Late night fights back / Chilling talk at a water cooler / Questionable quiz

Late night fights back. The day after Disney-owned ABC suspended Jimmy Kimmel under what critic Bill Carter calls “extreme threat from a federal government wielding its unchecked power to kill a business and silence a critic,” the last hosts standing pulled out all the stops in Kimmel’s defense and in service of mocking Donald Trump:
Stephen Colbert—his own show now to be canceled at the end of this season—resurrected his old Comedy Central character, “Stephen Colbert,” as his show’s new conservative “ombudsman.” (See it here.)
That followed an opening segment reworking the “Be Our Guest” song from Disney’s Beauty and the Beast with the lyrics “Shut your trap.”
In a special non-Monday night hosting slot, The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart took to a Trump-style gilded set for an “all-new, government-approved” episode. (See it here.)
Seth Meyers: “If you’ve ever seen me say anything negative about [Trump], that’s just AI”—before getting serious: “There’s a reason free speech is in the very first amendment. It stands above all others.” (See it here.)
Jimmy Fallon’s monologue jokes about Trump were overdubbed by a voice praising Trump. (See it here.)
David Letterman: “This is misery.”
The American Prospect’s Harold Meyerson (no relation): “Making jokes has never been this dangerous, except in authoritarian states.”
Author and former U.S. Labor Secretary Robert Reich is a bit upbeat: “Trump’s war on late-night comedy … could be his undoing.”

Inside ABC. One source tells Rolling Stone that, in the hours leading up to Kimmel’s suspension, multiple executives “were pissing themselves all day.”
Reuters: Disney representatives and Kimmel searched for a way to defuse anger over those remarks about Kirk before the program was pulled.
Citing FCC chair Brendan Carr’s role in Kimmel’s disappearance, House Democrats are calling for Carr’s ouster.
Poynter’s Tom Jones refutes suggestions that Kimmel’s gone because of what he said about assassinated reactionary icon Charlie Kirk: “It would be more accurate to say ABC pulled Kimmel’s show off the air following comments made by … Carr.”
Want to understand the business currents that have swept Kimmel away? Self-styled Internet Managing Editor Dave Pell says: “Follow the merger.”
A Public Citizen petition demands: “Put Jimmy Kimmel back on air.”
Lyz Lenz’s Dingus of the Week: ABC.

‘Then they came for the comedians.’ Sun-Times columnist Neil Steinberg deflates suggestions that Kimmel said anything offensive about Kirk: “Kirk, in life, could float the ugliest stereotypes, the most extreme rhetoric. But washed clean in the blood of martyrdom, it became a fireable offense to even mention that.”
Zack Beauchamp at Vox: “What just happened … shows how far down the authoritarian road the United States has traveled in just eight months.”
The New Republic’s Greg Sargent: “Trump’s ouster of Jimmy Kimmel is much worse than you think.”
Veteran Chicago journalist and former Better Government Association chief Andy Shaw: “This isn’t politics as usual. It’s not even dirty politics. It’s unacceptable scorched-earth bullying.”
Gizmodo’s Matt Novak watched every Kimmel monologue since Kirk was killed: “I was expecting there to be something shocking that would at least warrant legitimate controversy. But there was nothing.”
USA Today’s Rex Huppke: “What if Kimmel stood up during his monologue and said … ’I want to be able to get married, buy a home, have kids … while also not having them have to hear the Muslim call to prayer five times a day.’ Would that be the good kind of free speech? If I’m following this all right, I think it would. Because that’s something Charlie Kirk said.”
Handbasket columnist Marisa Kabas: “Kimmel’s suspension shows us that nothing will ever satisfy Trump’s unquenchable thirst for power.”
Legal analyst and Broadway playwright and producer Jay Kuo: “Trump has always wanted to silence the comedians who are his most effective critics.” (Cartoon: Jack Ohman.)
Lawyer and columnist Robert Hubbell: “Crybaby Trump says it is illegal to hurt his feelings.”
A Northwestern University professor is among experts who tell Time that the Kimmel and Colbert cancellations reveal Trump’s media suppression strategy.
Flashback to a 1939 New York Times report: “Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels today ended the professional careers of five ‘Aryan’ actors and cabaret announcers … on the grounds that ‘in their public appearances they displayed a lack of any positive attitude toward National Socialism and therewith caused grave annoyance in public and especially to party comrades.’”

