The Kimmel Nose Under The Tent

Posted on by Sarah A. Hoyt

Before you freak out, not I’m not doing a “both sides” thing and I’ll confess to more than a bit of glee at seeing Kimmel banished to the outer darkness where there will be gnashing of teeth and pathetic walking around the streets trying to get passerbyes to agree with him. Okay, fine, that’s Don le Lemon, but still. (But he was intending to retire. Yeah, yeah, more on that later.)

But–

Yes, I do know he outright lied, and that his shtick as a comedian is the same clown nose on, clown nose off we’ve known from Colbert and other such unfunny clowns. And I do know as well that he wasn’t fired due to government pressure.

Look, yes, Trump tweeted (Truthsocialed is so cumbersome) about how he should be fired. Yes, it might have caused it, but if so it’s not Trump’s fault but Biden’s (more on that later, too) and I don’t buy it anyway because Trump tweets the most absurd stuff and the most sensible stuff too, and the left does remarkably well at ignoring all of it.

Mostly the reason for the firing seems to be a revolt of the affiliates, which frankly is overdue IF they want to save their business (and might be too late.)

Still, I will confess it made me uncomfortable — even while gleeful — at the level of an itch in the back brain, so I’m trying to reason through it.

And part of the reason I have not to be overly disturbed by the Kimmel firing, besides the fact it wasn’t government ordered — as the silencings, firings, etc. under Biden. Remember the attempts to create a Ministry of Truth? — is that I don’t think it’s a market distortion so much as an overdue market correction.

Okay, fasten your seatbelts because this involves my explaining that I view pretty much EVERYTHING (except religion and family and love of country, maybe, though I could argue for those too) as an economic/market problem.

Most issues in society today, for instance, are caused by imposed top-down market distortions. And don’t get me started on that, or we’ll never talk about this specific issue again. But if you want to wind up the Sarah and watch her go, I can do another post (couple three of them) later.

But for our information market — from entertainment media to news media, to everything else, including education — from which people derive their view of the world, the case for market distortions is trivially easy to make.

Or maybe it is so only because I lived in the belly of that beast for so long.

I got so tired in the oughts of seeing people talking about how conservatives abandoned the market, yadda yadda yadda and coming up with all kinds of pseudo psychological just-so stories for why conservatives weren’t going into teaching, writing, journalism, art, etc etc etc. I mean people ON THE RIGHT came up with all sorts of reasons, from “Conservatives are more money oriented.” (Bullshit. Like. Total bullshit. I’ve never seen anyone as money oriented and grasping as a devoted communist.) To “Oh, conservatives are more concrete thinkers and want to work on things more easily quantifiable.”

All of this was utter nonsense on stilts. And every time I tried to explain people on our own side argued with me. EVERY TIME. Because what I said seemed soooo improbable to them.

You see, it’s nonsense to look for pseudo-psychological explanations for a field being totally dominated by one political side. There is no explanation in that case except market manipulation.

Okay, I’ll cop to our side having more autists and their side seeming to have more psychopaths. There are reasons for this, and they aren’t integral to the people. They are because their side has been a “social positioning good” for so long that psychopaths will latch on to it. And our side therefore collecting the people for whom social anything, not alone positioning, is a mystery. BUT the truth is that this is on the margins. maybe we have 10% more autists than they do and they have 10% more psychopaths than we do. But I’d be frankly surprised if it’s event hat start. It’s mostly marginal adjustments.

Mostly people are people. And just because “capitalism” (aka the free market pro freedom side) has more quantifiable benefits, it doesn’t mean it won’t attract any number of shiftless artists (raises hand and self identifies) even those who aren’t artists because they were promised it involved no math (they lied!) but those too.

Again, I’d buy a minor distribution difference on the margins, for psychological reasons. But the total dominance of entire fields by the left is evidence of one thing and one thing ONLY: market manipulation.

I’ve been the voice screaming in the desert so long that it’s always a surprise to see someone come up and corroborate it. What this lost soul is doing trying to break into trad pub in this day and age is a quandry, but the story she tells? Same, same. And bad news for her, it only gets worse. Both in terms of being discriminated against, and being held back and…. all of it. At this point trad pub will deliberately hobble you on telling a story that doesn’t accord with the woke shibboleths. And if you manage to find a publisher that takes it, the bookstores will play games with your books. And–

And it’s like that all over. For about a century now, not only is everyone to the right of Lenin discriminated against in broadcasting, news, entertainment (of which writing is broadly a part) and education, but the level and amount of distortion undertaken to keep people to the right of Lenin from succeeding in these fields while propping up the most absurd mediocrities of the left is– breathtaking. And usually locked in people’s heads, and people might doubt it themselves, even when it happens to them.

Let me explain: I say “a great part I was stuck in mid list was because of shenanigans” I sound incompetent and resentful both. Even though I know it’s not true, I only know it’s not true that I’m making this stuff up because during the hard times I did a bunch of write for hire. And the most off-the-cuff, just-writing-this-because-kids-need-winter-coats books made other people’s careers. Or shot to the top and stayed there.

Now you could say “maybe the stuff you labor over is not as good.” Fair call, as coffs many such cases. BUT contra that, a lot of my books are also the most off-the-cuff, just-writing-this-because-kids-need-winter-coats books and none of them described that trajectory. (Why would I write those? Well, in trad pub you write what the gatekeepers will buy. Because baby needs shoes. And if you think the years I wrote six, ten, or twelve books all of them were labors of love, I have a bridge to sell you cheap. It kept us above water but it was sometimes brutal. (And if you’re going to say indies do those numbers all the time, cool story bro. Now try doing them on someone else’s schedule, with tons of interruptions thrown in by the process itself (revisions on someone else’s time, for ex) and these books being 120k words plus. And on ideas you might have submitted 10 years before and not only aren’t interested in now, but need to do all the research on again. And note I’m not complaining about that. Publishing is a business. The needs of the company paying you are…. the market under that scenario.))

And I still feel uncomfortable complaining. Other people? Much much more so. They (probably) most of them don’t have even that kind of internal proof.

When they tell you “No one likes you and you don’t sell” you shut up and go away. What else can you do?

I don’t know if it’s the same mechanics for teachers, but I imagine just the opinion of the teachers’ lounge might break you. On top of which I find it curious that more than one right of Lenin would-be teacher seems to have given it up when they got their student teaching assignment in schools dangerous to life and limb. It makes me wonder if the same prospiracy (not a conspiracy. That would be easy to nail) type of thing made sure those they weren’t sure were fully onboard with their insanity got the worst assignments.

And that’s part of the problem. The thing that kept the right out of these professions wasn’t a conspiracy. That would have track records and evidence. It was a prospiracy of like-minded fellow travelers helping each other. In publishing the code was “is one of the good people.” In other fields? I don’t know. (And I only caught that by accident, btw.) And how much of this was honest prospiracy and how much the cells of three of typical communist org, only the Good Lord knows at this point.

