The market fired Jimmy Kimmel
Sinclair Broadcast Group has "indefinitely suspended” Jimmy Kimmel’s ABC late-night show — a show that had long struggled in ratings — after he falsely claimed Charlie Kirk’s assassin supported Donald Trump. Nexstar quickly followed. Together, Sinclair and Nexstar are the nation’s two largest TV station groups, with dozens of affiliates across the country. Their decisions this week sent shockwaves through the media landscape.
The reality is both companies acted independently, without government orders. Yet, the left instantly accused Federal Communications Commission Chairman Brandon Carr of pressuring the networks after he publicly commented on the suspensions.
Kimmel’s show didn’t collapse because of an FCC conspiracy. It collapsed because audiences walked away, and his bosses finally caught up.
That framing distorts reality. Corporations — not regulators — are making these editorial calls based on ratings and audience alignment. Demands for government intervention are not only unnecessary but intentionally misleading.
The ratings tell the story. Kimmel has been floundering for years. Nielsen data shows his program couldn’t even crack the top 100. Contrast that with Tucker Carlson, whose departure from Fox News sparked cheers on the left, even though his show ranked second across all of cable news. The double standard couldn’t be clearer. Success on the right is branded as dangerous. Failure on the left is brushed off as bad luck — or twisted into claims of political persecution.
Disney, which owns ABC, now faces added headaches as it negotiates high-stakes deals such as ESPN’s acquisition of the NFL Network. Even the suggestion of regulatory scrutiny rattles corporate boardrooms.
Meanwhile, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) has openly celebrated the deplatforming of media voices she dislikes. Her office boasted about efforts to silence Carlson, insisting his rhetoric fueled political unrest. That same standard mysteriously vanishes when progressives cross the line.
The controversy over Kimmel’s suspension isn’t really about free speech — it’s about accountability. Networks have every right to cancel a program for poor ratings or editorial drift. They also have the right to cut ties over moral collapse, such as celebrating someone’s death or spreading lies to score political points.
Kirk’s assassination underscored this divide. Some teachers and professors mourned his loss. Others openly celebrated it. That grotesque reaction sent a chilling message about the culture we’re building: Dissent can mean destruction. When educators, entertainers, and media voices cheer violence or try to silence opponents, they abandon the principles of a free society.
The Constitution protects free speech from government intrusion. It does not shield public figures who abuse their platforms from the consequences of their words. Influence carries responsibility, and ignoring that responsibility corrodes the civic fabric.
I’ve seen this machine operate up close. Left-wing activists and their allies in media, corporations, and even the White House have coordinated campaigns to sideline voices like mine. Van Jones’ nonprofit targeted my employment. Advertisers applied pressure. Facebook and Twitter used deplatforming as a weapon. Yet, critics such as CNN’s Brian Stelter only complain when conservatives push back.
The hypocrisy is unmistakable — and it proves that “accountability” means one thing for the right and nothing at all for the left.
RELATED: Farewell to Stephen Colbert, fake laughs, and lame late-night bias
Sinclair, Nexstar, and other broadcasters acted within their rights by making independent business decisions. The market — not federal regulators — should decide what content survives. Audience demand and grassroots engagement, not bureaucratic meddling, must shape the media landscape. Cancel culture turns toxic when it stops being about debate and becomes about erasing opponents.
What cannot be ignored is the double standard on full display. The left openly cheers efforts to deplatform and silence conservative voices — whether through government pressure, media campaigns, or activist intimidation — but cries foul when one of its own loses a platform because viewers tune out.
Kimmel’s show didn’t collapse because of an FCC conspiracy. It collapsed because audiences walked away, and his bosses finally caught up. His irrelevance made him expendable long before his latest lie about Kirk’s assassination. The market has spoken — and it spoke loudly.
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The deadly concoction that made Iryna Zarutska’s murder possible
On August 22, Iryna Zarutska, a 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee, was fatally stabbed in an unprovoked attack while riding a public transit train in Charlotte, North Carolina. The suspect, 34-year-old Decarlos Brown Jr., who had a long history of criminal activity and mental health issues, was charged with first-degree murder and faces a federal charge that could carry the death penalty.