Turning Point’s turning point. Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, is taking over his 1,500-employee Turning Point USA political media organization.
WBEZ talked to some of the dozens of Illinois faculty members that Turning Point has labeled “radical professors.”
Add to the list of those facing professional sanctions for daring to say something less than glowing about Kirk an Oak Forest High School English teacher who posted, “When Kirk made his comment about the necessity of gun deaths to protect the 2nd Amendment, did he consider Uvalde and the 13 beautiful children and 2 teachers who were killed?”

Chilling talk at a water cooler. Immigration and Customs Enforcement is in the market for office space in hundreds of locations across the country.
The Sun-Times documents grieving families’ struggle to get information about those ICE has seized.
Keep an eye out for the feds on your next trip to Home Depot.
The TRiiBE: During an arrest outside a Bolingbrook Culver’s, a federal agent told a witness recording the event: “Get my good side.”
Nobel-winning economist Paul Krugman: “Friends don’t let friends visit America.”

Oops. Gov. Pritzker on Sept. 5 posed for a smiling photo with a South Side anti-violence worker charged in a Sept. 11 smash-and-grab crime at a Michigan Avenue store.
Chicago’s most prominent philanthropic groups are condemning Trump administration threats against philanthropic groups.

‘I’m still confused.’ A member of the Centers for Disease Control Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices wasn’t alone during a vote on national vaccination policies …

There’s a metaphor here somewhere. Trump’s golf course in Scotland’s been accused of breaching sewage contamination limits 14 times since 2019.

A full calendarrr o’ events this here weekend. It begins with today’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day observance, during which Pulitzer-winning columnist Dave Barry says “literally billions of people all over the world—people of all ages; people of many different nationalities and faiths—do not talk like pirates, either because they never heard of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, or because they think it’s stupid.”
Time to check the map for fall foliage colors’ peak.
Also: Happy birthday to Axios Chicago.

Questionable quiz. In honor of next week’s National Punctuation Day, Conversation quizmaster and past Jeopardy! Tournament of Champions winner Fritz Holznagel has chosen to end each challenge on this week’s news quiz with not one, not two, but three question marks.
Get fewer than three of nine wrong and you can brag you beat your Chicago Public Square columnist.

Thanks. Rick Kaempfer, Mike Braden and Garry Jaffee made this edition better.

‘It’s intimidation’ / ‘Kimmel Cancel Response Blueprint’ / Illinois, charged up

‘It’s intimidation.’ That’s Gov. Pritzker on MSNBC last night, condemning Disney-owned ABC’s decision to suspend Jimmy Kimmel’s show “indefinitely” …
 … after Kimmel’s jokes about Trump and the Republican Party’s reactions to the murder of reactionary influencer Charlie Kirk prompted a threat to drop the show by the owner of the network’s largest cluster of affiliated stations, Nexstar …
 That followed Trump-appointed FCC chair Brendan Carr’s condemnation of Kimmel, with a threat to revoke the licenses of ABC affiliates carrying the show.
 Poynter:It’s hard not to draw a line from Carr’s comments to Kimmel’s cancellation.”
 Pulitzer winner Gene Weingarten: “Carr labeled … run-of-the-mill political commentary ‘the sickest conduct possible.’ This is incorrect. The sickest conduct possible is what Carr did to Jimmy Kimmel, one of Trump’s fiercest and funniest critics, at the behest of an amoral man hellbent on destroying free speech to consolidate his own power by seizing control of America’s entertainment industry.”
 Another TV chain that was set to dump Kimmel’s show in protest, Sinclair, is demanding an apology from Kimmel …
 The president’s gleeful: “That leaves Jimmy and Seth, two total losers, on Fake News NBC.”
 See what may have been Kimmel’s last ABC monologue here …
 … or read it here.

