> ABC said it was pulling the “Jimmy Kimmel Live!” show off the air “indefinitely” after controversial comments by its host about the slain conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
but the article says the following, which is entirely different:
> “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,” Kimmel said.
>
> “In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving,” he added.
The 2nd part is the quote from Jimmy Kimmel that he said on air that caused the "controversy", that resulted in the FCC commissioner, Brendan Carr to go on a podcast and threaten ABC/Disney with retaliatory action if they refused to take Kimmel off the air.
CNN doesn't show a clip, but explains what was said & the events that caused this.
This isn’t a free-speech issue. Kimmel was free to say what he said, and I personally don’t find his comments egregiously offensive. However, clearly some people did. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. In this case, his employer responded to partner backlash over his remarks.
> However, clearly some people did. Freedom of speech doesn’t mean freedom from consequences. In this case, his employer responded to partner backlash over his remarks.
Government officials also threatened to pull the government provided broadcasting licenses that the corporation has. That’s free speech related.
>During a Wednesday podcast appearance, FCC head Brendan Carr threatened to revoke the broadcasting licenses of any stations that continued to air Kimmel’s content.
>“It’s time for them to step and say this garbage…isn’t something that we think serves the needs of our local communities,” he said.
>Carr’s threat should have been toothless. The FCC is prohibited by law from employing “the power of censorship” or interfering “with the right of free speech.” There is a very narrow and rarely used exception for “news distortion,” in which a broadcast news outlet knowingly airs false reports. What Kimmel did — an offhand comment based on weak evidence — is extremely different from creating a news report with the intent to deceive.
>Hours after Carr’s Wednesday threat, Nexstar — the largest owner of local stations in America — suddenly decided that Kimmel’s comments from two nights ago were unacceptable. Nexstar, it should be noted, is currently attempting to purchase one of its major rivals for $6.2 billion — a merger that would require express FCC approval.
He wasn’t claiming that he is. He was pointing out that people were scrambling to label him as being from “the other side”. The reality isn’t so binary.
I agree it could have been worded better but I think it’s clear if you watch it in context.
That’s understandable. In this 24 hour news cycle of manufactured outrage, who has the time to fully understand an issue before making a proclamation of what is and isn’t true. Facts are old news.
The same licenses restrict badwords. You can't even say fuck on the same airwaves. That spectrum is public property licensed with restrictions. That's not a First Amendment issue at all, it is a contractual issue.
You're seemingly equating "obscenity" with "political criticism". I'll note that "political criticism" is offensive when you don't agree with it. The first amendment is exactly for that kind of offensive language.
Well, First Amendment protects your rights to obscene speech too, so you just affirmed here the license terms are controlling, not First Amendment. I am not litigating this exact incident (which in all likelihood had most to do with business decisions as WSJ reports,) nor suggesting that I think what was said was overly offensive, just pointing out that the airwaves in question are much more restricted than general speech in the United States and debates over what is allowed would not automatically escalate to a constitutional concern.
> Well, First Amendment protects your rights to obscene speech too, so you just affirmed here the license terms are controlling, not First Amendment
Nonsense. Feel free to point out how my comments about just the first amendment is related to you equating that to licensing terms.
> which in all likelihood had most to do with business decisions as WSJ reports
I am not convinced. Please provide the WSJ report. Seems the FCC chair saying "easy way or hard way" was more salient.
To boot, Kimmel is back on the air. If there were substance to the abrupt firing for business reasons, or regulatory, Kimmel would not have been reinstated.
> just pointing out that the airwaves in question are much more restricted than general speech in the United States
I do agree. The restrictions are for obscene speech generally. It is significant when that is extended to political speech.
> United States and debates over what is allowed would not automatically escalate to a constitutional concern.
Indeed. Except in this case we have selective enforcement at the behest of the government for what the government does not like. It is exactly First Amendment territory.
This is how the Islamic regime in Iran thinks. They argue that "you are free to say whatever you want and we are free to put you in jail and in some cases hang you".
> his employer responded to partner backlash over his remarks
No. His employer responded to threats from the Republican federal government to prevent them from broadcasting by pulling their FCC license or prevent their merger.
