In his opening monologue on Monday, Jimmy Kimmel addressed the killing of conservative Charlie Kirk, saying: “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.” At the time, it was already widely known that the shooter was an Antifa terrorist. What political points was the “MAGA gang” supposedly trying to score—raising the alarm about left-wing political violence? Kimmel’s line was a deliberate distortion, designed to mislead his audience and sustain a narrative that shields left-wing extremism.
On Thursday, one of the most virulent propagandists in network television history was suspended indefinitely. The falsehood about who killed Kirk was not Kimmel’s first foray into extremist messaging. He is the same host who openly wished death on those who used Ivermectin, suggesting they should be denied healthcare. In a notorious segment, he mocked “Wheezy,” saying: “Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right in. We’ll take care of you. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, Wheezy.” Wheezy could have been your father or grandfather. Perhaps he was. This came just months after Stephen Colbert humiliated himself dancing with syringes on The Late Show.
How did Kimmel survive this? Because he said this in the midst of the medical-industrial complex propaganda campaign to foist mRNA technology manufactured by Pfizer-BioNTech (Comirnaty) and Moderna (Spikevax) on the American public, while smearing doctors and patients who used Ivermectin. After only a few seconds of research, I found that, in 2021, Big Pharma, with Pfizer and Moderna dominating the market, spent 6.88 billion dollars on direct-to-consumer advertising across all media. Linear TV (broadcast and cable) accounted for about 70 percent of Pharma TV ad spend. “Vaccine awareness campaigns” were a big part of this. Kimmel was a shill for the mRNA gene therapy campaign.
In an attempt to pin Kimmel’s suspension on President Donald Trump, CNBC misrepresented FCC Chair Brendan Carr’s remarks in the headline: “Carr says ‘we’re not done yet’ after Jimmy Kimmel suspension by ABC.” Who is “we”? Carr was clearly referring not to the government but to broadcast television as a business ecosystem. He spoke of Nexstar’s decision to preempt Kimmel’s program and described the resulting changes in the “media ecosystem” as a healthy market adjustment. Carr emphasized the broader trend: a historic shift in audience preferences away from progressive ideology, reflected in the ratings collapse now affecting linear television.
Feeling they have an opportunity to shift attention away from leftwing violence, progressives decry ABC severing ties with arguably the most loathsome cretin in broadcast history as an affront to free speech, finding yet another contrived way to depict the President as authoritarian while deflecting the actual affront to free speech: killing a human being for his words. But that’s not the only horror Kimmel’s script was designed to obscure. Kimmel’s line was also designed to disrupt his audience’s awareness that Kirk was assassinated by a killer motivated by left-wing progressive ideology manufactured by transnational corporate power, in particular that Tyler Robinson was an assassin for the doctrine of gender identity.
In mass media framing, to tie Trump to Kimmel’s cancellation, Trump is noted as having celebrated the suspension of Kimmel from the airwaves. Having called on Trump to lower the temperature, while at the same time blaming conservatives for political violence, progressives portray the President as persecuting those mocking Kirk’s death. I confess: I, too, celebrate Kimmel’s suspension. A major propagandist of the progressive corporate order is off the air. Good riddance. It’s a win for truth and reason when corporations eat their own. The President and yours truly can’t have an opinion without tying this to the specter of authoritarianism?
Disney understands the situation: Kimmel’s propaganda function was destroyed by the callousness of the television program in question. He was no longer worth the millions Disney was losing to keep him on the air. What’s the point of throwing money away if a Disney employee is no longer effective in his assigned role? As of 2025, Jimmy Kimmel’s contract with ABC is valued at 48 million dollars, with an estimated annual salary ranging between 15 and 20 million. Given this, expect more progressive television commentators to be handed pink slips.
Watch the above video of FCC Chairman Brendan Carr explaining the situation. He is clear about the role of the FCC in all this. There’s a lesson in this: you cannot trust media pundits to let Carr’s words speak for themselves in a contrived headline. You have to listen to the man’s words unfiltered. The rational default position when consuming media content is this: go to the source.
Why did viewers flipping through the channels have to suffer Kimmel for so long? This question is answered by what I’ve said already. Why were they subjected to this man in the first place? Same answer. You might otherwise wonder what executive would think Jimmy Kimmel Live! would make a good replacement for Bill Maher’s Politically Incorrect. Did you forget about that? Kimmel was brought in after Disney/ABC canceled Maher. Why did Disney cancel Maher? Because ABC affiliates pulled support from the program. They preempted it. Why would they drop Politically Incorrect? Maher criticized US foreign policy and elevated the reputations of the Islamic terrorists who attacked New York City and Washington, DC on September 11, 2001. He was bad for the military-industrial complex. That’s what happened to Kimmel: affiliates pulled support. Maher picked himself up and carried on. Can Kimmel?
