With Genocide Confirmed and Gaza City a ‘Lifeless Wasteland,’ US Vetoes Another UN Ceasefire Resolution

“Israel kills every day and nothing happens,” said Algeria’s UN ambassador. “Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens.”


Deputy United States Special Envoy to the Middle East Morgan Ortagus raises her hand to veto a United Nations Security Council veto of a Gaza ceasefire resolution at UN headquarters New York City on September 18, 2025.
(Photo by UN News/X)

Brett Wilkins
Sep 18, 2025
COMMON DREAMS

Against a backdrop of Israel’s genocidal obliteration of Gaza City and a worsening man-made famine throughout the embattled Palestinian exclave, the United States on Thursday cast its sixth United Nations Security Council veto of a resolution calling for an immediate ceasefire and the release of all hostages held by Hamas.

At its 10,000th meeting, the UN Security Council voted 14-1 with no abstentions in favor of a resolution proposed by the 10 nonpermanent UNSC members demanding “an immediate, unconditional, and permanent ceasefire” in Gaza, the “release of all hostages” held by Hamas, and for Israel to “immediately and unconditionally lift all restrictions on the entry of humanitarian aid” into the besieged strip.

‘Gaza Is Being Obliterated,’ Says Top UN Official, as World Leaders Stand Aside

Morgan Ortagus, President Donald Trump’s deputy special envoy to the Middle East, vetoed the proposal, saying that the move “will come as no surprise,” as the US has killed five previous UNSC Gaza ceasefire resolutions under both the Biden and Trump administrations, most recently in June.

Ortagus said the resolution failed to condemn Hamas or affirm Israel’s right to self-defense and “wrongly legitimizes the false narratives benefiting Hamas, which have sadly found currency in this council.”

The US has unconditionally provided Israel with billions of dollars worth of armed aid and diplomatic cover since October 2023 as the key Mideast ally wages a war increasingly viewed as genocidal, including by a commission of independent UN experts this week.

Palestinian Ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour said the torpedoed resolution represented the “bare minimum” that must be accomplished, adding that “it is deeply regrettable and painful that it has been blocked.”

“Babies dying of starvation, snipers shooting people in the head, civilians killed en masse, families displaced again and again... humanitarians and journalists targeted... while Israeli officials are openly mocking all of this,” Mansour added.



Following the UNSC’s latest failure to pass a ceasefire resolution, Algerian Ambassador to the UN Amar Bendjama asked Gazans to “forgive” the body for not only its inability to approve such measures, but also for failing to stop the Gaza famine, in which at least hundreds of Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands more are starving. Every UNSC members but the US concurred last month that the Gaza famine is a man-made catastrophe.

“Israel kills every day and nothing happens,” Bendjama said. “Israel starves a people and nothing happens. Israel bombs hospitals, schools, shelters, and nothing happens. Israel attacks a mediator and steps on diplomacy, and nothing happens. And with every act, every act unpunished, humanity itself is diminished.”

Benjama also asked Gazans to “forgive us” for failing to protect children in the strip, more than 20,000 of whom have been killed by Israeli bombs, bullets, and blockade over the past 713 days. He also noted that upward of 12,000 women, 4,000 elderly, 1,400 doctors and nurses, 500 aid workers, and 250 journalists “have been killed by Israel.”

Condemning Thursday’s veto, Hamas accused the US of “blatant complicity in the crime of genocide,” which Israel is accused of committing in an ongoing International Court of Justice (ICJ) case filed in December 2023 by South Africa and backed by around two dozen nations.

Hamas—which led the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel and is believed to be holding 20 hostages left alive out of 251 people kidnapped that day—implored the countries that sponsored the ceasefire resolution to pressure Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who along with former Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant is wanted by the International Criminal Court for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity, to accept an agreement to halt hostilities.

Overall, at least 65,141 Palestinians have been killed and over 165,900 others wounded by Israeli forces since October 2023, according to the Gaza Health Ministry—whose figures have not only been confirmed by former IDF Chief of Staff Herzi Halevi, but deemed a significant undercount by independent researchers. Thousands more Gazans are missing and presumed dead and buried beneath the ruins of the flattened strip.

UK Ambassador to the UN Barbara Woodward stessed after Thursday’s failed UNSC resolution that “we need a ceasefire more than ever.”

“Israel’s reckless expansion of its military operation takes us further away from a deal which could bring the hostages home and end the suffering in Gaza,” Woodward said.

