In a classic Friday news dump move, Sinclair announced that it will end its unofficial boycott of Jimmy Kimmel and will once again broadcast the comedian’s late-night show, ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live,’ to its ABC affiliate broadcast stations, ending its completely principled and not at all politically motivated stance to pre-empt the show after all of two days.
“Our objective throughout this process has been to ensure that programming remains accurate and engaging for the widest possible audience,” the company said in a statement. “We take seriously our responsibility as local broadcasters to provide programming that serves the interests of our communities, while also honoring our obligations to air national network programming.”
Sinclair—which operates 30 ABC affiliate stations in 27 markets, including cities like Portland, Baltimore, and Minneapolis—announced last week that it would choose to air “news programming” in place of Kimmel’s show, which returned to the air Tuesday after a brief hiatus. The program, which was briefly suspended by ABC after Kimmel made a frankly pretty innocuous comment about the political ideology of the person who allegedly shot and killed conservative influencer Charlie Kirk in Utah earlier this month.
Sinclair, along with fellow media conglomerate Nexstar, announced they would pull Kimmel’s show from the air following a statement from Federal Communications Commission head Brendan Carr, who warned broadcasters, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way,” and said, “These companies can find ways to change conduct to take action on Kimmel or, you know, there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Sinclair attempted to get in front of the obvious criticisms that it would face as a result of both its initial decision not to broadcast ‘Jimmy Kimmel Live’ and its latest call to bring him back to the airwaves in Sinclair markets.
“Our decision to preempt this program was independent of any government interaction or influence,” the company said. “Free speech provides broadcasters with the right to exercise judgment as to the content on their local stations. While we understand that not everyone will agree with our decisions about programming, it is simply inconsistent to champion free speech while demanding that broadcasters air specific content.” It apparently took the company a solid week to remember that commitment to free speech, but it got there.
The reality is that Sinclair was going to back down eventually, if only for legal reasons. As a broadcast executive explained to Deadline, local affiliates contractually can only preempt a program so many times before it breaks the contract and loses the ability to broadcast the show entirely. Sinclair’s “principled stance” was destined to last for exactly as long as it didn’t actually cost them anything and likely not a second longer.
Once word started spreading that Disney might threaten to withhold live sports broadcasts from affiliates who pulled Kimmel, it was only a matter of time before Sinclair suddenly found its unwavering belief in “free speech” again. There may be a subset of people pissed off that Kimmel is back on Sinclair’s airwaves, but you can bet even more would be pissed if they couldn’t watch LSU play Ole Miss on Saturday. That would hurt Sinclair’s real primary principle: always maximize profits.
This story came first, then the second article. It’s interesting, because it’s not a protest, or anything, it’s simple local ordinance. (Ordinances = the law here.)
TOPEKA — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday joined a private prison company in its legal fight with Leavenworth city officials, accusing the city of “aggressive and unlawful” interference with immigration enforcement.
The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the case in U.S. District Court, signed by the assistant U.S. attorney general’s office.
“The United States has a strong interest in countering state and local efforts to harass federal contractors, in the proper application of the Constitution and its Supremacy Clause, and in the foundational principles that protect the Federal Government from unconstitutional state and local interference,” the filing said.
A statement of interest authorizes the U.S. attorney general to become a non-party in a suit pending in any court in the country, the filing said.
CoreCivic and the city of Leavenworth have been fighting in court for months over the city’s requirement that CoreCivic go through its development process to receive a special use permit before reopening its prison facility at 100 Highway Terrace.
Nashville-based CoreCivic announced in March that it would reopen the prison facility, which closed in 2021, to house Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
CoreCivic and the city have a hearing scheduled Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Topeka as part of an appeal of a Kansas court’s decision barring CoreCivic from housing ICE detainees while the case about the development permit is being heard.
CoreCivic has alleged in multiple filings that Leavenworth officials are violating the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution and interfering with the operations of the federal government. That clause sets federal laws as supreme over state laws.
The U.S. government’s statement Tuesday pushed that argument forward, saying that it is “especially true” in relationship to immigration.
“Defendants have violated the Supremacy Clause by attempting to stymie the Federal Government’s immigration-related operations at 100 Highway Terrace,” the federal filing said, citing multiple cases to support its arguments that federal contractors are free from state control.
“This well-settled principle has been consistently applied to invalidate state and local laws that impose requirements on federal contractors,” the filing said.