I think everybody is (reasonably) confused by the use of the words "anything other than". It's usually used in phrases that express the speaker's opinion to the opposite ("as if this is anything other than performative" means "this is performative"). Based on the clip, it sounds like Kimmel unfortunately used it literally: "trying to portray [him] as anything other than...", as in, "they're jumping the gun on his portrayal and blame placement", and not, "I know which team he's on." I could be wrong, but that's what it sounds like in context (and would make more sense too).
This by the way is an example of construction that confuses is non English natives.
Another one is "he was all but dead" which can be understood as "he was really in a bad shape, almost dead", or "he was absolutely not dead, as opposed to what they say"
There are a few more like these (especially in short titles, where I have to analyze word by word the sentence to make sure I got it right)
Yeah, English is very confusing (or at least I get the impression that it is more confusing than other languages - it's the only one I speak).
Even in your example, I think you misunderstand. "He was all but dead" is never used to mean "he was absolutely not dead, as opposed to what they say". That would be "he was anything but dead".
However, there is a caveat, since even native speakers increasingly over the years speak English "wrongly". Of course, when they do it enough, it's no longer wrong. So maybe you did hear a native speaker use the phrase "he was all but dead" with the latter meaning, but I would put that usage in the "wrong" camp as of 2025.
> Even in your example, I think you misunderstand. "He was all but dead" is never used to mean "he was absolutely not dead, as opposed to what they say". That would be "he was anything but dead".
ah, sorry I was not clear - what I meant with the "or" is that there are 2 ways to understand this sentence, one of them being incorrect :)
I am a native English speaker and I don't actually know what he was trying to say, but it just seemed like he was talking about the MAGAs trying to quickly pin blame on not-MAGA. This is why I'm not a monologue writer.
This is a good insight. I don't think Kimmel should be pulled for either meaning, but it does help explain why some people might be talking past each other.
To be fair, even if I'm right, I don't think I'm going to convince anybody who wants to interpret it the other way. The difference is large semantically, but subtle linguistically.
Thing is, even if the "trying to portray [him] as anything other than..." reading was intended and the correct reading, the statement is still closer to the opposite of the truth.
Granted, it is not reasonable to expect everyone to have been terminally online for this issue, but even before this statement was made, it was clear if you visited places with right-wing bias (e.g. 4chan) that almost no one was concerned this guy might be MAGA. And if you looked at more grey tribe places (e.g. ACX open-thread comments / discussion), it was also already clear the preponderance of evidence and reason in fact definitely point to it being far more likely the guy was left than right (or at minimum some idiosyncratic, but definitely not "groyper" or "MAGA" rightist). Heck, this was even clear if you read through enough Reddit comments sorting by "controversial".
Also, it was abundantly clear the sentiments were: Blue tribe social media desperately looking for evidence against obvious left/progressive connections, Red tribe media gleefully pointing out left/progressive connections, and gray tribe places generally having the usual mix + typical frustration at the over-certainty of everyone else.
I.e., the reality is that the "desperation" was almost entirely on the left (understandably) trying to disown the shooter. What there was on the MAGA right was maniacal glee about all the potential (and prima facie more reasonable) left-wing connections. I doubt noting these overall patterns instead would have saved Kimmel, but choosing to frame the whole thing as "desperate MAGA" was just an insinuation that really ran directly opposite to the facts and reason.
>almost no one was concerned this guy might be MAGA.
But that's not what he's saying. He was saying "they were quick to paint him as blue tribe before knowing his tribe." It is just constructed like a sentence that ambiguously also means "desperately constructing that he was not red tribe."
>Red tribe media gleefully pointing out left/progressive connections
Which is synonymous with what JK said. That the reaction was "he was a them, not us, therefore justifying our prejudices."
He literally said "with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them". Interpretation hinges on the "desperately" here, but your reading of this as him saying "they were quick to paint him as blue tribe before knowing his tribe" is far too distant from the literal words. The right were not "desperate" to distance him from MAGA or red tribe, because that was never a strong position given reason and the evidence, which pointed, if anywhere, towards blue tribe. The "desperation", if anywhere, was on the left linking him to MAGA, because it was very clear, even then, to anyone who read beyond Reddit "best" comments, that the links to the left were far stronger and more reasonable. Kimmel's phrasing not just implied, but directly stated that the desperation was in the opposite place to where it was in actuality, and so strongly implied a preponderance of evidence in a direction opposite to the general direction dictated by reason and evidence already known at that time. So no, there is not the synonymity you claim.