But it doesn’t take much reading of past publishers and journalists bios from the early twentieth century to see it in action. And they were naive enough to BRAG about it. About how they kept right wingers, therefore obviously evil and stupid, out of the field.

At the same time they were giving plum assignments, pushing, etc. people with not a yota of talent but singing in the choir.

Which is how we get to Jimmy Kimmel, a largely talentless unfunny comedian, who had a golden ride to success due to his willingness to tell any lie, smear anyone, etc. etc. (Not all deals with the devil are a contract signed at a crossroads at midnight.)

Note I’m shedding no tears for him. And while firing a journalist for lying does make me uncomfortable (much less a comedian) since it’s a grand tradition of the profession — and then again, who is to say what’s a lie? (Yes, I know it is a lie that T. Robinson is MAGA, but hear me out.) Are we going to start our own disinformation department? — at the same time, in the face of a thoroughly corrupted market, any corrections are going to look like violations.

You see, a corrupted market functions to keep itself in business more than anything. Just because their people suck, doesn’t mean you can outsell them, because the market is vitiated to protect them. Whether what they’re selling is bad information, corrupted medical studies, or lumpy pottery that comes apart in the dishwasher. Corrupted is corrupted and self-protecting.

So to correct the Chinese corrupt market dominance, tariffs might be needed to encourage companies to stop outsourcing.

And to correct the corrupt and monolithic information monopoly, the affiliates might need to put the fear of them into the station.

That’s the only way to do it, short of it crashing utterly first, and some things — like say our market of medicinal production, or news — we can’t afford to have crash utterly for national security and sanity reasons.

However it does feel like a violation. It is a violation. I mean, fish got to swim, some jornos will lie. If you stop a fish swimming, you can at least eat them, but stop some jornos from lying and you’re interfering with their ability to make a living. (And I’d never advise eating them. Don’t put that in your mouth. you know exactly where it’s been.)

So? We still have to break the monolith. Oh, and btw, that “he was going to retire” (I told you we’d come back to it) might be true or not, but it’s irrelevant in the end. These people never fully retire. There’s sinecures, accolades and teaching and– This scalp collecting was real. We won’t let his hoary head decline peacefully into the grave. Much delayed justice, etc–

…. Here’s the thing… Normally at this point I give a pallid scolding along the lines of “We don’t want to do what they did. We don’t want to shut out all other opinions till we’re as useless and stupid as the left which is unable to course correct and at this point completely unable to figure out what things mean. What things? Oh “hate” for one.”

Whoever said that faced with any pushback, the left goes down like a tribe that never met smallpox is correct. They isolated themselves so much that at this point they don’t even realize the things they’re doing and saying aren’t defensible.

But normally when I offer that, I’m mostly doing it in the hopes that someone 100 years on somehow finds this and takes note. Because, you know, fighting such an entrenched establishment takes time, and we’re certainly at no risk completely dominating everything to the point we become useless.

…. Maybe? I mean, that was my absolute certainty until last week.

Looks around.

Guys, it might be you need to remember that. Do not ossify into tolerating no dissent at all. And while it might be needed for a little while — Lord, you have no idea how this bothers the libertarian — to shut the worst of the left out of these professions (tbf the worst of the left is very bad at their jobs too. The job is never the thing. The revolution is the thing) remember that when you hire for any reason but competence you always degrade competence. There is no way around that. And we’re already in a crisis of competence because of the left’s insanity.

So while you’re prying Jimmy Kimmel out of the fortified tent that keeps us out — and the others too. So many others — don’t forget that our aim is not simply to reverse positions.

In the end the free market is best, be it in the flow of goods or in information. Which means we need to make this phase as short and thorough as possible, and break down the walls quickly, and oh, get rid of the old managers, no matter how much they say they’re now on our side. They only know one way to operate and they’ll be just as bad under the new regime. (See USSR’s heads becoming oligarchs and mob bosses.)

And then we need to go back to, in the measure of the possible, trusting the public (which won’t be trained into half a dozen “valid” sources, which a lot of the older and much younger population still is.) to find their way amid truth and lies.

Freedom must be our watchword and our ultimate aim.

And not having to give a damn what political opinions your writer of bubble gum fiction holds is a consummation devoutly to be hoped for.

After the tsunami.

Make sure you remember. Because in the meantime, it’s going to get ugly. And there’s nothing we can do to stop that. Market corrections are always ugly, even when not physically violent. This one will not be an exception.

Buckle up and hold on tight. Things are about to get choppy.

150 thoughts on “The Kimmel Nose Under The Tent”

  1. Kimmel was fired because Sinclair Broadcasting, the mouse’s largest affiliate station owner, said that Kimmel had to go. Nothing more. Certainly no credit to the house of mouse.

    Liked by 2 people

      1. Sinclair and Nexstar each pulled the Kimmel show on their own, making it crystal clear to Disney where ABC stood with their two largest distributors, as ABC/Disney would see zero income from that slot when nothing from ABC was airing then. Iger is a leftist loon, but he’s a money centered leftist loon, so he did the smart thing money wise.

        Liked by 1 person

      2. I would also suspect that some of the affiliates were running scared that some of the libel/slander laws in the states they are located would allow Mr. Kirk’s estate and family to sue for reputational slander.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. Last I heard they’re already doing it to ABC, to the tune of $40 M or so. (Though it was on Twitter…)

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          1. Man, I hope they do, and I hope the dollar amount is gargantuan, and I hope they win. Take the bastards for everything they’re worth and more. Make it a financial nuke-from-orbit scenario.

            Liked by 1 person

        2. Like a crazed archer scattering firebrands and deadly arrows, such are those who deceive their neighbor, and then say, “I was only joking.”

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Indeed there is a reason why bearing False Witness is part of the same group of laws where we find “You Shall not Kill”, “You Shall not Steal” and “You Shall not commit Adultery”. I think US and State slander law is pretty clear although Mr. Kirk having been a “public figure” his estate may have a harder time as not only falsity but malicious intent is required in most jurisdictions for a public figure. Well worth it just to make the Mouse Squirm, they might even just offer a retraction and settle. And discovery is always fun…

            Liked by 2 people

  2. One idiot is “screaming” about the Kimmel firing more because “Trump did it” as opposed to “Biden did it”.

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  3. Few people enjoy watching a cranky, foolish comedian. It’s even worse when that comedian is on broadcast television. Advertisers see a reduction in exposure, broadcasters realize they can’t get the lucrative advertising revenue, while wondering how it affects their license, stockholders begin questioning their investment, and the comedian is canned due to their stupidity in giving their employer a reason.

    I’m surprised Kimmel stayed on as long as he did, but when I think of the fleshy-headed mutants that are in television, I realize they probably didn’t have a clue of the depth of their ignorance.

    Liked by 3 people

    3. And “No Man’s Land: It Isn’t What You’d Think” is just about exactly the kind of “buzz” to wish for, from a pure marketing standpoint.