‘This is beyond McCarthyism.’ The American Civil Liberties Union is among those blasting ABC for Kimmel’s suspension. (Cartoon: Mark Fiore, who writes, “Welcome to our burgeoning autocracy! (I’m done calling it ‘nascent’ or ‘early-stage.’”)
 Jonathan V. Last at The Bulwark: “Anyone who makes a statement that turns out to be less than fully accurate, or who makes a joke, or who—God forbid—is just asking questions is now liable to have … the full force of the federal government brought against them.”
 MSNBC’s Chris Hayes calls it “the most straightforward attack on free speech from state actors I’ve ever seen in my life.”
 Columnist Eric Zorn says Kimmel’s suspension is “proof that the political right actually embraces ‘cancel culture.’
 Repentful ex-Tea Party Republican Joe Walsh: “The free speech wussies, the way too easily triggered/offended snowflakes, are all on the MAGA right.”
 The nation’s leading news and entertainment union, SAG-AFTRA*: “The decision to suspend airing Jimmy Kimmel Live! is the type of suppression and retaliation that endangers everyone’s freedoms.”
 Lawyer/columnists weigh in: Robert Hubbell says “Disney/ABC demonstrated … it has nothing but contempt for … free speech,” and Mitch Jackson writes: “This isn’t about Jimmy Kimmel, it’s about who owns and controls the information.”
 Chicago-born journalist Jonathan Alter: “Will we move in the direction of restricting civil liberties and censoring criticism of the president, or will we stand up for free expression?
 Pritzker again: “A free and democratic society cannot silence comedians because the president doesn’t like what they say.”

Pro-Trump billionaires control American media.’ Pod Save America cohost Dan Pfeiffer says Kimmel’s suspension is just the tip of the iceberg.
 CNN’s Brian Stelter has a bunch of questions about what comes next.

‘The Kimmel Cancel Response Blueprint.’ Columnist Christopher Armitage recommends four things you can do to protest Disney/ABC’s knee-bending.
 Common Cause has launched an online petition to ABC and other media companies: “Stop Caving To Trump.”
 As is his way, columnist Jeff Tiedrich doesn’t mince words: “ABC can pretty much fuck all the way off.”
 Columnist Elaine Soloway: “I’m saying goodbye to my Fox News advertisers.”
 For the record: Nexstar owns the formerly Tribune Co.-owned WGN-TV and WGN-AM** …
 … and Disney owns Chicago’s WLS-TV.

Everything everywhere all at once. Variety reports that Kirk’s assassination has amped up security concerns across the media—including CNN, Fox News and political podcasts.
 The Hollywood Reporter recounts the ways in which legacy media fumbled coverage of Kirk’s death.
 Trump-critical South Park took another week off, blaming deadline issues.

2026 election ‘under attack.’ Popular Information flags cases to watch in Oregon and Maine …
 … whose secretary of state yesterday told Trump’s Justice Department: “Go jump in the Gulf of Maine.”

ICE wants you. A Trump administration ad running on Chicago TV aims to persuade cops to quit their jobs and join in the feds’ mass deportation effort.
 A Tribune editorial (gift link): “ICE must leave U.S citizens alone.”
 Coming Saturday: Chicago activists plan to offer free citywide training on “practical resistance” to incursions by ICE and the National Guard. (Photo at an Oak Park elementary school playground: Tom Marker.)

It’s possible President Donald Trump should’ve picked a better podcaster to head up the FBI.’ USA Today’s Rex Huppke reviews two days of “embarrassing” congressional testimony from Kash Patel.
 The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention chief Trump ousted warned Congress yesterday: “Preventable diseases will return.”
 Illinois has now seen its first human West Nile-related death of the year.
 Axios: Trump’s health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is taking aim at an Illinois law to screen students for mental health.
 ProPublica: “Amid rise of RFK Jr., officials waver on drinking water fluoridation—even in the state where it started.”

Illinois, charged up. A successful suit against the Trump administration has freed $18 million in federal funding to build electric vehicle charging stations around the state.
 Gov. Pritzker says it keeps the state “at the forefront of building a clean energy economy.”
** Which your columnist served as news director for a couple of years.

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