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In Business, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 29, 2026 at 12:10 am
Most of what Americans believe about the ancient world comes from blockbuster movies—many of them dating back to the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Among those beliefs:
THE ISRAELITES WERE THE GOOD GUYS. That’s because Biblical movies were based (often loosely) on Old Testament stories. And the Old Testament was written by Israelites.
- The Israelites were never portrayed as being as ruthless as their enemies, despite this instruction in Jeremiah 51:22-23: “With you I will shatter men and women, old people and children, young men and maidens. With you I will shatter shepherds and flocks, farmers and oxen, captains and rulers.”
- “Sansom and Delilah” (1949) and “The Ten Commandments” (1956), pitted noble Israelites against, respectively, evil Philistines and Egyptians.
- Even when a major figure like King David (Gregory Peck in “David and Bathsheba” (1951) committed major sins like adultery and murder, the movie ended on a high note: God forgives him and sends rain to quench a parched Israel.
A big difference once existed between how audiences treated movies based on Greek mythology and those based on the Bible.
Audiences were content to enjoy films based on Greek myths without taking them seriously. But those watching movies based on Bible stories assumed they were watching history unfolding before them.
This was never truer than audiences’ reaction to director Mel Gibson’s 2004 blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ. Orthodox Christians flocked to the movie, which blamed Jesus’ crucifixion on Jewish high priests, not the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
Now audiences seem to believe that “The Odyssey” is delivering history, not mythology. When the first trailer was released in December, critics said that Odysseus’s boat looked like a “Viking ship.”
“I wonder whether we have become inclined to treat mythological material as though it were historical material,” said Susan Deacy, professor of Classics at the University of Roehampton and the author of The Greek Gods and Their Worlds. “Yet the Odyssey is continually being reimagined, with pretty well every age producing its own Homer.”
Many viewers were surprised to hear British actors, such as Tom Holland, speaking with American accents and using modern, contemporary expressions.
But Deacy said this is based on cinematic tradition, not historical accuracy. The ancient Greeks did not speak either modern American English or formal British English. So conversational language may actually be closer to the spirit of Homer’s oral storytelling than the formal style often used in historical films.
Susan Deacy
Susandeacy, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Audiences didn’t “treat mythological material as though it were historical material” in 2004, when Wolfgang Peterson’s “Troy” hit movie screens. It featured Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Sean Bean as Odysseus and Diane Kruger as Helen.
Among its deviations from Homer and Greek mythology:
- Menelaus, the husband of Helen, is killed by Hector (instead of returning to Sparta with Helen).
- Agamemnon is killed during the fall of Troy by Briseis, the woman once held captive by Achilles. (According to Greek myth, he was murdered, upon his return home, by his wife, Clytemnestra.)
- Achilles infiltrates Troy in the wooden horse—and is killed on the city’s last night. (Greek mythology has him killed at the gates of Troy before the Greeks erected the Trojan horse.)
- Most incredibly, Paris and Helen escape Troy to presumably find happiness somewhere else. (In Greek mythology, Menelaus intends to kill Helen for running off with Paris. But when he sees her, she bares her still-magnificent breasts and yells: “Kill me!” He’s so dumbstruck by her beauty he drops his sword and walks hand-in-hand with her to his ship for the voyage home.)
For those seeking a movie that adhere closely to the Iliad, the winner, hands down, is “The Fury of Achilles” (1962). It’s an Italian drama set in the tenth year of the Trojan War directed by Marino Girolami and starring Gordon Mitchell as Achilles.
It lacks the spectacle of “Troy” (owing to CGI) but is surprisingly sympathetic to its main characters—Achilles, Hector and Priam.
In one deeply moving scene, Achilles tells Briseis that every other Greek soldier hopes to return home, but he is doomed to die at Troy. He knows he has a vulnerable spot, but he doesn’t know where it is. He knows he is fated to kill Hector, Troy’s finest warrior—and that he himself will die soon afterward.
Hector is similarly treated with sympathy, knowing he must die—and that when he does, his beloved city will soon follow him. But then he kills Achilles’ dear companion, Patroclus, and feels obligated to accept Achilles’ challenge to single combat.
