unable to deal with being just one of thousands of faces in a city of millions"; transferred to the middling-yet-expensive private liberal arts college Bard, but spent his last year at Leningrad and then he worked and lived in the Soviet Union for a while. (It's not clear why or what connection he had to the Soviet Union?.) He studied literature at Bard and does not appear to have graduated with honors or received any special recognition.
After graduating from Bard (or Leningrad) "Taibbi moved back to the U.S. doing part-time landscaping work before suffering a nervous breakdown and moving north, where he had an affair with a married woman." (wikipedia) "He then moved back to Russia to play pro baseball for two Russian clubs, Spartak, and the Red Army, in 1995." He worked as a private detective for 7 months in the US, Taibbi moved Back to Russia to "write a book about serial murder" and began working for The Moscow Times, moved Back to the US again for 5 months to make it work with his now-divorced affair partner then moved back to Russia again. (Why Russia?)
He left Russia for a few months to play professional baseball in Mongolia for $100/month; then returned to Russia again to work as an editor of a Russian Tabloid.
Heroine addiction followed and Matt admits he wrote a book while on heroine: The Exile: Sex, Drugs, and Libel in the New Russia. When a Vanity Fair journalist interviewed him about the "The Exile" book, calling it "redundant and discursive," Taibbi became enraged, threw his coffee and a "Fuck you!" in Verini's face, followed him for half a block after he left the restaurant, and said "I still haven't decided what I'm going to do with you!" The Exile book was not well received and became controversial in part for his mis-designation as "nonfiction." The publisher, Penguin Random House, dropped him after the controversy.
He then started working as a freelancer for various publications doing serious work like "The 52 Funniest Things About the Upcoming Death of the Pope" which was lambasted. Tabbi said he was surprised at the vehement reactions to what he wrote "IN THE WANING HOURS OF A VICODIN HAZE."
He wrote some great pieces for Rolling Stone and his literature-major chops really shine in his writing. He once did a 3 minute segment on Bill Maher. But his big break came from Elon Musk and the Twitter Files reporting (which in hindsight is not the bombshell he pretended it was - particularly in light of his tepid response to the more egregious direct threats of the Trump Administration).
But Matt Taibbi has ZERO qualifications to cover serious beat concerning threats to democracy, the rise of authoritarianism, or even violations of the First Amendment, which even that he doesn't appear to understand. He never attended graduate school. He has never studied journalism or political science or law or philosophy or any field relevant to his current "work." He does not seem to understand basic tenets of the Constitution and common law and yet writes as if he's an authority.
I had mentally placed Taibbi in a similar camp as Glen Greenwald -- but that was a huge mistake. Glen Greenwald, by contrast, got a degree in philsopshy from GWU and a JD from NYU. He then worked at Wachtell one of the best law firms in the world, where he litigated civil rights and constitutional law cases then started his own firm; then he started writing and of course shepherded the Snowden Files.
About his work in First Amendment speech cases, Greenwald told Rolling Stone magazine in 2013, "to me, it's a heroic attribute to be so committed to a principle that you apply it not when it's easy ... not when it supports your position, not when it protects people you like, but when it defends and protects people that you hate."
By contrast, Taibbi has posed as a First Amendment champion without really having the faintest clue how the Constitution works. And now - that it is "not easy" to advocate for speech protection when the speakers are people Taibbi wants to see suffer - as he apparently did - when he was not in the journalist-in-group (and seemingly for good reason).
It's easy to see in light of all this that Taibbi is a classic populist and prototypical Trump supporter. (1) Under educated. Although he went to college (3 different ones to be precise) no one would call him particularly "well educated" and certainly not in his field of work. (2) No consistent family or professional life. Dad left, single mom, multiple schools, multiple low stakes jobs (baseball, private investigator, freelancer); back and forth from russia, affair with a married woman, hasn't really ever held down a job (3) Demonstrated history of drug addiction including to heroine and vicodine (4) demonstrated anger management issues (5) allegations of sexual assault (6) writings that increasingly celebrate pettiness and revenge for personal hurt feelings (replacement theory ideations?).
I have been working on writing this to share with a law and politics group I am in, so I saw your post and dumped it here first.