      Liked by 1 person

  5. It seemed to us over the breakfast table that this lie is simply an excuse.

    Someone looked up viewership numbers. The big channels are competing with Rogan, Kirk, Asmongold, Nyx (Nix?), and millions of others for eyeballs. Kimmel wasn’t cutting it.

    Quite possibly NO one can cut it anymore. The entry cost into the journalism sceen is a cell phone and service. Better equipment gets more eyes, but anyone with a smartphone can get started. And everyone can enjoy their own personal tastes in journalism. Want interviews with steam train hobbyists? Someone has you covered. Fly fishermen? Someone has you covered. Every niche has a journalist or ten now.

    Centralized media is failing. Slowly, because it’s big, and people have habits, but every friend who posts “Accident at 5th and Center” on Facebook is now a reporter, sharing breaking news faster than the news channels and papers can.

    You can directly access what the government and politicians say, no need to wait for the media to tell you. The only thing the media has remaining to them is telling you what to think about it, and you can find a lot of other folks cheerfully or dourly, your preference, telling you what to think about what happened.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Whizzing in the coffee of half your potential audience is going to eventually annoy the corpie beancounters. Unless one was explicitly hired to annoy group x, those folks also watch ads.

      What did the one fellow say? Something along the lines of “Republicans buy shoes, too.”

      Liked by 4 people

      1. If I recall correctly that was NBA Hall of Famer Michael Jordan who said that, in reference to his Nike Air Jordan brand of sneakers.

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    3. I honestly can’t think of the last time we made an effort to watch a current mainstream media entertainment show; probably about when we ditched cable and went to streaming video through a Roku box. (we’re currently binge-watching Malcolm in the Middle, just for grins and giggles.) The market is fracturing into smaller and smaller segments with specialized interests. For me, on Toob-of-yew, I like furniture restoration things, and I follow three or four different individuals or couples who are renovating decayed houses … in one case, an entirely roofless stone ruin. (Two in Portugal, one in France, one in England.) They all post weekly videos of progress – and they are all good at videoing, editing, providing commentary and soundtracks – every bit the equal of so-called professionals and much more entertaining and down to earth than most so-called reality shows.

      Old media is dying … and one of the reasons is that practically everyone involved with it couldn’t resist the temptation to denigrate and abuse the conservative, church-going, heterosexual portion of the audience.

      They forgot that we buy shoes, too. And other stuff,

      Liked by 1 person

      1. from playing with videos this week and making music, oh, man, the clankers are coming along. If within10 years a motivated individual can’t make disney-quality movies, I’ll eat my hat. (I mean visually. Better plots, of course.)

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Just ran across some YT cartoons using AI generated voices and cartoon video to parody ST:TNG, though I think they are human written for now – below is one with Picard and Q – which say to me that the animation side of the house, and voice actors, are first on the list when this AI revolution comes:

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        2. Like Grok Imagine videos, recently; see for instance X’s Deborah. Still necessary to glue together short clips to make a longer piece at the moment, etc., but the rate of progress is amazing.

          Now contemplate “mixing” in some live action and/or acted voice, if/as appropriate, also pretty much covered even now, and you’ve got the raw materials for a genuine revolution.

          Liked by 1 person

  6. Premise accepted: “when you hire for any reason but competence you always degrade competence.”

    Premise proposed: the willingness to speak truth and shun lies, and to discern which is which, is a competence.

    Live not by lies.

    Republica restituendae, et, je suis Charlie.

    Liked by 4 people

      1. As a practical matter, the liars can shovel out crap faster than we can intelligently refute it.

        One counter to this is ensuring folks understand “Lies on one thing, likely lies in everything else”. In Latin its a legal thing in court. If you catch Fred the Fed lying about the suspect’s demeanor, or the time of day, you can assume everything else Fred says is crap. And it carries over. If Fred gets a case tossed due to lying, someone else can refer to that in their own case.

        Which is why schools go to such lengths to -not- teach real critical thinking, logic, etc. Just have The Right Feels! and you are good. Any unpleasant or contradictory facts can simply be shouted down by collective “Baaaaa” ing.

        Liked by 2 people

  7. Yeah, of the big 3 night shows, He was the lowest rated consistently and well, pulled this, and 2 of the bigger station owners (owning many stations between them) pulled his show and screamed at ABC. That got him pulled and likely got ABC a money saving deal . Not a post on Truth Soc, and really, the FCC head shoulda kept their yap shut.

    Liked by 4 people

      1. point,
        but the comments (not Trump’s, he gonna trump and nothing will stop it) should have come down the road a bit in a “Oh By the By”, imho and wouldn’t have given ammo to the “This Admin. is Censoring/squashing Free Speech!” But I am at work, a bit miffed, and possibly not really thinking well or clearly, so who knows?

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        1. I mean, he kinda did? It seems like the remarks came later than the initial howling, so…::shrugs::

          Consider this, though: it doesn’t matter WHAT he says or when he says it. The left is still going to howl “censorship! Muh free speech! Nazi!” no matter what.

          Liked by 1 person

            1. It’s not a bad thing to still hold on to SOME hope, however vanishingly small, that we can reason with them.

              I mean, the ghouls celebrating sure seem to have shocked and horrified a rather large number of people who shared a party, and those people are now going “No, that’s…nope. I’m going republican now.” And I have seen at least one in the wild who were parroting the NPC lines about how awful Charlie was, and then someone shared a full-context clip and they ACTUALLY said “Oh. Wow, I was wrong. Sorry about that.” So if I spotted one in the wild just randomly who owned up to being wrong, how many out there are, when challenged to do so, watching the full videos of what Charlie actually said and quietly getting their hearts and minds changed?

              86% of the country went red this last election. This might push the number into the mid or high 90% range! So it is good to hope, and to keep trying (but also keep your powder dry)!

              Liked by 1 person

              1. Some are even going “no, that’s wrong, I’m never going to be a Republican but you stop that.”

                And they’re finding there isn’t massive support, in those cases it comes to the test.

                While it’s nice some folks are doing #WalkAway, everyone’s mental map would have to adjust for the side becoming 75-85% of the population.

                Which is unlikely, even before the cultural issues of standard Liberal tactics come into play but “for” us.

                Liked by 1 person

        4. Folks, apparently the forces of EEEEEEvillllll Redness have decided that if we won’t “boog”, they will make us boog over

          wait for it

          Jews.

          Yup, the plan is apparently to exploit what they believe is a fracture line in Fascist (non-comm = Right) thinking by playing up a supposed massive wave of antisemitism barely suppressed.

          oh wow. How original. How very stupid.

          So watch for folks posting what I hereby dub “sour juice” crap. Note how supposedly Kirk wasn’t killed by some loser Lefty, but by “Mossad” (sour juice!)

          This, like the rest of Wyle E Commyote’s plots, is going to flop spectacularly. But prepare now to discover some folks you might otherwise treasure are secretly antisemite idiots.

          But what if? (Sour juice)

          Just asking questions…. (sour juice)

          Well, this commonly accepted (novel lie) is true, so (sour juice).