And finally there is Priam, king of Troy, who, as in Homer, movingly pleads to Achilles for the body of his son, Hector. Achilles answers: “Your son is luckier than I. He has a father who mourns him. Who will mourn me when I’m gone? My father is dead.”
And elderly Priam replies: “If I am still alive when you are dead, I will mourn you as another son I have lost.”
At which point a sorrowful Achilles hands over the body of Hector to his grieving father—and the movie, like the Iliad, comes to an end.
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In Business, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 28, 2026 at 12:17 am
Once again, the Right is enraged—this time, at a movie.
And not just any movie—“The Odyssey,” which looks to be the blockbuster hit of the summer.
It’s based on the epic poem, allegedly written by Homer, who lived between the eighth and ninth centuries. And while Homer likely earned nothing from his work, the film version of it opened with an estimated $124.5 million in domestic ticket sales and another $139.6 million from overseas,
Its director, Christopher Nolan, garnered the 2023 Best Picture Oscar for “Oppenheimer.” With a production budget of $250 million, it’s among the most expensive R-rated movies ever made. Universal is spending $125 million to market it.
Christopher Nolan
PhilipRomano, CC BY-SA 4.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
The movie stars Matt Damon (the “Ryan” in 1998’s “Saving Private Ryan”) as Odysseus, Tom Holland as his son, Telemachus; Anne Hathaway as his long-suffering wife, Penelope; Zendaya as the goddess, Athena; Robert Pattinson as the suitor Antinous and Charlize Theron as the sea nymph Calypso.
So far, so good—for the Right.
But then comes the “controversial” part: Nolan cast Lupita Nyong’o, a black actress, as Helen of Troy and Elliot Page (a “transitioning” actor) as a soldier.
Right-wingers are furious that that a black woman has been cast as Helen.
Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh wrote on X: “Not one person on the planet actually thinks that Lupita Nyong’o is ‘the most beautiful woman in the world.’ But Christopher Nolan knows that he would be called racist if he gave ’the most beautiful woman’ role to a white woman. Nolan is technically talented but a coward.”
Elon Musk charged: “Chris Nolan has lost his integrity.” And he vowed that that before the end of 2026, his AI tool Grok “will make a full-length movie of ‘The Odyssey’ that is historically accurate and true to the art of Homer.”
“By historically accurate, he means whiter than Christmas at Cracker Barrel,” comedian Colman Domingo joked during his stint as guest host on “Jimmy Kimmel Live!”
The Right’s fury can’t be based on the historical record—because the Odyssey is not history, but mythology. And according to ancient Greek myth, Helen was hatched from an egg laid after her mother was visited by Zeus in the form of a swan.
The Helen that Right-wingers envision is a product of Hollywood movie casting.
Troy did exist, and was located in northwestern Anatolia, in present-day Çanakkale province, Turkey. It lay just a few miles south of the Dardanelles strait, which connects the Aegean Sea to the Black Sea. This put the city in a highly strategic position controlling major ancient trade routes.
As a result, the famous Trojan War might well have been fought over conflicts in trade, rather than the alleged seduction/kidnapping of Helen, Queen of Sparta, by Paris, prince of Troy.
On the other hand, wars have been fought over perceived slights to the ego of one ruler by another. In William Shakespeare’s play, Henry V, the French Dauphin mocks Henry by sending him tennis balls, implying that Henry is a callow youth rather than a serious monarch. This leads Henry to invade France.
As for Elliot Page: Transgender surgery did not exist in the time of Homer. But homoerotic relationships certainly did—most famously among Greek soldiers.
Today, Right-wingers like Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth fear that homosexuals make poor soldiers. But their choice in sex partners did not prevent the army of Alexander the Great from conquering most of the known world of his time.
The truth is that most of what Americans think they know about the ancient world comes not from scholarly books but blockbuster movies—many of them dating back to the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Among those beliefs:
THE ANCIENT ROMANS SPOKE WITH BRITISH ACCIDENTS. That’s because British actors played Roman aristocrats in so many movies during the 1950s and 1960s.
- Laurence Oliver, Peter Ustinov and Charles Laughton played high-born Romans in “Spartacus” (1960) and Richard Burton and Rex Harrison played them in “Cleopatra” (1963).