Thursday’s developments came as Israeli forces continued to lay waste to Gaza City as they push deeper into the city as part of Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2, a campaign to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse around 1 million Palestinians from the strip’s capital. Israeli leaders have said they are carrying out the operation in accordance with Trump’s proposal to empty Gaza of Palestinians and transform it into the “Riviera of the Middle East.”

In what some observers said was a bid to prevent the world from witnessing fresh Israeli war crimes in Gaza City, internet and phone lines were cut off in the strip Thursday, although officials said service has since been mostly restored.

Gaza officials said Thursday that at least 50 Palestinians were killed by Israeli forces since dawn, including 40 in Gaza City, which Al Jazeera reporter Tareq Abu Azzoum said is being pummeled into “a lifeless wasteland.”

Azzoum reported that tens of thousands of Palestinians “are moving to the south on foot or in carts, looking for any place that is relatively safe—but with no guarantee of safety—or at least for shelter.”

Israel has repeatedly bombed areas it advised Palestinians were “safe zones,” including a September 2 airstrike that massacred 11 people—nine of them children—queued up to collect water in al-Mawasi.

“Most families who have arrived in the south have not found space,” Azzoum added. “That’s why we’ve seen people setting up makeshift tents close to the water while others are left stranded in the street, living under the open sky.”

BERNIE SANDERS

The Conclusion Is Inescapable: Israel Is Committing Genocide in Gaza

Having named it a genocide, we must use every ounce of our leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, a massive surge of humanitarian aid facilitated by the UN, and initial steps to provide Palestinians with a state of their own.


Relatives of Palestinians, who lost their lives following the Israeli attacks on different part of the region, mourn as the bodies are taken from al-Shifa Hospital for funeral process in Gaza City, Gaza on September 15, 2025.
(Photo by Khames Alrefi/Anadolu via Getty Images)

Bernie Sanders
Sep 17, 2025

Common Dreams

Hamas, a terrorist organization, began this war with its brutal attack on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent people and took 250 hostages. Israel, as any other country, had a right to defend itself from Hamas.

But, over the last two years, Israel has not simply defended itself against Hamas. Instead, it has waged an all-out war against the entire Palestinian people. Many legal experts have now concluded that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The International Association of Genocide Scholars concluded that “Israel’s policies and actions in Gaza meet the legal definition of genocide.” The Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights-Israel have reached the same conclusion, as have international groups like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch.

‘Stop the Genocide’: Thousands of Israelis Rally Against War and Famine in Gaza

Just yesterday, an independent commission of experts appointed by the United Nations echoed this finding. These experts concluded that: “It is clear that there is an intent to destroy the Palestinians in Gaza through acts that meet the criteria set forth in the Genocide Convention.”

I agree.

If there is no accountability for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals, other demagogues will do the same.

Out of a population of 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza, Israel has now killed some 65,000 people and wounded roughly 164,000. The full toll is likely much higher, with many thousands of bodies buried under the rubble. A leaked classified Israeli military database indicates that 83% of those killed have been civilians. More than 18,000 children have been killed, including 12,000 aged 12 or younger.

For almost two years, the extremist Netanyahu government has severely limited the amount of humanitarian aid allowed into Gaza and thrown up every possible hurdle to the United Nations and other aid groups trying to provide lifesaving supplies. This includes an 11-week total blockade in which Israel did not permit any food, water, fuel or medical supplies to enter Gaza. As a direct result of these Israeli policies, Gaza is now gripped by manmade famine, with hundreds of thousands of people facing starvation. More than 400 people, including 145 children, have already starved to death. Each day brings new deaths from hunger.

But it is not just the human cost. Israel has systematically destroyed Gaza’s physical infrastructure. Satellite imagery shows that the Israeli bombardment has destroyed 70% of all structures in Gaza. The UN estimates that 92% of housing units have been damaged or destroyed. At this very moment, Israel is demolishing what’s left of Gaza City. Most hospitals have been destroyed, and almost 1,600 healthcare workers have been killed. Almost 90% of water and sanitation facilities are now inoperable. Hundreds of schools have been bombed, as has every single one of Gaza’s 12 universities. There has been no electricity for 23 months.

And that is just what we know from aid workers and local journalists—hundreds of whom have been killed—as Israel bars outside media from Gaza. In fact, Israel has killed more journalists in Gaza than have been killed in any previous conflict. The result: There is likely much we don’t know about the scale of the atrocities.

Now, with the Trump administration’s full support, the extremist Netanyahu government is openly pursuing a policy of ethnic cleansing in Gaza and the West Bank. Having made life unlivable through bombing and starvation, they are pushing for “voluntary” migration of Palestinians to neighboring countries to make way for US President Donald Trump’s twisted vision of a “Riviera of the Middle East.”

