650 Comments
User's avatar
Julie's avatar

The lights shall remain firmly ON for free speech, humor & satire.

After all Boeing made a comeback after the 1971 recession that prompted real estate agents to create the billboard near Seattle-Tacoma (SeaTac) airport:

"Will the last person leaving Seattle - Turn out the lights" billboard, April 16, 1971

https://www.historylink.org/File/1287

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Sgt JMK's avatar

This just absolutely nails the reason why MAGAts like Brendan Carr don't give a shit about being consistent and don't care about their own hypocrisy...

https://bsky.app/profile/garethwatkins.bsky.social/post/3lz6kpjmfqk2e

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tegrat's avatar

As pointed out by a diarist on DailyKos, Kimmel probably didn't even write the monologue, and in any event the writing had to get past their internal censors so ultimately the whole thing is just scapegoating Kimmel. I think a largish lawsuit is called for.

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Rad's avatar

From the beloved Steven Colbert... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMGD1KCYFOw&t=9s

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DemoCat's avatar

News distortion. lol. Oh, if it wasn’t all so absurd. Kimmel is a comedian with a mainstream variety/talk show. He literally begins each show with stand up. He makes fun of the president, a tradition in late night talk show tv, and I would say a damn healthy sign of a free democracy. Drag the president. And let’s face it, those of us who know humor understand it wouldn’t be funny if it weren’t mostly true, a mix of observational humor and celebration of the absurd. It’s why it pains Trump so badly. If he were in fact crushing it, with 60% approval and incredible achievements in job creation, reducing costs and fostering unity at home and abroad, he’d have no reason to worry about a comedian on tv. But he’s a lazy, incompetent thug who the vast majority of Americans despise. But Kimmel, a comedian, had to go because of the risk of “news distortion.” His opinion is too risky. And at the same time, conservative media literally calls their show “Fox News,” despite their own hosts evading scrutiny over the years by claiming it’s all just good entertainment. It’s all lies, propaganda, and news distortion. It’s nearly, and realistically may become, State sanctioned media. All others must fall in line or risk being bought out by the billionaires who love Trump’s carefree capitalism.

Sadly, there is little we can do about any of this. The right wing is chipping away at dissent and we aren’t through year 1. I truly wonder if we will have another fair election or democratic POTUS. Misinformation and the failure to reform campaign finance and gerrymandering has possibly doomed us.

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Major Is My Spirit Animal's avatar

Jimmy Kimmel hadn't lied, but Horst Wessel Lied.

Nazis gonna nazi.

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"M"'s avatar

How many times are we going to have to say "WANNA-BE TYRANTS CAN NEVER BE APPEASED; THEY ONLY ESCALATE"??

"So, a university president fired a professor because they taught a course that discussed there being more than two genders, and now the university president is being fired for not having fired the professor quickly enough, is where we're at."

https://bsky.app/profile/taniel.bsky.social/post/3lz5pngfwkk2s

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/18/us/texas-am-president-gender-ideology-controversy.html

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fair_n_hite_451's avatar

I just saw this story and it was very confusing.

Abbott and Paxton wanted the provost to fire the professor.

And he did.

But then they whined about how he belittled the student's claim (about the lesson, on video, that led to the initial calls for the professor's firing) by saying he mishandled the firing? Somehow?

Sounds like they are what we expect sharks to be - rendered insane and unable to control themselves when they smell blood in the water.

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Bruce's avatar

They really wanted him to gather up a bunch of police thugs and teevee cameras, march into the classroom and drag the professor out in handcuffs after beating him down, to be replayed endlessly to warn people not to cross the Regime.

Seriously. This is what they want. This is where we're going.

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clairence's avatar

Wth is going on in this f*ing country?!

How are the minority bigots telling the majority how to live their lives?

