This just in. If Kimmel comes back Tuesday, renew your subscriptions.

Everything in this letter remains true. Disney set a horrifying precedent for the private abridgement of first amendment rights by caving in instantly to government threats.

Disney/ABC performed a reverse spinectomy on itself on Sept. 22, but it was expensive. A mere $6 billion reduction in market cap allowed the cowards who run the company to hear the American people speaking the only language these “corporate leaders” understand: Do-Re-Mi. Moolah. Shekels. Simoleons. Dead Presidents.

Disney heard the rush of fleeing dollars and suddenly decided to stand up from the knee it had taken on orders of the FCC and the king and put Kimmel back on the air.

Dear Disney Lackeys,

Under capitalism, you have every right to cancel Kimmel (don’t insult my intelligence by calling it a suspension). I have every right to refuse to fund your cowardice. I know money is the only language you understand. Until and unless you grow a spine, I will be avoiding your network, your amusement parks, your cruises, and every ABC advertiser who will appear, no doubt, on the forthcoming ABC advertiser boycott list.

You may wad up the First Amendment and use it either as toilet paper, or protective packaging in your vault. I don’t wish to watch. I know the amendment applies to the government not to corporations, but if private companies ignore it when told to by the government, isn’t that the same thing?

I know you will feel free to pass this on to the men wearing masks in unmarked cars. It will be easy to do, since I foolishly provided my address to an organization led by lickspittles. You can sell it (profitable), preemptively provide it for free to the federal government (patriotic) or wait for it to be subpoenaed (You will not, of course, fight it in court; compliance is so much easier and safer. For you, not for me). Or you could just Doxy me or hit me with a swatting call, because that’s what your once great organization has come to. Silly me, I thought there were no politics in the Mouse House.

I am joining all the people I know who have already cancelled Disney Plus and Hulu. Here’s why:

Come along and sing a song,
And join the jamboree;
C-o-w, a-r-d, you’re so cowardly.
Chicken out (Chicken out),
Make No Fuss (Make no Fuss), 
Forever Let Us hide our corporate spine
Spine, Spine Spine.

FCC Chair Brendan Carr, The Sinclair Group, Stephen “Donald Trump” Miller, Turning Point America, and spineless affiliates are not your only constituents. Your viewers are stakeholders too. You were worried about losing carriage (of one program—1.2% of your daily schedule) on Nexstar’s 28 affiliates and Sinclair’s 38: a total of 66 stations—25% of your 226 affiliates. What about the other 75% who have yet to undergo an elective spinectomy?

Well, of course the percentage of your schedule represented by Kimmel will soon rise after you voluntarily follow the president’s suggestion/order to cancel all nine of your news shows for offending him. He’s already attacked your news personnel by name.

What’s the matter, didn’t they teach you arithmetic in your MBA program? These are facts. They certainly taught you how to count stock options, cash compensation and retirement benefits. They certainly did not teach you that there are other stakeholders besides shareholders, Jack Welch to the contrary not withstanding.

How do you look yourself in the face in the mirror each morning? Oh wait, you just push aside the big pile of compensation and stock options that overflows every flat surface.

Viewership levels will go down once the mass incarcerations begin. I can’t believe you’re not worried about that.

Watch the affiliates flood back when you launch the daily, primetime “Donald Trump Hour” the president will soon require. Don’t consider Shonda Rhimes as the producer; he considers her a DEI hire.

Let’s be honest and go back to the early days of TV, when shows had single sponsors, rather than commercials. “Turning Point America and Donald Trump present the ABC Television Network.” I know you’ll swell with pride.

How much is the First Amendment worth to you? Apparently less than a quarter of your affiliates or any amount of your compensation or stock options. I guess this is what they mean when they say our freedoms are priceless. I feel certain John Hancock, one of the richest men in the colonies, was not thinking about his next quarterly report when he signed the Declaration of Independence. Nor was he worried about his bottom line when he championed the Bill of Rights.

As Martin Niemöller—in his 1946 confessional prose—almost put it:

First they came for the journalists, and I did not speak out—
 Because I was not a journalist.

Then they came for the comedians, and I did not speak out—
 Because I was not a comedian.

Then they came for the First Amendment, and I did not speak out—
 Because I didn’t care about the First Amendment.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

Sincerely yours,
America

(This letter is not about the firing of a multi-millionaire comedian. Or the one fired before and the two who will be fired next week, or possibly before you read this. This is about the First Amendment. It’s illegal for the government to “abridg[e] the freedom of speech.” It is not illegal for ABC/Disney to do that. Is it illegal for the FCC and the President to order a private company to abridge free speech? That’s a question for the courts, and we know how the ass-kissers of the Supreme Court are going to decide it on the shadow docket).

FIRST AMENDMENT DOOMSDAY CLOCK This is my inaugural First Amendment Doomsday Clock. Had I been posting this clock last October, it would have been mid-afternoon. I set it at 5 minutes before midnight, partly to leave room for a minute or two movement towards midnight.   Keep up to date with this clock

Footnote (from an attorney)

Is it illegal for the FCC and the President to order a private company to abridge free speech?”

That’s not the proper question.  The answer to that is, “It’s obviously illegal.”  The correct question is, “Is the FCC threatening a broadcast license holder with revocation because of what Jimmy Kimmel said on the holder’s stations illegal under the First Amendment.”

If you’re interested in this in the “indecency” context, read up on FCC v. Pacifica Foundation. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCC_v._Pacifica_Foundation  The Kimmel issue is different because of the potential punishment of political speech (which gets the most 1st Amendment protection) instead of indecent speech, but you can read it to see how this Supreme Court might approach it now if it were litigated (it won’t be since Disney caved).