Check this out. NBC was owned by GE at this time. This only aired once. I show this in my course, Freedom and Social Control, during the Mass Media and Propaganda unit. It explains a lot (the content is factually accurate):
For the record, the FCC can fine and restrict broadcast television for indecency, obscenity, and profanity. Outside of these categories, political or controversial viewpoints remain protected under the First Amendment. But that is beside the point. Kimmel’s suspension was ABC’s decision—he had simply become a liability.
As for Carr, he was stating a straightforward fact: Kimmel “appeared to directly mislead the American public” regarding the circumstances of Charlie Kirk’s killing. “Appeared” is a charitable way of putting the matter. That is exactly what Kimmel did—he misled the public. Carr took issue with Kimmel’s suggestion that the alleged killer was part of the “MAGA gang.” More charity. Kimmel went further than suggestion; he claimed that “the MAGA gang [was] desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them.”
Carr reminded broadcasters that because they have licenses granted by the FCC, they have obligations to operate in the public interest. Carr has, as have his predecessors, repeatedly invoked broad principles like public interest, obligations of licensed broadcasters, and community values. This is standard regulatory language the FCC uses to define what broadcasters should do across many situations. Carr didn’t announce any specific enforcement, immediate penalty, or even that the FCC was filing paperwork.
The reality is that, in the United States, no private individual or corporation owns the airwaves. By law, and under the oversight of a democratically elected government, the airwaves are a public resource, held collectively by the American people. Carr is rightly concerned that those licensed by the FCC—and therefore accountable to the public—serve the public interest. That is the FCC’s core function. The agency has a long history of raising concerns about “public interest” or “community standards” in broadcasting. Indeed, ensuring these standards is, and has always been, the FCC’s mission.
For progressives, Kimmel has become a free speech martyr. In their telling, Trump fired him. That’s not what happened. Nexstar merely set the chain in motion. Sinclair, the nation’s largest ABC affiliate group, followed suit, stating it will not air Kimmel’s show—even if ABC decides to bring it back—unless “appropriate steps” are taken. That is their prerogative as a private media company. Sinclair has, for example, called on Kimmel to apologize. In the meantime, the affiliate will air a tribute to Kirk in Kimmel’s time slot on Friday. Prediction: Kimmel won’t be back. He is no longer a propagandist worth the tens of millions of dollars his show costs annually.
Why are progressives outraged? It cannot be about principle. Recall when Fox canceled Tucker Carlson—progressives celebrated. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy, AOC clucked. Kimmel gleefully announced it to a cheering audience. Remember when NBC cancelled Megyn Kelly because she asked a discussion question about woke Halloween costume policy on college campuses? Pretext for NBC wriggling out of a 69 million dollar contract. Remember Roseanne Barr in 2018? ABC canceled Roseanne over a single tweet, then launched the spinoff The Conners, continuing the storyline with the other characters Barr created. The network even killed off her character, a Trump supporter, via drug overdose. Media outlets, commentators, and civil rights organizations hailed the cancellation as appropriate accountability. And yet, canceling Kimmel is a fascist move?
Why was Barr really canceled? As I suggested above: the show incorporated her political stance into the storyline. This was woven into her character’s working-class, Midwestern background, highlighting the political divides that can exist within a family. The political angle was deliberately provocative, sparking debates among fans. Critics argued that the storyline was polarizing and glamorized support for Trump. Those waiting to cancel the show were lying in wait, and Barr’s tweet provided the pretext. The show was commercially successful, yet ideology ultimately took precedence. This is the same ideology that puts conservative lives in danger.
Progressives defend the commercial interests of corporations that use the public airwaves to propagate messages—so long as those messages serve corporate elites and their progressive functionaries. The moment a pro-Trump perspective is broadcast—even in the context of exploring political polarization within a family, as in a dramatic comedy—a justification for cancellation can be found, no matter the show’s popularity. All in the Family was tolerated because Archie Bunker’s bigotry was presented as part of his character: an uneducated, working-class man. His humanization was designed to obscure Norman Lear’s—and Carroll O’Connor’s—intent to mock Nixon supporters. Nixon was portrayed as an authoritarian, too, but progressives in the 1970s had not yet become completely untethered to reality.