- Romans didn’t speak English. They spoke Latin—which at that time was the language of world commerce. Today, it’s not used as a primary mother tongue in any community. A movie whose characters spoke Latin would find itself with an extremely small audience.
Laurence Oliver in “Spartacus”
SPARTANS WERE THE GOOD GUYS. “The 300 Spartans” (1962) and “300” (2006) celebrate the three-day battle of Thermopylae, where 300 Spartans and 6,700 other Greeks held the narrow pass against a huge Persian army. If the Spartans existed today, these films could serve as recruiting advertisements for their skill at war.
So far, so good.
What these films don’t say:
- The Spartans ruled a slave empire whose people farmed the land, supplied food and served as military laborers. Their forced labor gave Spartans the freedom to focus completely on military training.
- Once a year, Spartans were allowed to murder any helot they desired, just to remind their slaves who was boss.
- Spartan men were required to live apart from their wives in all-male barracks—and sneak out to have conjugal visits with their wives.
- Homosexuality played a major role in the lives of Spartans.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on June 1, 2026 at 12:10 am
“Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson said in a brief statement to media outlets on the evening of September 17, 2025.
This followed criticism by Republicans of on-air comments Kimmel had made after the September 10 shooting of Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk.
Early that day, Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), called Kimmel’s remarks “truly sick” in an interview with Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. And he said the Disney-owned network should hold Kimmel accountable or face punishment.
Speaking like a Mafioso in Goodfellas, Carr added: “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Brendan Carr
During his monologue on September 15, Kimmel actually called the murder “senseless.” What enraged Right-wing Americans was Kimmel’s noting that “the MAGA gang is 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 it.”
This was actually true—and all the more embarrassing to Republicans because of it. The Trump administration and its MAGA cult have tried to portray Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk, as a radical liberal.
He is not.
Debbie Robinson, his grandmother, said most of the family are Republicans—and that Tyler’s father, Matt, is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.
Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel then showed a clip of a reporter asking Trump how he was holding up in the wake of Kirk’s death.
“I think very good. And by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it’s gonna be a beauty.”
“Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel said. “Demolition, construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Donald Trump
After Kirk’s death, Trump and his Republican allies threatened retribution (“consequences”) for people who spoke unflatteringly about him.
On September 15—five days after Kirk’s death—Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”
J.D. Vance
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, wrote: “It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:
“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.”
Thus the penalties for celebrating the death of a Fascist.
On September 15, then-Attorney General Pam Bondi told Katie Miller, the former DOGE aide, on her podcast: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie—in our society. We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
Pam Bondi
At Kirk’s funeral on September 22, Trump gave his own example of hate speech: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.”
Meanwhile, Kirk’s critics have accused him—both in life and death—of being the real exploiter of hate speech.
- At a 2024 Trump election rally in Georgia, Kirk said Democrats “stand for everything God hates.”
- He promoted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him by a vast Democratic conspiracy.
- On January 5, 2021, the day before Trump’s followers attacked the United States Capitol, Kirk wrote on Twitter that his Turning Point Action group and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots to D.C. to fight for this President.”
- Afterward, Kirk said that the attack on the Capitol wasn’t an insurrection and did not represent mainstream Trump supporters.
- On civil rights, Kirk said: “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
- On race: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
- Speaking of the July 4, 2025 Texas flood along the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country: “You are not being told by the media anywhere, is that the death toll likely would not have been so high if it wasn’t for DEI.”
- He attacked New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as “a self-righteous, narcissistic parasite on New York City and should be expelled from politics.”
The difference between Kirk and his opponents: Kirk didn’t face “retribution” from a powerful, Right-wing government for his hate speech.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 27, 2026 at 12:10 am
On July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Stephen Colbert, host of CBS’ Late Night With Stephen Colbert, said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.
“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.”
Meanwhile, Paramount Global, the parent company of CBS Network, wanted to merge with Skydance Media.
For this, it needed the regulatory permission of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) of the Trump administration.
On July 17, CBS cancelled the highest-rated late-night show on television with 2.4 million nightly viewers. It had also been nominated for 33 Emmys.
