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Fear Is A Weapon

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 18, 2025

Counterpunch with action

“Building Better Worlds”

Listen. Silicon Valley moguls Larry Ellison and son David are close to owning Skydance Media and Paramount Global. They could soon control “CBS News, MTV, Nickelodeon, and Paramount Pictures” and the content of everything from your “children’s cartoons to nightly broadcasts.” The Financial Express adds:

Paramount Skydance is now rumoured to be weighing a $70 billion bid for Warner Bros. Discovery. That would bring DC Comics, Harry Potter, Barbie, CNN, and HBO under the Ellison umbrella…. Amid the Hollywood manoeuvring, Ellison has also resurfaced in Washington’s battle over TikTok. After U.S.-China talks in Madrid last week, President Donald Trump teased a deal that would “save” a company beloved by young Americans. A report by WSJ also suggests that the Oracle consortium is acquiring an 80% stake in TikTok in the US.

Media consolidation is on track to turn your information streams into the 21st century equivalent of Alien‘s 22nd-century “The Company,” a.k.a., the Weyland-Yutani Corporation:

In 2120, Weyland-Yutani’s sphere of influence emcompassed all of North, Central, and South America,[1] as well as Mars and Saturn.[3] Weyland-Yutani, along with Threshold and Dynamic, were known as the “Triumvirate” before becoming “The Five” with the addition of Lynch and Prodigy.[4]

This is happening now. Meta, News Corp., etc. and other billionaire-controlled media outlets are on track to control what constitutes news and reality as you know it. Inconvenient facts that already exist will be memory-holed. Other data that your tax dollars once captured and archived will vanish like water down a drain.

Hang in there with me as I shift gears.

Do not squander this moment. Those of you reading about ABC and CBS axing Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert, about The Washington Post firing Karen Attiah, its last Black full-time opinion columnist, need to use this moment before it vanishes as well.

There is a lot of hostility in America about the impunity the rich enjoy in our corrupt system of economics and justice. Convicted felon Donald J. Trump, now president of the United States agaion, is the poster child for millionaire-billionaire impunity (with help from SCOTUS).

On that, Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) hammered FBI Director Kash Patel on Wednesday in a hearing of the House Judiciary Committee. Patel had told a Senate hearing that there was no credible evidence that multi-millionaire Jeffrey Epstein trafficked underage girls to anyone except himself (Miami Herald):

But Massie cited files used by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York which summarize interviews with witnesses and suspects.

The lawmaker claimed those files include “one Hollywood producer worth a few 100 million dollars, one royal prince, one high-profile individual in the music industry, one very prominent banker, one high profile government official, one high profile former politician, one owner of a car company in Italy, one rock star, one magician, at least six billionaires, including a billionaire from Canada. We know these people exist in the FBI files, the files that you control.”

Americans know in their guts that the reason the Epstein files have not been made public — as Trump promised — is that there is a massive coverup to protect elite men like those Massie referenced, including Donald Trump whose name appears in them but may not have been inviolved in the trafficking. Those files will come out. Public pressure will build and you will help build it.

People are angry about how blatantly the rich flaunt flout the rules and evade accountability, including those behind media consolidation. Wednesday at drive time, I stood again at a major intersection rotating overhead a sign that reads “Grab him by the | Epstein files.

The response, especially from women, was loud and vigorous. There were not only horn toots, waves and thumbs-up aplenty. People cheered! Carloads of women cheered and applauded as they drove by. A passenger waiting at a light climbed out of his window to cheer and pump his fist over the roof of the car. A woman jogger told me all the bastards need to go, and then “the orange menace.”

They say never waste a good disaster. Don’t waste this one. Get out there and pump it up. Work the eye.

(h/t IW on my messsing up flaunt/flout. Not the first time.)

* * * * *

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MAGA Comes For Free Speech

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 18, 2025

Patriotism on the Russian plan

Photo: Flag of the United States flown upside down as distress signal at a Hands Off rally in Olympia, Washington, April 2025 (CC0 1.0).

Let’s cut right to it. The New York Times reports:

ABC announced on Wednesday evening that it was pulling Jimmy Kimmel’s late night show “indefinitely” after conservatives accused the longtime host of inaccurately describing the politics of the man who is accused of fatally shooting the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk.

