The very first thing I did after watching the trailer for a new documentary on John Candy was send it via text to my sister. She was at work, but I knew she would reply. The expected response came in just a few minutes.
“Why would you do this to me?”
She didn’t have to explain that she was sitting at her desk crying. I had done the same minutes earlier.
There’s no doubt that producer Ryan Reynolds and director Colin Hanks created “John Candy: I Like Me” — which premieres on Amazon Prime this Friday — to have this exact effect on adults who grew up watching Candy-led comedies. I was still young enough when he died of a heart attack in 1994 not to understand the depth of the entertainment world’s loss. 
But now I’m older and well-versed in the comedies currently being churned out in Hollywood. There’s a reason why, even when faced with an endless list of options on Netflix on a Friday night, I’m a lot more likely to select “Uncle Buck” for the umpteenth time than I am to pick a movie made in the last decade. 
It’s the same reason that my kids know our agenda for Thanksgiving Eve every year: a screening of “Planes, Trains, &amp; Automobiles.” Pass the popcorn. “Those aren’t pillows!”
It’s been three decades since Candy’s unexpected death at the age of 43, and people have been moved by this trailer because we desperately miss men like him in modern Hollywood. Candy was not a perfect person. But he was a genuine person — &#8220;a real one,&#8221; as the kids would say. That’s one trait that Hollywood&#8217;s been missing for decades.
The documentary, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival (TIFF) last month, left audiences laughing and crying because it showcased a rare kind of entertainer: a man who was funny without being cruel, warm without being fake, and, most impressively, talented without having an ego. 
He made the world laugh while making everyone feel totally at ease. Who else can say they’ve done that?
My sister and I were crying because to us, Candy reminds us of our own father — big, funny, mustachioed, often a little embarrassing, but with a huge heart. For everyone else, the Canadian star felt like a father figure, no matter what their actual dads looked or sounded like. He was America’s dad. We felt like we needed to protect him, and now that he’s gone, it’s his legacy that’s earned our fierce sense of loyalty.
That’s the magic of John Candy. In a business that rewards arrogance, he stood apart with the humility of someone who remembered where he came from. 
Steve Martin once <a href="https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/steve-martin-tears-doc-recalling-142346260.html">said</a> Candy was “very sensitive and very complex and we really loved each other,” while Catherine O’Hara <a href="https://ruralradio.com/rrn/abc_news/stars-remember-john-candy-on-the-30th-anniversary-of-his-death-abcide22dd96c/#:~:text=Schitt's%20Creek%20Emmy%20winner%20Catherine,had%20that%20kind%20of%20swagger.%E2%80%9D">promised fans</a> he was “just as lovely as you’d want him to be.” That authenticity is what audiences connected with then, and it’s what will resonate all over again through the documentary.
It’s proven by how many of Candy’s former co-stars, even big-time players, were willing to participate in the project even three decades after his death. 
Martin, O’Hara, Bill Murray, Martin Short, Macaulay Culkin, Mel Brooks, and Dan Aykroyd all appear to share stories of their late co-star.
<iframe loading="lazy" title="John Candy: I Like Me - Official Trailer | Prime Video" width="500" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/PrcQRsrBcCk?feature=oembed" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" referrerpolicy="strict-origin-when-cross-origin" allowfullscreen></iframe>
“I can’t tell you what was right about John Candy, or what was wrong. But he was my friend,” Murray says in the trailer. “And … I don’t wanna cry, but when you see him, when you see his face….” he adds, trailing off as he begins tearing up.
What makes the documentary especially powerful is how much of it comes through the perspective of Candy’s children, Jennifer and Christopher. 
“He was the best dad,&#8221; Jennifer told Today. &#8220;He’d say, ‘Don’t worry what people think about you. Just be your authentic self.’”
That’s advice you’d expect from a counselor, not necessarily from one of the most famous comedians on the planet. But that was Candy through and through, exhibiting a tenderness at home that matched the sorts of people he played in movies.
In another moment, Jennifer reflected on stories of how her father looked out for young actors, including Culkin, who had a difficult relationship with his own father. 
“When we hear about Macaulay Culkin, that doesn’t surprise me because that’s who our dad was,” she explained. “He wasn’t going to just kind of ignore a kid because he was a kid actor and he was moving on to something else. It’s like he genuinely wanted to know.” 
The documentary doesn’t appear to shy away from Candy&#8217;s own struggles. He wrestled with anxiety, stress, and the pressure of constantly being “on.” The actor was complex, flawed, and human, which was part of what made him so likable. 
That duality is part of what audiences adored. He could play the bumbling uncle, the earnest underdog, or the unlikely leader of a Jamaican bobsled team. Through it all, he made you believe in human goodness. 
Candy’s characters reflected who he was: a decent person with a good heart. That’s what people connected with in the late ’80s and early ’90s, and it’s what people are craving again as Hollywood continues to lose the plot.
Reports from TIFF describe the documentary receiving standing ovations, laughter, tears, and an overwhelming sense of nostalgia, not just for Candy, but for what he represented. The actor is being celebrated as a Canadian treasure, but Candy’s impact was always bigger than just one country. He was the rare celebrity who transcended the usual divides because his brand of humor and humanity wasn’t political, it was universal. 
Everyone could laugh with John Candy. Everyone could feel like they knew him.
That’s the secret to his enduring legacy. We live in an era where comedy is floundering, unfunny, and usually exhaustingly partisan. Candy’s work is a reminder that humor can be wholesome without being boring, that kindness can be funny, that the best comedians are just out there being themselves.
“John Candy: I Like Me” isn&#8217;t just a chance to revisit his greatest hits. It&#8217;s an opportunity to introduce new generations to a man who changed comedy for the better. And it will be a reminder for the rest of us of what we’ve lost in Hollywood.
He wasn’t perfect, but he was rare. That’s why John Candy mattered then and why he matters now. Even though this documentary is going to be a real gut punch, it will hopefully also be a harbinger of things to come. 
As for my sister and me, we’re getting the tissues ready.