Genocide is defined as actions taken with the “intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial, or religious group.” The actions include killing members of the group or “deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.” The legal question hinges on intent.

Israeli leaders have made their intent clear. Early in the conflict, the defense minister said, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” The finance minister vowed that “Gaza will be entirely destroyed.” Another minister declared: “All Gaza will be Jewish… we are wiping out this evil.” Israeli President Isaac Herzog said, “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible.” Another minister called for, “Erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth.” Another Israeli lawmaker said, “The Gaza Strip should be flattened, and there should be one sentence for everyone there—death. We have to wipe the Gaza Strip off the map. There are no innocents there.” Yet another Knesset member called for “erasing all of Gaza from the face of the Earth.” And, just recently, a minister in Israel’s high-level security cabinet said: “Gaza City itself should be exactly like Rafah, which we turned into a city of ruins.”

The intent is clear. The conclusion is inescapable: Israel is committing genocide in Gaza.

I recognize that many people may disagree with this conclusion. The truth is, whether you call it genocide or ethnic cleansing or mass atrocities or war crimes, the path forward is clear. We, as Americans, must end our complicity in the slaughter of the Palestinian people. That is why I have worked with a number of my Senate colleagues to force votes on seven Joint Resolutions of Disapproval to stop offensive arms sales to Israel. The United States must not continue sending many billions of dollars and weapons to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s genocidal government.

Having named it a genocide, we must use every ounce of our leverage to demand an immediate ceasefire, a massive surge of humanitarian aid facilitated by the UN, and initial steps to provide Palestinians with a state of their own.

But this issue goes beyond Israel and Palestine.

Around the world, democracy is on the defensive. Hatred, racism, and divisiveness are on the rise. The challenge we now face is to prevent the world from descending into barbarism, where horrific crimes against humanity can take place with impunity. We must say now and forever that, while wars may happen, there are certain basic standards that must be upheld. The starvation of children cannot be tolerated. The flattening of cities must not become the norm. Collective punishment is beyond the pale.

The very term genocide is a reminder of what can happen if we fail. That word emerged from the Holocaust—the murder of 6 million Jews—one of the darkest chapters in human history. Make no mistake. If there is no accountability for Netanyahu and his fellow war criminals, other demagogues will do the same. History demands that the world act with one voice to say: Enough is enough. No more genocide.

RFK takes the wheel of MAGA's new 'Operation Warp Speed'

Nick Anderson.

 Raw Story
September 17, 2025 


Nick Anderson/Raw Story


Nick Anderson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning editorial cartoonist.

How to Tell When Authoritarians Become Fascists

How real is the threat of fascism? At a minimum, the extreme right is a threat to the very limited, mostly one-dollar, one-vote democracy that capitalists allow us.


A protester stands in front of an image of Trump dressed as Hitler during a protest in Foley Square demanding the release of Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian student activist and recent Columbia graduate. WHO CURRENTLY IS BEING DEPORTED TO SYRIA OR ALGERIA
(Photo by Michael Nigro/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)

Gary Engler
Sep 19, 2025

Common Dreams


The times they are a-changin. And quickly. And not in a good way. And it’s scary.

The façade of democracy is being ripped away by politicians who never liked it but lately feel emboldened to admit it. Most important of all, they have begun to act like unapologetic authoritarians. And brag about it. Suddenly the “F word” is on our minds.

‘There Is No Antifa Organization,’ But Trump Still Wants to Designate It a ‘Major Terrorist’ Group

Based on historian Robert Paxton’s definition—“Fascism is a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion”—I developed the following:

Fascism Worry Checklist

If you answer “true” to four or fewer questions, you live in an ordinary, but likely severely unequal, 21st century capitalist country. If you answer “true” to five and up to seven questions, be worried about the potential for fascism in your country. If you answer “true” to eight or more questions, good luck. And seriously consider joining with other activists in defending the bits of democracy that you have left.

(Answer true or false)

10. The loyalty of the police in defending all people, democracy, and the rule of law is in question, at least in part because the far-right has significant support inside their ranks.

9. A popular political party pushes the idea that a ‘successful’ strong man, often a billionaire, is needed to lead the nation against its enemies, foreign and domestic.

8. My country glorifies the military. Everyone is expected to react with an unquestioning patriotism no matter what it does.

7. Those who profit from waging war have created powerful lobby groups. Their self-interest is to define rivals as enemies who must be “defended” against, justifying ever increased spending.

