So I know nothing I'm going to say here is going to make one damn bit of difference.
And I've had this conversation with a couple of friends of mine, not this specific conversation,
but a conversation about, I guess, essentially social media and stuff like that,
and how it's really easy for us just to get all bent out of shape, especially if all we ever do is doom scroll.
In the wake of everything that has happened with the murder of Charlie Kirk,
and then the apparent incessant need for the political right to just start cracking down on what they perceive
and unfortunately misperceive as, I guess, the left being a bit uncouth, if you will.
The majority of everything that I've seen online that...
So I'm not going to say that there aren't assholes out there.
Of course there's assholes out there that are going to celebrate Charlie Kirk's murder.
There's going to be folks out there that do that, and those folks are, in my opinion, they're despicable.
Because though I didn't agree with Charlie Kirk and I didn't really like him,
I never wanted him dead.
Never wanted him dead.
I think that this entire thing is heinous.
that it paints America in a very bad light, and it's unfortunate, but it's given the political right, MAGA.
Ammunition, if you will.
Fuel for this raging fire that they're hell-bent on just making it bigger.
I guess that's the thing that's aggravating me, is the fact that anytime someone puts anything out on social media
where they are actually pointing to Charlie Kirk's own words, whether it's a soundbite, whether it's a video clip,
and then suddenly the right looks at that as someone who is criticizing Charlie Kirk.
And last time I checked, this is the United States of America, and we have this little thing called a Constitution.
And right along with it, we have the Bill of Rights.
And one of those rights is the fact that we have the right of free speech.
Now, granted, there's a lot of folks out there that misunderstand what the First Amendment means.
The First Amendment does not protect you.
Let's say you're a restaurant worker, and you decide to just start spouting off some of the most malicious, hateful shit
that could be heard in the middle of the restaurant.
Maybe you, I don't know, berate a patron.
The First Amendment does not protect you from any type of repercussions for doing that.
The First Amendment protects you from the government, our federal government, from stepping in and basically shutting down your speech.
And the idea is that we need a free press.
That was the entire impetus from the very beginning.
We need a free press so that we can hold our elected leaders to account.
That's the whole point.
And whether you agree or disagree, that even includes hate speech.
There are some hateful, disgusting people in this world, and they will say some of the nastiest, gnarliest things about other people.
And as far as the government is concerned, the government can't really do anything about that.
Now, the person that is being said about, that's where you have the libel laws and all of that.
The reason why I'm bringing this up is I come across this article just a few minutes ago.
Vance says those who celebrate Charlie Kirk's death should face consequences as he ramps up criticism of the left.
And this is what is aggravating me.
Even when someone isn't directly criticizing Charlie, anything that could be perceived as a negative comment,
Even though it's not necessarily a negative comment, aka pointing to clips, video clips, sound bites, what have you, of some of the honestly hateful and bigoted things that Charlie Kirk has actually said.
And that does not give the federal government cause to step in and try to punish anybody for that.
It's not legal.
Yet, this administration seems to think that they have unfettered power when it comes to this.
And if they don't like something that you said, well, they're going to make sure that they use the power of the executive branch,
maybe the entire federal government, whatever they can do, to basically put the screws to you.
Vance told Fox News, quote,
The First Amendment protects a lot of very ugly speech, but if you celebrate Charlie Kirk's death,
you should not be protected from being fired for being a disgusting person.
Well, here's the problem.
If he's going to feel that way about it, well, then there's absolutely nothing that should protect J.D. Vance or Trump from being fired for being a disgusting person or people.
Because the rhetoric that he is spewing and the rhetoric that Trump himself has spewed in the past,
things that they claim the radical left has done and which has apparently led to the murder of Charlie Kirk,
they've done the same thing.
J.D. Vance literally called Trump Hitler several years ago.
And of course, he did a 180 because, well, you know, he wanted to be vice president.
All right.
That tells me he has no honor and he has no ethics.
And you know what?
I can fucking say that because that's my First Amendment right.
J.D. Vance is a coward, in my opinion,
because he's going to sit, he's going to sit behind a microphone.
He's going to be on Fox News of all places and he's going to spew this nonsense.
You know, if you are a university professor who benefits from American tax dollars,
you should not be celebrating Charlie Kirk's death.
And if you are, maybe you should lose your job or the university should, you know, lose or face funding loss.
He added, if you're the kind of person who thinks that Charlie Kirk was justifiably murdered,
sometimes the government can't do anything about that.
But, you know, what can is civil society.
And I've actually been gratified to see all these people standing up and saying, yes, we have free speech.
And yes, we have free debate.
But if you're celebrating the death of a young father, you ought to pay some consequences for it.
And again, I'm not celebrating his death.
I think it's heinous.
I don't like the fact that he was murdered.