Addressing his in-house and television audience on July 17, Colbert announced: “I want to let you know something that I found out just last night. Next year will be our last season. The network will be ending The Late Show in May.
“It’s not just the end of our show, but it’s the end of The Late Show on CBS. I’m not being replaced. This is all just going away.”
In a statement, Paramount/CBS called the cancellation a purely financial decision: “It is not related in any way to the show’s performance, content or other matters happening at Paramount.”
Colbert did not directly accuse his bosses of bowing to pressure from the FCC. But he did offer this insightful comment: “Less than two years before they called to say it’s over, they were very eager for me to be signed for a long time. So, something changed.”
What “changed” was that after CBS cancelled one of Trump’s biggest critics, the merger between Paramount Global and Skydance Media was quickly approved by the FCC.
David Letterman had hosted The Late Show with David Letterman from August 30, 1993, until his retirement on May 20, 2015. In a May 5, 2025 interview with the New York Times, he didn’t mince words about what he felt was behind the cancellation:
Colbert “was dumped because the people selling the network to Skydance said, ‘Oh no, there’s not going to be any trouble with that guy. We’re going to take care of the show. We’re just going to throw that into the deal. When will the ink on the check dry?'”
CBS is one of the most profitable broadcast networks in the United States, through massive advertising revenue, affiliate fees, and sports broadcast rights.
Yet the owners of its parent company, Paramount Global—whose revenue stood at $29.2 billion in 2024—felt they could enrich themselves even more by acquiring Skydance Media.
And if siding with a dictatorial administration to strike a blow at freedom of speech was necessary to make the deal go forward, so be it.
The Ed Sullivan Theater, where Stephen Colbert reigned for 11 years
Ajay Suresh from New York, NY, USA, CC BY 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Disney didn’t reinstate Jimmy Kimmel Live! out of a steadfast commitment to the First Amendment. It did so only after a massive public backlash led to a widespread boycott of subscriptions to Disney+ and Hulu—and a steep drop in Disney’s stock value.
Stephen Colbert had no such reprieve. But he never—at least not in public—lost his poise. He often joked about the upcoming end of his show, endured jokes from his guests about it—and never stopped speaking truth to power at the expense of the Trump administration.
“The only choice you have is how to walk through it,” said his friend and mentor, Jon Stewart, as he and Colbert gazed into a fictitious green wormhole. “You can go in kicking and screaming. Or you can do what you’ve done for the past 30 years when faced with something dark: You stare it down and you can laugh.”
On his last night as host of The Late Show Colbert did exactly that, turning what could have been a mournful event into a celebration of joy and defiance.
Stephen Colbert Signs off “Late Show” with Emotional Goodbye https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znec-DIff8o
There had been speculation that Colbert, a devout Catholic, might book Pope Leo XIV for his final show. So Colbert turned it into a gag. He pretended that he was about to bring out the pope for an interview—only to be told the Pontiff was refusing to come out of his dressing room.
“We got him the wrong snacks,” an unidentified voice informed him.
“Who’s going to be my last guest now?” asked Colbert—to be answered by Paul McCartney: “Hey, Stephen, what about me?”
Massive applause resounded as the former Beatle walked onstage.
Stephen Colbert and Paul McCartney
McCartney not only served as Colbert’s last interview guest but as his musical one as well. And McCartney led the band—and the audience—in a rousing number of “Hello, Goodbye,” the Beatles’ 1967 hit:
You say goodbye and I say hello
Hello hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello
Hello hello
I don’t know why you say goodbye, I say hello
Members of the audience—probably including relatives of the show’s cast—swarmed onto the stage to join McCartney, Colbert and the band in what was an act of celebration and defiance: “When faced with something dark, you stare it down and you can laugh.”
Thus Stephen Colbert went gentle—and triumphant—into that good night.
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In Bureaucracy, Business, Entertainment, History, Politics, Social commentary on May 26, 2026 at 12:05 am
…A truly great man is ever the same under all circumstances. And if his fortune varies, exalting him at one moment and oppressing him at another, he himself never varies, but always preserves a firm courage, which is so closely interwoven with his character that everyone can readily see that the fickleness of fortune has no power over him. —Niccolo Machiavelli, The Discourses
Watching the last episode of The Late Show With Stephen Colbert was like watching a slow-motion execution—where the victim turns his demise into a rousing revival meeting.