Conservatives lied. (Surprise!) They pitched yet another patented right-wing hissy fit, and ABC folded:

The decision to suspend “Jimmy Kimmel Live” was made by Robert A. Iger, Disney’s chief executive, and Dana Walden, the company’s television chief, according to a person with knowledge of the matter, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a private process.

Nexstar Media Group, the broadcast group that carries ABC programming, fell into line as well. *

A FOX31 viewer shared photos from Estes Park, CO protest against Forest Service cuts. March 2025.

The companies caved after FCC Chairman Brendan Carr characterized Kimmel’s comments as “some of the sickest conduct possible.” Carr made a not-so-veiled threat to yank ABC’s broadcast license if the company did not suspend Kimmel. Carr alleged to extreme-right podcaster Benny Johnson that Kimmel had deliberately misled “the public by claiming Charlie Kirk’s assassin was a MAGA Conservative.” Read on and you’ll see that that is bullshit.

View on Threads

Spocko posted this Wednesday night to Mastodon:

Here is the section that supposedly lead to #ABC taking #JimmyKimmel off the air.

Listen to what Kimmel says & then see how the #Trump admin characterized it (according an NBC story https://www.nbcnews.com/pop-culture/tv/disneys-abc-pulls-jimmy-kimmel-live-fcc-chair-blasts-hosts-charlie-kir-rcna232033 )

“During his monologue on Monday night, Kimmel raised the possibility that Tyler Robinson, the suspect in the killing, might have been a pro-Trump Republican.”
#uspol

The original story that carried that line has since been corrected to read, “During his monologue Monday night, Kimmel criticized Republicans for how they responded to Kirk’s killing.” Because that is accurate.

Here is what Kimmel actually said:

“We had 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 with everything they can to score political points from it.”

Kimmel also mocked Trump’s “grieving” process. Asked how he was holding up, Trump told reporters, “I think very good, and by the way,” he said, and immediately changed the subject to the new gilded ballroom he’s building onto the White House.

National park employees flew an American flag upside-down from summit of Yosemite National Park’s El Capitan in protest of Park Service cuts .Photo: Instagram / @voteinorout, Fenruary 2025.

Conservatives’ opportunistic attack on Kimmel (and Stephen Colbert before him) is not just fascist behavior. It is religious fundamentalist behavior. The too are different but closely aligned here. I’ve lived in the South long enough to know.

I went to see Monty Python’s Life of Brian when it came out in 1979. Outside the theater stood two neatly dressed evangelical dudes handing out Bible tracts. They urged me not to enter because the movie “makes fun of our Lord.”

No, dudes. It pokes fun at you. You and your lord are not the same. But criticism, and especially mockery, are things fundamentalists and totalitarian regimes cannot abide. That is what Kimmel has been suspended for, not for demeaning Kirk or for celebrating his murder. But totalitarian regimes like Vladimir Putin’s Russia, for example, are loathe to allow little details like that to get in the way of purging dissidents. (Don’t stand too close to windows in tall buildings.)

John Ganz (Unpopular Front) just had a friend from Russia text him last night, “This is all feeling awfully like home.”  

Speaking of Russia, Mark Twain once wrote of American-style patriotism:

“We teach the boys to atrophy their independence. We teach them to take their patriotism at second-hand; to shout with the largest crowd without examining into the right or wrong of the matter– exactly as boys under monarchies are taught and have always been taught. We teach them to regard as traitors, and hold in aversion and contempt, such as do not shout with the crowd, & so here in our democracy we are cheering a thing which of all things is most foreign to it & out of place–the delivery of our political conscience into somebody else’s keeping. This is patriotism on the Russian plan.”

How prescient. How MAGA.

Donald Trump’s MAGA disciples especially bristle at comparisons to 1930s Germany. Just not enough to reconsider taking actions that evoke them.

First they came for the Civil Servants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a Civil Servant
Then they came for the Immigrants
And I did not speak out
Because I was not an Immigrant
Then they came for the Universities
And I did not speak out
Because I was not a University
Then they came for the Media
And I did not speak out
Because I was not the Media
Then they came for me
And there was no one left
To speak out for me

Mine.

* It appears that Nexstar made the first move in this cascade.

* * * * *

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When They Admit To Being Bloodthirsty Murderers

Published by digby on September 17, 2025

And laugh about it

Vance on Trump's strikes on boats: "I wouldn't go fishing right now in that area of the world."

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar.com) 2025-09-17T18:17:32.390Z

Interesting. He and Trump have both suggested that they might be hitting innocent fisherman but … oh well! Funny stuff.