It’s as clear cut of a case as there ever was — and yet, here comes the left furious, not at Zarutska’s preventable death, but at conservatives for pointing out the soft-on-crime Democrat policies that made the homicide possible.
Except conservatives are spot on. If it wasn’t for Charlotte’s no-carry law for all public transit, perhaps knowing that firearms could be present would have prevented Brown from acting, or perhaps someone could have stopped him.
“Law-abiding citizens should be able to protect themselves wherever the hell they are, especially if my tax dollars pay for it ... because what ends up happening every single freaking time in a gun-free zone?” asks Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered.”
“You have someone who doesn't give a s**t about the laws, and they bring a weapon, and they kill people.”
Other progressive policies to blame are lenient or cashless bail, sentencing reductions, early release and parole expansions, decriminalization of certain offenses, and restorative justice initiatives, among others. Brown was arrested and released at least 14 times, showing he likely benefited from some of these Democrat-backed crime policies.
“This man, 14 prior arrests — felony larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon, assault, shoplifting, making threats, diagnosed with schizophrenia — why was he on the streets? Democrat policies,” says Sara.
“If that guy were in prison, he would not have harmed this woman. So it's really that simple.”
But it’s not just soft liberal crime policies that paved the way for the suspect's heinous act. It seems the Democrat-spawned race war also played a key role.
Surveillance footage from the train not only captured the horrific attack but also Brown’s comments immediately after. In the video, he can be heard saying, "I got that white girl," as he waited to exit the Charlotte light rail train.
And yet, CNN’s Van Jones dismissed the idea that Zarutska’s murder was racially motivated, claiming the suggestion was nothing more than “race mongering” and “hate mongering.” He declared there was “no evidence” of a racial motive and then displayed sympathy for the suspect, saying, “We don't know how to deal with people who were hurting in the way this man was hurting. Hurt people hurt people.”
Sara ponders what would have happened if the situation were reversed and a white man killed an innocent black woman, stating, “I got that black girl.” Almost certainly there would be zero sympathy for the mental health issues of the white person.
“We would see riots in the streets right now in every major city in the country,” says Sara.
“If anyone dares say anything about the black community, about the crime in the black community, about black people killing each other in Chicago every single weekend in record amounts, about black fatherlessness, about violent crime in black people,” they’re condemned as racists, says Sara. “The statistics are there, but you're not allowed to say it. ... You're only allowed to talk about race when it's against white people.”
“Hurt people hurt people?” she scoffs. “Have you ever heard Van Jones say that when a killer or an aggressor or anyone who is not the victim is white?”
To hear more of Sara’s commentary, watch the episode above.
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‘You’re all guilty of this’: How media lies fueled the murder of Charlie Kirk
Yesterday, America suffered a devastating loss when beloved conservative activist and Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was fatally struck with a bullet in the neck while speaking at an event during his "American Comeback Tour" at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
Kirk’s horrific death has sent shockwaves through conservative America, who just lost one of its bravest and most impactful warriors.
“He dared do what the left apparently thinks you should die for, which is have a respectful dialogue,” says Sara Gonzales, BlazeTV host of “Sara Gonzales Unfiltered,” fighting back tears.
Charlie’s method was honorable: “Change hearts and minds not by force ... not with hate but just with a dialogue,” she says.
Sara finds the timing of Charlie’s murder uncanny — “Charlie was just in the news” a couple days ago when CNN’s Van Jones excoriated him for his comments about the murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska.
On an episode of “The Charlie Kirk Show,” Kirk said, “A white Ukrainian refugee was murdered just because she was white; everybody knows that, obviously.”
Van Jones, ignoring the fact that the suspect for Zarutska’s murder was captured on camera saying, “I got that white girl,” ignorantly responded, “For Charlie Kirk to say, ‘We know he did it because she’s white’ when there’s no evidence of that is just pure race mongering, hate mongering. It’s wrong.”
