On the internet the big story seems to be the indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel by ABC. I confess to being somewhat at a disadvantage. The last time I looked at network television my set had four dials: on/off, vertical, and horizontal, volume, and channel. In this I’m not alone. Kimmel’s show had fewer viewers than a number of online podcasters, sponsors were fleeing, and local stations represented by affiliates Nexstar and Sinclair wanted out. The great Iowahawk nailed the flight from network television:

“Anyway, I see people debating who should replace Kimmel in the coveted late night talk chair, and it's like debating who should move into the empty Spencer Gifts at the abandoned Twin Pines Mall.” 

A Little History of Democrats and Free Speech

Before discussing the specifics of Kimmel’s suspension, let’s review a little recent history about the Democrats and free speech. Do you remember when Roseanne Barr had her show cancelled by ABC on the false charge that a tweet she made linking Valerie Jarrett to Iran was “racist”? Did you know who was behind axing what was one of the most popular shows on ABC?

“In an interview with the Sunday Times Magazine in 2019, Barr revealed that Michelle Obama personally pressured ABC executives to axe her.

Former ABC president Channing Dungey, who carried out her firing, worked directly with the Obamas at Netflix.”

Roseanne was but one example of the Democrat cancel culture ruining the careers of anyone who disagreed with them.

This is a pattern of cancel culture. Conservatives have been targeted and canceled by the same leftist mob:

• Gina Carano -- fired from The Mandalorian for “wrongthink.”
• Megyn Kelly -- fired by NBC for Halloween costume commentary.
• Dave Chappelle -- targeted by Netflix employees for “transphobia.”
• Joe Rogan -- smeared and nearly canceled over COVID discussions.
• Tucker Carlson -- taken off Fox News after advertiser pressure campaigns.
• Parler -- wiped off the internet by Apple, Google, and Amazon.
• J.K. Rowling -- blacklisted for defending women’s rights.
• Mike Lindell -- banned from Twitter and retailers for supporting Trump.
• The Gateway Pundit was banned on Google AdSense, Amazon Ads, and PayPal for reporting on election fraud and COVID.
• And the list goes on.

Former congressional candidate Jack Lombardi also slammed Obama, reminding him that it was under his own presidency that the government waged direct war on the free press:

• October 2009: The White House tried to exclude Fox News from a pooled interview -- other networks refused to participate until Fox was included.
• May 2013: DOJ secretly seized two months of AP reporters’ phone records, an intrusion AP called “massive and unprecedented.”
• May 2013: DOJ labeled Fox’s James Rosen a “co-conspirator” in a leak probe to obtain his emails and phone records.
• Feb–Mar 2014: The FCC floated a “Critical Information Needs” newsroom study, later scrapped after a First Amendment backlash.

Even President Donald Trump’s voice was muzzled by Democratic action when Twitter threw him off the site.

Obama administration censorship was followed by the Biden version:

Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has now admitted publicly that moderators at Facebook and Instagram faced vast pressure from the federal government to take down contrarian COVID-19 content, election-related content -- including jokes and satire -- as well as the New York Post's Hunter Biden laptop story. This led the platforms to make moderation decisions that Zuckerberg now regrets. "I believe the government pressure was wrong, and I regret that we were not more outspoken about it," wrote Zuckerberg in a letter to the House Judiciary Committee, which is investigating the suppression of speech on social media. "We're ready to pushback if something like this happens again."

Every Twitter and Facebook poster who was silenced as a result of government action had his constitutionally protected right to free speech infringed. The Constitution prevents government restriction and pretending the Twitter and Facebook actions were private conduct has long been proven false.

The Biden Administration blatantly violated the First Amendment:

“The Democrats and progressives used the FBI to coerce social media companies to block online content that that the Biden Admin didn't want getting a foothold. The online companies refused to allow links to the NY Post articles on Hunter's laptop. The federal government has ZERO authority to impose any kind of regulation on the internet. The FCC has legal authority to regulate the airwaves. Whether FCC Chairman car stepped over the line or not is an interesting academic debate involving the limits of FCC authority over ABC and the stations. The is NO DEBATE that what the Biden Admin and the progressives did was a blatant violation of the First Amendment.”

