Tag Archives: Jimmy Kimmel

Remembering Some Not-So-Recent History

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There has been a lot of noise lately about the fact that Jimmy Kimmel was not on the air for a few days. There are still a few stations that have chosen not to air his late-night show. Considering the ratings of the show, I do wonder how long he will remain on the air. However, there has also been a lot said about the ‘tyranny’ of the Trump administration in wanting his show to go away. Hollywood has been very vocal about protecting their right to free speech. However, they have not been consistent.

On Wednesday, Jack Cashill posted an article at Substack reminding us of some of Hollywood’s not-so-recent history.

The article reports:

Those of us who know even a little recent history can only snicker at the CNN headline, “Jennifer Aniston, Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks join 400 artists to back Jimmy Kimmel against ‘government threats.’” To “back” here meant signing an ACLU letter. Such bravery!

The letter reads, “We the people must never accept government threats to our freedom of speech. Efforts by leaders to pressure artists, journalists, and companies with retaliation for their speech strike at the heart of what it means to live in a free country.”

Although I agree with the sentiment, I am astonished anew at Hollywood’s selective outrage. They sat in silence these past four years while the Biden administration used every lever of power to silence critics on the internet, even to the point of imprisonment. Those offenses they could pretend not to notice, not so the hunt through the Hollywood Hills in 2012 for filmmaker Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, a hunt that the media gleefully joined.

Just three days after the September 11, 2012, disaster in Benghazi, the New York Times Ian Lovett reported that the feds were inquiring into whether Nakoula “had been the person who uploaded the video to YouTube.” The video was actually a 14-minute trailer for a proposed film titled, “The Innocence of Muslims.”

Nakoula was eventually arrested on September 15, just four days after the Benghazi attack, and held him in secret without charge or without access to an attorney.

The article notes:

Nakoula was vulnerable. He was on parole for his involvement in a check-kiting scheme. Even more worrisome, he had quietly cooperated with the feds and fingered the scheme’s ringleader.

Less than 48 hours after Secretary of State Clinton first alluded to Nakoula’s video, someone in the Obama administration had unsealed the indictment and exposed Nakoula to retaliation. “Why did the government release the deal?” Nakoula asked me when I first spoke to him after his release from prison. “Why did they put my life in danger?”

They put his life in danger because they knew they could get away with it. With Nakoula silenced, they could perpetuate the lie that the attack on the consulate in Benghazi was not a result of the administration’s disastrous policies but of a spontaneous protest inspired by Nakoula’s “hateful” film trailer.

No one’s life was endangered by taking Jimmy Kimmel off the air for a few days. Spare me your outrage when you kept quiet while an American citizen’s civil rights were totally violated to protect a false narrative created by the Obama administration. That also happened on January 6th, 2021, but the truth on that has not totally been revealed. Stay tuned.

The Democrats Seem To Forget Their Own Recent History

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On Thursday, Red State posted an article about some recent statements by former President Obama about cancel culture and Jimmy Kimmel.

The article reports:

With the news breaking on Wednesday Night that Jimmy Kimmel saw his late-night show suspended, there has been no shortage of voices of outrage from the left. The squealing and mewling over this has not been heard since way back to… about a month ago, when a similar amount of teeth-gnashing was taking place over Stephen Colbert getting canceled.

While I am no fan of seeing possible government leverage being applied to broadcasters over content, this is a result that the same wailing class has been attempting to provoke for years. Case in point: CNN’s media maven Brian Stelter has been weighing in (pun completely intended) on this suspension, and he is among the last who should be outraged. This is the same man who, years ago, was actively pushing not to silence one voice, but lobbied to have an entire network – Fox News – removed from our televisions.

…We will start small and with a dose of equivalency. While the press this year has been carping about the administration putting clamps on the White House press corps, it has been forgotten that this came into practice during the Obama years. His administration was prone to manipulating the official press pool reports being issued. (In one ironic example, his press secretary had a reporter strike the comment that after praising a free press in a speech delivered in Asia, Obama was blocking photo ops, during the same trip.)