John Candy

John Candy Is Not My Father, But His Comedies Feel Like Home

Celebrities

Comedy

Entertainment

Hollywood

Movies

Over the past few years, free speech in my country has declined significantly. The nation that gave the world George Orwell and John Stuart Mill now faces an existential crisis over liberty. Figures such as Lucy Connolly — <a href="https://www.ibtimes.co.uk/who-lucy-connolly-what-she-said-that-put-her-behind-bars-revealed-1743361">jailed</a> last year for an offensive tweet about illegal immigration — face the heavy hand of the law, while petty crime goes unchecked. Meanwhile, Britain’s Labour Party looks set to implement religious blasphemy laws, which could criminalise criticism or ridicule of religious beliefs or symbols. The situation has become so dire that Parliament member Nigel Farage felt <a href="https://www.bing.com/ck/a?!&amp;&amp;p=ca585c1516192a5c1981875b985b08e6a44732385a7c316a16ca6a619e2c5c3cJmltdHM9MTc1NzQ2MjQwMA&amp;ptn=3&amp;ver=2&amp;hsh=4&amp;fclid=3b299e56-e98e-6003-1500-8c90e8bd6195&amp;psq=nigel+farage+goes+to+DC&amp;u=a1aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuYmJjLmNvLnVrL25ld3MvYXJ0aWNsZXMvY2U5cnpuZ2Q5azJv">compelled</a> to travel to Washington, D.C. to testify before Congress on Britain’s crisis of free expression.
Britain&#8217;s free speech crisis has led to <a href="https://fullfact.org/technology/government-learned-lessons-from-southport-riots/">riots</a> and political violence as ordinary citizens no longer feel they have a voice. The right to free speech is fundamental and not one to be tampered with. In the aftermath of the shootings of President Trump and, more recently, Charlie Kirk at a Utah university event, Americans should ask themselves: do they really want to follow Britain’s path and see what their country might look like without the First Amendment?
Just months after Britain’s Supreme Court ruled that transgender women are not legally considered female under the Equality Act, comedy writer Graham Linehan was arrested upon returning from the U.S. over allegedly transphobic posts on X. The writer of one of Britain’s most beloved sitcoms now says he is considering leaving permanently because there is “<a href="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-15071827/Graham-Linehan-never-return-Britain-arrest-anti-trans-tweets.html">no freedom of speech</a>” in Britain.
For any country to drive out its comedians because they fear speaking freely is a tragedy. For the birthplace of liberal democracy, it is nothing short of catastrophic.
Britain’s erosion of speech has been decades in the making. In 1986, the state <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/64/contents">passed</a> the Public Order Act, criminalising hate speech inciting violence. In 2003, came the Communications Act, <a href="https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2003/21/contents">banning</a> “grossly offensive” online speech. This year, Britain has <a href="https://www.cityam.com/peter-kyle-defends-uk-free-speech-record-after-us-report-attacks-online-safety-act/">passed</a> the Online Safety Act, handing sweeping powers to a government-approved regulator over “legal but harmful” content. Slowly, my country has chipped away at free speech rights. America cannot afford to follow.
The United States cannot allow itself to politicize free speech in such a divided time. As political discourse is shutting down, especially on college campuses, the government and the American people must be the ones to stand firm to defend liberty. We are all aware of what happens after sensible debate is shut down, and that is actions, replacing words. The assassination of Charlie Kirk now serves as a prime example of the elimination of discord happening in America, and we must all make it our duty to ensure free discussion is indeed kept free. A knee-jerk reaction to being offended is not to hear it; however, to call out for certain speech to be banned only opens the door for the disenfranchised to lash out in the form of political violence.
Today in Britain, the police can investigate you for social media posts that aren’t even as criminal as ‘Non-Crime Hate Incidents’ (NCHIs). Anything that has the potential to offend could come back to harm you and <a href="https://www.slaterheelis.co.uk/articles/crime-category/non-crime-hate-incidents-how-they-can-affect-your-dbs-check/">your record</a> in the future. In practice, you either pretend that ‘<a href="https://www.marketwatch.com/story/banned-coinbase-ad-portrays-a-dystopian-britain-with-only-crypto-as-an-exit-f203ffda">everything is just fine</a>’, or risk state retribution for speaking your mind.
By comparison, America remains far freer, but even the “Land of the Free” has its faults. Consider flag-burning laws: though the Supreme Court rightly struck them down, many Americans still support restrictions when speech provokes or offends. That is precisely how the anti-speech lobby wins. Rolling back First Amendment rights, whoever the target, should be against every American’s interests. The same logic plays out with protests: the Left seeks bans on anti-immigration rallies as “racist,” while the Right campaigns to shut down pro-Palestine marches as “antisemitic.” But when peaceful protest is curtailed, political violence becomes far more likely.
Government regulation of speech carries disastrous consequences. It impacts institutions, which are fearful that hosting political speakers on campus might face retribution from the state. Ordinary citizens self-censor, silencing urgent debates in the name of “offence.” Once parties, not people, get to define ‘harm,’ the boundaries inevitably expand to serve partisan interests.
To avoid Britain’s fate, America must defend First Amendment rights without compromise. The cancellations of comedians like Dave Chappelle or Joe Rogan, for example, by private platforms should serve as a warning against normalizing censorship. The state must never follow suit. Britain’s ‘legal but harmful’ rules on speech should teach Americans that when regulation begins, free speech is never safe again. And once speech regulation is normalized, there is no going back. The only true safeguard is a culture of open debate, which begins in schools and extends across society.
Few today grasp just how precious freedom of speech is to the world. Silencing criticism, comedy, or art halts progress. Authors like Salman Rushdie and Richard Dawkins have been attacked or shouted down for presenting their arguments. Across Europe, cultural and religious hardliners insist that certain critiques should be banned, and too many journalists and academics are now afraid to speak out. To side with the aggressors is to let them win.
Only by championing freedom of speech and resisting every attempt to curtail it can democracy endure. Complacency breeds decline. If America wants to avoid Britain’s mistakes, it must show strength in the face of every demand to scale back the First Amendment.
* * *
Ted Newson is a Political Commentator with Young Voices UK.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

“Unite The Kingdom” Rally And Counter Rally By Stand Up To Racism Takes Place In Central London