I feel like I was tricked. This guy is just another yahoo blowhard (albeit with a cute lisp and love of literature). He should stick to Literature!
Thanks for the run down of Matt's life, I didn't know any of that apart from the sexual assault stuff which was bullshit and which he has repeatedly addressed as being satire. I can't agree with your premise that Matt is full of shit because he doesn't have a bunch of degrees. Who cares, he's a journalist who's dedicated a lot of his time researching stories that nobody else would, credentialism doesn't matter the truth does. Just because you don't like what Matt has uncovered through his research and journalism doesn't mean his work is not valuable.
I also want to add I don’t write off his research skills. He does seem to be a decent investigator. And he is trained for that with his PI work and journalism on-the-job training.
Fact gathering is one thing. Interpreting facts, drawing conclusions about those facts, and applying the law to those facts is another.
I read everything
Matt wrote/said Twitter Files. I was concerned- as a lifelong Democrat - about the encroachment of the government on social media companies. The 1A is sacrosanct to me.
I also followed the Supreme Court case on this and its 6-3 decision that evidence of the Twitter Files did not support the claim. Murthy or something like that. I did not see Matt mention that.
In the case of the comments of the FCC chair’s direct threats of enforcement actions and licensing removal- essentially ordering Disney to fire Kimmel is so far beyond anything in the Twitter files. Matt makes light of it, which is a good reminder that he is an entertainer, not a serious thinker or 1A scholar.
I understand what you’re saying and to be clear I have no info to have an opinion about the SA charges. In part this is because he filed his defamation case against the congresswoman who made statements about sexual assault Under Seal, so that no one can read the charges or her responses. That’s unusual. The default is that all cases are open to the public. But he filed under seal so no info there.
I also know there is s current zeitgeist where it doesn’t matter if people ate experts or have education about their subject matter. I disagree. Matt is a great writer, so sure write things people like to read, fine. You don’t need a degree for that.
But Matt has positioned himself as a quasi expert on Free Speech issues yet seems to grossly misunderstand how the Constitution and American legal system works. He began his career in Russia writing for a tabloid and about sports. He is qualified for that level of writing. And I love his ATW literary reviews. He would be a great lit professor.
But he is not qualified to write as an authority on Constitutional, legal issues. He seems to lack a basic understanding of how the separation of powers operates, and especially how the First Amendment operates.
He also has no education on journalism protocols or best practices regarding fact checking etc.
I respected him for his writing, bc it’s good, and he’s clever. But it’s like RFK being head of HHS. He might say some things I agree with, but he’s unqualified for a position of leadership in the medical space.
Taibbi is remarkably unqualified to write about the constitution or financial markets, or american government.
He’s a shuck out to make a buck.
Bravo Sim and well stated! And so far Matt, Mattias Desmet, and Sasha Stone are among the few to stand up for free speech principles even when it’s hard. The Charlie Kirk assassination exposed the depravity of many to the left, but the dysregulated emotional response by some on the right is grotesque and won’t lead to an effective response. I’d like to see my allies being strategic and not having full on spasms of an amygdala hijack.
I'm not as convinced (for Carr and Trump at least) that this is as bad as you might think. See my previous post on the main thread. The resulting Dem sponsored legislation is actually a pretty good idea. Once again, Trump has outsmarted all of these guys. Although, I do agree in general that at this point, the reaction to the shooting is becoming a much bigger story than the shooting itself...
Excellent rant. I'm with you.
I’m agreeing with you, but while watching the entire Charlie Kirk memorial yesterday with the bulk of the cabinet speaking, I kept hearing theme. Free speech. I’m thinking, and hoping it’s true, they recognize their missteps here
I wonder how different things would have been if they had expressed the same intentions but without using the specific phrase "hate speech".
Seriously. Never interrupt your enemy when they're making a mistake.
Thanks for expressing perfectly what I'm thinking.
Sometimes the unhinged word diarrhea says it the best.