That episode, shown on Thursday, May 21, capped a hugely successful run of 10 years and eight months (September 8, 2015 to May 21, 2026). Broadcast on CBS against ABC’s Jimmy Kimmel Live! and NBC’s The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon, Late Night ranked as the highest-rated American late-night talk show.
And it held that ranking for nine consecutive seasons, marking the longest such streak in franchise history.
Stephen Colbert
But for all the adoring fans Colbert attracted during those years, he acquired one enemy who never forgot or forgave the slightest insult. And from 2015 onward, Colbert showered him with humorous, deadly accurate insults calculated to get under his paper-thin skin and stay there.
That enemy was Donald J. Trump.
Colbert started throwing thousands of barbs at Trump immediately after the real estate mogul launched his first campaign for President on June 16, 2015. These focused on Trump’s appearance, intelligence, family, policy shifts, criminality, legal troubles and commercial ventures.
Among the barbs:
- “It’s true, this [Iran] war reached all of its objectives. It’s been weeks since anyone mentioned the Epstein files.”
- After Trump threatened to destroy Iran but then agreed to a brief pause, Colbert paraphrased John Lennon’s famous peace anthem, singing: “All we are saying, is peace for two weeks.”
- “For my MAGA viewers. The Trump golden cell phone has FINALLY arrived after a nine month delay. And it SUCKS. The only Trump item more disappointing after a nine-month wait was Eric!”
- Colbert often joked about Trump’s short attention span, comparing his mind to “nature’s most cunning opponent, the goldfish.”
- Following Trump’s 34 felony convictions on May 30, 2024, for falsifying business records, Colbert joked that Trump had “more felonies than Baskin-Robbins has flavors.”
Donald Trump
Colbert had a biting wit that never flinched at speaking truth to—and about—power. But Trump had a weapon that Colbert couldn’t match: Command of the Federal Communications Commission (FCC).
And in its chair, Brendan Carr, he had a crony willing to destroy any network that dared to offend his thin-skinned boss, Donald Trump.
Knowing Trump’s animosity toward nonwhites, Carr has brutally attacked any network-related company promoting Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI). He ordered investigations into Comcast and the Walt Disney Company and threatened to revoke ABC’s broadcast license over the practices.
On September 10, 2025, Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk was shot at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
In September 2025, Carr pressured Disney, which owns ABC, to suspend comedian Jimmy Kimmel over comments he had made about the assassination. On September 17, Disney caved and suspended Kimmel.
Brendan Carr
Kimmel had actually called the murder “senseless.” What enraged Right-wing Americans was Kimmel’s noting that “the MAGA gang is 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 it.”
This was actually true—and all the more embarrassing to Republicans because of it. The Trump administration and its MAGA cult have tried to portray Tyler Robinson, the man accused of shooting Kirk, as a radical liberal.
He is not.
Debbie Robinson, his grandmother, said most of the family are Republicans—and that Tyler’s father, Matt, is a staunch supporter of Donald Trump.
Disney/ABC reinstated The Jimmy Kimmel Show on September 23 after a massive public backlash, a steep drop in Disney’s stock value, and a widespread Hollywood boycott.
Unable to remove Kimmel, Carr moved on against Colbert in a more subtle manner.
He knew that Paramount Global wanted to merge with Skydance Media. And Paramount is the parent company of CBS Network, which hosted The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.
Jimmy Kimmel
Paramount had recently paid Trump $16 million to settle a lawsuit he had brought against the CBS news show, 60 Minutes. He claimed that it had misleadingly edited a pre-election interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris to boost her election chances in 2024. CBS’ attorneys and a number of legal experts had said that the lawsuit was “completely without merit.”
On July 14, 2025, after returning from a multi-week break, Colbert said: “While I was on vacation, my parent corporation, Paramount, paid Donald Trump a $16 million settlement over his ‘60 Minutes’ lawsuit.