Britain’s Free Speech Collapse Offers A Warning For America

Freedom of Speech

Great Britain

Hate Speech

Leftists

Prison

Social Media Censorship

Jimmy Kimmel&#8217;s show was suspended indefinitely on Wednesday.
The question is whether that is a result of organic pressure from the crowd, which, if so, is great. I&#8217;m on board.
Jimmy Kimmel is a schmuck. Jimmy Kimmel is the worst. Jimmy Kimmel has been trash for over ten years.
Jimmy Kimmel was the funny guy who used to tell jokes, going all the way back to his days on KROQ 106.7 in Los Angeles. When I was in high school, I was listening to &#8220;Kevin and Bean in the Morning&#8221; because my carpool mates refused to listen to anything else. Jimmy Kimmel was “The Sports Guy,” and he was funny and obviously very talented.
And then Kimmel somehow became a late-night host. He then decided it was incumbent upon him to become, as my friend Guy Benson has said,  the “Woke Pope of Late Night.” He would lecture you every night and be incredibly d***ish all the time.
That was his shtick. He would go on TV and lecture you and be terrible.
There are numerous times that Jimmy Kimmel should have been canceled, where he said things that were so egregious, terrible, and gross that he should have been done.
By the standards of the modern woke media, they should&#8217;ve just dug up his old stuff and gone after him. There&#8217;s old tape from “The Man Show with Adam Carolla” of Jimmy Kimmel simulating groping a woman without her permission and mimicking having sex with her from behind without her knowledge.
That didn&#8217;t get him canceled.
Jimmy Kimmel dressed up in blackface, back in the day. He dressed up as NBA star Karl Malone in blackface. That didn&#8217;t get him canceled.
Forget about his old stuff. He didn&#8217;t get canceled for saying on the air that people should die in hospitals if they took Ivermectin for COVID, stating, “Doctor Fauci said that if hospitals get any more overcrowded, they&#8217;re going to have to make some very tough choices about who gets an ICU &#8230; that choice didn&#8217;t seem so tough to me. Vaccinated person having a heart attack? Yes, come right on and we’ll take care of ya. Unvaccinated guy who gobbled horse goo? Rest in peace, Wheezy.” 
I&#8217;m very happy to see Jimmy Kimmel go, for whatever reason. He was a horror show. His morality is completely backward. His obvious, dripping disdain and hatred for anyone who disagrees with him are perfectly clear and have been clear every night for years. No one could more richly deserve being taken off the air than Jimmy Kimmel.
The question is whether the federal government had anything to do with him being taken off the air. Policy cannot be a blunderbuss.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/bss-ep-2283?contentProgram=The%20Ben%20Shapiro%20Show&amp;contentType=ShowEpisode&amp;elementPosition=2&amp;location=Home%20Tab&amp;row=0&amp;rowType=Home%20Featured%20Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
Charlie Kirk was killed while advocating for free speech. He was killed while engaging in political debate. And one of the legacies that Charlie Kirk left us with is the necessity for such political debate, the necessity for free speech.
Again, that doesn&#8217;t mean speech without consequences. It means the necessity for debate. And what that requires is that the government not be involved, for example, in shutting down free debate.
So the question with regard to Kimmel is whether this is an organic outgrowth of natural outrage over Jimmy Kimmel, or whether it was forced by the federal government.
Kimmel had said in his monologue: “We had some new lows over the weekend, with the MAGA gang desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them, and doing everything they can to score political points from and in between the finger pointing.”
By the time that Kimmel broadcast this on Monday night, it was perfectly clear that it was not true. We all knew. All the evidence shows that the shooter murdered Charlie because the shooter was in a gay relationship with a trans-furry, and had decided that Charlie was hateful because Charlie said that men were not women, etc.
We knew that already. So was Kimmel lying? I believe Kimmel knew he was lying.
I also know that there are a bunch of delusional people on the Left who are trying to pretend that either the shooter had no political motivations at all, which is totally crazy, or that the shooter was MAGA, which is even crazier.
Perhaps in his own head, Kimmel was part of that delusional crew who thought that because the shooter grew up in a MAGA house, that meant he was MAGA, despite the fact that all the evidence shows he was anything but.
So the question is whether these local affiliates canceled Kimmel because they were upset with him, or they canceled Kimmel because they came under pressure from the FCC. 
Nexstar ABC put out a statement:
<blockquote>Nexstar Media Group, Inc. (NASDAQ: NXST), today announced that the company’s owned and partner television stations affiliated with the ABC Television Network will preempt Jimmy Kimmel Live! for the foreseeable future, beginning with tonight’s show. Nexstar strongly objects to recent comments made by Mr. Kimmel concerning the killing of Charlie Kirk and will replace the show with other programming in its ABC‑affiliated markets. &#8230; Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue. </blockquote>
The question is, was that natural, or was that a result of the fact that Nexstar is currently trying to push a $6.2 billion merger through FCC scrutiny and the fact that the FCC chair, Brendan Carr, seemingly threatened action against Kimmel, ABC, and Disney?
I like Brendan Carr. But the FCC should not be threatening action against ABC or its affiliates or Disney based on Jimmy Kimmel being a jackass. He&#8217;s been a jackass his entire career.
Social censure is perfectly appropriate. The blowback from the public is totally natural and good because Jimmy Kimmel is a schmuck who should have been taken off the air ten years ago.
But I do not want the FCC in the business of telling local affiliates that their licenses will be removed if they broadcast material that the FCC deems to be false.
Why? Because one day the shoe will be on the other foot. I know that we&#8217;ve gotten out of the habit of this. I know that a lot of people on the Right are saying, “The shoe will never be on the other foot, and if it is, the Left will just do it anyway.”
But preemptively breaking things because you believe that the Left is going to break the things still makes the things broken — and you can&#8217;t unbreak them. 
I&#8217;m an advocate of the idea that things that are not yet broken probably should not be.
If we are now in a world where we&#8217;re going to preemptively break the plate because we believe that the bad guy is going to break the plate, all the plates are going to get broken. And regardless of what you do, that&#8217;s going to get used against you. The shards will be used as weapons against you. I promise you, if the FCC is removing local affiliate licenses or threatening to do so, based on Jimmy Kimmel being a jackass, the next time a Democrat is elected, which will happen sooner or later, you will say the FCC should not be involved in this sort of stuff.
I&#8217;m not saying Kimmel shouldn&#8217;t be taken off the air.
I&#8217;m not saying the social sanction shouldn&#8217;t have forced him off the air.
I&#8217;m not saying any of these local affiliates shouldn&#8217;t have said they don&#8217;t want to air Kimmel’s show anymore.
I&#8217;m saying they should have done all that ten years ago. If, best case scenario, the public forces the local affiliates to react and take him off the air, totally legit.
But I do not like that the FCC muddied the waters here. I think it is bad politics, and I think it is bad policy. Because if Democrats win the presidency and you get a Democrat in charge of the FCC, you know which affiliates are going to get threatened.
Let the public be outraged, and let the public outrage organically drive for Kimmel’s ouster.
Legally, you&#8217;ve muddied the waters on First Amendment grounds in much the same way that the Biden administration was threatening Facebook with consequences if it did not remove certain material. 
If you wish to hand power back to the Democrats, what you do here is overreach or at least create the perception of overreach.
So two things can be true at once: I’m very, very happy that Jimmy Kimmel is off the air. He is a schmuck. He&#8217;s the worst. Don&#8217;t let the door hit him on the way out.
But also, the government should not be muddying the waters.
If they do, they put themselves at risk of significant overreach, and that could come back to haunt us.

UCLA Jonsson Cancer Center Foundation’s 28th Annual Taste For A Cure

Glad Kimmel’s Gone. But Don’t Overreach.

Ben Shapiro

Cancel Culture

Charlie Kirk

Jimmy Kimmel

Opinion

Woke Culture

2025 Creative Arts Emmy Awards

Jimmy Kimmel Defamed Charlie Kirk And His Supporters. Now He’s Off The Air. Good Riddance.

Democrats

George Soros

Matt Walsh

Comedy Central should continue to air the &#8220;South Park&#8221; episode that mocked the late conservative commentator Charlie Kirk, one of those closest to him is saying.
Andrew Kolvet, executive producer of &#8220;The Charlie Kirk Show&#8221; and a friend of the Turning Point USA founder, said that Kirk would not want the episode pulled from the network in the wake of his assassination at Utah Valley University
&#8220;Hey @paramountplus, as someone who can speak with some authority on this, Charlie loved that he was featured in South Park. He told me many times. He would want the episode back up,&#8221; Kolvet posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Hey <a href="https://twitter.com/paramountplus?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@paramountplus</a>, as someone who can speak with some authority on this, Charlie loved that he was featured in South Park. He told me many times. He would want the episode back up.
— Andrew Kolvet (@AndrewKsway) <a href="https://twitter.com/AndrewKsway/status/1968375140280123478?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 17, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
The episode, titled &#8220;Got a Nut,&#8221; originally aired on August 6 — and featured the character Cartman parodying Kirk&#8217;s debate style and mannerisms. The show even got a positive review from Kirk himself: &#8220;Not bad, Cartman.&#8221;
Another person commented on the way the show&#8217;s creators had animated Cartman put down the microphone and take a sip of water while listening to a question — and then pick it back up afterward — prompting Kirk to add, &#8220;Eerily spot on.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Not bad, Cartman 😂😂 <a href="https://t.co/Avs1mtYWeV">pic.twitter.com/Avs1mtYWeV</a>
— Charlie Kirk (@charliekirk11) <a href="https://twitter.com/charliekirk11/status/1953290604365885923?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Kirk also made a video response to the episode, saying that the fact that they were mocking him was proof of just how big the movement he started had become. &#8220;There&#8217;s going to be a lot said about this, but we need to have a good spirit about being made fun of,&#8221; he said. &#8220;This is all a success, this is all a win. We, as conservatives, we have thick skin, not thin skin. And you can make fun of us, it doesn&#8217;t matter. And until next time, I hope all of you all become master debaters for truth.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
<a href="https://twitter.com/ComedyCentral?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@ComedyCentral</a> Pulling the Charlie Kirk South Park episode isn&#8217;t what Charlie would have wanted.
It&#8217;s what the people celebrating his death want. <a href="https://t.co/o0OZGYpULX">pic.twitter.com/o0OZGYpULX</a>
— Jeff Gray (@jeff_gray) <a href="https://twitter.com/jeff_gray/status/1966142854671274352?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 11, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Holds Rally In Glendale, Arizona

