The Charlie Kirk murder morphed into Trump attacking the First Amendment. My reaction was MAGA now has its Horst Wessel; KH had the same thought at the same time. Others, fewer, went for the Reichstag Fire. Thing is, instead of crowding people toward him for safety, Trump seems to have provoked only more ridicule from the sane members of this country.
And: Leaked Chats Show Alleged Kirk Killer 'Doesn't Fit Into Any Tidy Narrative'(Common Dreams)
He may be more Fearless Leader of America than the strongman of his fantasies, he is as dangerous as he is ridiculous. There may even be a relationship between his dangerousness and ridiculousness.
'Red Alert Moment' for Free Speech as ABC Cowers to Trump FCC and Cancels Kimmel (Common Dreams)
Jimmy Kimmel's firing makes me ashamed to be an American (SFGate)
Unless you consider it a remarkable feat of “conservative activism” to declare the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 to be “a huge mistake,” or to claim that “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people,” there was very little to admire about Kirk’s professional accomplishments. He was an unremarkable commentator who trafficked largely in ugly, spiteful rhetoric. Kirk’s dedication to his particular craft naturally endeared him greatly to President Trump. Where Kimmel went wrong was in the follow-up episode when he went after Kirk’s allies, the President included, who immediately, and recklessly, attempted to portray the politics of the shooter, which are still nebulous, as violently left wing.
“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.”
The petty grievance machine went into overdrive the second those true words escaped from Kimmel’s lips. After Brendan Carr, Trump’s Federal Communications Commission chief, heard Kimmel’s remarks, he went on the podcast of another Trump ally, Benny Johnson, to issue the following warning:
“Frankly, when you see stuff like this, I mean, we can do this the easy way, or these companies can find ways to change conduct, to take action, frankly, on Kimmel, or there’s going to be additional work for the FCC ahead.”
It also embarrasses who? Senator Ted Cruz says FCC acted like 'mafioso' on Jimmy Kimmel (BBC). Wow.
Ball State fires employee over social media comments on Kirk assassination (NewsBreak)
The university said the employee, who served as director of health promotion and advocacy, posted a statement that was "inconsistent with the distinctive nature and trust" of her leadership position. Officials said the post caused significant disruption to the university.
According to reports, the employee wrote on Facebook: "Charlie Kirk's death is a reflection of the violence, fear and hatred he sowed. It does not excuse his death, AND it's a sad truth."
My alma mater seems to be functioning quite well this past week. That people might start seeing BSU as preferring "the violence, fear and hatred" promoted by Kirk could be a greater disruption.
Others cottoned onto the Horst Wessel idea: Why are people comparing Charlie Kirk to Horst Wessel? (The Forward):
The bigger parallel may lie not in the men themselves but in how their deaths are used. Siemens warned that resurrecting Wessel’s name shows that “neo-Nazi martyrology is still alive to a certain extent.” And the fact that more Americans seem familiar with Wessel now than when he first researched his book more than a decade ago, he added, “indirectly tells us there is a growing fascination with these figures, and maybe even with aspects of Nazi ideology.”
Hiding Behind Kirk, Team Trump Launches 'Biggest Assault on the First Amendment' in Modern US History (Common Dreams)
Trump adviser Stephen Miller on Monday singled out left-wing organizations that he baselessly alleged were promoting violence in the United States and he said that the full weight of the federal government would soon come down on them.
***
“We are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people,” said Miller.
Shortly after this, Attorney General Pam Bondi appeared on the podcast hosted by Miller’s wife, Katie Miller, and vowed that the Justice Department would “go after” people who engage in “hate speech” against conservatives.
Is this America’s Reichstag-fire moment? (The Seattle Times)
Among the imagined terrorist schemers named by White House officials is the venerable Ford Foundation, as well as the right’s favorite conspiracy-theory bogeyman, George Soros. This allegation is as looney as President Donald Trump’s new $15 billion lawsuit against The New York Times that alleges the newspaper’s factual presidential campaign coverage in 2024 was all lies and defamation.