Exactly. Kimmel was on the way out and this gave ABC the excuse to end the disaster. Carr's late hit on the QB who just threw an INT is no help to say the least. Ditto on Bondi. Thank goodness the midterm is not this year (though I am getting emails and fundraising texts like it is). They are in danger of overplaying this and I would not be surprised if the Kirk memorial is reminiscent of the Wellstone Memorial in 2002 that ended up electing Republican Norm Coleman because of its overreach. On the other hand, I just got an email from my idiotic county executive Stuart Pittman (AA County MD) saying Trump had no evidence the shooter was a lefty...
I wish EVERYONE would calm the FUCK down. Kimmel was FIRED, not censored. He is free to say whatever he wants on whatever platform he chooses to use...He was not kicked off TV....if another network or NetFlix, etc wants to pick him up, they can.
Unlike Trump, who WAS kicked off a major platform and then gag ordered about trial proceedings, or Alex Berenson who was, at the direction of the White House, deplatformed from Twitter. These were not firings.
You boss has every right to tell you to shut the fuck up when you are jeopardizing the business. Quite frankly, ABC was likely ELATED when he kept his nonsense going.....his show was tanking and now they had a solid insubordination to fire him with.
The FCC did NOTHING. The dude made some comments that were vague threats, but took no action....UNLIKE the Biden White House which sent specific instructions to FaceBook, Twitter and God knows who else about who to censor and how.
There is NO comparison.
Trump is not suggesting censorship. Pam Bondi is a HORRIBLE public speaker and no one should ever base anything on her spoken word. She may be good at her job, but they need to let someone else speak.
I'm pretty right wing. I don't want censorship...but I do want consequences. It's the lack of consequences for ANYONE saying nasty shit on the left that got us here. They can still talk all they want. They can still say the most vile things.....but, and this is coming as an employer....if one of my employees is standing outside my business with a megaphone, pissing off half my clientele, you better be sure I will fire them.
The First Amendment does NOT protect anyone from the consequences of free speech, it simply says, say whatever you want, we won't stop you.
Kimmel is NOT funny now...not sure if he every was, but he isn't right now. He was hired to be funny. He did not fulfill that obligation. Case Closed. It's not censorship...it's stupidity and arrogance.
And he will be just fine.....he made more money in a month that I will likely make in 10 years and I'm a veterinarian...I have little sympathy for him and no one else should either.
No one should EVER shut the other side up.......if we silence them, how do we know what they are planning?????
This the most intelligent post in the thread.
BTW, as far as I can tell, Carr made his "hard way" comment after the syndicates began pulling the plug on Kimmel. So, not only vague threats but, possibly just piling on to get some credit for what was already inevitable.
And inherent in a lot of the argument is the idea that power exercising power against the less powerful is always wrong.
It's like taking "never punch down" as a life philosophy.
The biggest problem with adopting this is that it is ridiculously easy to defeat--I just dress as the weakness du jour and now you have to submit.
And right there--modern politics in a nutshell. And that's why they call it the nut shell. It's a codpiece made out of crazy.
Because the broadcast spectrum is limited, there must be a means of controlling access, or otherwise the air would be filled with competing signals that would drown out one another. The means we have chosen is to license broadcasters, and the government is the licensor. Fairness requires some standards more than just first come first served, or who is the most politically connected. It is regrettable to have government in this role, but there seems to be no workable alternative. Jimmy Kimmel was not just promoting some matter of opinion, but rather stating a clear and obvious falsehood (that the Kirk murderer was "MAGA," i.e., a supporter of President Trump). This was egregiously harmful, as it was inflaming an exacerbated situation. I am close to being a free speech absolutist, but this seems to me to be a situation which would justify license cancellation, or at least a threat to take action if remedial action were not taken. In fact, no cancellation took place; Kimmell was fired most likely for his poor ratings.
And evidently is getting his job back for some weird reason...now, will all the lefties boycott their boycott? Kimmel is gonna eat crow to keep his salary....such a principled man.
He was censored because the FCC threatened his employer
No, he was FIRED for POOR performance. If you have ever run a business, you would understand. The FCC did bupkis. The FCC direct said a couple of things that meant nothing......Also, the FCC COULD do something if they found sufficient grounds but they did nothing......he was gonna be fired anyway....See Stephen Colbert. The late night, bitch about Republicans nonstop model is not making the networks any money and that is what they care about.