Why TPUSA Wants Comedy Central To Keep Airing Episode That Mocked Charlie Kirk

assassination

Media

Politics

South Park

TPUSA

Turning Point USA

Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel cleared a very low bar when it came to their comments on the murder of conservative superstar Charlie Kirk.
They said all the right things about the assassination. It was the least they could have done.
Kimmel touched on “gun violence,” but kept the messaging to a minimum via his <a href="https://www.instagram.com/p/DOb8B9xjgZJ/">Instagram feed</a>.
<blockquote>Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.</blockquote>
Colbert <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/entertainment/tv/2025/09/11/charlie-kirk-death-stephen-colbert-jimmy-kimmel/86089661007/">addressed</a> the assassination on-air:
<blockquote>Our condolences go out to his family and all of his loved ones … I&#8217;m old enough to personally remember the political violence of the 1960s, and I hope it is obvious to everyone in America that political violence does not solve any of our political differences. Political violence only leads to more political violence.</blockquote>
Good. And better than <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/if-hes-not-fired-this-doesnt-matter-msnbc-trashed-over-charlie-kirk-coverage-lame-apology?author=Virginia+Kruta&amp;category=undefined&amp;elementPosition=13&amp;row=3&amp;rowHeadline=Latest+News&amp;rowType=Vertical+Carousel&amp;title=MSNBC+Trashed+Over+Lame+Apology+After+Commentator+Suggests+Charlie+Kirk+Assassination+Was+Justified">some MSNBC pundits</a> or Democrats who quickly used Kirk’s passing as <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/jb-pritzker-condemns-political-violence-after-charlie-kirks-death-says-trumps-rhetoric-often-foments-it">another cudgel</a> against President Donald Trump.
But wait.
It’s not an accident that the shooter reportedly carved hard-left, anti-fascist, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/details-revealed-about-suspected-charlie-kirk-assassins-leftist-ideology">messages</a> on his bullet casings. More importantly, why would anyone want to kill a God-fearing conservative who specialized in having cordial debates with those who don’t agree with his worldview?
Kirk stared down unhinged college students, calmly letting them speak before deftly deconstructing their arguments. He didn’t shout or belittle them. He wanted to make a connection, to share why he feels the way he feels.
Is that the MAGA image Colbert and Kimmel invoke from their bully pulpits? Hardly. And while you’re at it, what about Seth Meyers or John Oliver? These hard-Left comedians don’t simply traffic in political satire. They use their platforms to savage all things conservative.
<div id="attachment_468177" style="width: 876px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-468177" class="size-large wp-image-468177" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-866x576.jpg" alt="" width="866" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-866x576.jpg 866w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-300x200.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-768x511.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-1536x1022.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-2048x1363.jpg 2048w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-1800x1200.jpg 1800w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2022/11/GettyImages-1242055992-1200x800.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 866px) 100vw, 866px" />Photo by Scott Kowalchyk/CBS via Getty Images</div>
They manipulate facts and feast on hoaxes — Russian collusion, anyone? They pounce on news stories that quickly prove to be incorrect: The strike on <a href="https://www.tvinsider.com/1199026/stephen-colbert-trump-f-bomb-rant-monologue-video/">Iran’s nuclear weapons</a> program did zero damage, right?
While Bill Maher offers left-leaning monologues with balance and bite, Colbert and co. go scorched earth. Nightly. Their comedy routines paint President Trump and anyone on his MAGA train in the most unflattering terms possible.
“[If You] ‘have to tell people I’m not Hitler, something is wrong,” Kimmel once said in a typical attack.
Colbert routinely plays a similar card, <a href="https://www.aol.com/stephen-colbert-says-kelly-hitler-142733106.html">feasting on wobbly news articles</a> to buttress his points.
Hilarious.
Kimmel infamously cried, on air, the night after President Trump won re-election late last year. Between sobs, he described a frightening scenario under Trump 2.0.
<blockquote>It was a terrible night for women, for children, for the hundreds of thousands of hard-working immigrants who make this country go, for health care, for our climate, for science, for journalism, for justice, for free speech. It was a terrible night for poor people, for the middle class, for seniors who rely on Social Security, for our allies in Ukraine, for NATO and democracy and decency.</blockquote>
<a href="https://variety.com/2024/tv/news/jimmy-kimmel-monologue-trump-win-tears-1236203362/">It wasn’t comedy</a>. It was pure fear-mongering.
<div id="attachment_933335" style="width: 903px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-933335" class="size-large wp-image-933335" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Jimmy-Kimmel-893x576.jpg" alt="Jimmy Kimmel" width="893" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Jimmy-Kimmel-893x576.jpg 893w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Jimmy-Kimmel-300x194.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Jimmy-Kimmel-768x495.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/06/Jimmy-Kimmel.jpg 1200w" sizes=" (max-width: 893px) 100vw, 893px" />Easterseals/Getty Images for Easterseals</div>
What does this have to do with Kirk? Well, everything. Late-night liberals paint Trump and his MAGA faithful with a very broad brush, and they have for some time.
Remember how the far-Left “Saturday Night Live” created a faux Trump campaign ad all the way back in 2016 that depicted his voters <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg0pO9VG1J8">as KKK members and Nazis</a>?
It hasn’t gotten better since then.
Plus, Kirk had plenty to do with the president’s re-election. His bond with young voters was legendary. He worked in tandem with Trump’s messaging to get him back in the White House, powered partly by youthful voters who saw more than a few of Kirk’s legendary debate smackdowns.
Every article about his murder tied Kirk to Trump.
Blaming extreme rhetoric for real-world violence shouldn’t be done lightly, and it’s always more complicated than it sounds. This isn’t a new political tactic. President Bill Clinton proved that maxim when he immediately called out right-wing talk radio <a href="https://www.sfexaminer.com/news/flashback-how-clinton-exploited-oklahoma-city-for-political-gain/article_4a5b06ba-cea5-539a-8eed-ea3bd45d3d67.html">following the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing</a>.
That was politically expedient and foolhardy. Compared to modern political rhetoric, talk radio titan Rush Limbaugh was a veritable pussycat. Plus, whatever sway right-wing radio had at the time was minuscule compared to the bigger media picture today.
Would-be assassins can now feast on extreme Fake News from CNN, MSNBC or other dishonest outlets. Or, they can listen to a month’s worth of late-night monologues. The foul messaging hits us from all sides in 2025. It’s the new abnormal.
Free speech still matters, of course. We shouldn’t silence a late-night host for resorting to extreme talking points, Fake News and hate. That’s a slippery slope and legitimately scary.
They still should take a long, hard look in the mirror to grasp what they’re injecting into the body politic. Will Kirk’s shocking murder make that happen?
If past is prologue, absolutely not. The assassination attempt against Trump last year proves it.
Ironically, Kirk cheered on “South Park” when the venerable series took direct aim at him last month. The series showed Cartman becoming a “master debater” via the “Got a Nut?” episode, his hairstyle directly copying Kirk’s signature ‘do.
It wasn’t an accident. And Kirk greeted the satirical takedown with a smile.
Why? It wasn’t cruel or meant to injure. It was political comedy, and he recognized it as such.
<blockquote>There’s going to be a lot said about this, but we need to have a good spirit about being made fun of. This is all a success, this is all a win. We as conservatives, we have thick skin, not thin skin, and you can make fun of us, and it doesn’t matter.</blockquote>
He got the joke. Sometimes, there’s nothing funny about what comics like Kimmel and Colbert add to the conversation.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-13-Sep-2025-06-37-PM-4553

Colbert And Kimmel Clear A Low Bar With Late-Night Condolences

Russia Collusion Hoax

Stephen Colbert

Graham Linehan Appears In Court Charged With Harassment

A Comedian Was Jailed In The UK For Jokes. Is Britain Now North Korea?

