From the moment ABC announced that it was severing ties with alleged comedian Jimmy Kimmel, the wailing coming from the left could be heard from coast to coast.
ABC indefinitely suspended Kimmel’s late-night show “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” beginning Wednesday following remarks he’d made earlier about the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk.
In his Tuesday night monologue, Kimmel said that “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.”
Following those remarks, a number of ABC affiliates told their parent network they would be dropping Kimmel’s show.
On Thursday, one day after Kimmel was let go, Federal Communications Commission Chair Brendan Carr told CNBC Jimmy Kimmel appeared to “directly mislead” viewers about facts regarding Kirk’s assassination.
Democratic politicians and legacy media figures attributed Kimmel’s forced departure to a loss of free speech in the “Age of Trump,” but our free expression rights, as guaranteed under the First Amendment, had nothing to do with it.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom claimed that “There is no such thing as free speech under Donald Trump’s reign.”
CNN contributor S.E. Cupp said “This administration is systematically killing free speech, and these capitulating media companies are acting as willing accomplices. Frightening and shameful.”
Rep. Eric Swalwell, a California Democrat, said “it’s a part of who we are” that Kimmel “has a right to come in any house that wants to watch and entertain Americans” on TV.
“It should shake every American that the president of the United States is out there firing comedians who make fun of him.”
And Democratic social media influencer Harry Sisson claimed Trump was breaking an earlier promise.
“We are witnessing the most brazen attack on free speech in modern American history,” Sisson said. “Elon, Trump, and MAGA said they were free speech warriors. It’s the exact opposite.”
Despite remarks made by the FCC chairman, no one in the Trump administration ordered that the show be cancelled. That was a decision ABC made entirely on its own, possibly to avoid legal exposure.
And the First Amendment protects freedom of expression from government interference. ABC executives were free to either keep Kimmel on or de-platform him as they wished, and in many instances the wailing over Kimmel’s departure only revealed their own hypocrisy.
For example, MSNBC host Chris Hayes claimed that Kimmel’s firing “is just the latest chapter in Donald Trump’s ongoing campaign to crack down on free speech, and essentially render the First Amendment meaningless.”
However, following Fox News Channel’s decision to oust host Tucker Carlson, Hayes remarked, “He believed he could say anything no matter how disgusting and get away with it. Over time, that’s not going to work out well for you.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, called Kimmel’s firing “outrageous” and “a page right out of Xi’s [Jinping’s] playbook.” He added that “it doesn’t matter if you agree with Kimmel or not. He has the right to free speech.”
But not everyone has that right, apparently. Two years ago he called upon Fox News to fire Carlson “for how he has perverted and slimed the truth, and for letting him go on again, and again, and again.”
As far as that goes, Kimmel himself celebrated Carlson’s departure.
“What a shock, what an absolutely delightful shock this is,” he said, and called him “one of the most despicable mother-Tuckers ever to appear on American television.”
But where were all these free speech advocates when the previous administration openly infringed upon Americans’ constitutional rights?
Six months after Joe Biden moved into the White House, his administration began censoring Americans, according to then-White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki.
“We are in regular touch with the social media platforms and those engagements typically happen through members of our senior staff and also members of our COVID-19 team — given as Dr. Murthy conveyed, this is a big issue, of misinformation, specifically on the pandemic,” Psaki said.
They also targeted parents expressing concern at school board meetings and those who are anti-abortion praying at abortion mills.
Newsmax TV’s “Liberty-Loving Latino” Chris Salcedo observed in his preamble Thursday that we should be more concerned over the murder of Charlie Kirk than of ABC firing a bad comic.
I have to agree. Also the previous administration’s actual constitutional violations far surpass the imagined ones of the current White House.
Michael Dorstewitz is a retired lawyer and is a frequent contributor to Newsmax. He’s also a former U.S. Merchant Marine officer and a Second Amendment supporter. Read Michael Dorstewitz’s Reports — More Here.
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