As others have pointed out, this kind of insinuation is very hard to see as anything other than deliberate, given basic media literacy and how modern media operates (https://www.themotte.org/post/3263/culture-war-roundup-for-t...). To save you a click:
> The "desperation" implies a sort of losing battle that they're grasping at straws to prove something that's factually wrong, rather than simply stating truths that are obvious, evident and obviously evident. "Desperate" is a subjective judgment call, of course, so Kimmel absolutely deserves zero government censorship for this, by my lights; all it does is show that his judgment is so bad that it reflects poorly on the judgment of people who hired him as a host for a show like that. That MAGA was trying to characterize the murderer as anything other than MAGA is arguably a bland, neutral fact about reality, but that MAGA was desperately trying to do so is a judgment call that shows extremely poor ability to observe reality or to discern reality.
> “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,” Kimmel said.
Off topic, but has there been convincing evidence that the suspect is right wing/MAGA, as Kimmel implied? I've seen some posts on reddit to this effect, but they're far from convincing.
There is, despite the fact that a strict reading would turn up no such implication. However taking into account the phrasing and the general zeitgeist on reddit (and similar left-leaning circles), it's pretty obvious what he was trying to do. Imagine you read a passage that said:
>The sugar industry desperately trying to characterize the obesity crisis as being caused by anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it
what would your conclusion be? That sugar isn't a contributing factor to obesity?
There is little evidence for right or left ideological adherence, but there is for independent accelerationist blackpill from the memetic dog whistles. Accelerationists are essentially terrorists who want credit for mass destruction, collapse, omnicide, and suicide.
Only thing I've seen is that he was dating a trans M-T-F person, and that person was very cooperative with police. Although it makes you wonder about his gay comment engraved on the bullet.
No, it's quite common and less confusing than "Trans Woman" because some people not well versed in these topics will be confused by only describing the final gender.
I dunno, I said it's used a lot by bigots, then a bigot shows up and agrees with me (now flagged). If that isn't a sign a term isn't great, I don't know what is?
Judging yourself by how unscrupulous people react to you is a common pitfall - it poisons your perception of others and blinds you to yourself.
Tangentially: I was confused by the usage of the ambiguous word, "weird", as shorthand for "bigoted". I thought you were literally asking what "mtf" meant.
> Robinson: I had enough of his hatred. Some hate can't be negotiated out.
Besides everyone around him testifying that he'd been left-wing ever since dropping out of college, his admission that he found Charlie's relatively moderate speech "hateful" strongly suggests the murderer was quite far to the left.
Yet, out of the small fraction of people who had heard of Mr. Kirk, it was Mr. Robinson, who was raised by republicans, in a MAGA household who resorted to violence.
What is your honest belief. All of the things below are in the news, you can copy and paste any of these quotes to back that up.
> "Robinson's mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented," the court documents say.
> "She stated that Robinson began to date his roommate, a biological male who was transitioning genders. This resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views.
> Robinson: since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga.
> Rounds in the rifle were allegedly etched with messages like "Hey Fascist! Catch!" and lyrics of the anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist Italian folk song Bella Ciao.
"Left wing" kids are not brought up being taught violence is an acceptable solution to life's problems, or for the rage they may feel against others. That could be why there is an order of magnitude fewer deaths from "left wing" extremism compared to "right wing" extremism according to the DOJ [0].
"Left wing" kids are not given as easy access to, or training with, firearms. Conservatives, especially rural, are [1].
And please do not pretend that knowing, loving, or being a trans person prohibits one from holding conservative view points, that's rather hateful [2].
What is your honest belief. All of the things below are in the news, you can copy and paste any of these quotes to back that up.
> "Robinson's mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented," the court documents say.
> "She stated that Robinson began to date his roommate, a biological male who was transitioning genders. This resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views.
> Robinson: since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga.
> Rounds in the rifle were allegedly etched with messages like "Hey Fascist! Catch!" and lyrics of the anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist Italian folk song Bella Ciao.
Ah yes, a relatively moderate white supremacist who believes gay people should be executed and children should be forced to watch public executions. Just about as moderate as the Taliban
What is your honest belief. All of the things below are in the news, you can copy and paste any of these quotes to back that up.
> "Robinson's mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented," the court documents say.
> "She stated that Robinson began to date his roommate, a biological male who was transitioning genders. This resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views.
> Robinson: since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga.