Free Speech

Irish comedian Graham Linehan trolled a British court on Thursday when he arrived outside the Westminster courthouse wearing a sandwich board proclaiming, &#8220;There is no such thing as a transgender child.&#8221;
Standing outside the court, Linehan turned the sign around after several moments to reveal another that read, &#8220;Keep men out of women&#8217;s sports.&#8221; The underside of one of the signs was also briefly visible: &#8220;Gender ideology does not belong in schools.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Father Ted co-creator Graham Linehan arrives for trial over alleged harassment of a transgender woman <a href="https://t.co/dOTDtXoDK9">pic.twitter.com/dOTDtXoDK9</a>
— Irish Daily Mirror (@IrishMirror) <a href="https://twitter.com/IrishMirror/status/1963528987658874997?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/irish-comedian-recounts-shocking-arrest-over-anti-trans-social-media-posts">Linehan</a> was approached by armed officers upon his arrival at London&#8217;s Heathrow airport, some of whom apparently were unable to even explain to him what he&#8217;d done to warrant being &#8220;arrested at an airport like a terrorist.&#8221;
&#8220;The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three posts on X,&#8221; Linehan wrote in an op-ed for <a href="https://www.thefp.com/p/i-posted-on-x-the-british-police-arrested-me-free-speech" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Free Press</a>. “In a country where pedophiles escape prison, where knife crime is out of control, the state had mobilized five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for these three posts.&#8221;
The posts that prompted the arrest, as The Daily Wire previously reported, include one that says, &#8220;If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the balls.&#8221;
Another has a photo of a trans activist gathering and includes the caption, &#8220;A photo you can smell.&#8221;
The third one says, &#8220;I hate them all. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.&#8221;
Former NCAA swimmer Riley Gaines commented on the video of Linehan outside the court, cheering him on.
&#8220;This is how Graham Linehan shows up for trial in the UK just days after being arrested in the London airport for posting &#8216;offensive tweets.&#8217; This is how you deal with the trans mob. Double down. We&#8217;re cheering you on, @glinner.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
This is how Graham Linehan shows up for trial in the UK just days after being arrested in the London airport for posting &#8220;offensive tweets&#8221;
This is how you deal with the trans mob. Double down. We&#8217;re cheering you on, <a href="https://twitter.com/Glinner?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@Glinner</a> 👏🏼🔥<a href="https://t.co/vWVItcwUGK">pic.twitter.com/vWVItcwUGK</a>
— Riley Gaines (@Riley_Gaines_) <a href="https://twitter.com/Riley_Gaines_/status/1963571669571612847?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 4, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Nigel Farage flew across the Atlantic to discuss British censorship. Graham Linehan came the other way to head to court, and was arrested by armed police over a set of posts. Politicians who pretend Britain doesn&#8217;t have a free speech problem are only fooling themselves,&#8221; Sam Ashworth-Hayes of The Telegraph added.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
Nigel Farage flew across the Atlantic to discuss British censorship. Graham Linehan came the other way to head to court, and was arrested by armed police over a set of posts.
Politicians who pretend Britain doesn&#8217;t have a free speech problem are only fooling themselves: <a href="https://t.co/MlOX5SK50m">pic.twitter.com/MlOX5SK50m</a>
— Sam Ashworth-Hayes (@SAshworthHayes) <a href="https://twitter.com/SAshworthHayes/status/1962950250961740138?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;The more I think about the #GrahamLinehan case, the more disgusted I feel. An Irish citizen, living in the USA, is arrested by 5 ARMED cops when he arrives in the UK, because of some tweets he wrote on a website that&#8217;s owned by an American &amp; based in the USA. Total clownery!&#8221; another posted.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
The more I think about the <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/GrahamLinehan?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#GrahamLinehan</a> case, the more disgusted I feel. An Irish citizen, living in the USA, is arrested by 5 ARMED cops when he arrives in the UK, because of some tweets he wrote on a website that&#8217;s owned by an American &amp; based in the USA. Total clownery!
— Simon Fox (@SimonFoxWriter) <a href="https://twitter.com/SimonFoxWriter/status/1963134862522519914?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 3, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Graham Linehan court case

Comedian Trolls Court, Doubles Down After Arrest For ‘Anti-Trans’ Posts

Irish Comedian Trolls British Court, Doubles Down After Arrest For 'Anti-Trans' Posts

comedian

Courts

Transgender

Thank God we fought a revolution in this country so that we are not ruled by the idiotic rules of the modern United Kingdom.
Graham Linehan is a comedian and comedy writer who was just arrested in the UK — for his tweets.
Unfortunately, this is not uncommon in the UK. In mid-August, the New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/08/19/world-news/uk-free-speech-struggle-30-arrests-a-day-censorship/">titled an article</a>, “UK free speech crackdown sees up to 30 people a day arrested for petty offenses such as retweets and cartoons.” The Post wrote:
<blockquote>Bernadette Spofforth lay in jail on a blue gym mattress in a daze, finding it difficult to move, even breathe. “I just closed down. But the other half of my brain went into Jack Reacher mode,” she said, referring to the fictional action hero. “Every single detail was in this very vivid, bright, sharp focus.”
She remembers noticing that you can’t drown yourself in the toilet, because there’s no standing water in it and the flush button is too far to reach if your head were in the bowl. She’d end up being detained for 36 hours in July 2024. Three girls had just been <a href="https://nypost.com/2025/01/20/world-news/uk-teen-pleads-guilty-to-murder-of-three-girls-at-taylor-swift-themed-dance-party/">murdered in Southport</a>, England, at a Taylor Swift-themed dance party. But Spofforth was not under suspicion for the crime.
Instead, horrified, and in the fog of a developing tragedy, she’d reposted on X another user’s content blaming newly arrived migrants for the ghastly crime — clarifying in her retweet, “If this is true.” Hours later she realized she may have received bad information and deleted the post — but it had already been seen thousands of times. &#8230;
Her story is one repeated almost hourly in the UK, where data suggests <a href="https://freespeechunion.org/police-make-30-arrests-a-day-for-offensive-online-messages/">over 30 people a day are arrested</a> for speech crimes, about 12,000 a year, under laws written well before the age of social media that make crimes of sending “grossly offensive” messages or sharing content of an “indecent, obscene or menacing character.”</blockquote>
Four police vehicles arrived at her home days later.
Linehan <a href="https://grahamlinehan.substack.com/p/i-just-got-arrested-again">wrote on</a> Substack:
<blockquote>The moment I stepped off the plane at Heathrow, five armed police officers were waiting. Not one, not two—five. They escorted me to a private area and told me I was under arrest for three tweets. In a country where paedophiles escape sentencing, where knife crime is out of control, where women are assaulted and harassed every time they gather to speak, the state had mobilised five armed officers to arrest a comedy writer for this tweet (and no, I promise you, I am not making this up.)</blockquote>
The tweet read: “If a trans-identified male is in a female-only space, he is committing a violent, abusive act. Make a scene, call the cops and if all else fails, punch him in the ba**s.”
Linehan was arrested for that tweet. He was also arrested for another tweet in which there was a gigantic trans protest in London, of which he tweeted a photo, captioned, “A photo you can smell,” followed by a tweet in which he wrote, “I hate them. Misogynists and homophobes. F*** em.”
“At Heathrow police station, my belt, bag, and devices were confiscated,” he wrote. “Then I was shown into a small green-tiled cell with a bunk, a silver toilet in the corner and a message from Crimestoppers on the ceiling next to a concave mirror that was presumably there to make you reflect on your life choices. &#8230; At one point, I said ‘I bet I know who made this complaint. Lindsay Watson’ (demented ex-copper troon who was fired for his online conduct). Then, lo-and-behold, one of my lawyers sent me this reply to the ‘bollocks’ tweet.”
The reply stated, “That weird ex-copper claims he has reported this to police and is trying to get other troons to do so. Just FYI.”
Welcome to England, the birthplace of the Magna Carta, where they are tearing down the institutions that make a functional society.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-2272-the-uk-s-free-speech-crackdown?elementPosition=0&amp;row=0&amp;rowHeadline=The+Ben+Shapiro+Show&amp;rowType=Horizontal+Show+Episodes+Carousel">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h3>
It&#8217;s not just that these folks in the UK are interested in tearing away free speech and saying you’re not allowed to tweet a bad thing, that bad tweets might land you in jail: They are importing people from parts of the planet who hate and despise all of the centralizing Western principles, such as free speech.
I write in “Lions And Scavengers” about the coalition of scavengers, about the idea that you have barbarians — the people from outside who hate our civilization — who join forces with the lechers inside our civilization who believe that they are marginalized by our traditional institutions and values, and then they make common cause together. 
That&#8217;s the UK in a nutshell.
It is no coincidence that on Tuesday, the Home Secretary of the UK, Yvette Cooper, said that the UK is going to take in refugees from Gaza. She stated:
<blockquote>I confirm that the Home Office has put in place systems to issue expedited visas with biometric checks conducted prior to arrival for children and their immediate accompanying family members. We have done the same for all the Chevening scholars and are now in the process of doing so for the next group of students from Gaza who have been awarded fully funded scholarships and places at UK universities so that they can start their studies in autumn this year.
Later this year, we will set out plans to establish a permanent framework for refugee students to come and study in the UK so that we can help more talented young people fleeing war and persecution to find a better future, alongside capped and managed ways for refugees to work here in the UK.</blockquote>
Congrats to the people of Great Britain. They don&#8217;t just have to contend with the insanity inside their borders, but out of some sort of misplaced sympathy, they are going to be importing people who almost certainly do not share their values.
There are plenty of other countries on planet Earth that are more akin ideologically and culturally to the people of Gaza, but according to the wonderful folks in the UK, those countries don’t exist.
There&#8217;s been some opposition within Westminster to taking in refugees from Gaza.
Conservative shadow justice secretary Robert Jenrick expressed apprehension at the idea of resettling Palestinians in the UK. He wrote in The Telegraph, “The truth is that Gaza&#8217;s Arab neighbors are prepared to offer humanitarian support, but consider the idea of inviting Gazans into the country at any scale a risk only a fool would take.”
Which, of course, is true.
This is a misapplied sense of guilt directed at the Third World by the Labor Party in the UK, a belief that in the oppressor/oppressed matrix, the UK is an oppressor; Israel is an oppressor; the people of Gaza are the oppressed, and therefore the people of the UK must accept people who believe that Western civilization is in and of itself wrong and terrible.
As a side note, we should point out at this point here that Qatar — which is essentially Hamas with nicer suits — owns much of London.
“A cursory look at Property Week shows that the Qatari Investment Authority, Qatari Holding and Qatari Diar own 23,253,699 square feet of London, making Qatar the largest owner of London property. Reports vary about the sum invested, alleged to be £35 billion. Qatar’s square footage is more than HM The Queen’s Crown Estate,” Sunday Guardian Live <a href="https://latest.sundayguardianlive.com/world/10394-qatar-largest-owner-london-property?utm_source=chatgpt.com">reported</a>.
If you ever wonder why Europe is so warm toward importing people who truly hate their civilization, a big part of the reason is this — money.

