My latest film, “The Atomic Bowl: Football at Ground Zero—and Nuclear Peril Today” has been airing over PBS stations this past month and streaming for free (key links to watch now and more here). A companion book is now available, and you can read more or order here. Thank you. And subscribing to this newsletter is still somehow FREE.
Naturally, we have to start with the latest news, the “suspension” (canceling?) of Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show by ABC/Disney at the behest of Trump and the FCC, ostensibly for brief remarks on Monday about the Kirk case. But as Trump warned after he got Stephen Colbert axed: “Kimmel is next.” Already there are campaigns to inspire people to cancel Disney+ and Hulu, and etc.
A few quick responses (check back later for updates):
KEY to the story about ABC suspending Kimmel's show: Nexstar and Sinclair, two big owners of ABC-affiliated stations, both need FCC approval for pending deals. With a lot of $$ on the line, both have reason to curry favor with the Trump admin. Both decided to yank Kimmel's show.
MSNBC’s Chris Hayes: “This is the most straightforward attack on free speech from state actors I've ever seen in my life and it's not even close.”
Timothy Snyder: “General pattern in regime change: the comedy gets better and then it gets banned.”
Governor J.B. Pritzer: “A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the President doesn’t like what they say. This is an attack on free speech and cannot be allowed to stand.”
A few people on the inter-tubes made some form of this in reference to Brian Kilmeade’s infamous recent remark on Fox (with no penalty) : “Jimmy Kimmel is being indefinitely shelved by ABC, proving that the only thing it’s safe to say on TV anymore is that you want to kill homeless people.”
Former GOPer David Frum: “This is not cancel culture because it's not culture. It's state repression. It's an order from the government. Here is the script, you must read, if you do not read it, you will be taken off the air."
House Democrats: “A corrupt use of power.” Even Chuck Schumer: “despicable, disgusting, and against democratic values.” Barack Obama: “This is precisely the kind of government coercion that the First Amendment was designed to prevent — and media companies need to start standing up rather than capitulating to it.”
But Mike Pence last night in NYC: “The First Amendment doesn’t protect entertainers.”
Then there was this interesting development:
‘South Park’ to Skip Another Week as Creators Issue Last-Minute Statement
The statement was simply that they hadn’t finished this week’s episode on time but one has to wonder if they didn’t want to get engaged in the post-Kirk killing frenzy (a rare step for them) or were ordered by their parent to halt or the episode got censored. Remember that their old episode that featured a Kirk-like right wing podcaster got pulled (for now).
If you missed it, the piece about me and new film “The Atomic Bowl” (see links above) in this week’s New Yorker, online and in print. They somehow fit in Springsteen and Hanks but failed to mention that I’ve written 13 books and directed three previous films for PBS since 2022, but still….kind of a thrill.
Of course, Billy Bragg headlined the big protest rally in London to greet Trump’s royal visit. A decade ago, Billy kicked off the film that I co-produced, “Following the Ninth,” on the political impact and uses of Beethoven’s final symphony around the world with Bragg singing “Ode to Joy” with updated lyrics. Yesterday he sang at the rally a tune by the patron saint of this newsletter, Woody Guthrie, “All You Fascists Bound to Lose.” I don’t have a tape of it from yesterday but here is Billy’s rocking recording and a photo from the rally:
From Tunes to Toons
Ann Telnaes with statement and cartoon:
"All you Fascists Bound to LOSE" is correct, though the typo is funny enough. They will never love.
Also, that South Park episode featured Kirk himself (or at least, a characterization of Kirk). Kirk supposedly loved it.
Perfect essay.