This isn’t the first time Kimmel has been canceled. Comedy Central cancelled Kimmel and The Man Show in 2004—but for the opposite reason. The show, hosted by Kimmel and Adam Carolla, featured humor centered on stereotypical “male” behavior. Comedy Central was shifting toward more “socially conscious” programming. Carolla left the show in 2003 because the show was becoming increasingly tailored to match the progressive turn in corporate politics. But Kimmel couldn’t meet the demands of the emerging woke hegemony, so Comedy Central cancelled him. Presumably, progressives supported Kimmel’s cancellation then.
Were Kimmel’s free speech rights violated when The Man Show was cancelled? Were Norm McDonald’s free speech rights violated when he was fired from Saturday Night Live for talking about O.J. Simpson? As progressives told us during COVID, corporations are not obligated to uphold the free speech rights of citizens. Kimmel and McDonald are employees. Cancelling them is accountability culture.
Certainly Kimmel supports cancelling programming with which he disagrees:
In light of their record on free speech, progressives should sit this one out. Did any of them cry “fascism” when Twitter deplatformed Trump and The New York Post or Facebook booted Alex Jones off the social media giant? All those users who were cancelled for “misgendering” deluded men who think they’re women? Those who questioned Fauci’s “science”? No. Progressives applauded all that. They demanded it. They participated in it. They doxxed and reported social media users. The social media companies they used took directives from the Biden Regime (and deep state embeds). The worst thing to ever happen was Elon Musk buying Twitter and opening it up to diverse viewpoints.
We don’t need a bunch of authoritarians lecturing us on free speech. Their angle on this is obnoxiously disingenuous.
I can hear the objections: What about the right-wing complaint about social media censorship and deplatforming? There’s no hypocrisy here. There is a distinction between linear television and social media platforms. Broadcast television operates under licenses granted by the federal government and is subject to FCC oversight. Because broadcasters use the public airwaves, they bear editorial responsibility for what is aired. Who holds them accountable? We do through our elected representatives. Cable television functions similarly in that it also exerts clear editorial discretion, much like a magazine or newspaper that decides what content to publish. In both cases, the law treats these outlets as publishers, and they are accountable for their editorial choices.
Social media platforms, by contrast, enjoy a special legal status under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act of 1996. The law shields them from liability for user-generated content by declaring that they are not to be treated as the publishers or speakers of material posted by their users. The content belongs to the users of the service. The justification for this immunity is that these platforms are akin to digital bulletin boards. They are not exercising—at least they are not supposed to exercise— editorial oversight in the way traditional media did; rather, they are merely providing a space built by the taxpayer for ordinary citizens to express their opinions and exchange information.
In reality, in violation of Section 230, social media companies, while benefiting from this legal immunity, exercise significant editorial control. They establish and enforce “community guidelines,” an Orwellian euphemism for editorial control, removing posts, suspending accounts, and deploying algorithms that prioritize certain kinds of content over others. This means that social media functions like publishers, despite legal claims to neutrality. Defenders of the current system—progressives and the Tech Lords—point out that Section 230 explicitly allows platforms to moderate objectionable content without forfeiting immunity. So what’s their complaint? I already told you.
Today’s Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll shows that 53 percent of Likely US Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Progressives have managed to give Trump a ten-point swing in his negativity rating in only a handful of days. Once exposed, progressives are their own worst enemies. Just get out of their way? Give ’em the rope that they’ll hang themselves with? Sure, but keep hammering, too. It’s the hammering that has exposed them.
This is what’s really freaked out progressives: the media ecosystem has shifted under their feet. There is a seismic quake in popular sentiment. It has shifted because America has moved away from progressivism and towards democratic republicanism. Progressives have lost the culture war, their empire is crumbling, and they’re turning, not only to more extreme rhetoric, but also to political violence. This is why America is a more dangerous place for conservatives and liberals today. Violence is increasingly the progressives’ only recourse. In the end, violence will be all they have. That’s the real threat to free speech. The “free speech” hysteria on the left is nonsense. Just another self-inflicted wound.
The ever-opportunistic Democratic Minority Leader Chuck Schumer couldn’t let Kimmel’s cancellation slide. The controversy helped Schumer get back on the “Trump’s a fascist” train. Schumer just had to swap out dictators. Now Trump is “just like Xi.” Minnesota Governor Tim Walz describes the situation as “North Korea-style stuff.” That’s rich coming from the man who said what he said in the above clip. Comparing Trump to Hitler once more needs a little space and time. They’ll get back around to it. They already are: “Hitler’s Clampdown on Free Speech and Its Lessons for Trump after Jimmy Kimmel Firing.”
Wait until RFK, Jr gets rid of pharmaceutical ads. “Corporations are people, too!”
freedom and reason 