          You get the picture. Don’t buy the Protocols.

          Liked by 2 people

            2. I mean, I could agree that the theory that both are being paid by Qatar (or other similar actors in the ME) has some merit.

              But if that is the case, their paymasters are fooling themselves if they think masses are listening to them. Most of us have decided that Candace went nuts, and Carlson is just a greedy backstabber.

              Liked by 2 people

  8. Here’s what alleviated my initial annoyance at the appearance the FCC was leaning on the network (and note I say “annoyance” because by now I know very well that there HAD to be a lot more to the story that the lefties and the kneejerk “muh first amendment but I’ve never actually read the first amendment” folks on the conservative side were howling):

    The FCC chair made a point in some follow-up (last night or early this morning) statement or interview that ONLY non-cable (and presumably non-subscription-streaming) networks require a FCC license. He also mentioned there are some rules regarding licensed networks that have, shall we say, not been enforced across the board in recent years and this FCC plans to enforce the rules for everyone.

    This kicked the logic brain into gear:

    1. Non-cable FCC networks require a license.
    2. The network in question is about to renew theirs.
    3. The FCC is enforcing rules past administrations did not (and I think we know who–and I’m including Trump 45 in the list as well because we know that administration was riddled to the eyeballs with “la resistance”)
    4. There isn’t a single major network that does not ALSO have a cable or streaming subscription variant.
    5. If the network truly wanted to keep a given show that wasn’t following rules required to hold a FCC license, they could move that show to cable/streaming. Sure, they’d exchange a wider audience for a subscriber audience, but they would still be able to run the show and make money off it and the government couldn’t say boo about it.
    6. Kimmel’s ratings were allegedly even lower than Colbert’s.
    7. The network was looking for a good excuse to ax Kimmel’s show, not just move it, and this was a perfect opportunity.
    8. Add in rumors that local affiliates were beginning to make noise about not wanting the show back EVER and, well…
    9. Also…this happens almost simultaneously with Antifa being designated a terrorist group. What are the NPCs screaming about this morning? Not Antifa, that’s for sure.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. $HOUSEMATE wound up on the Jimmy Kimmel show years ago for the Tron Guy stuff. It was roughly a Summer, on and off. That helped us get by on a rather lean year. And at the end, it wasn’t an issue of the Tron Guy bits failing the show. It was all about marketing and market-seeking. The show was doing reasonably well with a fairly young adult male demographic. And someone at the Network decided it needed to be aimed more at a young adult female demographic and the bits didn’t fit.

      That was years and years ago, of course, and it seemed as… whatever… as Kimmel was then (I could have been in the “live” audience once – I refused) he descended (deeper?) into madness since. Not sure if it was the Covidiocy, but he really came out as screwed up in that disaster.

      Liked by 1 person

      1. I think the covidiocy pushed him off the ledge. IIRC he has a child who has a chronic condition, or is otherwise immune compromised, and he had a ranting monologue about his child being endangered by the Coof and by people who didn’t get the shot and who didn’t stay home away from others.

        I could misremember, but for some reason that stuck out among the crowd of “Get the Shot and Isolate OR ELSE!!” rants in the media.

        Liked by 1 person

  9. Turnabout Alinsky is FAFO by any other name. I am amused when they can’t hack their own hazing template.

    Some folks are finally waking up to “Just how ugly is this dingleberry’s schtick?” If you bring in enough fat stacks of filthy lucre, they wont care, often enough. If you -dont- bring in the fat stacks of filthy lucre, you are on borrowed time.

    Liked by 1 person

  10. Yeah, I was less than fully pleased over Trump inserting himself into the Paramount / Skydance merger, which required FCC approval. It is a thimbleful against the tidal wave of left wing malfeasance.

    The FCC chair was right to call out Kimmel, though. Broadcast stations are licensed by market and are required to broadcast in the public interest. That’s not true of cable or satellite. It’s an artifact of the time when over the air was the main method of receiving TV but is still around. Lying about a serious crime is a violation of FCC regulations. If the stations don’t act they could lose their entire business.

    Incidentally I wanted to quote chapter and verse from the FCC regulations but have not been able to quickly find it. Perhaps later.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. In exchange for obtaining a valuable license to operate a broadcast station using the public airwaves, each radio and television licensee is required by law to operate its station in the “public interest, convenience and necessity.” Generally, this means it must air programming that is responsive to the needs and problems of its local community of license. To do this, each non-exempt station licensee must identify the needs and problems and then specifically treat these local matters in the news, public affairs, political and other programming that it airs.

      From https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/public-and-broadcasting

      Is that close enough?

      Liked by 1 person

  11. My libertarian leanings say the solution to leftists in, say, education, is to eliminate every government dollar spent on it and let everyone involved compete on the market. This may not be the most likely nor the minimal risk path.

    And it doesn’t do a whole lot for things we don’t have good alternatives for: military, police, fire dept, hospitals, etc. There’s a lot of civilization to lose if public institutions can’t be trusted.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. Oh yes. Heck, i think even taking certification of medicine away from the government would be an improvement.
      I’ve got a close look at medschool education recently and let me tell you, they’re selecting for leftists and THEN hyperindoctrinating them to the left, too.

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      1. Yep, if people don’t like government sticking its nose in everything and telling people how to do things, or if they don’t like how much lobbyists and lobbyist money influence government, they need to stop making government bigger. Instead, they need to join those who want the federal government downsized to its much more limited role that the Constitution prescribes for it, and then do so at the state level, and get as much down to the smallest local level possible.

        Whenever the left complains about being on the short end of the government stick, it reminds me of the meme with the Occupy Wall Street revolutionary Marxists who were holding signs demanding more government being pushed back by riot police with military gear, i.e., more government.

        What the left is outraged about is that they are finally being forced to play by the very same rules they themselves have imposed for years. The difference is that there was need to board up shops and no city blocks being burned to the ground after Mr. Kirk was assassinated, because non-leftists aren’t looking to burn the whole thing to the ground so they can further “the revolution”.

        Liked by 2 people

    2. Long ago, I and some friends approached the “meeting girls” thing like engineers.
      Meaning, we enrolled in an education class as one of our electives. (95% of the class was female. “You go fishing where the fish are” seemed logical.) Most of us dropped after the first class. Only one stuck out the whole first week. It was that bad. I don’t know how you could design a course more aimed at quashing independent thought, or enforcing groupthink if you tried. (But over the past thirty years, I’m sure they’ve managed.)

      Since you can’t teach in most schools without a teaching certificate, you’ve got a lot of turning your brain off and repeating the shibboleths to do before you can teach. And it doesn’t take that long to instill a habit.

      I also remember the school administration forcing out good teachers in the ‘80s for fighting against “Whole Language” and other counterproductive trends. (Not to mention a great teacher fired so that two bad teachers who were having an affair could be separated.)