This heightened push to crush the opposition is just an extension of the administration’s other assaults in the culture war, including the effort to eliminate insufficiently upbeat history exhibits from the Smithsonian museums and the national parks, to prosecute political opponents, to defund universities, to purge the government of anyone who is not a Trump loyalist and to redraw congressional district maps so that Republicans can maintain control of Congress.
It is hard not to conclude we are being governed by a regime that is eager to employ ever-more powerful tools to control information, silence critics, punish opponents and retain power indefinitely.
Will you vote for these boobs, again?
When You Elect Despots… (Sheila Kennedy)
One of our Mad King’s favorite accusations is that he is the victim of a “witch hunt.” Like most of his pronouncements, it’s projection. What we are seeing now is a witch hunt, carried on by the administration and MAGA–and it threatens more than the First Amendment.
As usual, Indiana’s MAGA Governor has hopped on the Trump/Rokita train, threatening the state’s teachers, and announcing that “The Secretary of Education has the authority to suspend or revoke a license for misconduct and the office will review reported statements of K-12 teachers and administrators who have made statements to celebrate or incite political violence.” In a Sept. 12 X post, Rokita encouraged people to report teachers who “celebrate or rationalize” Kirk’s Sept. 10 killing so they can be included in his office’s government dashboard. That platform has been used to list and condemn instances of “objectionable” political ideology entering the classroom. Lt. Gov. Micah Beckwith has also asked for such reports.
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Frederick Douglas, among others, was eloquent on the importance of free speech, saying: “No right was deemed by the fathers of the government more sacred than the right of speech. It was in their eyes, as in the eyes of all thoughtful men, the great moral renovator of society and government.” Dougles also said that freedom of speech “of all rights, is the dread of tyrants. It is the right which they first of all strike down.”
There can no longer be any doubt that Trump–ignorant and incompetent and mentally-ill as he is–is a wanna-be tyrant. But he isn’t the real threat. The real threat comes from the powerful people who obey in advance, the businesses happy to discard integrity in exchange for official permissions, the GOP elected officials who “suck up” to their cult leader rather than standing up for civil liberty or even for their own prerogatives.
Khanna Moves to Subpoena FCC Chair Carr Over Effort to 'Shred the First Amendment' (Common Dreams)
“Enough of Congress sleepwalking while [President Donald] Trump and [Vice President JD] Vance shred the First Amendment and Constitution,” Khanna declared. “It is time for Congress to stand up for Article I.”
Rep. Robert Garcia (D-Calif.), the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, also said on Thursday that he was opening an investigation into the potential financial aspects of Carr’s pressure campaign on ABC, including the involvement of Sinclair Broadcasting Group, which is the network’s largest affiliate and is currently involved in merger talks that will need FCC approval.
This is getting to be a long list; too long: Week 35: Free Speech! Free Speech! Free Sp... Oh Wait (This Week in Democracy).
‘This country’s gonna fall on its face. There’s nobody coming to save us’: Boston punks Dropkick Murphys take on Maga (The Guardian)
It’s clear that, for Casey, the political is personal. His sense of betrayal regarding “the many rank-and-file union members who are now Trump voters” is palpable. “They don’t think Trump’s coming for the unions, but he’s coming for the unions, trust me. I tell Maga friends of mine: Trump wouldn’t piss on you if you were on fire. It’s about total control for the rich. It’s class war.”
What is the magic spell Trump has managed to cast over a demographic who were until recently, Casey says, “in lockstep with Dropkicks’ beliefs”? “Trump offered them a chance to say out loud things people used to have to whisper to their friends,” Casey spits. “Racism, cruelty, jokes about disabilities. A lot of white people in America believed whites will not be in control any more, especially after Obama. This is their last, desperate grasp to hold control.”
Indiana governor threatens licenses of teachers who ‘celebrate’ political violence online (News From The States)
Braun emphasized that Indiana’s Secretary of Education “has the authority to suspend or revoke a license for misconduct and the office will review reported statements of K-12 teachers and administrators who have made statements to celebrate or incite political violence.”
