The Morning Briefing: Cancel Culture Update—Richard Pryor Weeps

I hope this offends someone…

Ed Driscoll put it best on Instapundit yesterday when he said, “Cancel Culture Collects Another Scalp.” In case you missed it, a young comedian just had the career opportunity of a lifetime taken away because some emotionally-limited morons were determined to be aggrieved:

Shane Gillis will not be a part of #SNL https://t.co/OgvF0TLn3A

— The Hollywood Reporter (@THR) September 17, 2019

The details of Gillis’s supposed transgressions are all over the internet, but they are irrelevant to the point I am going to make here.

It doesn’t matter what he said.

I don’t care what the subject matter was or what kind of pathetic, poorly-parented emotional weaklings were offended by it. Heck, I don’t care if he was talking about my mom. In fact, I hope that after this, Gillis goes on tour and does jokes about everyone’s moms.

Of the myriad assaults on free speech — most of which are coming from politically correct leftist scolds — the assault on stand-up comedy is the most ominous. And I’m not just saying that because I’m a comic.

Just around this time last year, I wrote a lengthy post about the PC crowd’s full-frontal assault on stand-up, noting that the slippery slope to the death of free speech gets much more slippery if they’re successful in shutting up comedians.

Lorne Michaels’ posturing via a spokesperson (at the Instapundit link) was timid, pathetic, and disturbing.

“Saturday Night Live” was once cutting-edge sketch comedy and satire.

Now it’s firing people for upsetting some snot-nosed Twitter scolds.

I am forever grateful that social media wasn’t around during my early days as a comic. I’m pretty sure everything I did for the first five years on stage could have offended someone enough to ruin my career. I’m proud of that too.

Cancel culture needs to be canceled. The future of entertainment is well and truly bleak if left to these perpetually outraged emotional midgets.

Potus Rocks a Blue State Rally

If you want to stop the drug smugglers, human traffickers, and vicious MS-13 gang members from threatening our communities and poisoning our youth, you have only one choice — you must elect more REPUBLICANS! #KAG2020 pic.twitter.com/L4neBV2SEo

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2019

More on the rally from The New York Times.

Your FedEx Package Has a Huge Carbon Footprint

FedEx keeps 5 empty planes in the air, “just in case”: https://t.co/tXHhhb3FA0 pic.twitter.com/dBNIg33cvd

— Daniel Gross (@danielgross) September 17, 2019

Join me for a link or two.

PJM Linktank

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PJ Media Associate Editor Stephen Kruiser is the author of “Don’t Let the Hippies Shower” and “Straight Outta Feelings: Political Zen in the Age of Outrage,” both of which address serious subjects in a humorous way. Monday through Friday he edits PJ Media’s “Morning Briefing.”