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It’s horrific. They wouldn’t accept my “teaching” add on to my degree from Portugal (Taken in case I desperately needed a job, you know? As an elective.) Now they do, but that’s neither here nor there. Back in the eighties when we were so broke (infertility treatments are pricey) I considered taking education. But then I looked at my SIL’s books. I’d need a lobotomy and a dessensitization to communism tablet before attempting it. So…. I found a job in retail and then one as a translator.

        Like

      2. The “you go fishing where the fish are” line is why the smart young men take ballet-dancing classes. (If they’re in good physical shape, that is). You’ll meet women who hold a wider variety of opinions than in education classes, and there’s a distinct shortage of guys, especially straight guys, taking those classes. I remember someone twenty years ago telling me, “There were a dozen women in the class, but only two guys, and only one straight guy: me. I got a LOT of female attention.” Plus, the women taking ballet classes tend to be in good physical shape, and appreciate guys who are also in good shape (and strong, guys taking ballet need physical strength).

        There are probably other “fish where the fish are” strategies, but that’s the one that stuck in my head twenty years later, even though I no longer need it (my wife and I celebrated our ten-year anniversary a few months ago).

        Liked by 1 person

    3. A “money follows the student” model in which people can choose any school they can get their kids into and pay for (and get to; I imagine current busing systems would remain) would probably do a great deal to improve education all by itself. Wouldn’t necessarily fix the Marxist idiocy in the system, but surely wouldn’t increase it.

      Like

  12. In no way does the First Amendment guarantee folks wont respond to ones free speech

    “Dude! Dont be a poophead!”

    or

    “I am not paying good money for this crap!”

    And it most assuredly is not “freedom from audience critique or disapproval”.

    Like

    1. The Left spent the last decade sneering “Freedom of speech isn’t freedom from consequences!” and brother, they should have listened to their own advice.

      Liked by 2 people

  13. Broadcast TV is moribund anyway. Firing Jimmy Kimmel now just gives him time to set up shop somewhere else before ABC would have let him go. Same with Stephen Colbert. and eventually Jimmy Fallon and the cast of SNL. They’ll catch on with Hulu, or Netflix, or one of the other streaming channels, where all the cool kids get their TV, and the world weill once again be made of donuts.

    I’m with you. Let ’em say what they want. I ain’t listening anyway.

    Like

    1. Disney owns both Hulu and ABC, so I’m fairly confident that Kimmel isn’t going there…

      They can try to stream. But their audience numbers are low enough that they’ll likely have trouble drawing all that many eyeballs to streamed shows. Say what you will about the stuff Tucker Carlson’s been spouting lately (and I’ve got a lot of negative things to say about that), but he had a pretty good-sized audience when he was forced out at Fox. A lot of those people have likely stuck with him even as he’s turned conspiracy theorist.

      Kimmel et al… don’t have that advantage. They’re names that people recognize… but ignore.

      Liked by 1 person

  14. Broadcast TV is moribund anyway. Firing Jimmy Kimmel now just gives him time to set up shop somewhere else before ABC would have let him go. Same with Stephen Colbert. and eventually Jimmy Fallon and the cast of SNL. They’ll catch on with Hulu, or Netflix, or one of the other streaming channels, where all the cool kids get their TV, and the world weill once again be made of donuts.

    I’m with you. Let ’em say what they want. I ain’t listening anyway.

    Like

    1. George MF Washington, guy who seems to have considerable Hollywood background, says streaming is killing the movie industry. Why get dressed, go out and spend a lot of money on tickets, popcorn, etc when within a few weeks you can sit in your jamming before your “entertainment center,” and watch the flick at home?

      Liked by 1 person

      1. It could be. John Nolte at Breitbart doesn’t think so… I tend to agree with him, even though I do think streaming is taking a big bite out of the theater business. Seems to me that what’s really killing the movie industry as we always knew it is the fact that Hollywood no longer makes movies people enjoy.

        I used to love going to out to the movies, and I still do, but it’s been 15 years at least since I lost the trust it takes to say “that looks like fun” and plunk down my money. Used to be that you’d get an occasional dud, but generally the movie was worth it. More than once, I stepped right into the 9:15 showing of a movie after seeing a trailer in front of a different movie at 7:00, and even when it wasn’t as good as I hoped, I at least didn’t regret it. Now it’s the other way around; without solid recommendations from people I can trust, it’s almost certain the movie will be a waste of time and money. Streaming removes most of the risk because I’ve already paid for Netflix, and my only risk is time that I intended to spend sitting on the couch anyway.

        But as somebody who still does enjoy the theater experience as such and has tremendous nostalgia for it, I could well be out of touch with what most people want now.

        Like

        1. Washington has indicated that’s a big chunk of it. If you don’t want to take risks, watch it on stream, where you can turn it off without having spent $50 or so to see one film.

          Like

        2. “…it’s been 15 years at least since I lost the trust it takes to say “that looks like fun” and plunk down my money.”

          YES.

          Yes, this is the thing. I did not want to go see Thunderbolts at the theater because I absolutely -knew- there would be some intolerable cringy garbage in there somewhere, and I’d be stuck watching it. Zero fun.

          So I waited for streaming, and behold, cringey garbage was indeed present, and I did indeed fast-forward past the stupid parts. And I gave thanks to the Movie Gods that I was not trapped in a theater.

          Anybody remember that movie Mannequin? 1987, Kim Cattrall and some guy whose name I can’t remember, nice little romance/fantasy comedy. Solid 5/10 movie. Not amazing, not crap, just something fun to take a date to on Saturday night.

          That’s the type of movie we used to go and see every week. You could not get that movie made now. No way.

          Which is probably why North American theaters are showing “Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba – The Movie: Infinity Castle” in Japanese with subtitles. Because I’d be willing to go see that in a theater. Because no cringe. (I’m not -stoked- to go see it, I won’t go by myself to see it, but if I was a kid? Sure! No problem.)

          Liked by 1 person

  15. Kimmel was cut because his show had tanked worse than any other late night show. It was just a bonus for the Left to engage in more TDS blaming of the President. No 1st Amendment violations required.

    Like

    1. Probably this. There was virtually no risk to the affiliates at this point in forcing the issue. They can blame it on conservative pressure AND cut loose an anchor that was dragging them down. And they might even gain some audience share from it if conservatives think somebody took their side for once. (I give them no credit; I’m just glad Kimmel is out.)

      Like

  16. I have two thoughts.

    Thought one is that it needs to be less painful for the non-multi-millionaires to sue for slander/libel. If you just retell something that can be demonstrated as a lie and have no verification of it other then “somebody else said the same thing”, The pain should be there. Especially for “News” sites of any size. Which means if you get it from the AP, you can then hold THEM responsible. What I call the silent part of the 1st amendment, YOU are responsible for what you say.

