🙈"Disney Surrenders” Edition

Disney and ABC are doing their best impression of a stern parent who grounds the kid for a weekend, then sheepishly lets him back out on Tuesday as if nothing ever happened. After yanking Jimmy Kimmel Live! off the air in a flurry of hand-wringing about “ill-timed” jokes and “sensitivity,” the network now insists it has engaged in “thoughtful conversations” and decided all is forgiven.

Supporters of Kimmel—comedians, commentators, and plenty of viewers—spent the interim pointing out the obvious: suspending a late-night comedian for being, well, a late-night comedian looks a lot like corporate cowardice dressed up as principle.

But ABC and its parent company Disney aren’t in the business of principle; they’re in the business of avoiding angry phone calls from affiliates, regulators, and advertisers. So after a quick timeout, the network declared the storm has passed, Jimmy’s jokes will resume, and everyone should move along.

The entire episode reads less like a defense of standards and more like a panicked corporate reflex—freeze, cover your ears, wait for the yelling to die down, then carry on.

In the end, Disney and ABC get to pretend they’ve “addressed the situation,” while everyone else sees the obvious: it was never about timing or sensitivity, it was about executives terrified of losing control of the narrative.

Rob Rogers - Andrews McMeel

Pedro Molina - Tribune Content Agency

Adam Zyglis - cagle.com/cartoonist/adam-zyglis

Clay Jones - Substack and Claytoonz

Pat Bagley - cagle.com/cartoonist/pat-bagley

Matt Davies - Andrews McMeel

Nick Anderson - Substack and Tribune Content Agency

Mike Smith - King Features

Chris Britt - Creators

Clay Bennett - Tribune Content Agency

So here’s how the latest episode in “Tom Homan’s Border Czar Circus” plays out: a few intrepid FBI agents, in their undercover gear and maybe a little too much confidence, allegedly hand Homan a bag of $50,000 in cash. The twist: this cash was supposedly a bribe, disguised as a friendly meeting, where Homan is reported to have hinted that he could set up some juicy government contracts once Trump was back in office. Sounds like something straight out of a political noir screenplay.

Time jumps forward: the probe rolls along, with recordings, sources, people whispering. But then—poof—a whole lot of nothing. The DOJ under the Trump administration shutters the investigation, saying there isn’t enough credible evidence to prove wrongdoing. Key point: at the time of the alleged bribe, Homan wasn’t even officially in government, which becomes a handy “get-out-of-legal-trouble” card.

Enter the White House. They wheel Homan out with full support—“100%,” they say. They deny he ever took the money. They call the whole thing a politically motivated sting, a Biden-era “weaponization” of justice, or whatever buzzword is trending. To rebut, they wave vague statements about “no credible evidence,” “nothing illegal,” and that the previous administration was just trying to score points or distract.

Meanwhile, critics are back in their offices, raising questions: “If this were anyone else…” And asking for proof: tapes, internal documents, tax records, transparency. Skepticism runs high because it seems like one of those tales where the powerful get a pass while the less connected are left hanging.

In short, the story has all the ingredients of a scandal—cash under the table, hush whispers, a probe that gets conveniently shut down, and a loyal administration circling the wagons to protect its poster child. The moral from the White House seems to be: whether or not you did anything wrong, if someone yells “political!” loud enough, you get to walk away unscathed.