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"M"'s avatar

Because the minority hogged and stole all the power

Just like they did it in apartheid South Africa

which is what they want to bring the country back to

which more than a few people have been saying for months

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/elon-musk-doge-neo-apartheid/

and some for years

So MY follow-up question now is ... why could people not listen to what people have been telling them??

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fair_n_hite_451's avatar

at least partially because of all the lies fed to Americans about their "exceptionalism" and "it could never happen here because our system of government is the best design ever invented".

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Revenant's avatar

I will never understand the success of Guns N' Roses. And I liked Budgie (Homicidal Suicidal).

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fair_n_hite_451's avatar

I was never a huge fan. But Sweet Child of Mine kicked some ass. Plus his weird swaying thing he did when singing was pretty hilarious. I STILL regularly make fun of it.

also, Slash was very very good.

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Major Is My Spirit Animal's avatar

Upfist for Budgie.

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Revenant's avatar

Lucky you that you can buy groceries. I've been living on stuff out of the freezers or cans for a month, I'm always just barely staving off losing phone service or my homeowner's insurance (in which case the bank can foreclose on my mortgage, never mind that I've never missed or been late with a payment. Or at least that's what they tell me. I must count myself fortunate that Baltimore county has not been been menacing me over last year's property tax.

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Stephen St John's avatar

I just saw an article stating that Brendan Carr wants to go after The View, demanding "equal time." I'm sure looking forward to him demanding Fox "News" give equal time to left wing views.

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simpledinosaur's avatar

Cato the Elder used to end his speeches in the Senate with "Carthago delenda est" (Carthage must be destroyed). We should end with "The Epstein files must be released."

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Revenant's avatar

We can't have comedians distorting the news, that's the job of the opinion personalities on Fox and Newsmax. And lord knows, they are never ever DELIBERATELY funny.

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Hank Napkin's avatar

Two words, citizens -- OTHER VENUES.

I will have nothing to do with these "Networks" just as I have nothing to do with "Sir".

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UnDrewsual's avatar

I don't know if it's more notable that Trump is calling for NBC to basically kill off all of it's late night shows or if it's that he calling for Fallon's firing, one of the most obsequious hosts I've ever seen (and who helped Trump during his first campaign, not that he's capable of remembering that)

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"M"'s avatar

You know he doesn't remember that

Also the UK journalists whom he's facing now are actually holding him accountable so of course he's going to turn around and pick on easier targets in the States whom he suspects will cave with his pet bully Brendan Carr next to him

Anybody who knows anything about disordered personalities -- heck, anyone who remembers anything from school about how bullies behave -- should recognize this behavior pattern

The biggest thing giving me jitters is that people seem so siloed and compartmentalized they appear incapable of doing the pattern recognition

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Bruce's avatar

The craven "Liberal" government in the UK just banned that Australian reporter who had the temerity to annoy trump.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/australian-broadcaster-barred-trump-uk-060807276.html

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"M"'s avatar

Oh, ugh

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UnDrewsual's avatar

The thing giving me jitters isn't that people are incapable of pattern recognition. They are. It's actually something humans, as a species, are very good at.

The problem is that people don't want to believe what's happening, because it's scary and depressing and they'd rather not think about it. That's why every time people like you or me have said what the GOP is trying to do, we get replies that we're just being "alarmist" or "paranoid".

And even thought we KEEP BEING PROVEN RIGHT, they still say it.

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Bruce's avatar

They will say we're "being alarmist" as we're being marched through the gates of the death camps...

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Hollysdower's avatar

I was really hoping that Strike Force Five would come together, and stand in solidarity with Jimmy Kimmel, and refuse to shoot any new episodes until he is reinstated.

It would probably get all of them fired, en masse. Or maybe it wouldn't, HBO doesn't want to lose John Oliver. But at any rate, it would be them taking a stand.

In the meantime, BOYCOTT ABC AND DISNEY!

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Peter Dellos's avatar

Some blog getting kicked off of TWIT-X very not equal to blackmailing networks to fire major TV show hosts.

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