    Thought two is that as long as people are not actively encouraging physical violence I really don’t care what you have to say or how. Threaten somebody, encourage others to go do the same? You get held to account. And if somebody 3 states away does something bad that listened/watched you/was a part of your channel? You are now an accessory and the crime is Federal as it crosses state lines. Name calling? Eh, whatever. I’ve been called names since 1st grade and frankly most people are so unoriginal that when somebody calls me something I haven’t heard before I thank them, amazing how many brain circuits pop.

    Like

      2. One of the ways that the press has abused the “public figure” rule is by successfully arguing that anyone who is newsworthy is a public figure. By mere virtue of reporting on someone and putting that person out in front of the rest of the world, the person becomes a “public figure”.

        This worked pretty much any time there was any lawsuit of consequence, up until Nicholas Sandmann. And he cleaned up massively in the settlements that ensued.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. thus violating the equal protection of the law, since we don’t get the same right to make someone a public figure.

          Like

      3. Spreading lies about people in public is wrong no matter who they are. And lies are still lies even if the spreader believes they’re true. Especially if they’re just pretending to believe. There should be consequences for lying, and repeating lies.

        And the government. We can be thrown in jail for lying to the government, but nobody is ever punished when the government lies to us, even though government lies do far more damage. COVID19, anybody?

        Liked by 2 people

      4. Here I would tread VERY carefully lest we tread into the world that Thomas More warns of in A Man For All Seasons where “Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat?”. The original source for this is the Supreme Court’s decision in New York Times Co v. Sullivan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_Times_Co._v._Sullivan ) It looks like originally this public figure standard was originally ONLY for those in public office or seeking public office to avoid potential conflict with the First Amendment. It was later extended (By the Supreme Court? unclear?) to a broader definition of “Public Person”. I think it would be wise to return it to the original New York Times Co, standard. That said, how to get it there is a challenge. If there are other Supreme Court rulings involved it may take a ruling like Dobbs overturning the extensions of New York Times Co. At present, defamation is a state law issue so it would seem to me that Congress should not interfere on 9th/10th amendment principles. Of course, this has never stopped Congress since the start of the 20th century. But getting 50 states (nearly 1/2 very blue) to pass similar legislation to fix this would be a challenge.

        Liked by 1 person

  17. It really does seem to be (another) preference cascade going on right now, like the one maybe a month before last Election Day, only bigger and more broadly based. Which feels a lot like an earthquake, because metaphorically it is, the figurative ground shifting under our feet some.

    (Go back a year. Imagine someone kicking apart a memorial for, say, Corey Comperatore, and posting a brag-video of same. Now imagine them getting swiftly fired and evicted. If you didn’t just say, “huh, that’s not hardly possible” at the second, you’re probably not being focused enough.)

    Even if “once the preference cascade starts, it’s too late to register your grievances from downhill” rather than “once the avalanche starts it’s too late for the pebbles to vote” (i.e. you’re an aware and merry participant and not just helplessly along for the ride, hat-tip Metamagical Arithmetist for the first quote) — it’s still disruptive and bothersome, because the “ground” is moving. Even going in a “sane” direction and simply back to where things “ought to have stayed” all along. The mere fact that the ground is moving at all feels disturbing — and, probably, it should.

    I can remember when “the late-night shows” shifted into their now long-current “all leftist centric, all the time” mode — I seem to remember seeing it with Letterman right after one of the Barack Obama elections — but to me at least it was a similar “jump” and more or less simultaneous: “they just decided to be unfunny and flagrantly dismissive to half the country, wow.”

    Kimmel seemed to be doing the Leftist Shtick more overtly and less skillfully than the rest, to me, as if he didn’t realize it was a dance to at least seem like it was natural rather than ideological; it was as if he was a True Believer in a pondful of Just The Way It Is. He was being workmanlike and straightforward, which is sometimes not good propaganda. (Or maybe just “too earnest” is what I’m really trying to say; see his post-election “I’m leaving the country now” monologue-rant, incl. apparently-genuine tears.)

    Add the preference cascade to “his numbers were mediocre to rotten” to the last-straw of those affiliate-network rebellions, and you have a “perfect storm” of reasons to chop the ropes. It’ll be interesting to see how others “in late night” and in the industry react.

    Like

      1. “Why the Left Can’t Meme” — special edition live action episode! With bonus bogus drivel…

        Like

      2. Of course he is. He *must* play that card, because to not play that card would be to admit that barely anyone watches them. They tout themselves as the heirs of Carson, and claim that people discuss the jokes that were cracked on their shows the following day at work. The shows get high profile celebrity guests specifically based around the idea that people watch the shows, so Tom Cruise isn’t wasting his time (and the studio’s money) when he goes on one of those shows to promote his newest upcoming movie.

        If people don’t watch, then none of that is true. And Tom Cruise will quit calling them because he’s wasting his time on their shows.

        Liked by 1 person

  19. I’d say that while it’s gained momentum over the past century, the Left didn’t completely dominate the arts until the past 30 years or so. If you look closely, there was still a fair amount of non-Leftist creators until the ’80s. What the Left did dominate first was criticism. They couldn’t stop someone like Mickey Spillane from becoming a bestseller, but they could sure gripe and complain and libel him every step along the way.

    Liked by 1 person

      2. YES. They WERE. Also, no internet. We were stuffed to the gills with Commies in government, media, entertainment… Really, really. Totally not kidding. There are documents that prove it. they had freaking meetings and they conspired to do all this stuff- and they wrote it down. (Hollywood was always red, McCarthy Martyred by Marxism for those with little time to look it up).

        They hollowed out institution after agency after business after church. They were the culture of the social elite. The ones that weren’t commie sympathizers at the least were few.

        And yet, compared to today? Anticommunism is on the rise. Getting popular, too. Of course there was an assassination. Expect a riot with a sympathetic victim, a bombing outside a hotel or business, if they’re following the same old playbooks. The scummy types are getting restless. They aren’t getting paid on time, either (what, you thought they did this stuff for free?).

        Anyway. Running short on time again. Expect commies in high places, unless independently verified otherwise. They have been for a very, very long time.

        Liked by 1 person

          1. @ Sarah – LOL!

            And we are glad you do!

            However, I have almost quit reading fiction because the real news is so unbelievable it looks like it must be fictitious! Keeping up on-line (including here) doesn’t leave much time to read anything else.

            And the newest ever-more-incredible story breaks just when I thought surely there would be a pause now that The Author’s last serial has finally run its course.

            Maybe He delegated some of the details to Dickens?

            Liked by 1 person

              1. He gave us Moist von Lipzig, but I think the time may be coming where Sam Vimes comes to the forefront. G-d willing, we don’t get to the point where Captain Carrot or Esmerelda becomes necessary.

                Liked by 1 person

            2. Ah, then we fiction writers can offer you better order and clarity to our stories! (The smaller scope, as befits our current limitations, helps with that.)

              Like

  20. There’s a joke that I am required to fully reverse on previously stated positions and wring my hands very hard about, checks notes, a late night comedy show being canceled.

    Really, I am not bothered much at the prospect of Terrace Tao losing funding, and Tao has outright done positive things that I have enjoyed, or that are of cultural importance.

