America's Free Speech War, w/ FIRE's Aaron Terr - Ep. 18
The government's newest escalation in the war on free speech, targeting Jimmy Kimmel, and the weight of history.
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It’s Thursday, Sept. 18. On today’s episode of Tom LoBianco Reports, Aaron Terr, public advocacy director for FIRE (The Foundation For Individual Rights and Expression.)
We’re talking about the government’s efforts to stifle speech, escalated Wednesday with the canceling of Jimmy Kimmel under the threat of a blocked corporate merger from the Trump’s federal communications regulators.
Tune every weekday here on Substack at noon or catch the replay at 8p ET at Political Voices Network. My friend and colleague Ian B. Walters, is manning the board and will gather your comments and we’ll get to them at the end of show. You can also reply to this email with any questions.
News Top, Thursday Sept. 18
ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel Wednesday, following Monday night’s show in which he made fun of Trump’s response to Charlie Kirk’s murder and said Trump’s partisans were trying to capitalize on the murder, The Associated Press reports.
Veteran media reporter Oliver Darcy reports at Status News, that ABC executives went into immediate damage control as they faced a wave of MAGA attacks this week, capped by the government’s threat. It’s part of a coordinated effort by the White House and its allies to cancel anyone deemed not sufficiently supportive of them, with firings from top media names like Matthew Dowd at MSNBC and Karen Attiah at The Washington Post, to educators across the country now being targeted.
America’s public health leaders are ringing alarm bells that the Trump administration’s opposition to vaccines could result in an uptick of serious infectious diseases among children. The continued warnings come as Trump’s former handpicked CDC Director Susan Monarez testified Wednesday that she was fired for fighting back against political pressure from Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., The New York Times Reports.
Jimmy Kimmel, 1A Warrior
The president of the United States wants America’s late-night comedy hosts fired. That was his public statement, issued from his state trip to Britain.
And, with a threat issued by Trump’s federal communications czar, Brendan Carr, he seems to have nabbed Jimmy Kimmel’s scalp at ABC.
In normal times, an American late-night comedy staple may not have been expected to become a symbol of the government’s war on speech, but these are not normal times.
The Fight for Free Speech
After the government’s attack on Kimmel yesterday, I spent some time brushing up on my journalism history, specifically Edward R. Murrow, the legendary CBS newscaster who helped end Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s witch hunts of the 1950s.
A lot of very smart folks have pointed out the clear throughline from McCarthy, the famous hard right populist demagogue, to Trump himself, starting from Trump’s tutelage by McCarthy’s own lawyer Roy Cohn. A new “McCarthyism” is a frequent phrase.
And it sure rhymes with history.
But this is something far bigger and more expansive, with political operatives squeezing our news outlets from within this time (as new owners) and instead of one virulent senator leading show hearings, it’s the president of the United States marshaling the force of the federal government to silence Americans.
Joining me for the show today, Aaron Terr, director of public advocacy at FIRE. We’ve got a lot to cover.
Here is Terr’s latest over at the FIRE Substack, Expression, on why the nation’s top prosecutor, Attorney General Pam Bondi, completely flopped on free speech protections in her statements regarding “hate speech”.
Tune in live at Noon ET for our discussion here on the Stack.
It needs more crazy
It’s hard to find levity when you’re living in a dumpster fire, yet Reed Galen always seems to know just where the humor is. We talked at length about the sheer boredom of constant online attention grabbing, the need to stay in the debate when powerful forces want to cancel you, and more.
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What a time to be alive.