Demonstrations Held Outside Migrant Accommodations Across The UK

The UK’s Free Speech Crackdown

airport

England

Jail

Howard Stern spent years complaining about the media’s coverage of him. And for good reason. Journalists loathed Stern’s shock jock shtick.
And then, slowly, the media began affording Stern a Strange New Respect around the same time he went woke and embraced the Democratic party.
Does that explain the stunning shift happening over at “South Park?”
The irreverent series debuted in 1997 and is still going strong, while kindred comic spirits like “The Simpsons” and “Bob’s Burgers” lack the snap of their early years. “South Park” creators Trey Parker and Matt Stone just signed a <a href="https://variety.com/2025/tv/news/south-park-paramount-plus-billion-dollar-deal-1236466524/">$1.5 billion deal with Paramount+</a> to keep the misadventures of Cartman and co. going.
Not bad for a crudely animated show featuring a talking piece of <a href="https://www.youtube.com/shorts/MSp-KFJXJVo">excrement</a>.
The show’s willingness to mock both sides of the aisle has been one of its selling points over its nearly 30-year run. The show has made fun of smug EV drivers, Catholicism, Mormons and more.
The series tweaked transgender athletes dominating biological women in sports years before Riley Gaines called foul on Lia Thomas’ “stunning and brave” swimming victories.
Fair? Balanced? Pretty darn close for most viewers, and a rare example of a comic institution unwilling to become yet another DNC platform. It was all about the funny, and Parker and Stone didn’t care whose toes they stepped on along the way.
That not only forged the show’s fame but also generated keen interest from the Right. We’ll take our lumps if our liberal friends share in the honor.
Until now, perhaps.
<div id="attachment_967213" style="width: 1034px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-967213" class="size-large wp-image-967213" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-01-37-PM-9230-1024x576.jpg" alt="Credit: Trey Parker. Matt Stone. &quot;South Park, Members Only.&quot; IMDB. " width="1024" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-01-37-PM-9230-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-01-37-PM-9230-300x169.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-01-37-PM-9230-768x432.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-01-37-PM-9230-1536x864.jpg 1536w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-01-37-PM-9230-2048x1152.jpg 2048w" sizes=" (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px" />Credit: Trey Parker. Matt Stone. &#8220;South Park, Members Only.&#8221; IMDB.</div>
The first three episodes of “South Park’s” current season have hammered President Donald Trump, Director of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Vice President JD Vance and other GOP targets. It’s been crude and, gasp, atypically one-sided. 
Recent shows have also attacked ICE agents rounding up illegal immigrants and suggested Christians are trying to swarm public education with a cameo from Jesus himself.
While most animated shows take months, or even a year, to complete, the turnaround time for new “South Park” episodes is shockingly fast. That allows them to cover recent ICE raids, for example, even as the headlines were mere days old.
It’s been relentless. And, in many ways, less funny than usual. Showing a cartoon Trump threatening to sue everyone on sight is funny because he has been litigious, even if one agrees with his legal strategies.
Satire stings when it has a kernel of truth. Other bits, though, feel desperate and clapter-adjacent.
Even more curious? The show is missing so much comic material. What about prominent Democrats siding with accused wife beaters and gang bangers, a la Kilmar Abrego Garcia? Or progressive mayors insisting their crime-infested cities aren’t crime-infested cities?
What’s going on?
The Stern theory is in play, no doubt. The media has been moderately kind to “South Park” over the years, but the adulation shown to “South Park” in recent weeks has been eye-opening.
<ul>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Why &#8216;South Park&#8217; Hurt Trump When No One Else Could: <a href="https://consequence.net/2025/08/south-park-hurt-trump-no-one-else-could/">Consequence of Sound</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">Satire at its finest: &#8216;South Park&#8217; takes on Trump’s martial takeover, AI and tech bros: <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2025/aug/21/south-park-takes-on-trumps-martial-takeover-ai-and-tech-bros">The Guardian</a></li>
<li style="font-weight: 400;" aria-level="1">‘South Park’ mocks Trump all the way to the bank: <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5453169-trump-south-park-ratings/">The Hill</a></li>
</ul>
Even the Associated Press has begun chronicling the new episodes as if they were suddenly newsworthy. That’s how reporters have treated anti-Trump “Saturday Night Live” sketches over the years and many late-night monologues.
It’s Strange New Respect, The Sequel. Here’s betting liberal Hollywood, Inc. is warming up to Parker and Stone in ways they haven’t felt for some time, too. After all, they can’t keep “South Park” going forever, and they’ll need to pivot to new projects soon.
<div id="attachment_967215" style="width: 842px" class="wp-caption aligncenter"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-967215" class="size-large wp-image-967215" src="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2226061249-832x576.jpg" alt="US animators Matt Stone (L) and Trey Parker attend the Comedy Central Adult Animation: &quot;South Park&quot;, &quot;Beavis &amp; Butt-Head&quot;, and &quot;Digman&quot; panel in Hall H of the convention center during Comic Con International in San Diego, California on July 24, 2025. (Photo by Chris DELMAS / AFP) (Photo by CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images)" width="832" height="576" srcset="https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2226061249-832x576.jpg 832w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2226061249-300x208.jpg 300w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2226061249-768x532.jpg 768w, https://dw-wp-production.imgix.net/2025/08/GettyImages-2226061249.jpg 1024w" sizes=" (max-width: 832px) 100vw, 832px" />CHRIS DELMAS/AFP via Getty Images</div>
The recent shift also runs counter to the show’s original take on Trump. “South Park” hasn’t hammered the real estate mogul as consistently as other pop culture institutions over the past decade.
“Saturday Night Live” trolls Trump on a weekly basis.
Parker and Stone are self-described Libertarians, which has helped explain their equal opportunity skewerings up until now. Have their political leanings shifted of late? Note that they left President Joe Biden alone for four years despite enough comic material to flesh out an entire season. Maybe two.
Another possibility, one in line with the duo’s brand, is the Trump attacks are making a larger point. The Left and the Media insist, without evidence, that President Trump helped get Stephen Colbert fired from “The Late Show.”
He’s silencing dissent, the Left collectively cries, citing Colbert’s cancellation. This could be the duo’s attempt to mock that fear-mongering. Just try to censor us! We’re willing to mock Trump, but not eager to cost our <a href="https://www.facebook.com/officialbenshapiro/videos/stephen-colberts-show-loses-40-million-per-year/2218688955237636/">employers’ $40 million a year</a>.
“South Park” is no stranger to censorship, so any real sign of it from Team Trump would draw its ire. The show’s willingness to show a comic likeness of Muhammad <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2010/apr/22/south-park-censored-fatwa-muhammad">caused a kerfuffle</a> earlier in the show’s run. Comedy Central ended up censoring the visuals, not Parker or Stone.
If the “South Park” pranksters do a heel turn and start smiting the Left again, expect a vastly different media reaction to future episodes. The disappointment will be palpable.
Even the best shows run out of fresh ideas. That may happen to “South Park” sooner or later. Abandoning the show’s bipartisan spirit could be the quickest path to just that fate.
* * *
Christian Toto is an award-winning journalist, movie critic and editor of <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>. He previously served as associate editor with Breitbart News’ Big Hollywood. Follow him at <a href="https://www.hollywoodintoto.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HollywoodInToto.com</a>.
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