    The last Xty years of federal funding for research have been a market distortion, and one of the consequences is that faculty were and maybe are quite underinformed on “FR now, do not inflict heavy expenses on the public at the very same time that you document yourself providing the information that a fifth grader could understand as implying that you are screwing with them.”

    In general, a single future covid lockdown would offset quite a lot of the positives from Y years of research funding. IE, the academic world can keep us uncertain about them fucking us, but when we price our future expectations we may choose to discount what valuation we estimate their research work at.

    It is maybe less a question of whether we have ‘good’ people or ‘bad’ people doing a lot of the staffing of institution Z, and more what the internal discussion about the incentives of the business is.

    These people being angry is basically down to the mental models they had about their business, and about everyone else. These people displaying that they are upset is a combination of them being unwell, and of them thinking that that display is useful.

    They don’t have guidance on improving their forecasting, in making their expectations of others informed. (And maybe the best explanation would be ‘well, we accidently pushed things into the “all is chaos, disorder and surprise” part of the state space’. ) They are also not getting the feedback “FR, FR, please do not piss people off with a big display”.

    If the faculty had a better model, I think that they would have been a bit better informed how they might handle some risks cautiously.

    Like

    1. Slight addendum. Funding for leftist causes has dried up in many places of late. Leftist causes affect businesses across a vast swathe of the economy. Said causes are a net drain on productivity and profit, balanced only by the nebulous good will of certain governmental agencies and the local crazies.

      Now imagine universities losing federal funding for going hard left. I think that is something now possible. Once thought outright impossible. We shall see.

      Liked by 1 person

  21. My dear hubby has been embroiled in 1st amendment and personnel issues over this. He is manager of a corprately owned auto parts store. He has one female employee who has become increasingly unhinged since 2020. He, the other employees and even his predominantly MAGA clientele have spent the last 5 years tiptoeing around her delicate sensibilities.

    Last night, he got an email from corporate, with a complaint email from a customer, attached about her public Farcebook page and stupid posts she wrote after the recent assassination.

    She has created a toxic environment at his work for literally years, but he knows “she needs the job” and is loathe to fire her. So he’s very upset. On the one hand, he can’t have that, on the other, Covid and the jabs have made her a Loon.

    So sad at what has happened to people.

    Liked by 3 people

      1. That’s exactly what I told hubby. She’s making him take sides. He’d better side with the customer, especially since he knows they are right.

        She can find a job at a dispensary. That’s where her heart lies anyway.

        IYKWIM

        Liked by 4 people

    2. Looks to me like corporate just asked him to fire her without literally asking. At the very least, he has implicit permission to make the decision and corporate cover if she makes a big stink about it. If they didn’t think that kind of thing could be good reason to fire somebody, they wouldn’t have sent it.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. corporate ducking for cover if she makes a big stink about it. 

        FTFY. If they were supporting him, they’d have outright fired her. Instead, it will be “he’s the one who made the decision” to either lose the customer or get a wrongful termination lawsuit / etc. Depending on just how unhinged the employee is, it may stop there…. but she does live in the same town.

        Liked by 2 people

        1. Hubby is quite sure corporate would totally hang him out to dry if she sued.

          Their Use of Social Media Policy says nothing at all about what an employee says on their own time and not on company media. Just that it is forbidden to say bad things about customers, coworkers, or the company itself on your personal social media. It says nothing at all about commenting on current events.

          He will probably have to talk to her, warn her she has had complaints the company is looking into, then let her cry in bathroom until her shift is over. And possibly let her go to an emergency appointment with her psychiatrist.

          His attitude is “Why does anyone care what she says on Facebook, we all know she’s a nut?” But, we don’t do Facebook because its full of nuts.

          Liked by 1 person

          1. Yeah, what snelson says. I wasn’t accounting for the weasel factor; counting corporate support is almost always a bad idea. That said, customer complaints are a valid cause for firing somebody, and it sounds like she’s needed firing for a long time. The longer you let someone like this hang on despite bad behavior, the worse the injustice will be in their minds when they finally do get the axe.

            Liked by 1 person

    3. “but he knows “she needs the job””

      Oh please. I got fired two weeks before my wedding. Two freaking weeks. And they laughed.

      Long tale of woe, tl/dr: I lived.

      Maybe if “she needs the job” she should keep that crap to herself, eh? You can’t allow people to f- with you like that. It’s not healthy.

      Liked by 2 people

      1. I totally agree Phantom. He shouldn’t be so soft-hearted. He has the other employees and his customers to think of. Hes never been fired in his life and thinks its the worst possible thing that could ever happen to anyone.

        She’ll live I’m sure and most likely find a job more suited to her.

        Liked by 4 people

      2. And if this moonbat’s ravings cost the company enough business that people have to be laid off — don’t they ‘need’ their jobs just as much? If people didn’t ‘need’ their jobs, they wouldn’t be working!

        Liked by 2 people

  22. There’s a considerable number of people pointing out that “officially” at least, Jimmy Kimmel and his show have been “suspended” rather than fired/cancelled. (There is much precedent for that being the first stage of ‘replaced by our New Guy, meet him now!’ however.)

    This could mean (1) axed, (2) demoted to streaming-network, (3) restored to network air after ‘reforming’ properly for the Mouse.

    It’s even consistent with known data that this was simply (so far) a matter of “shut him up fast before he makes it worse” — that and nothing more, for now, giving them time to consider options.

    The following (from ‘Complicit’ News Network) lends some credence:

    https://x.com/jtbickley/status/1968852586930344423

    “This individual describes Kimmel’s planned monologue as ‘very hot,’ taking aim at the MAGA base.”

    Time will tell?

    Liked by 1 person

  26. I am a retired physics professor. I turned right wing after I got tenure (I am slow about some things.) Chair of committee that recommended me for tenure (also chair of committee that recommended my hiring) told me at a later date that if he had known I would turn out the way I did (right wing) I would have never gotten tenure.

    Liked by 3 people

  27. It been my experience that most teachers, particularly elementary, are not particularly smart, and they sort of collectively push out teachers that are smarter than them. It’s probably true of conservatives too.

    All the really talented elementary school teachers I know leave public schools quickly and end up running summer camps or other niche educational jobs.

    Liked by 3 people

  28. I think the key datum is this: Colbert has been costing CBS net $40 million a year.

    Kimmel must be at least that bad. So when a chance came for Disney to pink slip him without a major conflagration I suspect the management were very happy.

    Culling of overpaid egos has been quite the thing lately. Here in Australia CBS/Paramount owns our free to air Ten tv network. Which has been cancelling shows and letting go more than a few of their ‘stars’ in the last month or two. I am fairly sure this is about cutting costs, and inflated egos are a big and easily identified cost to cut. Advertising revenue is cratering and it’s getting too expensive to indulge in the Kimmels and Colberts.