“Charlie Kirk, he should be ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word race, white, black, or anything except him,” Jones lied.
“And you wonder why people are being radicalized,” says Sara.
“If you're listening to CNN, you're thinking that Charlie Kirk is the actual bad guy, not the guy who said [‘I got that white girl’].”
And that, she says, is precisely why he was murdered yesterday.
“Was this only a matter of time? They tried to kill our president. That didn't work. They're just going to start what — going after all of us now?” she asks.
BlazeTV contributor Matthew Marsden adds, “We've said on this show many, many times that if you call someone a white supremacist, if you call them a Nazi, if you call them a fascist, then what you're doing is you're justifying any violence that is being committed against them because those things are evil.”
For the liberals who are now making statements on social media bemoaning Kirk’s death and condemning political violence, he has a powerful message: “You're all guilty of this.”
To hear more of Sara and Marsden’s reaction to yesterday’s horrific news, watch the episode above.
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Van Jones claims there's 'NO EVIDENCE' of racial animus in Charlotte stabbing. Audio in murder footage suggests otherwise.
Former Obama adviser Van Jones and CNN talking head Abby Phillip attacked Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Monday for daring to suggest that racial animus may have been a factor in the savage Aug. 22 murder of a Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina.
The liberal chatterboxes' eagerness to avoid the controversy over the murder becoming — as Phillip put it — "some sort of, like, reciprocal George Floyd situation" evidently had them overlook what the alleged murderer apparently says in the gruesome footage of the stabbing.
From avoidance to spin
The liberal media appeared keen to overlook 23-year-old Iryna Zarutska's murder last month on the Lynx Blue Line in Charlotte, even in the wake of revelations about suspected killer Decarlos Brown's lengthy criminal history and the release of footage showing the stabbing.
When the horrific story and the reaction to it online became too big to ignore, some outfits belatedly attempted to cure the narrative on Monday.
The New York Times, for instance, concern-mongered about the unprovoked stabbing turning into "an accelerant for conservative arguments about the perceived failings of Democratic policies," suggesting it might be "successfully used" like Laken Riley's murder by an illegal alien.
CNN, among the liberal outfits that delayed covering the murder, similarly attempted to orient the public's focus away from what set the stage for Zarutska's murder and toward political implications of the backlash.
RELATED: Wikipedia editors are trying to scrub the record clean of Iryna Zarutska's slaughter by violent thug
The eponymous host of "NewsNight with Abby Phillip" kicked off the panel discussion Monday evening stating that she was "trying to understand why this has become such a flashpoint on the right."
Phillip, Van Jones, and other liberal panelists did not appear particularly receptive to the explanation offered early on by Republican strategist and commentator Brad Todd — that every murder is a tragedy but this one is particularly tragic because it was so avoidable.
"The man who committed this crime was out on cashless bail, which has been a crusade of the political left. He also has a repeat offender, career criminal, 14 times he was arrested," said Todd. "He clearly is someone who should not have been out on bail in January when he was released on bail."
Strategic deafness
After some of the panelists tried to center the conversation on the theme of mental illness, Phillip played a clip from Charlie Kirk where the conservative noted:
A white Ukrainian refugee was murdered just because she was white. Everybody knows that, obviously. ... If a random white person simply walked up to and stabbed a nice, law-abiding black person for no reason, it would be an apocalyptically huge national story used to impose national, sweeping political changes on the whole country.
"Van, they've been looking for opportunities to make this some sort of, like, reciprocal George Floyd situation," said Phillip. "And that's the part that I think he's almost giving away the game. It's sad to see a lot of people going along with it."
RELATED: Mainstream media turns a blind eye to vicious stabbing of young Ukrainian woman
Before suggesting that there were no "sweeping changes imposed on society" following the death of George Floyd, Jones first stated that "we don't know why that man did what he did."
"For Charlie Kirk to say, 'We know he did it because she's white,' when there's no evidence of that, is just pure race-mongering, hate-mongering. It's wrong," continued the former Obama adviser. "He should be ashamed of himself. No one mentioned the word 'race,' 'white, 'black,' or anything except him."