Another frequent practice was freezing out the media throng entirely. He was not averse to having White House reporters whisked out as he was staging meetings. In what has to be the most ironic of examples, there was the time Obama was recognized with a transparency in government award, and he received the honor in a closed-door session with the press locked out. 

…But during Obama’s term, he literally went after reporters. Fox News reporter James Rosen had his and his network’s phone records seized, as well as those of his parents. Government contractor Stephen Kim was jailed for sharing information with the reporter. And this was hardly an isolated instance involving the “scandal-free” president.

Former President Obama set the stage for the years of cancel culture we saw under former President Biden. What happened to Jimmy Kimmel was not cancel culture–it was a network realizing that he was a liability who might jeopardize some of their future plans. He was also making tasteless and inaccurate remarks and calling them comedy. Comedy used to be funny and not aimed at belittling anyone. Let’s get back to that.

There Is More To The Story

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The firing of Jimmy Kimmel was a shock to some of us. His comedy has often bordered on inappropriate. I have mixed emotions about the Federal Communications Commission being involved in any way, but I have no problem with a private company taking whatever action they deem appropriate in dealing with someone who is part of their brand. However, there seems to be more to the story.

On Thursday, The New York Post reported the following:

Jimmy Kimmel’s comments on the murder of conservative activist Charlie Kirk weren’t just noxiously offensive and seemingly misleading — their timing was also incredibly bad: They threaten to derail Nexstar’s $6.2 billion takeover of rival broadcaster Tegna, telecom insiders tell On The Money.

The already controversial deal — which would combine two of the nation’s largest owners of local TV stations — poses significant antitrust questions and needs a close review by the Federal Communications Commission and its conservative firebrand chairman, Brendan Carr.

Kimmel’s comments made that approval even dicier. That’s why Nexstar publicly announced Thursday that its stations would no longer carry the show, telecom insiders tell On The Money. Ditto for ABC, which produces and distributes “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” to broadcasters like Nexstar — and likewise has business before the FCC.

Bob Iger, the CEO of its parent, Disney, was also quick to suspend the show indefinitely.

On Thursday, Sinclair Broadcasting — a rival local TV giant with a conservative bent — upped the ante even further, saying ABC’s suspension of Jimmy Kimmel was insufficient and announcing it will yank “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” from its stations until the host apologizes directly to Kirk’s family and donates to his political activist group.

The backdrop to all this is Carr, a longtime telecom lawyer who is the new sheriff of the broadcast industry. Carr has been warning networks large and small that he’s taking one of the most expansionary views of the agency’s regulatory edict to make sure programming is in the “public interest,” First Amendment concerns be damned.

Ultimately, the public will be the ones to decide what is acceptable on television. Generally speaking, when viewership drops, shows are cancelled. It is interesting that Jimmy Kimmel’s remarks were made at a time when a business deal was being discussed. I do wonder if he believed what he was saying or if he was simply repeating something he had heard. Either way, it was inappropriate.

I Might Actually Watch This

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The Hill is reporting today that Bernie Sanders has agreed to debate Donald Trump as a charity event.

The article reports what Donald Trump said on Jimmy Kimmel live:

“Yes, I am,” he said on ABC’s “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” “How much is he going to pay me? If he paid a nice sum toward a charity, I’d love to do that.

“If I debated him, we would have such high ratings and I think I should take that money and give it to some worthy charity,” the GOP’s presumptive presidential nominee added.

Sanders, a Democratic presidential candidate, later accepted Trump’s offer, even offering a potential battleground site.

I think I would be willing to watch that debate.

These People Vote ?????

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Hot Air posted a man-on-the-street interview segment on Friday from the Jimmy Kimmel show. The innocent pedestrians were asked their opinion on President Obama’s inauguration for his second term (despite the fact that it has not yet happened). At one point the interviewer asked one person how she liked it when Michelle Obama threw teddy bears into the crowd. The person being interviewed said that she thought that was very nice. I am hoping the people interviewed are not a representative sample of the American voter.

Here is the video:

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