This post isn’t really about Jimmy Kimmel. It’s about you and it’s about me. But first the story, in case you missed it. Jimmy Kimmel was placed on indefinite leave yesterday (09/17/2025), likely to be fired from his show. It’s something that Trump has repeatedly called for. The comments Kimmel made were, frankly, mild (the video at the CNN link above includes the segment from his show that triggered all of this). He was criticizing MAGA for politicizing the killing of Charlie Kirk. They were and still are. Trump and MAGA are using Kirk’s death as a call to action to investigate, crack down on, and destroy any group on the so called “radical left” that they see as opposing them. Some have told stories that people like George Soros funded the murder. THERE IS NO PROOF THAT THE GUNMAN WHO KILLED CHARLIE KIRK ACTED OTHER THAN ALONE.

So why did this happen? The owner of the largest chain of US TV stations wants to merge with a smaller company. They need FCC approval to do this. And? Deciding to drop Kimmel’s show from their stations kisses the asses of both Trump and the FCC chairman. Long and short, this is about billionaire owners kowtowing to Trump to get richer and to control more of our media landscape. It’s about the rich and the powerful controlling what information that you, that we, have access to. It’s about making sure we hear Trump’s lies and only the lies that support him. It’s about trying to scare any opposing voices into acquiescence. It’s why Trump just sued The New York Times, to try to shut them up. Recall that Jeff Bezos told The Washington Post they couldn’t endorse Kamala Harris. He did this to kiss the ring of a would be emperor. He did it to preserve Amazon’s Pentagon contracts. He did it to get richer. His reward? Standing behind Trump at the inauguration and adding to his already obscene wealth.

All of this boils down to a simple thing: billionaires controlling more and more of our nation’s wealth and using it to buy access to increase their wealth and power. Trump is using them to shut down and limit what we have access to for news. George Orwell wrote about this: control the information and you have control over a society. It’s what the Nazis did in Germany. It’s what the Soviets did in the USSR and what Putin is doing now in Russia. It’s what Xi is doing in China. It’s what Franco did in Spain. It’s what Orban is doing now in Hungary.

Why else was Kimmel placed in indefinite leave? To scare you. To try to scare me. If the famous can be silenced then what chance do the rest of us have? At the end of the day we still have power. So what can we do?

• ABC, who place Kimmel on leave, owns Disney. So boycott Disney, their movies and properties. It works. Target is a currently a mess financially. Why? In part because of their dropping support for Pride Month and the LGBTQ+ community and how many of us reacted to it
• Subscribe to and read the newsletters of those who search out and communicate the truth. Start with Robert Reich and Heather Cox Richardson.
• If you subscribe to newspapers whose owners kissed Trump’s ass and cancelled planned endorsements of Kamala Harris then cancel your subscriptions. The Washington Post and The LA Times lead that list.
• Subscribe to newspapers like The New York Times who choose to resist, to fight (and cancel said subscriptions if they capitulate to MAGA pressure)
• Read and support independent journalism. Propublica and The 19th top my list.
• Support NPR and public radio. For me that means local broadcasters WBUR and WGBH.
• Stand with and financially support groups that will not back down, who will sue the Trump oligarchy to protect us, to protect immigrants, to protect anyone and everyone who is a target of MAGA hate. The ACLU and NAACP Legal Defense Fund are good places to start.
• Support organizations that believe that healthcare is a human right and that reproductive freedom as a core component of healthcare. There is no group that stands up for this better than Planned Parenthood.

Consider this: the primary motivation of those who “serve” us in Washington, our Representatives and Senators is to get reelected. Contact them. Let them hear your anger. Do this whether they are of the same party affiliation as you or not. This past weekend I was at the state convention for the Massachusetts Democratic Party. Our leadership didn’t understand how angry most of us are. They seemingly can’t comprehend that we don’t see the “strongly written letters of protest” coming from Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer as being effective. We need effective leadership, not letters of protest. By the end of the convention I could see the shock on Steve Kerrigan’s face (the current chair of the Mass. DSC). The ONLY way the leaders of our party and our elected officials will change, will work to protect us and our interests, if is we make our anger clear, that we make them more afraid of our wrath than they are of the political consultants and rich donors who control them. If we make them afraid of losing an election? THEY WILL LISTEN.

OK. I get this is hard. It’s easier for me. I’m retired. There is a movement to out people for speaking up, to contact their employer and ask that they be fired.

It’s hard if you are a parent with young children. It takes a lot of work to raise and support a family. Yet if we don’t stop Trump and the MAGA hate then what will be left for our children?

It’s hard to live a perfectly principled life. I still shop at Whole Foods. I don’t have another good local source for much of the healthy food they sell. I still am an Amazon Prime member. I buy elsewhere when I can, when I can find a competitive or better price, but it’s still hard. I just purchased a new electric snowblower from Amazon. Amazon saved me $400 versus other places that offered the same model. The delivery options that come with Amazon Prime save me travel time and energy. I’m reminded of one of the rules of a therapy support group I was once part of: Everyone is doing their best. Everyone can be better.

Lastly? Pass this message on. Forward it to friends and family who support us in our stand against dictatorship and against autocracy, people who believe that democracy is worth preserving. Ask them to read the message, take these actions, and maybe even subscribe to my site to receive updates.

This is not easy. At times we may not be safe. When in doubt I think of a man I once knew. He was Jewish. He went ashore on D-DAY. He knew what the Nazis were doing to the Jews in Europe. He likely knew it would also happen to him if he was captured. I never had the chance to ask how he stayed motivated, could do what he did, knowing what he knew. I can only guess that he would have responded that there are some things that are so important, so vital, things like freedom, that matter more than any one of us as an individual.

“The world is a dangerous place to live; not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.” – Albert Einstein

The Ugliness is the Hope.

Resist. Persist. Oppose. Propose. Be the opposition with a proposition.

Be the Pebble