Free speech in the USA is under open attack.
As it is in this country as well, of course.
Here, the crime is to express your opinion on a piece of cardboard. You can get 14 years for that.
Or it is to project images already in the public domain onto Windsor Castle.
In the States, the issue is different.
There, if you question the President, who, along with his whole entourage, suggests he is completely dedicated to free speech, then your television programme is shut down, or your newspaper is sued for $15 billion simply for questioning his judgement, and you are told that you are from the far left, are an enemy of the people and that as such your right to free expression has ceased to exist, even though the Constitution says otherwise. And you will be cancelled for now, although how long it is before charges, disappearances, and more begin, we can only guess.
Satire is one way to respond. This is Jon Stewart doing that, last night, and this matters:
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The situation may not be a black as we think:
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/18/2344255/-Jimmy-Kimmel-and-Charlie-Kirk-What-Trump-et-al-do-not-understand-about-the-Internet?time=1758264358842#comment_91957112
One of the best articles I have read on the Daily Kos & very much along the lines I was thinking. It shows that whilst supine execs in the US have cancelled shows these will, probably, move to their own streaming platforms. & thus Trump & co move into whack-a-mole territory with no prospect of winning. & for an example of a “service” which governments across the world have tried to suppress (success so far = zero)……… Pirate Bay.
Possibly the most encouraging article I have read for a while.
This is where the older generation and many of our politicians fail to understand that whilst our MSM is very controlled in the UK, largely by right wing voices, it’s audience is dying. Papers are barely read by those under 60 in hard copy or online, so whilst the Daily Mail poisons the minds of the retired, it’s influence is literally dying. And whilst TV remains popular, our younger generation barely watch terrestrial television, so again it’s influence is becoming much less dominant. And as Musk has learnt you can buy a popular platform, but if you abuse it people will move elsewhere.
And as this article points out, part of the power of the internet is it’s decentralised control. Something Trump cannot understand or control.
Apologies for reinforcing the point: Kimmel has over 20 million subscribers on YouTube.
I’d suggest that this will be his new outlet – or live streaming etc.
All that said, I think it is sad that we make fun of old people losing their grip on reality and becoming more deluded by the second – they should be somewhere nice that caters for the mentally infirm & it was cruel of American citizens to choose a president that has lost whatever marbles he ever had, a gibbering, stuttering wreck.
The same for Colbert – who I prefer
I was surprised by the State banquet clips – I hadn’t realised quite how far his mental decline had gone because I try not to listen to him.
It was a reminder that once they invoke the 25th amendment,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-fifth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution
they instal J. D. Vance, who will deliver a much a more efficient form of fascism and can, if they still choose to bother with trivia like elections, stand again.
Good to have a laugh over breakfast, particularly when it’s an opportunity to admire a threatened species – almost certainly extincts by this time next year (when it’ll be clear the mid term elections have also been fixed, or otherwise rendered useless, and, failing a civil war, the US has become a “managed (fake) democracy” in the image of Putin’s Russia).
That is the fascist’s main vulnerability they cant stand being made fun of. They want to be taken seriously – either confronted, argued with or demonstrated against – but they dont like being ridiculed. It sort of takes away their mystique – their power.
The News quiz on R4 Friday seems to be the last refuge
Quite.
ref “ridicule” & thus the 21st cent moves back to the mid-18th & Voltaire & co – using ridicule to skewer the rich, powerful and stupid (who it would seem are always with us).
I loved ‘Alas, Smith & Jones’, Spitting Image, That Was The Week That Was, and all the other satire of the 70s and 80s. I suspect that they would not be aired now as they would be considered subversive.
We all loose, and that includes the lampooned politicians.
This is superb – thanks for sharing this – I’m crying with laughter.
Our country is diminished by the departure of dear Donald Trump and his lovely wife Melania. We should invite him back very soon to help us with the elections in May, and for an address to parliament.
We owe the United States a huge debt of honour, and I am grateful for his courageous stand against the forces of tyranny.
Come back soon Donald, we need you!
(Did I do okay?)
Is your tutor Jon Stewart?
I think one of reasons for ABC pulling “Jimmy Kimmel” had to do with some type of merger between ABC local affiliate media companies that is coming up in front of the FCC (Federal Communications Commission). ABC want this “merger” to go through as smooth as possible with the FCC.
Link from the Business Insider: https://www.businessinsider.com/nexstar-deal-fcc-jimmy-kimmel-suspension-2025-9
Worth a watch — he makes some sharp points.
https://youtu.be/e9NnQt_eQ0I?si=5_2Z8WCtvjidupx9
Thank you.
I will be using that.
I watched this. My mother and grandparents were German……. This is the most chilling thing I have heard since I asked them how Hitler and the Nazis had come into power. It scares me witless.
Sharp as a scalpel.
Forgot to post a link to the latest segment from Lawrence O’Donnell, which starts by setting the Kimmel story in perspective (along the way pointing out that it was Hollywood that invented the blacklist). But at 16 minutes it flips right back to Trump and Epstein, and then how it was that Starmer stood next to Trump when one week before he’d sacked Mandelson for what we all know Trump was (a great pal of Epstein).
Anyway, worth watching as usual – not least on this occasion for his “warm words” for Starmer – many of which are regularly used on this blog to describe this waste of space of a human being.
https://www.msnbc.com/the-last-word/watch/lawrence-the-epstein-survivors-have-questions-that-donald-trump-and-kash-patel-refuse-to-answer-247913541557
It seems as though Trump, Miller, and co don’t have that much respect for Kirk and his beliefs, after all. See this post to X.
https://x.com/chozo_ninpo/status/1968725803908116857/photo/1
This is just one of Kirk’s posts about free speech, which he recognised had to be truly free and is fully protected under the US constitution. And he believed that because some of the things he said were indeed regarded as, gross, offensive or evil by other people.
Thanks
Hypocrisy rules
One of the YouTube comments: “The irony of Trump listing George Orwell in his dinner speech.”
Which was exactly my reaction, too. I wonder if his speech writer was having a sly dig!