“As someone who has always been a proud employee of this network, I am offended. And I don’t know if anything will ever repair my trust in this company, but just taking a stab at it, I’d say $16 million would help.
“I believe this kind of complicated financial settlement with a sitting government official has a technical name in legal circles—it’s big fat bribe.”
Colbert didn’t know it, but the axe was about to fall.
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In Bureaucracy, History, Law, Law Enforcement, Medical, Military, Politics, Social commentary on September 23, 2025 at 12:11 am
“Jimmy Kimmel Live! will be pre-empted indefinitely,” an ABC spokesperson said in a brief statement to media outlets on the evening of September 17.
This followed criticism by Republicans of on-air comments Kimmel had made after the September 10 shooting of Right-wing propagandist Charlie Kirk.
Early that day, Brendan Carr, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, called Kimmel’s remarks “truly sick” in an interview with Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson. And he said the Disney-owned network should hold Kimmel accountable or face punishment.
Speaking like a Mafioso in Goodfellas, Carr added: “This is a very, very serious issue right now for Disney. We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to take action on Kimmel or there is going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
Brendan Carr
During his monologue on September 15, Kimmel said that President Donald Trump’s supporters were trying to “score political points” by portraying Kirk’s accused killer, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, as a left-wing radical.
He did not attack Kirk or praise his assassination.
This is what Kimmel said:
“We hit 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 it. In between the finger-pointing, there was grieving. On Friday, the White House flew the flags at half-staff, which got some criticism, but on a human level, you can see how hard the president is taking this.”
Jimmy Kimmel
Kimmel then showed a clip of a reporter asking Trump how he was holding up in the wake of Kirk’s death.
“I think very good. And by the way, right there where you see all the trucks, they just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they’ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it’s gonna be a beauty.”
“Yes, he’s at the fourth stage of grief: construction,” Kimmel said. “Demolition, construction. This is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he called a friend. This is how a 4-year-old mourns a goldfish.”
Donald Trump
In fact, everything that Kimmel said about “the MAGA gang….doing everything they can to score political points” was absolutely true.
Since Kirk’s death, Trump and his Republican allies have threatened retribution (“consequences”) for people who speak unflatteringly about him.
On September 15—five days after Kirk’s death—Vice President J.D. Vance hosted Kirk’s podcast: “So, when you see someone celebrating Charlie’s murder, call them out and, hell, call their employer. We don’t believe in political violence, but we do believe in civility.”
J.D. Vance
Sean Parnell, the Pentagon’s top spokesman, wrote: “It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American.”
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller vowed to use law enforcement to go after Americans who mocked Kirk’s death, calling that domestic terrorism:
“We will not live in fear, but you will live in exile, because the power of law enforcement under President Trump’s leadership will be used to find you, will be used to take away your money, take away your power, and if you have broken the law to take away your freedom.”
On September 15, Attorney General Pam Bondi told Katie Miller, the former DOGE aide, on her podcast: “There’s free speech and then there’s hate speech. And there is no place—especially now, especially after what happened to Charlie—in our society. We will absolutely target you, go after you, if you are targeting anyone with hate speech.”
Pam Bondi
At Kirk’s funeral on September 22, Trump gave his own example of hate speech: “That’s where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don’t want the best for them. I’m sorry.”
Meanwhile, Kirk’s critics have accused him—both in life and death—of being the real exploiter of hate speech.
- At a 2024 Trump election rally in Georgia: Democrats “stand for everything God hates.”
- He promoted Trump’s false claim that the 2020 presidential election was “rigged” against him by a vast Democratic conspiracy.
- On January 5, 2021, the day before Trump’s followers attacked the United States Capitol, Kirk wrote on Twitter that his Turning Point Action group and Students for Trump were sending more than 80 “buses of patriots to D.C. to fight for this President.”
- Afterward, Kirk said that the attack on the Capitol wasn’t an insurrection and did not represent mainstream Trump supporters.
- On civil rights, Kirk said: “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”
- On race: “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’”
- Speaking of the July 4 Texas flood along the Guadalupe River in the Hill Country: “You are not being told by the media anywhere, is that the death toll likely would not have been so high if it wasn’t for DEI.”
