Honestly, I thought it was more important that the shooter was so mentally distorted as to publicly slaughter somebody and that he had the tools and circumstances to do that successfully. If you think not being MAGA was a more significant factor than that, you can hold that opinion, but that doesn’t make it dishonest for someone to believe differently or express that. Again, what Kimmel said was not about what people believe, but what they are prioritizing in what they say and do.

The First Amendment doesn’t say that the government is allowed to restrict free speech so long as they leave you some avenue to express yourself, it says that they are not allowed to restrict free speech at all (outside of some narrow categories that aren’t considered free speech to begin with). Someone doesn’t have to be a saint or martyr for it to be a bad thing for the government to treat them improperly.

As I already said, you are stuck on the wrong part. He did not say that the shooter was MAGA. It might be the case that his phrasing would often be used by someone that also believed that shooter was MAGA in addition to MAGAs telling everyone that the shooter wasn’t MAGA, but that’s not what he said, nor is it even logicly implied by what he said. He could believe that, or even outright say, that the shooter wasn’t MAGA, and still say the exact same thing without it being inconsistent or a lie.

Using phrasing that someone would assume is part of a statement that is different than the one actually given is a classic comedic element, like when it sounds like someone is starting to give some bad news but then they switch tone in the middle and actually give some good news. Just because you started to think it was bad news doesn’t mean that they actually said any bad news before they changed tone. That doesn’t mean he was making a joke about it, just that an aspect of communication used in his career may come also come up in other places and be used to other effects.

Let me give another example: If we saw some guy running around telling everyone the sky is blue and my friend were to point out to me that “Isn’t it weird that that guy is telling everyone the sky is blue?”, then I might say something like “Yeah, that is weird.” because someone running around telling people the color of the sky is not normal. If you then come by and say “Are you two crazy? The sky is actually blue!” then you would be missing that the point is the guy’s actions, not the color of the sky.

Now, notice that in that example, it didn’t even actually matter if the sky was actually blue to point out the weird behavior. It could have happened exactly the same way if it was overcast and we couldn’t tell the color of the sky, or even if it was sunset and the sky was actually red at the time. To bring it back to the main point, everyone else is talking about the behavior of the folks trying so hard to label it with color, but you are just arguing about what color it is and claiming that my friend is lying about the color, but all he actually said was the people suddenly trying so hard to talk about the color are acting weird.

Regarding the other point, maybe it would also be a consequence and maybe it wouldn’t, but that doesn’t address whether there was a freedom of speech violation by the government. It would still be wrong for the government to violate freedom of speech no matter how much other consequences there are. If he said that kittens weren’t cute and suddenly nobody wanted to pay a cent to any company he ever worked with and so he took a vow of silence, it would still be wrong for the government to say “Any company that lets him broadcast that kittens aren’t cute will face FCC action.” It doesn’t even have to go to court to still affect someone. Additionally, it is abundantly clear that these large media companies are trying to appease the personal feelings of those currently in power to avoid being targeted by government action, when it should be only their legal opinions that matter.

Truly, am I more Sisyphus or Tantalus upon this day, or has Tartarus seen fit to bestow upon me an entirely new task!

The difference between “he said XYZ” or “he feels this way about XYZ” versus “XYZ is true” is not semantics. It is the critical point that distinguishes invalid hearsay from legal testimony. And take note of how I directly establish my point and give supporting examples, not just parrot “no what you say proves me right”.

That is the exact opposite of proving that “in the eye of the law he was wrong” if there was no case and no judgement.

Freedom of speech is about consequences from the government, while the “freedom of [from] consequence” you brought up is about consequences from the free market, public opinion, etc. That you have no idea why that is relevant means you should do more research on what you are saying so that you are not stating lies.

You are making up that he said anything about the killer being a leftist or not. He said that MAGAs are trying to call the killer “anything other than one of them”. That is a substantively different statement. Unless Jimmy said something different to you than the rest of us, continuing to repeat your claim that he lied would actually be you lying.

I consider a public statement by the FCC chair that the companies need to “take action on Kimmel” or the FCC will act to be “legal action”. It is not merely “freedom of consequence” when it is a threat of consequences from a government body; in fact, that’s the sole critical difference from a freedom of speech issue and you missed it.

If you had actually read the quote as you were instructed to do, you would see that even if the killer were 120% a card-carrying DNC toe-sucker, that would not make the statement inaccurate. The murderer’s political affiliation was declared before they even had the right guy, a clear example of the actions described in the quote. As though someone’s political beliefs can even be a hard enough fact to bring legal action down on a news program an entertainment show who no reasonable viewer could believe is accurate news after a certain vulpine decision. If you just assume a falsehood from someone you don’t like because you won’t or can’t understand their actual statement, that’s hardly a regulatory infraction.