> Rounds in the rifle were allegedly etched with messages like "Hey Fascist! Catch!" and lyrics of the anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist Italian folk song Bella Ciao.
I commented on Kirk's stance, not the shooter's. I don't endorse political violence.
I just take umbrage with the framing of Charlie Kirk as a moderate. He was a white supremacist. He believed that women shouldn't have the right to vote. He endorsed the state-sponsored execution of LGBTQ+ individuals.
These aren't moderate positions in the modern day, they're the positions of a religious extremist.
These are wild mischaracterizations of Kirk. You have a video of him saying any of that? Most of you lefty people are getting clips from Destiny that are clipped to show a wildly unfair characterization.
I'd feel a lot more inclined to engage with you on this if your first response wasn't a complete non sequitur that leads me to believe you've been engaging in bad faith from the jump.
What is your honest belief. All of the things below are in the news, you can copy and paste any of these quotes to back that up.
> "Robinson's mother explained that over the last year or so, Robinson had become more political and had started to lean more to the left — becoming more pro-gay and trans-rights oriented," the court documents say.
> "She stated that Robinson began to date his roommate, a biological male who was transitioning genders. This resulted in several discussions with family members, but especially between Robinson and his father, who have very different political views.
> Robinson: since trump got into office [my dad] has been pretty diehard maga.
> Rounds in the rifle were allegedly etched with messages like "Hey Fascist! Catch!" and lyrics of the anti-Nazi and anti-Fascist Italian folk song Bella Ciao.
Family is staunchly republican, tho the perp himself went indy in the last few elections. Being gay doesn't say anything, Thiel's gay bf killed himself for what seems like political issues too (& might have been Indy like perp-- or, say sama)
I haven't seen any by unhinged leftists, however I have seen countless normal people tired of hate, authoritarianism, racism, anti-women, anti-science, and anti-infrastructure, and narcissistic tendencies by their parents, who are often MAGA or QAnoners.
You only get one mom and dad, and estranging yourselves from them over political disagreements (common on reddit) seems fairly unhinged to me. And I was just trying to illustrate the absurdity of the
> HIS FAMILY IS MAGA
cope, which leftists latched onto immediately, even on reddit, where the counterexamples abound.
You are right, SomeMethod().Fire() has the problem too. But typically you write
Employee e = SomeMethod();
e.Fire();
This does NOT have the same problem as var. When you use var you reduce the opportunities for the compiler to catch your bug. So the best practice is to explicitly state the type when possible. It makes the code more readable too.
Microsoft recommendation is reasonable. I don't think var should be used as much Rider recommends. But var is perfectly fine in itself. The problem you illustrated occurs independently from var. You assert that one "typically" writes code a certain way but I've seen plenty of both. Further, sometimes you need var. Sometimes the target type can't be spelled like with anonymous types.
Sorry for being unclear. Var is perfectly fine in many cases. Sometimes there are better tools. Screwdrivers are fine tools but they are not appropriate for driving nails.
from your sibling comment:
> "var" also makes your code less reliable as seen in this example
I disagree with this too, I think your example is a classic case of preprocessor directives making it difficult to know what your code is doing because the build system is going to conditionally change your code. Var or not, you can't even know what's being compiled just by looking at the file, and that's a larger problem than the use of var
Use of preprocessor in the example is incidental. The problem with var is that you're not completely stating your intent, leaving it to the compiler to infer your intent. This can lead to trouble in some cases.
I have seen code that sorts numbers as strings, because nowhere in the code was the intent stated that the array is supposed to hold numbers. As a result, if the programmer forgot to convert strings to integers at input time, the bug is never caught.
Thanks, as always, to our program's co-founder, Mr. Torey Malatia. He spent his July 4th weekend setting the record for baking the world’s largest deep dish pizza, and as he tells it, having it for dinner was no small feat:
> It feels impossible to isolate anything bite-sized out of all that.
Back next week with more stories of This American Life.
>imposed lockdown and mandate policies with zero scientific basis
The If Books Could Kill podcast just came out with an episode last week about how the phrase "lockdown and mandate policies [have] zero scientific basis" is almost technically true but is certainly incredibly misleading. The short version is that it would be incredibly difficult to ethically test many healthcare policies to the point that they have scientific support in the way we usually think of having evidence... but we can look at the preponderance of evidence we do have and understand that masks help block germs and viruses, staying home from work or school means I won't transmit contagious diseases to my colleagues, etc