They're literally bringing him back tomorrow so clearly we're both wrong. He wasn't fired or censored.
He was fired, then rehired.
If he was going to be fired, the FCC didn't need to threaten his employer. They made the threat because he wasn't going to be fired and they wanted to censor him. It's pure censorship.
blah blah blah blah blah....who actually cares? So tired of all of it....to be clear. I bust my ass 5 days a week with no lunch break and actually do medicine and I get paid a pittance compared to this no talent loser who is basically just a Democrat cheerleader. And we all know Dems NEVER get censored, censured, or indicted.
There is no meaningful "scorecard" of which "side" is worse on any of this, because it's clear we live in completely different realities. One of Trump's first discoveries as a politician is that he was already damned as if he had done every conceivable "bad thing" even if he actually did none of them. That's simply how the Left's rhetoric works.
I wouldn't do this if I were a politician, but Trump has had a lot of success with "tastes of their own medicine", simply because the resulting firestorm contains a lot more left-wing self-beclowning than anything else.
My preference would be a strong First Amendment. We're far from that now, and we'll get further without cultural redirection. It's clear that the left-wing online community grooms murderers, and we need to both kill that community and open the general public's eyes to its existence. Drawing attention to it is paramount. There will be no freedom of speech if the boil isn't lanced.
https://principlesvstribes.substack.com/p/the-problem-that-killed-charlie-kirk
So here's the first amendment:
Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.
This is why deals were made thru FCC. So "Strong" how? By adding "except the 72 million liberals"?
Party like it's 1932.
“You are a liberal. You've been sentenced to ten years in prison over a meme. You are a liberal. Your truck left skid marks on an American flag mural and you're charged with a hate crime. You are a liberal. You trained your pug to do a communist salute and now the government has some questions for you. You are a liberal. You've been kicked out of school. Your kidney transplant was denied. You're on a no fly list. You can't get a bank account. You've been fired. Your friends are denouncing you. Protestors are at your front door. You are a liberal. And the right has gone bananas.”
This is the dystopian play flickering in the minds of people ignoring that it has really never happened, will never happen... but that the "you are a conservative" version has been at the theater for the last decade or more.
Do you work for the Babylon Bee, or are you just natural at sarcasm? I hope it's one or the other rather than that you actually are making that statement thinking it is true.
I am a liberal liberal and I was told not to make plans passed 2011 in 2009 by my surgeon at Fleurimont Hospital and I had my Nashville born Wife beside me. I was offered an experimental cancer treatment and we accepted to experiment. My wife was a experimental rat for Ensure at McGill where Kamala Harris' mother led breast cancer research when KamaLA ATTENDED SCHOOL IN MY NEIGHBOURHOOD. AT Kamala's High school GENDER IS ANALOG, RACE IS HOMO SAPIENS SAPIENS???? AND RELIGION IS not Common Sense AS Thomas Paine ONCE WROTE:
https://www.learnreligions.com/top-thomas-paine-quotes-on-religion-4072775
Westmount High is still the best high school public or private North of the Rio Grande. It educated Leonard Cohen. I am old, almost blind , senile, demented and terminally autistic from my UN-immaculate human conception. I too dreamed I heard the secret chord.I was almost as stoned as I am this Friday evening listen to America going out of business on September 30th, I am looking forward to LaTribune's, the Guardian and The Times of London Cartoons but I wondering what the Washington Post and LA Times have to say cartoon wise. The Toronto Star and Montreal Gazette get their orders from Wall Street but we speak only French judiciously.
https://westmount.emsb.qc.ca/whs
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMB70hZQckY&list=RDrMB70hZQckY&start_radio=1
Sadly the reality is that the side in power always becomes more authoritarian and the side out of power always becomes more libertarian. High-minded principles (to the extent politicians have any) in practice go out the window once you have the power to stop evil (which is what both sides always claim they are doing).
This is why I think government should be minimized to the extent possible (to minimize both the incentive and capability for authoritarianism), and also devolved to the lowest level capable of handling it, as mayors are more sensitive to their constituencies than Senators.