Contrary to Jones' suggestion, the violent thug who murdered Zarutska, an aspiring veterinarian assistant, appears to repeatedly say in the video as blood dropped from his knife, "I got that white girl."
Blaze News has reached out to Kirk for comment.
FBI Director Kash Patel indicated Monday evening that the "FBI has been investigating the Charlotte train murder from day one."
Decarlos Brown has been charged with first-degree murder. Blaze News has reached out to the DOJ about whether Brown might face federal hate crime charges as well.
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Van Jones SLAMS Biden cover-up: ‘A crime against the republic’
Democrats spent the entirety of former President Joe Biden’s presidency turning a blind eye to what appeared to be a clear mental and physical decline — but after Biden’s stage four prostate cancer diagnosis, they can no longer pretend the president was in control.
His cancer, which has a Gleason score of nine and bone metastasis, has been purported by experts to have been progressing for years — which would include his presidency.
Now, even the former president’s fiercest supporters are admitting that they were wrong about the president’s health, including Van Jones.
“I don’t care who you are, left, right, or otherwise, anybody who cares about this country and about just the dynamics of power, this is the emperor’s new clothes playing itself out in real time,” Jones told Jake Tapper on CNN.
“Everybody knew, and everyone was afraid to say except for David Axelrod for two years that something was wrong here. And so, you know, I was shocked. I love Joe Biden. I don’t like him, I love him.”
“I was shocked to see his condition when he came out and so was the world. And that wasn’t the first time he was in that condition,” he continued. “There are people who knew and said nothing, and that is a crime against this republic.”
“I think the Democrats are going to pay for a long time for being a part of what is now being revealed to be a massive cover-up,” he added.
Unlike those on the left, BlazeTV host Pat Gray was well aware of the president’s decline before news of his diagnosis went public.
“‘That is a crime against our republic,’" Gray says, mimicking Jones. “Yeah, yes it is. Thank you for noticing,” he adds.
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Van Jones admits the woke era has gone too far
Van Jones is finally saying what conservatives have argued for years: The woke era has gone too far.
“This is not gonna make me popular, but I’m not mad, because it got ridiculous. I’m an employer, and at a certain point, your Slack channel just turns into Vietnam every other day because something happened that had nothing to do with the workplace,” Jones said on CNN.
“You got to bring in all kinds of counselors and, like, this is not camp, guys. We’re trying to make money. So I enjoyed the moment for a while where we were having our reckonings about everything. We done wrecked, okay? Reckoning direct. We can move on,” he added, laughing.
“I think he’s sort of admitting this because Van Jones is pretty perceptive, and so I think he’s recognizing that … they’ve overplayed their hands, the woke folks, right? Like it’s just people are sick of it, as evidenced by Donald Trump waltzing into the White House for a second time,” Dan Andros of the “Quick Start Podcast” tells BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere on “Stu Does America.”
“This guy they rebranded as Hitler for four years. And they’re like, ‘Well, how did Hitler get in there?’ It’s like, I don’t know. Maybe because like Van said, you turned your job that you have to show up to every day, for millions of people, into this place where now they’ve got to tiptoe around every microaggression imaginable and it’s a living nightmare, and they voted against it overwhelmingly,” Andros explains.
“And they seem to continue to be doing it,” Stu agrees.
“If you say, ‘Donald Trump is Hitler,’ right, and then Hitler gets elected, you have a path to go. Your two choices are, number one, I was wrong. He’s not Hitler, and I was overexaggerating what my belief was in this guy. He’s actually not that bad. I just have a disagreement with him,” he explains.
"Or two, he is Hitler, and I live in Nazi Germany because the people around me all want Hitler.”
“I think maybe to some extent, Van Jones is choosing this way to say, ‘Look, maybe this was overexaggerated,’ where I think a lot of the people on the left, certainly on the CNN panel every single night, are saying, ‘Look, we’re just in Nazi Germany,’” he continues.
“And that is going to send them down all sorts of really bad roads for their political futures,” he adds.
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