MixCollage-30-Aug-2025-12-58-PM-2393

Strange New Respect: Why The Media Suddenly Love ‘South Park’

Strange New Respect: Why The Media Suddenly Love 'South Park'

Cartoon

Humor

Legacy Media

Trump Administration

U.S. Politics

Comedian and HBO host Bill Maher predicted a 2028 presidential victory for Republicans in general — and perhaps for Vice President JD Vance specifically — if New York City elects Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani as its next mayor.
Maher argued on his podcast that Mamdani, who garnered national attention when he bested disgraced former Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) in the June Democratic primary, was essentially a walking, talking advertisement for the Republican Party as he pushed for radical changes in New York.
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
🚨Bill Maher says Zohran Mamdani will help &#8220;ELECT JD VANCE&#8221; — or another GOP nominee — in 2028 if he becomes NYC mayor🚨
&#8220;Don’t tell me that who the mayor of New York is doesn’t matter.&#8221;
&#8220;He definitely has the power and influence to elect JD Vance — or whoever is the Republican… <a href="https://t.co/0zBTxMs5QF">pic.twitter.com/0zBTxMs5QF</a>
— Jason Cohen 🇺🇸 (@JasonJournoDC) <a href="https://twitter.com/JasonJournoDC/status/1951634166153359619?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 2, 2025</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;New York is New York!&#8221; Maher explained. &#8220;It&#8217;s the media capital, it&#8217;s the financial capital. It is a bellwether like no other city is in this country. So don’t tell me that who the mayor of New York is doesn’t matter.&#8221;
Maher&#8217;s guest, progressive YouTuber Brian Tyler Cohen, asked Maher whether he actually believed that Mamdani — who has advocated for a number of radical socialist changes with regard to taxation, housing, and other issues — could actually drive the kind of change as the Mayor of New York City.
&#8220;He definitely has the power and influence to elect JD Vance — or whoever is the Republican candidate next time,&#8221; Maher pushed back, arguing that everything Mamdani did would likely create opposition. &#8220;It is a walking commercial for the Republican Party nationally. When you let the Democrat socialists, and now they&#8217;re actually calling themselves social — let them take over a major American city, this is what you get: the state-run grocery stores, which worked so well in Cuba and the Soviet Union and Venezuela. Just bad ideas, and again, this ugly streak, ugly streak of antisemitism.&#8221;
&#8220;Who&#8217;s the most popular politician on the Left?&#8221; Cohen challenged Maher.
&#8220;AOC?&#8221; Maher guessed.
&#8220;One of, but who&#8217;s — Bernie, you know Bernie is — he&#8217;s not a capitalist, you know,&#8221; Cohen said.
&#8220;No, he&#8217;s not, and he&#8217;s also not president,&#8221; Maher shot back.
&#8220;He&#8217;s no — but —&#8221; Cohen tried again.
&#8220;And never would be,&#8221; Maher insisted.
&#8220;Neither is Mamdani,&#8221; Cohen said.
&#8220;No, but trust me, he will be featured in the campaign commercials,&#8221; Maher predicted, arguing that Mamdani would be a net negative on whoever did run for president.
&#8220;They boogeyman everybody,&#8221; Cohen complained, arguing that the real problem was not Mamdani but the Republicans who would use his socialist policies to damage any Democrat running.
&#8220;You don’t have to boogeyman [Mamdani]!&#8221; was Maher&#8217;s reply. &#8220;He does it to himself!&#8221;

