Jimmy Kimmel Should Have Strong Odds at the Supreme Court

Since that was written, Disney evidently published the back story that, days earlier, they were looking to fire Kimmel themselves (before any FCC threat), because he alienated the viewer base repeatedly, costing advertisers.

Hard to know if that's true, of course.

I could say a lot of mean things about Jimmy. But what good would it do? I can't stand him. But I will stand up for his right to say whatever he says. If this country, this side or that side, on a razor's edge or done gone cosmic can't see what looms in this direction, just take a chance and oppose it while you can. You don't want to live the alternative.

Quite seriously

Just noodling on this:

He has better-than-typical odds of clearing the standing hurdle. He was directly harmed, right.

But he's going to have some pretty high evidentiary hurdles, right? Discovery may well turn up that Nextar pulled his shows preemptively, both because of political affiliation and because of an upcoming merger. They didn't need to be "jawboned", and there's not much indication that they were even contacted by the FCC.

When the largest affiliate network in the country pulls your show, it's harder to make the case that ABC itself was responding directly to the FCC, which is what Kimmel will need to establish.

These are positive and not normative arguments and my confidence level is extremely low.

Kayfabe all around.

Late night has been dying for a decade. Disney gets cover to end the show.

Kimmel knows it’s over. He gets to go down looking like he’s fighting instead of unentertaining.

Trump gets to claim he took down Kimmel, red meat for his base.

News and Social Media gets something to boost their numbers.

The author seems to underestimate this Supreme Court’s willingness to make nakedly partisan rulings.

Edit: oh here we go. Partisan first amendment issues were perfectly fine to discuss here when it was about Twitter. But, different ox being gored now, so we’re going to flag this into oblivion. Absolute frauds.

Assuming Kimmel wins a lawsuit, if that lawsuit is against government officials, couldn't Trump immediately pardon those officials, overriding the courts?

Except that Roberts et al are basically on Trump's side. "The umpire who picked a side: John Roberts and the death of rule of law in America":

* https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/aug/...

"The Rule of Law Is Dead in the US":

* https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/the-rule-of-law-i...

>The constitution doesn’t guarantee Kimmel a talk show, but it does guarantee that the government won’t quash his speech because of what he chooses to say. Kimmel now has a straightforward suit for damages and forward-looking relief that he can and should file — not just against ABC, but also against the government officials who were the driving force for his embarrassing public disciplining.

The threat made by the government to censor him is a tool that has been there since 1992. A tool made by George H Bush and used often by every administration since. Oddly enough, nobody ever challenges it and I see 0% chance Kimmel has any chance of winning. Absolutely no way Kimmel has any odds of winning in court.

I consider as well, lets say he does win and this rule is thusly struck down. It's going to be a nightmare situation for everyone in the usa after.

If we can award $5M to the family of a January 6th insurrectionist, then we sure as hell can award money to Kimmel for unconstitutional threats made by Brendan Carr. Right?

I’m confused. It would be the broadcaster that was harmed right? Jimmy Kimmel wouldn’t have standing?

The Supreme Court can’t order a private company to give Jimmy Kimmel back his job?

I've seen this happen before. President ordering people to be sued, and even jailed. There's a name for this kind of system and it isn't congressional democracy.

See perhaps:

> Anna Gomez, the FCC’s lone Democratic commissioner, tells TNR that chairman Brendan Carr’s move violates both the First Amendment and the Communications Act. Democrats must extract consequences.

* https://newrepublic.com/article/200649/trump-ouster-kimmel-a...