6. While external “enemies” excuse militarism, internal minority groups have become targets of hate campaigns to justify paramilitary militias who are supposedly “defending” the nation and its values.

5. Specialists who have been trained in propaganda targeting other country’s affairs and in overthrowing “unfriendly” governments are available for hire by domestic politicians.

4. A mass movement to oppose “socialism” can be easily mobilized by the wealthy to defend their “property” against increased taxes or efforts to reduce inequality and provide better social services.

3. Verifiable, objective truth is ignored by growing numbers of people. Instead, they believe “Big Lies” or conspiracy theories, which are becoming more common.

2. A political movement has been created in which loyalty to a leader above all else is the critical test of party membership.

1. Many “important” people, especially the wealthy, no longer trust democracy or believe in elections and are willing to manipulate results to get their way.

How real is the threat of fascism? At a minimum, the extreme right is a threat to the very limited, mostly one-dollar, one-vote democracy that capitalists allow us. Supporters of the system claim capitalism is integral to liberal democracy, but that is absurd. Everywhere fascism has taken power or grown quickly it is because the wealthy and powerful have thrown their support behind it and against democracy. When forced to choose between their “property rights” and democracy, capitalists choose self-interest, which is maintaining their wealth and power. All over the world rich people are abandoning conservative parties in favor of the extreme right or are pushing the traditional parties of wealth to the extreme right.

I wrote the above for a book that I subsequently turned into 43 videos titled Economic Democracy or No Democracy—An Anti Oligarchy Manifesto for the Your Socialist Grandfather YouTube channel. Suddenly it seems much too topical. Urgent even.

'Laughing at him': Foreign official in awe watching King Charles 'humiliate' Trump

Robert Davis
September 18, 2025
 RAW STORY


US President Donald Trump and King Charles interact at the state banquet for the US President and First Lady Melania Trump at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, on day one of their second state visit to the UK, Wednesday September 17, 2025. Yui Mok/Pool via REUTERS


A Ukrainian MP said Thursday that President Donald Trump was "humiliated" on the world's stage yet again while he visited the United Kingdom's royal family.

Kira Rudik, leader of the Ukrainian Holos Party, discussed Trump's U.K. visit in an interview with Times Radio. Rudik said that King Charles "humiliated" Trump during the state dinner at Windsor Castle by subtly calling out Trump's isolationist stance in the Ukraine war.

King Charles said that it was "time for Europe and our allies to stand together" to defeat the growing wave of fascism.

"It was such a nice statement from a leader who understands the difference between value and values," Rudik said. "Looking at it not from just a short-term gains situation but from the historical value situation, from something that you believe in for generations and stand for, then you know how important it is to be on the right side of history."

Rudik also accused Trump of "playing a game" to help Russian President Vladimir Putin escape accountability for invading Ukraine. That game has also "put Europe's security at stake," she said.

"Does he want to continue to be humiliated, or does he want to be a strong president as he promised?" Rudik said. "Does he want to be perceived as someone who can end the war, someone who deserves the Nobel Peace Prize, someone who is actually ready to stand up against China, against Iran, against North Korea, or as someone that all these tyrannies will be laughing at?"

'Beating the retreat': British historian decodes Trump's visit to the UK

US President Donald Trump delivers his speech as King Charles III and the Princess of Wales listen during the state banquet for the US President and First Lady Melania Trump at Windsor Castle, Berkshire, on day one of their second state visit to the UK, Wednesday September 17, 2025. Yui Mok/Pool via REUTERS

The Conversation

September 19, 2025 

State visits are always grand occasions, but Donald Trump’s second was unprecedented in terms of scale and spectacle. The president was treated to the most impressive ceremonial welcome ever laid on for any head of state.


After enjoying a carriage ride through the grounds of Windsor Castle with the king, queen and prince and princess of Wales, the president was greeted by the largest guard of honour ever, comprising 1,300 troops and 120 horses. A lunch, private tour of St George’s Chapel and a Red Arrows flypast followed, before the day culminated in a lavish white-tie state banquet.

All this pomp and pageantry has a purpose and a keen eye can spot meaning in most parts of the itinerary.

For example, there were obvious nods to the government’s priorities for this visit throughout the first day, even before the government meetings began. Prime minister Keir Starmer has wanted to focus on tech and defence, so we saw key business leaders, including the head of Apple and CEO of OpenAI, on the guest list for the state banquet.

There was also a clear focus on defence throughout the first day’s proceedings. As well as inspecting the customary guard of honour, the President took part in the “beating the retreat” ceremony – the first time that this historic military parade has been performed at an incoming state visit.