    Liked by 2 people

    1. Paywalled story in The Hollywood Reporter has the inside baseball timeline – basically the tidal wave of advertisers and affiliates calling Disney built and built all day from early, and when Iger and the ABC people called Kimmel to “help” him craft his apology, he told them he would not apologize and was going to double down, so as the 4pm PT show taping was looming Iger pulled the plug.

      Background from other sources is the Kimmel show has been losing as much if not more than Colbert’s show was. So while the general news have highlighted the affiliates action as the proximate driver, I think the big advertisers calling Iger was really the last straw – if they pulled their ads Disney’s weekly losses would balloon fast, and Iger has already had to be playing “let me explain” to the big DIS shareholders. Faced with Kimmel’s intransigence Iger really only had one choice, and he chose “not totally stupid” for once.

      Liked by 1 person

  31. “Still, I will confess it made me uncomfortable — even while gleeful — at the level of an itch in the back brain, so I’m trying to reason through it.”

    It’s because we’ve all been told and told and told since we were literally children that CENSORSHIP IS BAD!!!! And firing #JimmyK the not-funny imbecile “comedian” is CENSORSHIP!!!!!!11!

    But no, it isn’t. I’ve been fired for so much less than what this -imbecile- did to his employers. He could end up costing them millions upon millions of dollars in lawyers alone.

    In Canada we’ve got government cabinet ministers and CBC announcers saying worse things than #JimmyK did, and they’re not being fired because the ruling class is still on their side. That’s what ruling classes do, they protect their court jesters and scumbag consigliere-types from the consequences of their actions.

    But -private- companies? No no. They are -firing- these fruitbats, even here in Canada. Nobody wants to be the next Bud-Lite because Karen the middle-management sea mammal went off on Twitter.

    And also because a guy died. I mean, there are limits, and this is one of them. You want to talk sh1t about a guy who got murdered in front of his kids? Fine, free country, but you can do it out on the sidewalk and not in my company, because my customers will drop me like a hot rock.

    What’s bad is that the Normies all started to move in one direction. They’re stupid, so they’ll inevitably go too far. That’s what makes this suck.

    Liked by 3 people

    1. yas frenz

      high energy preference cascades have that certainty of IFF issues and excess costs

      so far, seems to be unwinding slowly, very low energy. However, that is almost certainly a large observer error on my part.

      I still seez my optimism where I seez it.

      Liked by 3 people

      1. “…high energy preference cascades have that certainty of IFF issues and excess costs…”

        I am -greatly- encouraged that prayer vigils and solemn processions have been the response to #CharlieKirk’s murder. The only people getting stomped/pepper-sprayed/arrested have been the ones physically attacking said vigils and processions.

        I am -greatly- encouraged that job loss is the only thing happening to the fruitbats dancing in an innocent man’s blood. If that’s all that happens, we are all very lucky indeed.

        Long may it continue.

        Liked by 3 people

    2. What’s bad is that the Normies all started to move in one direction. They’re stupid, so they’ll inevitably go too far. That’s what makes this suck.

      I guess the first step is to define “too far”. How about putting it past where the people doing things like this are too worried about the consequences to consider actually doing it?

      https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2025/09/19/stratford-high-tpusa-student-club-dox-high-school-n2419211

      At this particular school, they infiltrated a private chat, doxxed the teacher sponsors and then started a letter writing campaign. 

      Liked by 2 people

      1. “I guess the first step is to define “too far”.”

        Shooting Charlie Kirk is too far. Burning down Uncle Hugo’s is too far. Throwing guys in jail for having an opinion is too far, as they are doing in England right now. Those things are WAY TOO FAR.

        Firing d@mn-fool employees for having an opinion is -not- too far. Employees are there to do a job, they are not there to have an opinion. Employees who do things at home that bring misfortune or disrepute upon the company should expect to be fired.

        So yeah. Dance in the blood of your fallen enemies online if you want, but don’t pretend to be all shocked that #Company fires you.

        But you know, already there are imbeciles screaming “THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!!!!” and again, that’s way too far. No, there should -not- be a law.

        Liked by 1 person

        1. The things we know the most about the effects of include long established laws, and long established ways of enforcing laws.

          There’s a troll argument that an official responsible for enforcing laws should also enforce bad laws on the books, to help establish the political consensus for repealing those laws. Bondi I think does not meet that criteria, if there are no federal hate speech laws.

          Basically, clubs for government to hit dissenters with are a tricky area of law.

          Murder and arson are common law capital felonies, IE, we have long established case law for punishing those, the idea that those political acts are also criminal speech/acts is not new and unusual.

          Firings by private parties, well, those have long been litigated. Like with capital punishment of criminal acts, I actually have reservations about the case law established over the last century. Yeah, if you cannot fire the people scrweing the business over, then either businesses do not last, or businesses do not scale.

          But, in general, we want the incitement part of conspiracy prosecutions hemmed in narrowly.

          Yes, speech that incites murders, or speech that incites arsons, is probably not protected.

          Hate speech is an absurd and insane way of categorizing such evaluations.

          Factions of government hired the universities to engage in speech that promoted murder, arson, and other capital offenses. But, we should not relax the obligation that government prosecutors have to establish such things as a guilty or evil mind. Quite a lot of faculty have a rock solid defense, that they are too stupid to understand that their speech was promoting violence.

          Like

  32. but I imagine just the opinion of the teachers’ lounge might break you.

    Yup, that would be me. The last English faculty meeting I attended, among other things was a discussion by some earnest, caring fellow that we need to be careful not to grade English papers in a racist manner, in other words looking carefully at things like grammar, spelling, sentence structure, etc. to make sure we were not privileging our white culture.
    It was at this moment that I realized these were not my colleagues, and I understood why I would never be able to get a full time in my chosen, trained field.
    I wept on the way, in my car, for the loss. I basically gave up trying at that point, because now I knew the game was rigged, and I was the sucker.

    On top of which I find it curious that more than one right of Lenin would-be teacher seems to have given it up when they got their student teaching assignment in schools dangerous to life and limb. 

    In my current job, I met a newly hired employee a couple years back who was an Army veteran, who was also in education training to become an elementary school teacher.
    She was great — I would have loved to have had her teach my kids.
    She got to the point in her schooling where she got to go outside of the classroom and teach. She was not given her desired 2nd grade class, but a 5th grade class, which was located in a section of town which mostly featured non-white families of lower economic class.
    Her experiences dealing with these kids broke her. Their home life and culture programmed them to be disrespectful to authority, vulgar and violent with each other; they knew that their parents didn’t care about homework and schooling in general, and they told her so. They were rude and belligerent to their white lady teacher’s face, and the school…. did not have her back. It had theirs.
    After a few months of this, she abandoned it, and gave up on teaching.

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    2. Not new. Hubby, good at math, likes to “teach”, was going to be a math teacher. Two years in was sent for his first practicum. He quit the teaching program, changed to Forestry. He is a good teacher. I’ve watched him with youth that want to be there, specifically scouts and different kids sports. Both genders. But if the kid does not want to be there they lose out.

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