That said however, it is a bit rich for people who cheered on Trump himself being deplatformed (not to mention Roseanne Barr, Tim Allen, Gina Carano, Dave Chappelle, etc.), people getting fired for not taking the shot or misgendering someone, the pile-on of Nick Sandmann for having the gall to smile at a protestor getting in his face, etc, to now all of a sudden have a hard-on for civil liberties. While of course I would prefer to live in a world where the Constitution is observed by both sides, it can’t be one rule for one side and a different one for the other.
If only I thought they were ACTUALLY worried about civil liberties instead of using them as talking points because the immediate political moment demands it.
They’re not — as noted above, the side with power invariably becomes more authoritarian and the side without becomes more libertarian, principles be damned. The lefties who looooved cancel culture before now are cosplaying as flaming libertarians because they feel their power slipping. But the right does the same thing when it is in power or out of power as well.
nope. rights are just another tool in their toolbox. same as a violence. theyll use whatever they think will get the job done, but their is no commmitment to philosophy or principle.
It deserves to be said that Democrat administrations created a vast speech control apparatus to suppress people saying TRUE things about Covid, etc. Meanwhile, the Trump administration in this case has been cracking down on people saying demonstrably, irrefutably FALSE things.
I know this has next to no legal bearing, and that handing the Trump admin this power over false and inflammatory speech would inevitably lead to rights abuses and censoring the truth. I am a dyed in the wool civil libertarian like Matt on this issue. But it is cathartic to at least point out this difference between the sides in this case.
It's also worth pointing out that we were literally screaming that the giant censorship complex was going to be handed over to Donald Trump, but they didn't care.
Honestly, I think they massively expanded the censorship industrial complex under the assumption there would never be an anti-regime Republican who would win an election and take the reins back.
It was a parallel strategy to the lawfare: destroy opponents with the legal system while muzzling their supporters’ speech. The regime couldn’t finish the job as much as they tried, thank goodness, but left all the tools sitting around when they got run off the construction site, so to speak.
It’s been repeated ad nauseam, but one turn of the head in Butler changed world history.
That’s what boggles my mind the most. How hard is it to realize that the “side” you happen to agree with is not always going to be in power?!
It's very easy if you're a libertarian and your side is never in power :)
The Democrats fed themselves a lotus dream about a permanent majority obtained by catering to the various intersectional groups plus immigrants who would become citizens and vote Democrat. Trump turned that around by actually delivering policy wins to those groups, but for a long time Democrats discounted the possibility entirely.
Alas, I see the same thing going on now with the Right. Charlie Kirk's death was a tragedy, but I don't believe it's going to be the watershed people expect. The Democrats even now don't seem to have learned Trump's lesson, but that blindness cannot go on forever. Eventually the Democrats will be in power again, and any time Trump shifts the window toward more Executive authority, we have to acknowledge that eventually that authority will be in the hands of the Left.
And, face it, we would not want it otherwise. One-party states are not good places to live.
Yep. The left loves to rage against "The Great Replacement Theory", but it was literally just "Demographics is Destiny." It's just that people aren't lines in an excel spreadsheet, and they don't vote the way you think they'll vote simply because they've voted that way in the past. Democrats are catering to the very fringe (boys in girls sports) and that's losing them the normie middle.
For now. It’s not that I’m tired of winning, but the return of Democratic sanity cannot come soon enough for me.
I'm always rooting for the return of the sane left, but I am increasingly pessimistic they will actually take this chance to shake off the crazies instead of embracing them.
Suddenly my friends in the Blue Bubble are shocked and appalled by censorship and by people being bullied or fired for unpopular and/or unsavory opinions.
Every writer, artist or professor I know has spent the past decade walking on Social Justice eggshells, spending sweaty sleepless nights wondering if they used the wrong word or unintentionally insulted a member of a protected victim class, making sure to repeat all the mandatory political dogma and (if they're producers of any kind) doing all they can to find a BIPOC to employ. Now all these same people have suddenly been transformed into ACLU fundamentalists and look back on the Social Justice Cultural Revolution like it was some weird dream in a soap opera, where they did and said some things, but can't quite remember. (Only bigots remember!)