But when you’ve lost John Yoo:

The Trump administration is facing growing calls from former government officials — including some in Republican administrations — to offer a legal justification for President Donald Trump’s two missile strikes this month on boats allegedly piloted by members of a Venezuelan drug cartel.

Those experts say the use of such force outside of war blurs the legal distinction between law enforcement and military actions and comes amid calls on Capitol Hill to curtail Trump’s military powers.

“There has to be a line between crime and war,” said John Yoo, a former deputy assistant attorney general under President George W. Bush. “We can’t just consider anything that harms the country to be a matter for the military. Because that could potentially include every crime.”

Yoo, now a professor at the University of California Berkeley, authored the Bush administration’s legal justification for enhanced interrogation techniques against suspected al Qaeda terrorists in the early years of Bush’s war on terror. While combating terrorism did shift following the terror attack on Sept. 11, 2001, from a law enforcement concern to a military endeavor, the White House has not asked Congress to declare war on the Tren de Aragua drug cartel nor Venezuela nor has the administration made a concerted attempt to convince the public that the threat it poses to the U.S. justifies such heavy, preemptive force.

“Traditionally, we’ve treated drug crimes as a criminal justice problem,” Yoo said. “And the administration needs to make a stronger case than it’s been making so far about why the law should consider cartels to be enemies of war.”

How about admitting publicly that you might be just blowing up fishermen for shits and giggles? Might that be a problem?

Oh well, who’s going to do anything about it? Certainly not the GOP Congress and I wouldn’t hold my breath for the Supreme Court to weigh in on the side of the law and the constitution. So let the games begin!

The U.K. Knows How To Kiss His Ass

Published by digby on September 17, 2025

It won’t make a bit of difference

He just wants the photo-op:

No, actually he’s a total embarrassment. It’s very rude to walk in front of the King of England on his own turf.

He believes he’s king of world and being a cretinous moron is his prerogative. So do his followers:

Yeah, not so much:

An Epstein documentary was projected on Windsor Castle last night:

By the way:

For Donald Trump, the priority was to avoid any distractions. But as he arrives for his second state visit to the UK – an unprecedented honour for a US president – the crisis engulfing Keir Starmer’s government threatens to overshadow the proceedings.

The circumstances of that crisis are especially awkward. Peter Mandelson was unceremoniously sacked as the UK’s ambassador to Washington on Thursday after emails were published in which he had urged his friend Jeffrey Epstein to fight for early release from prison in 2008.

For Trump, whose own friendship with Epstein has exposed him to damaging scrutiny, including from his own support base, there is no subject he wants to revisit less.

As the Daily Beast reports:

The display left those who see Trump as a hostile force intent on dismantling the post-war settlement feeling distinctly queasy, but there was at least something honest in the absurdity.

Trump demands spectacle, and Britain provides it. He wants to be king, and, for a day, Britain is letting him.

It made up the entire ceremony from scratch from the elements of other royal spectacles.

It is, of course, traditional to have a ceremonial welcome. But this time a carriage ride around an empty Windsor Great Park was added and so was a mounted escort by the Household Cavalry. A massive gun salute was added, bigger than any before. Then another traditional element, the inspection of the guard, was tweaked to let Trump go first, as if they were his troops. This was designed to be Hail to the Chief, not a conventional royal welcome.

And in doing this flagrant fakery, the U.K. has revealed something deeply unflattering about itself—in the scramble to keep America close, it will debase itself and its values completely.

His childlike need for public bootlicking is an easy way to appease him. But it means nothing. He loves the treatment but this is a man who will break any agreement and go back on his word in a moment of pique. This will buy them nothing except embarrassment for the Royal family who are being used a puppets in a sick little pageant that denigrates everyone involved.

Pathetic.

“Markwayne, git yer butt over here…”

Published by digby on September 17, 2025

… and apologize to that doctor lady

Oklahoma Sern. Markwayne Mullin very arrogantly called the former CDC Director a liar this morning:

Oopsie:

“It was a recorded meeting, so you can testify one way or you can prove that you’re lying or be honest with this committee,” Mullin said. “And I’m giving you the opportunity to be honest here, because you’ve been really walking around the edges and not being truthful.”

Monarez maintained Kennedy told her he couldn’t trust her, and she said he could fire her if that was the case. Mullin pushed back, again saying she was lying.