The city’s efforts to prevent CoreCivic from housing immigration detainees at its prison, recently renamed the Midwest Regional Reception Center, is an attempt to regulate the federal government’s efforts to house detainees at that facility and violates the supremacy clause, the filing said.
TOPEKA — Leavenworth officials aren’t backing down from holding private prison company CoreCivic accountable to development regulations even after the U.S. Department of Justice jumped into the case Tuesday.
The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the U.S. District Court case between Nashville-based CoreCivic and Leavenworth, arguing the city was violating the supremacy clause in the U.S. Constitution.
“The federal government’s filing does not change our view of the case or the approach we plan to take,” said W. Joseph Hatley, a Kansas City, Missouri, attorney representing the city of Leavenworth. “The arguments in that filing mirror arguments CoreCivic has previously made, without success.”
The clause says federal laws are supreme over state laws, and in its filing, the DOJ said Leavenworth is interfering in the federal government’s immigration enforcement efforts.
Leavenworth Mayor Holly Pittman has said the city’s fight over reopening CoreCivic’s prison isn’t driven by politics, despite repeated outcry from Leavenworth residents against housing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainees.
She said the city is concerned about holding businesses accountable to their development regulations, which would require CoreCivic to apply for a special use permit.
Earlier this year, CoreCivic announced it planned to reopen its prison facility in Leavenworth to fulfill an ICE contract that would pay the company $4.2 million per month. But Leavenworth officials contend the company must follow the city’s revised development process and apply for a special use permit.
In court filings, the city’s attorneys highlighted issues with CoreCivic’s operation of its previous prison, which closed in 2021, including failing to cooperate with Leavenworth police and failure to report the death of an inmate for six days. Leavenworth officials have said a special use permit would allow them to address such problems.
U.S. District Judge Toby Crouse on Wednesday set a hearing on a CoreCivic motion for a preliminary injunction for 3 p.m. Nov. 25, Hatley said.
CoreCivic is appealing a Kansas district court decision to stop the company from housing ICE detainees as the legal disagreement with Leavenworth goes through the courts.
People say I’m crazy. I don’t really know if I am; I just know that my brain doesn’t work like most people’s… so if that means I’m crazy, then I guess maybe I might be.
I was happily married, once upon a time, but it soured fast, and he didn’t stick around very long. Not that I can really blame him. I know that I’m hard to live with, but it hurt, because I couldn’t figure out what I’d done wrong.
Like the last time I wound him up: It was the day he left. I guess he couldn’t take it any longer. He marched out, screaming, “You’re driving me insane,” just before he slammed the front door… the very last words I would ever hear from his lips.
You know, he really should have known better than to have made me watch the election results that night. He knew how I hated politics, all that jibber jabber that makes no sense. People should be learning how to love, but instead the world is filling with hate. Crazy, crazy talk! I know now that it was wrong to throw the television out the window, but I’m sorry, I just snapped.
I mean, the television was evil. It blathered on and on, and millions of people just sat there, staring, drinking up whatever the media spooned out. So, yeah, it had to go. And Harry followed right after the telly — though he didn’t go flying out the window, he just slammed the door and walked away.
No, I’m not crazy! Our generation has inherited a nuclear arsenal that could easily destroy the world many times over. So yeah, I’m worried about it, but I figure that that’s a perfectly appropriate defense response. If you were to tell me that you’re not worried, I would figure that you’re mad, drunk, or lying… or maybe that you’d become just plain numb to everything.
Life isn’t fair. I can’t unknow what I’ve learned, and what I’ve learned has destroyed my faith in everything. It’s all lies. I know that I’m going off the rails, but there’s nowhere else to go. No. No, there’s no hope for me. My mind was too fragile and was cracked by watching evil people rule the world. But you… maybe your mind is made of sterner stuff. Please, listen to me. Please, help. We need to teach the world to love… before it’s too late.
Well I guess that’s it. Thanks for listening. I gotta go. The orderly is telling me that it’s time to go back to my room because it’s television time… and I’m not allowed near televisions anymore. And please remember: When you tell the others about this, make sure you tell them… I’m not the one who’s crazy. (snip-a bit more on the page. This writer is talented!)
Trump can’t even pronounce the medicine he’s advising against Read on Substack
Don’t take medical advice from felons and heroin addicts.