I don't like the fact that his children are now without a father and his wife is without a husband.
I don't like that.
I do not agree that anyone should be targeted and killed for their right of free speech,
no matter how badly I disagree with what they're saying.
They still have a right to say it.
You know, the old adage is, I may not agree with what you say, but I'll fight for your right to say it.
That's that's what the whole fucking thing is about.
Be it, Jimmy Kimmel comes out and he'd go and look and listen to what what he said.
He was he was not blaming Charlie for his own death.
The statement he made was it was weak.
I mean, it was a joke.
Maybe it's in poor taste to even, you know, still it's too soon.
And he wasn't joking about Charlie being killed.
He was joking about the fact that the right seems to be scrambling to do whatever they can to make sure
that Tyler Robinson, who is in custody and apparently has admitted to being the one that murdered Charlie,
is not a member of the right, not a member of MAGA.
That's all he was saying.
But because we've got an asshole as the FCC chair who does nothing but kowtow to to Trump's whims,
started threatening ABC and by extension Nexstar, which is I think they claim like 39 percent of all of the ABC affiliates.
And apparently they're in the process of negotiating merger, which is which would be I mean,
it's like a billion dollar merger or some shit like that.
I don't remember exactly what the number is.
And so, of course, they decided, well, we're just going to pull Jimmy Kimmel's show because, you know,
they made a statement.
One of one of the head honchos there made a statement about how, you know, they didn't agree with it.
It was in poor taste and all that kind of stuff.
And that's fine.
But do me a fucking favor and stop lying.
That's not the reason why you're doing this.
The reason why you're doing this, my opinion, but follow the money.
The reason why you're doing this is because your merger is going to require FCC approval.
Just like the whole Paramount Skydance bullshit.
The only reason why they paid Donald Trump and they should not have.
The only reason why they paid him was to ensure that they could get that merger approved by the FCC.
It's all about the money.
And quite honestly, as an atheist, one of the things in the Bible that is holding so true is,
though I don't necessarily believe in sin, but I'll go along with this one.
It really comes down that the love of money is a sin.
Because think about it.
When your bottom line is in jeopardy, you're going to make decisions that might go against your morality,
against your ethics, and against your honor.
And that is exactly what Paramount did.
And that is exactly what Disney ABC did.
And they should be ashamed.
They should have stood up for Jimmy Kimmel.
Jimmy was going to come out and actually explain, but he was not going to apologize
because, honestly, he didn't have a fucking thing to apologize for.
But they never gave him a chance.
I read somewhere, I think it was earlier this morning, that right up until the very last moment,
the executives there were behind Jimmy.
But they basically just threw their hands up in the air and said, well, I guess this is where we bend over.
We take it.
Hopefully, there's enough lube that it doesn't hurt too badly.
And that is what is pissing me off about this whole thing.
And I can't do anything about it.
I mean, I'm a nobody.
I do what I do.
I make my living.
I try to, you know, protect my family, put food on the table, keep the roof over our heads,
and enjoy my life as it is as I'm getting older.
I have no power.
All I can do is bitch.
All I can do is sit here and make these asinine videos or do a podcast or something.
Then nobody's going to fucking hear.
And even if they do, probably folks on the right are going to come after me and call me all kinds of names,
even though they don't know who the hell I am.
And so it's just frustrating.
It is really frustrating.
And then I got friends of mine that don't understand why I'm so frustrated.
And I talk about things and the response I get, and nothing against them,
but the response I get is, oh, yeah, I wasn't aware of that.
Or, you know, and it's like, it's like the head in the sand, man.
I don't know.
It's just, it's aggravating.
I'm not even sure I'll put this out anywhere.
I just, I had to get it off my chest because I saw this article and, you know,
J.D. Vance talking about, you know, there should be consequences
if you're going to make fun of Charlie Kirk's murder.
Nobody's fucking making fun of his murder, dude.
We are talking about the type of individual that he was.
I don't agree that he should be venerated as some special guy.
I definitely don't agree with the way that he's been treated by the federal government with,
I mean, Vance went on Air Force Two and picked up his casket with flying the flags at half staff.
When Trump couldn't even remember the name of Hortman, when he was asked in the Oval Office about that,
why didn't they lower the flags?
And he was like, who?
I mean, come on.
She was murdered.
Her husband was murdered.
And the dog was murdered.
Apparently, Minnesota.
That's what's disgusting.
This is not a both sides issue.
They're claiming, yeah, it's not a both sides issue.
It's the radical left.
No, guys.
No.
Even the statistics that y'all pulled off your website proved that the majority of political
violence is executed by those on the right.
It's not to say people on the left, we don't have some crazies on the left, but the data doesn't
lie.
And that's the reason why they pulled it off the website.
Anyway, that's my opinion.
Anyway, take care of yourselves.