If you only honor certain principles when it's cheap and easy and comes at no cost to you but ignore them when it would require standing up to your tribe, then you don't really have these principles, you just know how to weaponize them when it becomes necessary. Very few people give a shit about free speech, thought and expression anymore—and certainly not our progressive clerisy, who are absolutely intolerant and refuse to lift a finger to help anyone not on their team. Reflexive tribalism has rotted almost every brain.
Are we sure the NYT reporting of what the FCC said is accurate?
It sure does seem to be a completely different narrative than The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal.......In fact, I am getting "Hunter laptop vibes". The other two basically stating that Kimmel was completely bound and determined to double down. I used to trust the Times implicitly when critical stories like this came forth. Those days are long over.
I don't even trust their Wordle answers. And that's the only thing keeping them in business.
I'm sure it is inaccurate, just not in what way.
Having a bully pulpit is valuable. But the public recognizes when it crosses into self-aggrandizing promotion of someone's beliefs or agenda.
Trump will regret making Kimmel a martyr. I guess he forgot that you don't interrupt your enemy while he's making a mistake. What Kimmel said was utter nonsense.
totally agree. i have no problem w/ABC canceling b/c of ratings or economic concern. listened to the show and i agree with walter’s argument in theory, and it’s a close call on kimmel b/c i REALLY dislike him—but i’d rather see him squirm and i’d rather the fcc/fed govt didn’t interfere based on politics (which this will set a precedent).
if they’d kept quiet then the economic argument could’ve been made w/o conflict.
Matt, you’re misguided that Kimmel was censored. The FCC Head Carr made a statement on a podcast. He had nothing to do with Kimmel being fired. Sinclair and EchoStar have had a merger on the table for a little bit of time now. They said they weren’t airing Kimmel’s show anymore. They wish for this merger to go through. Disney was heading to contract negotiations with Kimmel as his deal was almost up. The FCC had not a damn thing to do with his firing. You bringing this up and pushing this narrative is short sighted and honestly I expect more from you. If you took a minute and investigated this for a bit you’d clearly see Kimmel did this to himself. I’d also add the tide is turning and these types of jackasses are going to be falling to the wayside. Walter was also right saying these are public airwaves and what Kimmel has been selling for the past decade certainly isn’t in the public interest.
💯‼️‼️
All this worry over how this may be “perceived”? By who? The Left? They have their narrative going on gang busters: “the Right are McCarthyites! The Right want to censor free speech!”
They wish. But they want you to believe it.
The market spoke, and the people don’t want to buy what the Left have been trying to sell and they’re all mad we refuse to play along anymore.
I do agree Carr could have handled this better - but he has also conveniently been grossly misreported and misunderstood, because of it.
But he also has made a number of important points that go missed due to such misrepresentation.
The FCC’s literal job description is to maintain certain standards for the networks. It’s a tricky dance but there it is.
Bottom line: for the Left to be all up in arms about free speech rights now is worth this price for admission.
"The FCC’s literal job description is to maintain certain standards for the networks"
It is not. They have no authority and no control over "networks". The only controls they have are over TV and radio stations that transmit over radio spectrum licensed from the federal government. Those licenses are held by local stations, i.e. the people with transmission towers. Those stations are, in turn, owned by many different companies, including large players Nexstar, Sinclair, and Tegna, and those companies hold the licenses. ABC can have Jimmy Kimmel up there lying like a chimp 24x7 if they want to, and the FCC has nothing they can do about it even if they wanted to. What they can do is threaten those local stations, and that's what has happened here.
Matt didn't say Kimmel was censored by the FCC.
Are you sure? Because between ATW and this article he sure is making the case for it
I haven't listened to the podcast yet. But what he said in this article was that while Kimmel was canceled for most likely business reasons, Carr throwing his opinion into the mix just gives the other side ammunition to claim 1A violation.
All Carr did was make an off handed comment on a podcast. Carr is a firebrand and is doing things that the FCC should have been doing for decades. He had nothing to do with Kimmel being fired. He didn’t call Disney.
You mean "to falsely claim 1A violation." What boggles my mind here is the notion that any of the response is organic.
Walter is right - America's corporations are calling the tune, with their millionaire bubble-head sock puppets doing their bidding.
