America watched in real time this week as ABC quietly yanked Jimmy Kimmel’s long-running late-night program after the host used his national platform to suggest the alleged killer of conservative activist Charlie Kirk was a MAGA supporter — a claim that, by the network’s suspension and reporting, was not supported by the facts. Local affiliate owners including Nexstar and Sinclair refused to air the program, and ABC announced the show would be preempted indefinitely as the outrage swelled.
If you expected the left to practice what it preaches about free speech, today’s spectacle proved otherwise. Democrats and Hollywood elites immediately denounced the move as “censorship” while glossing over the fact that Kimmel himself has cheered the deplatforming of conservatives for years — hypocrisy on parade that people like Glenn Beck and Stu Burguiere rightly called out as a two-tiered system of accountability.
This isn’t just about hurt feelings; it’s about truth and responsibility. FCC Chairman Brendan Carr publicly said Kimmel “appeared to mislead” the public about the suspect’s political leanings, and reporting showed early investigatory details pointed away from the narrative Kimmel pushed on air. When the national conversation is being shaped with careless assertions, there must be consequences — especially from people who command a megaphone on a taxpayer-influenced media infrastructure.
Even worse, Democrats’ outrage has a strange selective memory when it comes to federal power and media oversight. As Glenn Beck and Stu Burguiere noted, the same voices accusing conservatives of weaponizing agencies have no problem celebrating pressure campaigns when they work to silence opponents, and they howl only when the shoe is on the other foot. The FCC’s sudden, partisan posture in the aftermath of these comments only confirms what many Americans already suspect: regulatory power is being used as a political cudgel.
Conservatives welcomed the consequences not out of spite but out of principle: a network and its talent should not be immune from accountability when they recklessly mislead a nation. Station owners made a business judgment about community standards, while viewers finally saw that the elites who lecture the country about “free speech” often expect different rules for themselves. That double standard is intolerable and must end.
At the same time, real defenders of liberty should be clear-eyed: freedom of speech is for everyone, and no one should cheer when entire institutions are bullied into silence by the state or by mobs. The sensible middle ground is to demand both robust protections for expression and consistent consequences when influential figures abuse trust and spread misinformation. The nation deserves a media landscape that prizes truth over partisan theater.
Hardworking Americans are tired of elites playing by one rule and demanding different rules for everyone else. If we love this country, we stand for equal accountability, fair play, and a media that serves the public rather than a political movement. Hold the powerful to the same standard they demand of others — that’s how a free republic endures.