2022 Vanity Fair Oscar Party Hosted By Radhika Jones – Arrivals

Bill Maher Predicts What Will Happen In 2028 If New York Elects Mamdani Now

Bill Maher

JD Vance

Zohran Mamdani

The following article was originally posted on “<a href="https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New Jerusalem</a>” on Substack.
* * *
In October, 2015, Vanity Fair magazine ran a feature story about television’s late night comedy talk shows. It was headlined “Host-to-Host Sensation.” The accompanying fold-out photo of ten top talk show comics caused a sensation of its own. Much imaginary ink was as if spilled over the shocking fact that all the hosts were men. But, of course, there was nothing shocking about that. Women aren’t funny. Even the funny ones aren’t that funny. As many another foolishly honest man has pointed out, women don’t need to be funny, not at a professional level at least. Overlooked, unathletic, angry high school boys need to be funny. If they’re not funny, their genetic strain will likely die with them. That’s the kind of urgent motivation that’s required to create a grown man with the insane courage to make jokes onstage and risk being met with dead silence.
But there was something that really was shocking about the Vanity Fair picture, something very few people who were not me bothered to mention. Every single comedy talk show host depicted — all ten of them — had exactly the same political opinions. They were all Left-wingers, and they would all come to detest and despise Donald Trump.
Now, you might say that was to be expected. The Venn Diagram of overlooked, unathletic, angry little men and Left-wing men is basically a circle with a small crescent of Nazis bulging out of one side. But what was shocking — and really kind of despicable — was this: the corporations who platformed these angry little funny leftists apparently saw no reason, financial or otherwise, to hire anyone to entertain the half of the audience who held more conservative views. Their idea seemed to be that they could make all the profits they needed by amusing one half of the audience at the expense of the other. They must have thought that was good business. They must have thought it was morally acceptable. They must have thought: “Screw you, half of America. We hurl disdain in your general direction!”
Well, strange to say, this business model did not perform all that well over time.
Listen, I’m a Christian man. I try very hard not to take pleasure in the misfortunes of my philosophical opponents. But in this case, I just can’t help it. The smug entitlement of an elite monoculture that despised the common man and woman — the men and women who, in the words of George Bailey, “do most of the working and paying and living and dying” in this country — was just begging for a comeuppance. And that uppance has come.
Stephen Colbert’s The Late Show on CBS has been cancelled and will go off the air next May. The show was making 40 million fewer dollars a year than the 130 million dollars it cost to produce. And while Colbert’s paltry ratings were the highest among his Left-wing colleagues, he and they were regularly being beaten by Greg Gutfeld, the libertarian smart aleck on Fox News. That’s cable, where the shows reach around half of the network audience, and where production costs are considerably lower.
<h3><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/show/the-andrew-klavan-show">WATCH: The Andrew Klavan Show</a></h3>
Now, Colbert was not born talentless. His Jon Stewart spin-off show, The Colbert Report, in which he satirized conservative commentators like Fox’s Bill O’Reilly, was often amusing. But once he landed the CBS late night spot in 2015, the laughter died. Maybe it was the big money. Maybe it was the Trump Derangement-fueled rage. Maybe it was being flattered by hand-picked audiences cheering wildly for unfunny rants. But something went sour inside Colbert. Lines like “The only thing Trump’s mouth is good for is being Putin’s cock holster,” might have seemed hilarious to the kind of ten-year-olds who laugh through their noses. But to adults — especially adults weary of having self-satisfied show biz millionaires insult them with a wholly undeserved tone of moral superiority — they seemed a tad juvenile.
But Colbert’s abilities are beside the point. Stephen Colbert was bad for America. Not on his own, maybe. On his own, he was just another Hollywood putz who mistakenly thought he had something important to say. But as a brick in a solid wall of Left-wing entertainment, he did more damage than any laughter could rectify.
Networks broadcast on airwaves that are a public trust. Their stations are licensed by a federal agency, the FCC. If the monologues on network late night comedy shows can be said to have any kind of higher purpose, surely it has something to do with bringing us together, helping us laugh in the evening at the politics and passions that drive us apart during the day. If you ridicule Barack Obama, then I’ll be willing to see what’s ridiculous about Donald Trump. If you make jokes about Ted Cruz, then maybe leftists will be able to find something funny about AOC. Fair both-sides comedy has the power to soften our angry certainties with self-awareness and humility.
But if instead, you declare late night a one political party zone, what comity can your comedy produce? If you think a crafty Chicago machine pol like Obama is so perfect that there is “not a flaw or hook that you can caricature,” (as one Saturday Night Live writer put it), why should I be amused when you hammer Trump for his many peccadillos night after night after night?
During the monologue in which Colbert announced his cancellation, he turned to the camera and told President Trump, “Go f&#8212; yourself.” But hadn’t he been saying exactly that for these many years to all the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Trump, who thought him, in their good will and wisdom, a better choice than the candidates Colbert supports?
What exactly did Colbert think he knew that allowed him to dismiss so many of his countrymen? Insult each night so many of his countrymen? Disparage and belittle so many of his countrymen by continually mocking their candidates while at the same time using his mouth as a cock holster for any lying, corrupt, incompetent, third rate Democrat lucky enough to come on his show?
What angel visited Stephen in the quiet of his cultural sequestration and told him it would be all right for him — and for every single one of his corporate comedy colleagues — to consider those tens of millions of Americans as nothing more than the butts of their jokes? If they had intended to convince those voters to change sides, wouldn’t it have been wiser to spread the jokes around even just a little? But that wasn’t their intention. They despised those voters. They hectored them out of the audience. They sent them a clear message: You are not worthy of being amused.
And, of course, it’s not just the comedians. It’s every morally flatulent entertainer who ever accepted his or her Oscar or Emmy or Grammy with a speech denouncing the politicians half the electorate prefers. As the writer tells the actress in the classic show biz film All About Eve: “I shall never understand the weird process by which a body with a voice suddenly fancies itself as a mind.”
For more than twenty years, I’ve been making speeches to conservatives, telling them they should pay more attention to the arts. To movies, to novels, to music and so on. I quote James Joyce to them: artists “forge the uncreated conscience” of a people. I quote Percy Shelley: “Poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world.” I tell them that complaining about movies and music and publishing will get them nowhere. The arts can only be redeemed by those who love them.
But maybe I was talking to the wrong people. Maybe I should have gone to the artists themselves. The arts aren’t leftist by nature, but they are liberal by nature. They find worth and dignity even in the Other. In the West, they always have. The Greeks mourned for the Trojan women. The Crusaders sang the nobility of their Muslim foes. Shakespeare reinvented the stock Evil Jew of the medieval Easter Play by granting him his full humanity.
Is there nothing of that spirit left in Hollywood? Or in publishing? Where conservative actors and writers have to talk in whispers? Where even to be a white male is to risk being barred from your vocation? No. They will not even award the Pulitzer to an iconic photograph depicting Trump’s courage under fire. They will not even put our glamorous First Lady on the covers of their fashion magazines. Ideology has made our cultural gatekeepers petty and small and mean.
Well, forgive me if that meanness has made me mean as well. The backlash is coming and has come, and I am glad to see it. With all my striving toward good will, the best I can muster for Stephen Colbert is to repeat to him the immortal words of a man more relevant, more daringly counter-cultural and, yes, a whole lot funnier than he is: “You’re fired.”
* * *
The following article was originally posted on “<a href="https://thenewjerusalem.substack.com/?utm_source=substack&amp;utm_medium=email" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The New Jerusalem</a>” on Substack.
Andrew Klavan is the host of “The Andrew Klavan Show” at The Daily Wire. Klavan is the bestselling author of numerous books, including the Cameron Winter Mystery series. The fifth installment, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/After-That-Cameron-Winter-Mysteries/dp/1613166869/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3EGZUC370LG46&amp;dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.Y_NI0mDOKeowShheDQTVx5NH-fAeimJoCD56_T0Acpl8C0mup7uJf-nGGSRLEItaaekoDnvS2vWLMa4Zd2UBXQ8Y-g-P502jOWz-Y8IX3ZQsdlO7WMLrg1xIhNoKmjCorSWUR4C2l_RbiZ7apJ1MfPzGOrrEf7AdAXX6xwnJRVP_XqUfWuMuVthTWscaU3P4vgmS86-96n-721enHfX12CFQWTajqFbVnrsDkexfUf4.6_gTH6h1Bb9Pn375QdF_VAVZSayDvjQBBKGXE-MTiFo&amp;dib_tag=se&amp;keywords=klavan&amp;qid=1754049918&amp;sprefix=%2Caps%2C80&amp;sr=8-1">After That, The Dark,</a> is now available for Pre-Order. Follow him on X: <a href="https://x.com/andrewklavan" target="_blank" rel="noopener">@andrewklavan</a>
The views expressed in this piece are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert Was Bad For America

Andrew Klavan

Menu