Many of the richest, most pathologically greedy white men in the world (and their corporate alter egos) have an irresistible impulse to control everything. This is no conspiracy theory, just look around at what these self-interest blinded entities are doing. One of the world’s most lucrative entities, Disney and its affiliated corporate “persons”, is vying to become number one (presumably tired of smelling like number two) planning to consolidate more power, wealth and influence by buying another major television network group. They need Trump’s MAGA-headed FCC (president gets to pick the chairman) to approve their purchase of a huge swath of ABC — employer of nightly Trump exposer Jimmy Kimmel — or Nexstar, or some combination of corporate properties.
It was easy for Trump’s FCC chair, a pugnaciously partisan chap named Brendan Carr, to lean on the morally flexible corporate “person” who owns Kimmel’s contract, during a far-right podcast, to immediately fire Jimmy Kimmel because, “nice little monopoly you’re trying to build here, shame if something happened to it…” Not long ago Carr tweeted his true beliefs about the First Amendment (under the Biden tyranny, one supposes) and the proper role of the FCC:
Trump and his mouthpieces say if you speak ill of the radical rightwing movement that included both the martyred Charlie Kirk and his murderer, you risk your livelihood, if not your kneecaps and your nose. Unlike in a defamation case, the truth of your statements, or the ones you quote, is no defense against the charge of illegal opinions. What is best for the ever more feeble president’s delicate ego is the only consideration. Desperate men do desperate things in desperate times. What’s the world coming to when Cucker Carlson begins speaking common sense truth?
During his monologue on Monday’s show, Kimmel said: “We hit some new lows over the weekend with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half staff which got some criticism but on a human level you can see how hard the president is taking this.”. . .
. . .Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker posted: “This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand. All elected officials need to speak up and push back on this undemocratic act.” He pointed out that in 2023, Brendan Carr [1 — my footnote] himself posted: “Free speech is…the check on government control. That is why censorship is the authoritarian’s dream.” Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned of a coming campaign to “use the murder of Charlie Kirk as a pretext to use the power of the White House to wipe out Trump’s critics and his political opponents.”
. . .On CNN, conservative pundit David Frum called it “state repression.” On his show, right-wing activist Tucker Carlson said: “[I]f they can tell you what to say, they’re telling you what to think. There is nothing they can’t do to you because they don’t consider you human…. A free man has a right to say what he believes.”
Dan Rather wrote a very cogent explanation of the corporate side of this hideous “free market” canning of a popular comedian for poking fun at an increasingly unpopular wannabe dictator. There is already a lot of blowback on this fascistic over-reach, even Lyin’ Ted Cruz denounced the unethical, illegal, unconstitutional quid pro quo move as a mafia-style shakedown (see following post).
Trump clearly believes in free speech only for himself and those debased enough to publicly kiss his crusty ring. Whatever else you want to call the recently martyred Charlie Kirk, he was not actually a champion of free speech or open debate. He was a well-financed bully, who franchised his billionaire-funded MAGA youth movement on 800 college campuses. He often used the Bible, and his take on Christ’s teachings, to figuratively whack people in the head during his staged free speech cage matches. “Read Leviticus 19,” an Old Testament section he liked to cite to shut his critics’ mouths. Note Mr. Kirk’s flagrant violation of these commands of his white, Christian God, from Leviticus 19:
16 “‘Do not go about spreading slander among your people.
“‘Do not do anything that endangers your neighbor’s life. I am the Lord.
18 “‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.
33 “‘When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. 34 The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt. I am the Lord your God.
Of course, any devil with access to the internet can quote scripture — and cut and paste it. Just because Kirk slandered accomplished, brilliant Black women as lacking “mental processing power”, preached that gun murders were an acceptable, prudent price for the freedom to own guns, advocated for public, televised executions of the president’s enemies and was, to put it tenderly, no friend of foreigners residing among us, does not make him … uh, does not, he wasn’t… not a hypocrite. He was not NOT a hypocrite is all I’m saying.
His death was horrible and literally nobody deserves to die that way, but to call him a Christian martyr whose death demands national mourning and not a bad word said against the self-made millionaire White Christian Nationalist is false.
“‘Do not lie.
“‘Do not deceive one another.
12 “‘Do not swear falsely by my name and so profane the name of your God. I am the Lord.
Leviticus 19.
Here’s Rupert Murdoch’s New York Post, definitively nailing the evil, mean-spirited, nasty, heartless, catty, possibly violent, definitely radical (and comedic) comments that got Jimmy Kimmel fired…in Kimmel’s own explosive, obscene words.
[1] Brendan Carr, chairman of the FCC, is a Trump-appointed Trump ass licker. Here’s his application to president-elect Trump, a la Bill Barr’s.
Heather:
On the podcast of right-wing influencer Benny Johnson on Wednesday, chair of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Brendan Carr said that Kimmel’s words were part of a “concerted effort to try to lie to the American people” and that the FCC was “going to have remedies that we can look at.” “Frankly, when you see stuff like this,” he said, “I mean look, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Carr explained: “There’s actions we can take on licensed broadcasters. And frankly, I think that it’s really sort of past time that a lot of these licensed broadcasters themselves push back on Comcast and Disney and say…’We’re not gonna run Kimmel anymore…because we licensed broadcasters are running the possibility of fines or license revocation from the FCC.'”
The largest operator of ABC affiliates, Nexstar—which needs FCC approval for a $6.2 billion merger—said it would stop airing Kimmel’s show from its stations. Then ABC suspended Kimmel’s show.
Benny Johnson, the podcaster on whose show Carr threatened Kimmel, was one of the influencers Russian state media funded to spread propaganda before the 2024 election. After Kimmel’s suspension, Johnson posted on social media: “We did it for you, Charlie. And we’re just getting started.”
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