- He attacked New York City mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani as “a self-righteous, narcissistic parasite on New York City and should be expelled from politics.”
The difference between Kirk and his opponents: Kirk didn’t face “retribution” from a powerful, Right-wing government for his speech.
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In History, Law, Politics, Social commentary on March 8, 2018 at 12:06 am
On January 12, the Wall Street Journal announced in a front-page headline:
TRUMP LAWYER ARRANGED $130,000 PAYMENT
FOR ADULT FILM-STAR’S SILENCE
According to the story that followed, real estate mogul Donald Trump had his personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, pay porn actress Stormy Daniels $130,000 in October 2016.
The payment was to ensure her silence about a tryst she had had with Trump in July, 2006.
The hush-money payment came while Trump was the Republican nominee for President—and the election was less than a month away.
At the time of the payoff, Daniels—whose real name is Stephanie Clifford—was reportedly in talks to be a guest on Good Morning America and be interviewed by Slate. She was also talking with The Daily Beast about an interview.
Then she backed out on November 3—five days before voters went to the polls.
Stormy Daniels in 2007 (Wikipedia)
Cohen initially said that Trump Trump “vehemently denies” they met.
But on February 13, Cohen said he paid $130,000 of his own money to Daniels: “In a private transaction in 2016, I used my own personal funds to facilitate a payment of $130,000 to Ms. Stephanie Clifford.
“Neither the Trump Organization nor the Trump campaign was a party to the transaction with Ms. Clifford, and neither reimbursed me for the payment, either directly or indirectly.”
Cohen didn’t explain why, if there had been no affair between Trump and Daniels, he paid $130,000 of his own money to a woman making false claims.
On January 17, 2018, In Touch Weekly published excerpts of a 2011 interview it had obtained with Daniels, where she had bragged of having a 2006 extramarital affair with Trump.
According to her, she met him at a charity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe. Trump asked for her number and she gave it to him. Then he asked if she would like to have dinner with him and she said yes. She went up to his hotel room where they ate dinner and talked. And then had sex.
Donald Trump
Trump had married his third wife, Melania, on January 22, 2005. At the time of his tryst with Daniels, Melania Trump was caring for their four-month-old son, Barron.
This was not Trump’s only encounter with Daniels.
Throughout 2007, Trump tried to persuade Daniels to land a her own TV show.
He gave her the phone numbers of his bodyguard, Keith Schiller, and his secretary, Rhona.
Whenever Daniels wanted to reach him, Trump immediately took her call or called back in 10 minutes. His number was always blocked.
Trump called her about every 10 days. He would start the conversation by asking, “How’s it going, honeybunch?”
For whatever reason, Daniels never landed a TV show of her own.
While in bed with Trump, Daniels told In Touch, she thought: “Please don’t try to pay me.” She thought of herself as a porn-star, not as a prostitute. But then she thought: “I bet if he did, it would be a lot.”
Apparently, Daniels has since decided that $130,000 wasn’t enough. In the months since the Wall Street Journal revealed the affair, she has made a grab for publicity, if not notoriety—and the monies that come with it.
After all, she will be 39 on March 17—long past her prime as a porn star in an industry that chews up women like raw meat.
As The Atlantic phrased it in a January 31 article, “The Upside Down Logic of Stormy Daniels”: “The adult-film actor and director is engaged in a promotional tour where she can’t discuss events she says never took place.”
On January 20, she began touring national strip clubs as part of her “Make America Horny Again” publicity campaign.
Ten days later—the same day as Trump’s first State of the Union address before Congress—she appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live!
But Kimmel—-and his viewers—were seriously disappointed. Instead of spewing a lot of salacious details, she gave a series of giggled non-answers to questions about her encounter with Trump.
Only hours before the interview, Daniels had issued a statement, once again denying that she had ever had a sexual affair with Trump.
“Did you sign this letter that was released today?” asked Kimmel.
“I don’t know, did I?” Daniels coyly replied. “That doesn’t look like my signature …I do not know where it came from.”
Clearly, she was trying to have it both ways: To cash in on her newfound notoriety and avoid being sued for violating the hush-money’s non-disclosure clause.