“I tell my kids all the time, ‘You know, one thing I want from you, I can deal with any situation we walk into as long as I know you’re being 100% honest with me. The minute I can’t tell you’re being honest with me, I can’t trust you. From then on, everything you say is questioned,’” Mullin said, adding he has to question Monarez “because your personality and your answers aren’t correct.”

Mullin later clarified to reporters that he was mistaken and that Monarez and Kennedy’s meeting was not recorded. Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee Chair Bill Cassidy, R-La., later rebuked Mullin for alleging there was a recording, saying if there is one, it should be accessible by the full committee. If there isn’t, he added, Mullin should retract his line of questioning.

Mullin owes her an apology. And the Republicans owe the American people an apology for inflicting this cretin on the country.

Mullin is in stiff competition for stupidest member of the U.S. Senate with Tommy Tuberville and Ron Johnson. I think he’s in the lead which is really saying something.

Democrats Have Voters Too

Published by digby on September 17, 2025

And they want to see some guts

I’ve argued for Democrats to make some real demands of the GOP this time and be willing to shut down the government if they won’t budge. It looks like I’m not alone:

Democrats have new polling to chew over as they rail against Republicans’ government funding bill. It’s unlikely to make them more eager to cave.

A new survey from the progressive firm Data for Progress and research firm Grow Progress, shared first with Semafor, shows seven in 10 Democrats support their party withholding votes unless Republicans make changes even if it risks a shutdown, while a similar share backs their party taking a “firmer stand” than they did in March.

What’s more, Democrats are arguing voters will blame the Republicans who control government for a shutdown, and the poll shows their voters share that view, 82-14. Large majorities of Democrats also think the party should fight President Donald Trump harder — even if they don’t win.

House Republicans plan to vote this week on a short-term spending bill that would extend current funding levels through Nov. 21, with the Senate following suit.

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise said leaders will put it on the floor as soon as they feel they have the votes. But they’ll need the support of at least some Senate Democrats for it to become law — and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer on Tuesday expressed vehement opposition to the proposal because it does not include any of the health care provisions they’d sought.

[…]

House Speaker Mike Johnson said there is “zero chance” GOP lawmakers agree to reverse any of their changes to the Medicaid program. He added that extending Affordable Care Act subsidies, which are set to lapse at the end of the year and hike premiums, “is a December policy issue, not a September funding issue.”

Bring it.

The List

Published by digby on September 17, 2025

“According to victims these documents in your possession, detail at least 20 men, including Staley, CEO Barclays Bank, who Jeffrey Epstein trafficked victims to.  That list includes 19 over individuals, one Hollywood producer worth a few hundred million dollars. One very prominent banker, one high profile government official, one high profile former politician, one owner of a car company in Italy, one rock star, one magician, at least six billionaires including a billionaire from Canada. We know these people exist in the FBI files.”

We don’t know all the people Massie refers to on this list of alleged Epstein buddies to whom girls and women were trafficked but there is going to be a mad scramble to find out.

Patel had a bad day in the Senate yesterday with lots of yelling but not a lot of clarity. In the House it’s all Epstein.

I thought this was a good moment. Patel is a snotty bitch but Swalwell gets the best of him.

LIEU: Are there photos of showing Donald Trump with girls of an uncertain age?

PATEL: No LIEU: How do you know that?

PATEL: Because the information would’ve been brought to light by multiple administrations

LIEU: That’s just not true. Nobody knew about the creepy birthday message that Trump wrote to Epstein

Patel is performing for Trump who wants a nasty wingnut troll running the FBI (or all other agencies for that matter) so I’m skeptical that he’ll be gone. Same with Bondi despite this:

CNN’s Harry Enten presented polling data that showed which of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet members was causing him the most problems with the public.

Bondi has the worst approval rating among Trump’s Cabinet officials, at minus-19 percent, which far below the most popular official, Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who’s at minus-7 percent.

“Something that nobody, nobody for the most part, likes how the Trump administration has been handling them, of course, she’s been a key leadership role,” Enten said. “I mean, look at this: Approval of Trump on the Epstein files. It’s just 19 percent, 19 percent of all adults, 67 percent disapprove. Among Democrats, it’s 2 percent, independents, 12 percent, and even among Republicans, you can’t even get to 50 percent approval, and, of course, this just goes all the way back.”