Donald Trump, RFK Jr, and Dr. Mehmet “Crudite” Oz are recommending that pregnant women not take Tylenol anymore because they claim it will give your baby autism. Real doctors would laugh at this if it weren’t so horrible.
How dare Trump and his quacks tell moms that they’re to blame if their kids have autism just because they took Tylenol to relieve pain associated with pregnancy, like headaches, sore backs, and having to live with the men who made them pregnant?
Acetaminophen is the primary ingredient in Tylenol, and a word that’s difficult for Trump to pronounce, like Thailand, which Trump pronounced as “Thighland.” He once called Yosemite National Park, “Yo-Semite.” That sounds like something you’d hear in NYC.
“Yo, Semite! You got lox on them bagels?”
During his press conference announcing the latest discovery in Trump science, Trump could not pronounce acetaminophen. Trump was rolling but came to a complete stop, as if he was on a UN escalator, and said, “Well, let’s see how we say that…”
It started off like, “acid-mo-finomen.” On his second attempt, he said, “a seed o meniphen.” Then he asked everyone in the room, “Is that OK?”
Jon Stewart answered on the Daily Show on Monday evening, “No!”
Stewart said, “We would like a second opinion, and a third pronunciation. Look, there’s already a ton of controversy around the lack of data tying acetaminophen in pregnancy to autism. And you can’t even be bothered to pronounce the fucking word correctly?”
Stewart is correct. There is a lack of date connecting Tylenol to autism, and surely not enough to go weebling around and telling pregnant women not to take it. (snip-MORE)
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Bribes-R-Us by Clay Jones
Tom Homan is not the only one taking Bribes in the Trump regime Read on Substack
Around August of last year, before the election, future-at-the-time Trump border czar Tom Homan was approached to help secure contracts in a future Trump administration, and was paid $50,000. The $50,000 was given to him in an FBI sting operation and was captured on video.
The investigation was a spinoff of another investigation because, during it, someone came across information that Tom Homan was taking bribes.
My business is squat compared to most, but still…I have never been paid in cash inside a Cava bag, or any bags for that matter. These fucknuts are worried about immigrants being paid under the table, but what the fuck is Tom Homan doing being paid with bags of cash?
The FBI and the Justice Department planned to wait to see whether Homan would deliver on his alleged promise once he became the nation’s top immigration official, but Trump was reinstalled into the White House, Pam Bondi was put in charge of the Justice Department, and Kash Patel was made FBI director, the case stalled before ultimately killing the case, stating there was nothing there.
Irony alert: Former FBI director James Comey is about to be indicted. In DC, they can’t even indict the guy throwing sandwiches at law enforcement, but they’re gonna indict Comey for lying to Republicans in the Senate.
The White House says Homan never took the money, but then again, Karoline Leavitt says a lot of bullshit that’s not true. She’s still screaming about the UN escalator even though it was Trump goons who fucked it up. The one person who hasn’t said that Tom Homan didn’t take $50,000 in a Cava bag from the FBI is Tom Homan.
Fox News’ Laura Ingraham interviewed Tom Homan a few nights ago, and she mockingly referred to MSNBC, which broke the story, as “always-reliable” MSNBC. But, Laura, at least someone from MSNBC, even dumb-dum Lawrence O’Donnell (he called RFK Jr. “Robert Downey Jr.” last night), would have asked Tom Homan one simple question.
Although if Lawrence had asked that question, it would have been like, “Did….you…take….the….fifty….thousand…dollars? I’m sorry, that shit annoys me. (snip-MORE)
Combat, the underground paper edited by Albert Camus during the French Resistance
Jimmy Kimmel returned to the air on Tuesday and delivered a 28-minute monologue that set the record straight and sharply criticized the Trump administration. Sinclair and Nexstar, two TV networks whose affiliate stations collectively represent 25% of ABC’s broadcast audience, refused to transmit the show, pre-empting it with extended news programming instead. Trump, who is only increasing his authoritarianism, took to Truth Social to threaten ABC with new legal action for bringing it back.
If you believe that public service journalism is a load-bearing prerequisite for democracy, as I do, these are scary changes. These changes are particularly alarming because they’re happening just as the news industry overall has been contracting for decades, leaving fewer resources to fill the gaps. Other, larger, newsrooms could theoretically help fill the content and funding gaps, but there are fewer and fewer resources to share around.