Apparently she tired of being unable reap the publicity—and money—of sharing all the sordid details of the affair.
So, on March 6, she had her lawyer file a lawsuit on her behalf.
The filing, in Los Angeles Superior Court, states that Trump never signed the nondisclosure agreement presented to her in 2016, rendering it null and void.
Daniels claims she isn’t suing for money—but to ensure that she can tell her story without fear of being sued for violating the confidentiality agreement.
But if she can do so, the financial rewards will be considerable—such as a book deal and paid appearances at various clubs.
Whatever the outcome, for Trump, the episode marks yet another stain on his thoroughly scandal-stained reputation.
Bureaucracybuster's Blog 
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THE RIGHT’S NEW TARGET: “THE ODYSSEY”–PART TWO (END)
In Business, Entertainment, History, Military, Politics, Social commentary on July 29, 2026 at 12:10 amMost of what Americans believe about the ancient world comes from blockbuster movies—many of them dating back to the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
Among those beliefs:
THE ISRAELITES WERE THE GOOD GUYS. That’s because Biblical movies were based (often loosely) on Old Testament stories. And the Old Testament was written by Israelites.
A big difference once existed between how audiences treated movies based on Greek mythology and those based on the Bible.
Audiences were content to enjoy films based on Greek myths without taking them seriously. But those watching movies based on Bible stories assumed they were watching history unfolding before them.
This was never truer than audiences’ reaction to director Mel Gibson’s 2004 blockbuster, The Passion of the Christ. Orthodox Christians flocked to the movie, which blamed Jesus’ crucifixion on Jewish high priests, not the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate.
Now audiences seem to believe that “The Odyssey” is delivering history, not mythology. When the first trailer was released in December, critics said that Odysseus’s boat looked like a “Viking ship.”
“I wonder whether we have become inclined to treat mythological material as though it were historical material,” said Susan Deacy, professor of Classics at the University of Roehampton and the author of The Greek Gods and Their Worlds. “Yet the Odyssey is continually being reimagined, with pretty well every age producing its own Homer.”
Many viewers were surprised to hear British actors, such as Tom Holland, speaking with American accents and using modern, contemporary expressions.
But Deacy said this is based on cinematic tradition, not historical accuracy. The ancient Greeks did not speak either modern American English or formal British English. So conversational language may actually be closer to the spirit of Homer’s oral storytelling than the formal style often used in historical films.
Susan Deacy
Susandeacy, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons
Audiences didn’t “treat mythological material as though it were historical material” in 2004, when Wolfgang Peterson’s “Troy” hit movie screens. It featured Brad Pitt as Achilles, Eric Bana as Hector, Orlando Bloom as Paris, Sean Bean as Odysseus and Diane Kruger as Helen.
Among its deviations from Homer and Greek mythology:
For those seeking a movie that adhere closely to the Iliad, the winner, hands down, is “The Fury of Achilles” (1962). It’s an Italian drama set in the tenth year of the Trojan War directed by Marino Girolami and starring Gordon Mitchell as Achilles.
It lacks the spectacle of “Troy” (owing to CGI) but is surprisingly sympathetic to its main characters—Achilles, Hector and Priam.
In one deeply moving scene, Achilles tells Briseis that every other Greek soldier hopes to return home, but he is doomed to die at Troy. He knows he has a vulnerable spot, but he doesn’t know where it is. He knows he is fated to kill Hector, Troy’s finest warrior—and that he himself will die soon afterward.
Hector is similarly treated with sympathy, knowing he must die—and that when he does, his beloved city will soon follow him. But then he kills Achilles’ dear companion, Patroclus, and feels obligated to accept Achilles’ challenge to single combat.
And finally there is Priam, king of Troy, who, as in Homer, movingly pleads to Achilles for the body of his son, Hector. Achilles answers: “Your son is luckier than I. He has a father who mourns him. Who will mourn me when I’m gone? My father is dead.”
And elderly Priam replies: “If I am still alive when you are dead, I will mourn you as another son I have lost.”
At which point a sorrowful Achilles hands over the body of Hector to his grieving father—and the movie, like the Iliad, comes to an end.
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