Which means of course a never-ending torrent of false claims irrespective or the facts or specific issues. You get that, I'm pretty sure.
They're always fucking lying and Walter is making the case that we can and should refuse to hold their dicks while the corporations piss all over us and our kids in the one domain which Americans actually own and have legal right/duty to act.
FCC Chief Carr was out of line IMO. The marketplace was doing the job via the infuriated affiliates and their customers. The real solution is for the FCC to go away. Will the Republicans actually do what they always campaign on: "less government and "fewer regulations" or is it all BS?
That's an argument, but as long as the FCC does have the duty of care - let them get on with the job where need be. As Carr noted, there's an easy way and a hard way.
Then the sclerotic GOP deserves being ignored and not hold the House. Defund the FCC
This sort of petulant purity test is exactly how and why "we" lose. Somehow folks here believe that the bad days are in the past. They are - but far worse days are just over the horizon - and your single issue focus guarantees a complete log-jam, with the non-sclerotic WH ready to ramp up executive authority in ways nobody wants to see.
The forces that turned America over to the corporations are still in place and simply waiting Trump out - you get that don't you?
Think the progress of less than a year is permanent and carved in stone?
There's an excellent chance Charlie Kirk will be remembered as a far-right racist and terrorist shot by one of "his own." And that Jimmy will be resurrected as a truth martyr and maybe elected president?
That's the world we lived in until Elon bought Twitter and Trump won in November and the world we go back to the moment these creeps get their boots on our necks once more.
Paul I have been involved in GOP campaigns since 1986 and am an elected official in AZ. My party is somewhat less bad at the national level than the Dems, but not by much. Exhibit 1 is the national debt which is a purity test for me. We are rapidly approaching a tipping point with $37 trillion outstanding and $1 trillion annually on debt service. No Empire can survive what we are doing-the rest of your rant that spins you up is a diversion from the iceberg.
Thanks for the information, candor, and for stepping into the muck - a thankless job. Apologies for the rhetorical excess - but my basic point stands - be it the debt, or any other issue, the folks that got us in this mess are simply waiting Trump out. Perhaps the GOP will not sell out the American public once Trump leaves the stage, but we may agree that many will. Tis the nature of the beast and not unique to American pols.
Noster debitus delendus est (paraphrasing Cicero)
Especially considering that "public airwaves" is right down there with "public hitching posts" in terms of 2025 relevance.
This is why what happened with Russiagate and the main stream media was such a disaster. Of course Trump was going to get revenge. The dems opened up the pandora's box. If Trump is smart he will take Matt's advice and let the MSM die on its own accord. No reason to give them martyrs to claim fascism as if they need any help!
I think the issue should be examined but I do not think this amounts to government censorship. First Carr said something to somebody. Other than that there is no indication he took any action. Second by your own admission you acknowledge Congress has authority to act and Carr referenced Congressional action in the second statement you cite. Third, you know that the broadcast networks lean left. Up until Trump's re-election so far left as to have lost all appearance of objectivity. They have fostered mis-, dis-, and malinformation. Repeatedly. I will not recite the details because you have written about it often. The moderation of the presidential debates by the network hacks was a farce. So now the pendulum is swinging the other way. You are welcome to urge caution and are to be commended for doing so. You were one of the few who did so before the pivot. But Kimmel is not a worthwhile hill to die. IMO he was not joking (Don Imus' nappy headed ho crack was a joke and he paid heavily), he was at best lecturing and at worst - and IMO this was the goal - deliberately disseminating malinformation to influence the public. Some of whom were in Utah. Some of whom will sit on Mr. Robinson's jury or be witnesses at his trial. Kimmel conduct was deliberate. IMO it was criminal as jury and/or witness tampering. My guess is the ABC/Disney lawyers are sweating bullets over this.
I think this is a great comment. ABC settled with Trump re. Stephanopolous. Now days after the murder, Kimmel is “joking” about the motive of who killed Kirk to slander more than half of the country. BTW, how did his audience re-act? Did they accept it? If his audience didn’t even appreciate it —- gong.
Agree 100%. The balance sheet of free speech abuse by the Democrats and their armed agency careerists is so lopsided vs. the Republicans. President Trump, just give them more rope please.