She really screwed up with the Epstein files and now her “hate speech” comments have made people dislike her even more. But will Trump ever turn on her? Sure he could. He has no loyalty to anyone. But for now she seems safe.

I thought this was quite telling yesterday:

Yeah…

Trump’s Revenge

Published by digby on September 17, 2025

The DOJ just can’t seem to find any evidence:

Top Trump administration officials are pressuring federal prosecutors in Virginia to bring charges against New York Attorney General Letitia James for mortgage fraud, despite investigators so far failing to find sufficient evidence supporting such charges, according to sources familiar with the investigation.

After a five-month investigation and interviews with more than a dozen witnesses, federal prosecutors have so far uncovered no clear evidence that James knowingly made false statements to a financial institution to secure favorable terms on a mortgage for her Virginia home, according to multiple sources briefed on the investigation. 

Trump himself has pressured the Department of Justice leadership to investigate James more aggressively, and two officials — Ed Martin, the head of the DOJ’s Weaponization Working Group, and Bill Pulte, the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — have pushed the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia to seek an indictment of James.

When federal prosecutors recently declined to indict James, Pulte encouraged Trump to fire Erik Siebert, the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, and replace him with a prosecutor who would be willing to bring charges against James, sources said. 

They don’t have a case:That’s the kind of stuff that led Nixon to resign and outraged the entire country. With Trump it’s just another Wednesday.

They don’t have a case:

Pulte and Martin have argued that James committed mortgage fraud because one of the documents related to a 2023 home purchased by James falsely indicated the property would be her primary residence. However, investigators have so far determined that the document — a limited power of attorney form used by James’ niece to sign documents on her behalf when James closed on the home — was never considered by the loan officers who approved the mortgage, sources said.

Lawyers drafted the document itself for a third-party closing company based on a template that was never corrected, sources said, and every other document in James’ loan file for the mortgage accurately stated that she would not reside at the home. 

Bill Pulte is a huge problem for Trump. This mortgage fraud gambit is cute but legally bullshit. Recall that he was recently challenged to a fight by Scott Bessent for “making him look bad.” I wonder if this might be the reason:

US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent once agreed to occupy two different houses as his “principal residence” at the same time, mortgage documents show — the same kind of contradictory pledges that President Donald Trump has been using to try to oust Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook.

Bessent’s conflicting agreements obligated him to occupy homes in New York and Massachusetts as his main residence at the same time in 2007. But there’s no sign of any wrongdoing on his part, mortgage experts say. Rather, his case demonstrates that an incongruity in home-loan filings isn’t necessarily proof of fraud.

Other evidence from Bessent’s mortgages shows that his lender, Bank of America Corp., wasn’t relying on the pledges and never expected him to occupy both homes as primary residences.

Trump needs a new hatchet man. Two actually. Martin is a loser too. Beavis and Butthead here don’t seem to have a clue.

Jolly Olde England

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 17, 2025

Already has a king

The U.S. president got a not-so-royal welcome in the UK (The New Republic):

As Donald Trump embarks Tuesday on his second state visit to the U.K., demonstrators have spread an enormous banner depicting the president with notorious sex criminal Jeffrey Epstein across a lawn outside Windsor Castle—where King Charles III is set to host him.

The banner is one of many antics planned for the trip by Everyone Hates Elon, a British guerilla group formed earlier this year to troll billionaire Elon Musk with viral stunts.

TNR adds:

For Trump’s visit, Everyone Hates Elon is endeavoring to put the 1997 photo of the president and his former friend Epstein “everywhere he goes,” thus making it “the defining image” of the trip, according to a fundraising page. (As of this writing, almost 1,800 donors have contributed 31,760 pounds—or more than $43,000—to the cause.)

For every 15 pounds raised, the group vowed to add another square meter to the banner, which was unveiled Tuesday as “the WORLD’S BIGGEST PHOTO of Donald with convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.”

Not to miss a trick, Everybody Hates Elon slipped Epstein & Trump merch into the Windsor Castle gift shop.

Pranksters did not back off after the sun set on what remains of the British empire (USA Today):

Four people in England have been arrested in connection with projecting images of President Donald Trump with his arm around sex offender Jeffrey Epstein onto Windsor Castle, the home of the British royal family.

The stunt at the royal residence comes just as the president arrived late on Tuesday, Sept. 16, to begin a state visit to Britain. King Charles is expected to greet Trump at the castle about 25 miles west of London on Wednesday.