David Keating, president of the Institute for Free Speech, said that threat raises “serious” constitutional concerns.
“My initial reaction was, I don’t understand why he would call for suspending, like revoking, a teacher’s license,” Keating said. He noted that Indiana law typically ties license revocations to criminal acts or serious misconduct.
State and school officials “would be totally justified, in many situations,” to cancel a teacher’s contract, Keating added, “but I just think it’s a tougher thing to go and revoke a license.”
I have found over the past 13 years much to give me hope in life through the Eastern Orthodox Church, Ecumenical Orthodox Theology and Interfaith Dialogue (Public Orthodoxy) is one of those writings where I find much wisdom in the church. Why then is it here in a post on politics? This is one example of why:
Theses are powerful claims that are rooted within the very trinitarian theology of the Orthodox Christian faith. I say this because in Orthodox theology it is believed that the Godhead as Father, Logos as Son, and Divine Pneuma or Holy Spirit, are each unique and non-identical and exist in a permanent state of dynamic relationality in which the internal diversity of the Divine is never destroyed and none of the three are ever assimilated into any of the other two. The fact that the Divine is a hypostatic union of three distinct personal manifestations connotes a view in which human persons as non-identical beings ought to relate to one another in a non-assimilating and non-homogenizing manner if they are to make themselves a reflection of the Divine realities that are ever-present throughout the created world.
Ultimately, to participate in interfaith dialogue and inter-religious community-building is to engage in acts that are imitative of the Divine.
To not engage in dialog with other political views should be seen as an evil. Those who cannot compromise on political issues will end up being the death of humanity. No, there can be no compromise with the political ends of fascism because those ends are the domination of everyone else. That is not a dialog. Politics has to be about what helps all people flourish.
This makes me wonder if Christians do not know what Christ stood for: A congressman called Charlie Kirk Jesus's '13th disciple.' Other Christians disagree (NPR). Either they're ignorant, stupid, or completely bonkers.
And peaceful demonstrators given tear gas when protesting our inhumane treatment of immigrants - 'What It Looks Like When ICE Violates' First Amendment: Candidate Kat Abughazaleh Thrown to Ground (Common Dreams)
Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, another candidate in Democrats’ crowded primary race for the 9th District, also joined the protest in Broadview on Friday. He told Block Club Chicago that “I’ve seen shocking violence.”
“I mean, throwing people to the ground, pepper balls, tear gas... It seems gratuitous, right? They’re trying to intimidate. They’ve got guys up there on the roof with cameras,” he added. “They’re trying to remind people that this is an administration that names and then targets its political enemies for physical and economic violence.”
Chicago Ald. Andre Vasquez (D-40) and Illinois Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton—a Democrat running to replace retiring US Sen. Dick Durbin—were also at the ICE facility on Friday.
Asked about agents’ violence toward protesters, Stratton told reporters that “people are here to peacefully protest. Look what we’ve been seeing over the last several weeks right here in Chicago: people being snatched off the streets, stuffed into unmarked vans, and with no due process.”
While U.S. conducts fourth strike against vessel transferring drugs, Trump says (Axios) - the slaughtering of civilians without due process - Trump's New Restrictions on Pentagon Reporters 'Should Alarm Every American' (Common Dreams)
Journalists and defenders of press freedom are expressing alarm and condemnation after the Pentagon, under the command of President Donald Trump and Secretary of War Pete Hegseth, announced new restrictions on reporters that include pre-approval of stories that include even unclassified material and a new pledge to not publish any material without permissions from government officials.
The New York Times, among the first to report on a 17-page memo detailing the new rules, noted how the “move could drastically restrict the flow of information about the U.S. military to the public.” The National Press Club (NPC) was quick to rebuke the restrictions as an assault on the public’s right to know and fundamental journalistic freedoms.
For anyone reading this from Muncie, or Delaware County: MUNCIE RESISTS.
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