From Jeffrey A. Tucker:

For five years, some of us have been sounding the alarm about the government-directed attack on free speech that censored how topics and communities in every possible venue. It was totalitarian. We litigated, we exposed, we FOIA'd, we did what we could. The censorship has been far-reaching, top down, pervasive, well funded, and directed toward one end: political conformity. No one in the mainstream media cared and you know why? Because they were the censors and thrilled to play that role. Not even the Supreme Court could be bothered. It's still going on now: YouTube and LinkedIn reliably remove posts about vaccine injury. Now some lying loser late-night bubble dweller gets his show canceled and I've heard more about are speech than at any point in years. These same people had nothing to but cheers when Alex Jones, every Covid skeptic, and even the sitting US president was silenced. Now these same people are suddenly channeling John Stuart Mill. The hypocrisy is astounding. This is next-level Orwell stuff.

Kimmel’s Indefinite Suspension by ABC

As much of the nation was shocked and in mourning over the assassination of Charlie Kirk -- murdering someone for what he says is, after all, the clearest example there could be of censorship -- Jimmy Kimmel flounced about asserting that the assassin was a Trump supporter, something he pulled out of his backside and a bald faced lie his huge staff nevertheless seemed to think was appropriate. Saner heads considered this charge reprehensible and ABC affiliate Sinclair sought an apology for this blatant lie. Kimmel refused to apologize and said he’d double down. Not surprisingly, ABC, which pays this jerk $16 million a year for making demonstrably false, partisan, and incendiary charges, indefinitely suspended him. Reportedly, ABC’s senior executives thought his plan to address the controversy would “make the situation worse”

Like cats chasing red laser beams the media quickly switched from Kirk’s assassination to magnifying the preposterous claims that removing Kimmel from the air was the worst violation of the Constitution ever.

Democrats like Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and Chuck Schumer, already on record for praising for years the cancellation of those with whom they disagreed, promoted this nonsense.

Obama did his usual shitty shtick where he starts a sentence claiming high virtue and ends it by calling for more death, mayhem, and self righteous Democrat violence. Obama has perfected in every sentence what all Dems now do in their hearts, which is assert some Grand Abstract then tell each other to beat little old ladies to death with the Grand Abstract. 

“We believe this truth to be self-evident, that all are created equal and that… you need to go out now and kill a random Republican for disagreeing with you on anything… those are the noble values that truly make our nation!”

Victor Davis Hanson details the shifting left narratives about Kirk’s assassination which is worth reading in its entirety for I can only summarize here:

From One Leftist False Kirk Narrative To the Next

Somewhere in the leftwing command bunker, false narratives about Kirk’s murder, replete with talking points, are issued and disseminated through the network news, social media, Hollywood, and academia -- at least until their party-line absurdity demands a new concoction.

Here are the daily, changing leftist narratives over the past few days: 

#1 “No Motive” [snip]

#2 “The Gun Did It”. [snip] 

#3 “The Assassin Was MAGA” [snip] Narrative three then was floated that MAGA right wingers did it, or white supremacist gangs, or a veritable civil war on the right were responsible.

Jimmy Kimmel finally lost his job over spreading that preposterous lie. Robinson’s engraved messaged bullets, his texts, his friends, his family, the nature of his boy-girlfriend relationship, and his chat group all proved beyond a doubt he hated Kirk for his influence and politics, and thus committed a leftwing political shooting of a conservative in the fashion of a Luigi Mangione or James Hodkinson. 

#4 “Both Sides” [snip] Unfortunately, many on the Left could not keep still and smother their glee. So an unhinged array of students, bureaucrats, teachers, professors, the media, and actors -- the usual suspects -- started posting their accustomed delight over the killing of Kirk. Thus, narrative four evaporated, given the nutty Left’s glee over Kirk’s death was near synonymous with one of their own killing him.

