Hollywood seems traumatized by the suspension of Jimmy Kimmel for lying about the killer of Charlie Kirk being a MAGA man. Even in the above montage of celebrities insisting that Kimmel’s suspension is evidence of the death of democracy in the United States, the narrator lies about what Kimmel said, insisting that Kimmel didn’t claim that Kirk’s killer was MAGA, only that Kimmel said that Trump and Vance were trying hard to disassociate Kirk’s killer from MAGA. Oh, my goodness! They really do think Americans are that stupid as to not recognize the actual meaning of statements made by Kimmel.

As I said in a post just a few days ago when Kimmel was first suspended, this is not a First Amendment issue, nor a free speech issue. Kimmel worked for a network that had every right to suspend him for anything he said that they judged inappropriate. Just like Roseanne Barr was fired by ABC, the same network that suspended Kimmel, in 2018 for a racist tweet. Just like Gina Carano was fired by UTA for tweets that some found offensive, including once comparing conservatives in the U. S. with Jews during the Holocaust. Just like Ronna McDaniel was fired by NBC a week after she was hired because Rachel Maddow and others at NBC couldn’t stand the thought of a former RNC chair working at their network. Just like Matthew Dowd was fired by MSNBC for comments made about Charlie Kirk that many interpreted to mean that Kirk was responsible for his own assassination because of the things he had said over the years.

But while many celebrities cheered Barr and Carano’s firings, and few had much to say about Dowd’s firing (much to his chagrin), it was as if the world came apart when Kimmel was suspended indefinitely. Not fired, but suspended. Barr and Carano’s firings were thought justified because they expressed racist views, which must not be tolerated. Dowd’s firing was largely ignored by celebrities because they likely didn’t know who he was. But Kimmel is a friend. Kimmel is well-known. They’ve all been on Kimmel’s show. They failed to realize that the same principle that applied to Barr and Carano and Dowd also applied to Kimmel. Only they didn’t think so, or they didn’t care. No, while Barr and Carano and Dowd were fired for saying racist or stupid things, Kimmel was fired for expressing his personal belief about Kirk’s killer and about the Republicans’ inability to come to terms with the “truth” about Kirk’s killer. So, Kimmel was simply expressing his opinion. Hence, it’s a free speech thing. Comedians ought to be able to say whatever the want on their talk shows or democracy dies.

But what Kimmel said was actually a lie. Now, some may take objection to my characterizing what Kimmel said about Kirk’s killer as a lie. But, c’mon man! Both the FBI and Utah’s governor had made public, widely reported statements confirming that Charlie Kirk’s murderer was consumed by left-wing extremist ideology. So did the parents of Kirk’s assassin make similar statements that their son had become consumed with left-wing thought and politics. All of this was 24 hours at least prior to Kimmel made his statement that Kirk’s killer was MAGA. I just find it hard to believe that Kimmel and his staff were in such a bubble that they weren’t aware of this. No. Their strategy was to continue for as long as possible the lie that Kirk’s killer was MAGA.

Should Kimmel have been suspended? I think so. But it’s not my call. ABC had to weigh the benefits and the risks and make a decision. Now, FCC Chair Brendon Carr had no business putting pressure on ABC by threatening their license if they didn’t punish Kimmel. That was inappropriate, and I think Carr should be removed from his position. But it wasn’t inappropriate for ABC to suspend Kimmel, and it wasn’t censorship, and it wasn’t interference by Trump. Kimmel lied to his viewers. I think he lied to push a narrative that was quickly being overturned by the facts. Suspending him was the right thing to do. Bringing him back may have also been the right move, though I’m not so clear about that. Why? I don’t think Kimmel learned his lesson. On the night he came back, he did not apologize for making false statements about Kirk’s murderer being MAGA. Why? Because he didn’t think he needed to. Apologies are for the little people. He made himself to be the victim in all of this. Wny? So he can wallow in self-righteous conviction. And, of course, he bashed Donald Trump. Why? Because that’s what Kimmel does. All in all, while Kimmel’s words sounded genuine and contrite, it was truly a pathetic display of self-important, self-righteous pablum.

All this concern about government interference, and fearmongering about government censorship over Jimmy Kimmel’s five-day suspension is too sad and too hilarious at the same time considering the recent headlines about a matter of genuine government interference to censor information the government didn’t like and didn’t want disseminated to the American people. And that is the pressure that the Biden administration put on Google to censor information about COVID-19 that didn’t tow the government’s line or Dr. Fauci’s narrative.

Alphabet, Google’s parent company, sent their attorney to testify to Congress on Tuesday, and also confirm in a letter to Jim Jordan (R-OH) that, yes, the Biden administration, including “White House officials,” did indeed pressure Alphabet to censor information on COVID-19 that was contrary to the information the U. S. government was pushing on the American people. Daniel Donovan, Alphabet’s attorney, wrote: “Senior Biden Administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the Company regarding certain user-generated content related to the COVID-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies. While the Company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden Administration officials continued to press the Company to remove non-violative user-generated content.”

“Non-violative” content means content that did not violate Alphabet’s own policies. So, ordinarily, there would be no reason to remove the material, since it didn’t violate Alphabet’s policies. But it did violate what the Biden administration and Dr. Fauci wanted us to know about COVID-19, so they wanted it blocked or removed. There were a lot of voices questioning the stated origin of COVID from a wet market in Wuhan, the efficacy of mandates closing businesses, churches, schools, etc., the benefits of wearing a mask, and the efficacy and safety of the vaccines that had been developed to fend off the virus. Anyone questioning the government’s narrative on these matters met with a quick and hard fist from Biden’s administration and Dr. Fauci’s “I am the science!” authority. Why did Dr. Fauci push the wet market theory of COVID origins and work so hard to undermine or even suppress the lab leak theory? Because he knew he had approved U. S. government funding of gain of function experimentation in the Chinese lab in Wuhan, and he didn’t want people to think him even partly responsible for the deaths of millions around the world because of the lab leak of a virus that he had approved research on but that China couldn’t control.

Unfortunately, we now know that much of what the government was pushing was wrong. Alphabet has come clean in admitting that the Biden administration pressured them to censor information inconsistent with the government’s narrative, and that they succumbed to that pressure. All of this comes over a year after Facebook admitted to the same.

So, if people want to be upset about the government making phone calls to push a narrative they approve and censor one they don’t, rather then getting all up in arms about a multi-million dollar comedian being suspended from his TV show for five days, how about a little outrage over the government making phone calls to the largest communication companies in the world to censor critical information about a pandemic that, because of government policies, was allowed to have the largest negative impact on the global economy and the social life of the world’s population than likely any other pandemic in history.

But there’s nothing like a little celebrity distraction to keep the people pacified.

Update: I can’t find this with a google search (surprise!), but just heard Dana Perino report that, according to the Media Research Center, network news coverage spent an average of 15 minutes and 1 second reporting on Jimmy Kimmel’s return to his TV show, and zero minutes and zero seconds reporting on the Biden administration’s efforts to censor information shared via Google. I guess that’s no surprise, and no surprise, either, that I can’t find info to vet this on a google search.

Be Christ for all. Bring Christ to all. See Christ in all.