The irony is that local news is the one place where this erosion of trust hasn’t been happening: local newsrooms know how to build community and are disproportionately trusted as a result. It’s also the one place where the broadcast medium is still important; in an emergency, or in a broadband desert, a radio signal can be the last source of real information. You can’t, yet, take a closed rural station and move it to YouTube without losing a large proportion of its audience. Around 90% of Americans have access to broadband internet, but that last 10% really matters.
Of course, if all the shuttered public media stations did move to YouTube, the government would go after that, too. As a service owned by a single corporation, it’s a central point of failure. Publishing on the open web would remove that risk, but the internet itself has been repeatedly under attack. In some areas, legislation has passed that effectively bans certain kinds of content (Bluesky is unavailable in Mississippifor this reason) and net neutrality has been decimated nationwide, making it far easier for an ISP to cut access to a particular service, perhaps in response to pressure from the government. With the government flexing severe restrictions to broadcast media, and nothing stopping severe restrictions to streaming media, there’s nowhere left for information to go.
In Cuba, the internet was legalized in 2019, although you need a permit to have a home connection, and connection quality is still intermittent. Starting long before that, people with access would download content to flash drives and then distribute them through a vast, illicit network called El Paquete Semanal, or The Weekly Package. You could think of it as a magazine: every week there would be a new issue of media that couldn’t be obtained any other way. It became so popular that the government tried to release its own competing USB drop containing approved media; unsurprisingly, it didn’t catch on.
We’ve become very reliant on the internet, but we may need to prepare for a post-broadcast, post-open-internet era. Ironically, newspapers, long the poster-child of media’s death throes, are semi-distributed and would be more resilient to this more restrictive media landscape, as the French resistance example demonstrates. (Of course, a newspaper that relies on a centralized printing press can always be shut down.) These are things that might happen, not things that definitely will, but it doesn’t hurt to consider this as a potential future that we might need to react to.
In a world where we succumb to truly authoritarian control over the media, I think there may be something to learn from El Paquete. A discrete bundle of digital media can be transmitted in multiple forms. It can be accessed via the web; consumed via an app that downloads the new bundle every week; transmitted over peer-to-peer networks; stored on resilient alternative file systems like IPFS; and even through sneakernet networks like Cuba’s. The bundle could contain archives of entire websites in the Internet Archive’s WARC format, downloads of video podcasts, and so on, linked with a web-based interface that would be somewhat akin to a DVD menu.
Such a bundle would probably not be collated inside the US. Instead, a group might be established in safe third-party countries like Switzerland, who could communicate securely with journalists on the ground in the US and elsewhere. They would bundle the release, publish it to various networks (the open social web, IPFS, p2p networks), publish a checksum hash, and publicize it in Signal channels.
It would be paid for in various ways. The central newsroom would need to be funded by international non-profits oriented towards re-establishing media freedom in the US (for example, the Committee to Protect Journalists and Reporters Without Borders). Individual journalists and creators in the US would need to be supported by communities more local to them and would likely take the form of mutual aid as much as direct support. Because traditional payment and crypto networks are both highly traceable, direct donations or subscriptions might not be feasible or safe.
I think it’s important to establish this ahead of time. By the time the internet is locked down and major restrictions have been applied to broadcast media, it’s too late. The good news is that it’s kind of cool in itself: the form of an online magazine that carries submissions from multiple news and media creators has a lot of scope for experimentation at every level, from content to design. It’s offline-first, which means you can interact with it on a plane and in other situations where internet is not an option. That’s neat in itself!
It also solves the problem of how this would be found by new readers to begin with. After a democratic collapse, discovery would need to be through word of mouth; before it, though, such a product could be promoted through more traditional channels (emphasizing the innovative nature of its issue-based format rather than its resiliency to authoritarian control). Early adopters who are attracted to the initial product would form the backbone of the word-of-mouth network later on. Just as newsrooms today thrive if they successfully build community, building trusted networks of people becomes vital for distributing underground material in an authoritarian environment. Historical underground media networks took years to establish, as all communities do; building community would need to begin immediately.
Our entire software stack — our content management systems in particular — are designed to be accessed through a functioning internet. Luckily, thanks to tools created by organizations like the Internet Archive, we can simply build websites locally on our own devices and create an archived version to distribute. The tools are there; the work to be done is all at the human level.
Scottie's Playtime 