#5 “Trump Did it” As narratives imploded thick and fast, the Left next claimed that Trump’s ‘hate speech’ and divisiveness caused Robinson to kill. In other words, this new ‘Trump did it’ narrative dispensed with the prior leftist failed ones, by claiming there was now a new motive indeed, and it was the solitary Trump.

But that attempt sputtered almost immediately, given the reactive Trump was first targeted by four lawfare partisan prosecutors, 2 failed assassination attempts, ballot removal, and smeared as a fascist by high-ranking generals, Kamala Harris, and most of the Democratic Party. So he might have had some reason to talk back, given the Left sought to rerail his 2016 candidacy, sabotage his first term, and destroy him (literally) after 2020.

As part of the narrative, Trump supporters were derided as “chumps”, “dregs”, “semi-fascists”, and “garbage” by Joe Biden, who boasted twice he wanted to beat up Trump behind the gym, put a bullseye on him ("time to put Trump in a bullseye"), and jail him (“we gotta lock him up!”). Did Joe then incite the violence?

Barack Obama emerged from one of his many mansions to squeak up the ‘Trump did it’ narrative. But the community organizer who said, “get in their faces”, “bring a gun to a knife fight”, and sicced his intelligence agencies on Trump to destroy his campaign, transition, and early presidency faded fast.

So, sermon finished, Pastor Obama quietly private jetted back to either his Martha’s Vineyard acreage or his Hawaiian beach estate. At that point, it seemed there could be no more crazy narratives. But in fact there were more. 

#6 “A Love Story” [snip]

#7 “He Kinda, Sorta Deserved It” An exasperated Left, after seeing all of their narratives implode, finally shrugged and defiantly has sent out the last version that best reflected its own.

The new narrative? Why should the Left be apologetic or deferential at all? It will damn Kirk and see what conservatives are going to do about it.

So after the de rigueur acknowledgment about the abhorrence of murdering anyone -- the Left now cuts to the quick and pontificate, euphemistically, about Kirk bringing it on himself.

The new narrative has the Left openly admitting they despised Kirk’s (mostly undefined) views. And while they did not approve of his murder, per se, they sorta, sorta understood that his type of “divisive” rhetoric was, well, bound at some point to inflame and excite those who were ‘morally’ bothered by his ‘hate’.

In the aftermath of his gruesome assassination, the new narrative says it maybe kinda, sorta of wrong for the Left to imply Kirk earned his death. But nevertheless, it was sorta, kinda true -- and by implication the leftwing world is better off for his passing.

That final sick narrative, distilled from all the other failed ones, will more or less now be institutionalized as the authentic Left party-line as the months wear on.

By week’s end a resolution was forwarded in the House which called upon Americans “to reject political violence, recommit to respectful debate, uphold American values and respect one another as fellow Americans."

58 Democrats voted "NO “and 38 Democrats voted “Present.”

A bipartisan group in the Senate and House has signaled an intention to forward a bill tagged No Political Enemies Act (NOPE) which would permit parties deprived of free speech for political reasons to sue and receive legal fees. (The provision permitting recovery of legal fees is critical, allowing anyone even of modest means to pursue such cases.)

Defying all prediction, somehow, Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension (he isn’t even fired!) has now prompted Democrats into proposing a real solution for one of conservatives’ biggest complaints: the egregious excesses of Twitter files censorship. Since we haven’t yet seen it, who knows whether the NOPE bill’s text will actually have teeth. But things are obviously moving in the right direction.

 The turnaround was so astonishing that you could even call it miraculous. Democrats have not exactly championed free speech. After all, they are the party of microaggression, deplatforming, virtue-signaling, social media censorship, hate speech, and cancel culture. We could recite a long list of Democrat cancellation victims. 

A promising development, but we haven’t seen NOPE yet and since it comes at the same time 96 House Democrats refused to vote to support free speech, we may never see it.