Photos and videos shared online by British media and others show that also projected onto the castle tower were images of a birthday letter Trump allegedly wrote to Epstein more than 20 years ago, though the White House has denied its authenticity; a photo of Melania Trump between Trump and Epstein; and pictures of Epstein’s victims. 

We’re sure Trump’s golf outings in the UK will be equally well pranked.

Mustn’t make too much fun of the sun setting on the British empire. Trump and his MAGA Golden Horde are working hard at having it set on ours.

* * * * *

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Extreme Right Adopts Peacemaker’s Code

Published by Tom Sullivan on September 17, 2025

“Freedom” of speech at any cost

https://www.adl.org/resources/report/murder-and-extremism-united-states-2024

Players from around the political horseshoe saw in Charlie Kirk’s murder last week the opportunity to exploit his death to advance their own causes and to punish their enemies. If there is anything unseemly in the response to the tragedy it is the zeal with which that has taking place even in the absence of a coherent motive. “Never let a good disaster go to waste” now applies to assassinations.

The Donald Trump administration’s attack dogs jumped on Kirk’s murder like a Rottweiler on a fresh steak. They see a vast left wing terrorist network behind Kirk’s killing. Stephen Miller, Trump’s pet psychopath vows “to identify, disrupt, dismantle and destroy these networks and make America safe again,” although he cannot name any.

AG Pam Bondi had to walk back comments that her department would bring federal charges against anyone engaging in “hate speech” after even her own allies pointed out to the former Florida attorney general that the First Amendment protects even noxious speech. The late Charlie Kirk made that clear. He certainly did not want anyone prosecuting him for ugly, gross, or evil speech.

The extremist right created federal and amateur informant networks within days of Kirk’s death to punish anyone who offered a discouraging word about the Turning Point USA founder amidst a push by his allies to elevate him to Martin Luther King status as a champion of free expression. Perhaps Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.) will propose he get a federal holiday.

Elsewhere in the U.S. House, Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.) filed a privileged measure to force a censure vote against Rep. Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota. Omar called Kirk a “stochastic terrorist” even as she condemned his murder and expressed empathy for his wife and children.

Like DC’s Peacemaker, America’s extreme right will have peace in this country at any cost, no matter how many civil rights they need to kill to get it.

And no matter how many inconvenient facts it has to memory hole:

Pam Bondi’s Department of Justice has quietly deleted a study showing that far-right attacks outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violence extremism.

A June 2024 study on domestic extremism by the National Institute of Justice, a research agency under the DOJ’s Office of Justice Programs, began by noting that “militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States.”

“In fact, the number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violent extremism,” it reads. “Since 1990, far-right extremists have committed far more ideologically motivated homicides than far-left or radical Islamist extremists.”

The study is archived here.

Released emails suggest that the reasons suspect Tyler Robinson had for shooting Kirk were more personal than political, and related to his relationship with a roommate. Ken Klippenstein posted leaked Discord messages that the media has not published:

Trump and company portray the alleged Utah shooter as left-wing and liberals portray him as right-wing. The federal conclusion will inevitably be that he was a so-called Nihilist Violent Extremist (NVE); meanwhile, the crackdown has already begun, as I reported yesterday. The country is practically ready to go to war.

What one friend s finds confounding is that Robinson “just never really talked politics.”

The picture that emerges bears little resemblance to the media version. Robinson, I am told, though quiet, was a well-liked person with a supportive family. The friend group who he interacted with on Discord, far from some kind of militia camp or Antifa bunker it’s been portrayed as, represented a range of different political views but mostly talked video games.

But the extremist right is not about to let that get in the way of a useful anti-left narrative.

Everyone wants to get into the act

Not to be left out, the Russians are jumping into the post-Kirk frenzy:

Russia moved to amplify online conspiracy theories about Charlie Kirk’s killing just hours after it happened, seeding social media with the frightening claim that America is slipping into civil war.

Chinese and pro-Iranian groups also spread disinformation about the shooting, with those loyal to Iran’s interests backing antisemitic conspiracy theories while bots linked to Beijing claimed that Kirk’s death shows that the United States is violent, polarized and dysfunctional.

For once, the bots wouldn’t be wrong.

* * * * *

Have you fought dicktatorship today?

50501 
May Day Strong
No King’s One Million Rising movement – Next national day of protest Oct. 18
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Thirty lonely but beautiful actions
Attending a Protest Surveillance Self-Defense