British and American F-35 fighter jets were part of the aerial flypast and when symbolic gifts were exchanged, Trump presented the king with a replica of a President Eisenhower sword. This, he said, was a “reminder of the historical partnership that was critical to winning World War II”.

But perhaps the government’s objectives were seen most clearly in the speeches delivered during the state banquet. King Charles explicitly reminded the President that the UK had agreed “the first trade deal” of any country with his administration, which he said had brought “jobs and growth” to both countries and hoped would allow for them to “go even further as we build this new era of our partnership”.

Most striking of all, however, were the king’s comments on defence. He explicitly told Trump that “in two world wars, we fought together to defeat the forces of tyranny. Today, as tyranny once again threatens Europe, we and our allies stand together in support of Ukraine, to deter aggression and secure peace”.

The first day of any state visit is all about royal pageantry, with discussions of politics usually left for day two. This is because in the UK’s constitutional monarchy, the monarch is bound by the doctrine of political neutrality, which means that the king must remain neutral on political matters.

But some have argued that Charles was, with these comments, straying into politics and went too far. The journalist Michael Wolff said the king was effectively correcting Trump over his failure to strike a peace deal in Ukraine and that the President would have been “super irritated” by the intervention.

However, it is important to note that the king’s words will have been chosen carefully for him by the UK government. This is because Charles is bound by the cardinal convention, a constitutional rule according to which he must act on the advice of the government. All his speeches are written by ministers, and this particular speech reportedly went through many drafts to ensure that the king “pushes the right buttons without crossing political lines”.

The button that this speech was designed to push was peace in Ukraine. After his very public spat with Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy in the Oval Office earlier this year, the UK government has been concerned that Trump is indifferent about who wins the Russia-Ukraine war and favours an appeasement solution with Putin. It wants to get Trump firmly on Ukraine’s side – and thought the king was the best person to deliver this message.

The king is a skilled diplomat whose unrivalled soft power gives him the unique ability to influence some of the biggest political issues of our time. And he seems to get on well with Trump. The king met the President during his first state visit in 2019, wrote to him following his assassination attempt and, unusually, invited him for an unprecedented second state visit with a special hand written note.

There seemed to be genuine warmth between the two men during this second visit. The President, for example, praised the king, describing him as “his friend who everybody loves” and “a great gentleman and a great king”.

And there are signs that this flattery and warmth nullified any potential annoyance over the Ukraine comments. In his own speech, Trump effused that the day was “one of the highest honours” of his life and that “the word ‘special’ does not begin to do justice” to the UK-US relationship.

If the state visit helps increase US support for the British economy and Ukraine, it will be a job well done for the royals.

Francesca Jackson, PhD candidate, Lancaster Law School, Lancaster University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

'We are horrified': NYT chastises Trump in scathing op-ed

Adam Lynch

ALTERNET

September 19, 2025 | 

The New York Times accused Trump of wielding some ugly free speech to bury the speech of others.

“Trump and his aides tell … a false [story]. They claim that political violence comes mostly from the left. … In fact, multiple data sources show that neither side has a monopoly on political violence, but it is more likely to come from the right,” the Times reports. “Between 2015 and 2024, 54 percent of ideologically connected killings were committed by people on the far right, according to the Anti-Defamation League. By comparison, 8 percent came from the political left.”

“We are horrified by the killing of [MAGA influencer Charlie] Kirk, and we mourn his death,” the Times reports. However, as stated by former vice president Mike Pence: “there was one person responsible for Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”

That doesn’t appear to stop Trump from using Kirk’s death to crackdown on “hateful” free speech with which he disagrees, while his speech remains free and thoroughly hateful.

“After the attack at [former Speaker Nancy] Pelosi’s home, which included a brutal assault of her husband, Paul, Mr. Trump himself and other prominent Republicans mocked the victim and spread absurd conspiracies that the episode was staged. After the shooting of two Democratic legislators and their spouses in Minnesota, Senator Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, bizarrely blamed “Marxists,” while Laura Loomer, an influential Trump confidante, falsely blamed “goons” working for Gov. Tim Walz, the Minnesota Democrat.”

These are terrible things to say, but they are not crimes, said the Times, “and they are certainly not grounds for a government crackdown against conservative groups,” and it urged Trump and his aides “to remember the free-speech criticisms that they and other conservatives have often made of progressives over the past decade.”

“In his Inaugural Address in January, Mr. Trump promised to ‘bring back free speech to America.’ [Vice President JD] Vance, while speaking in Munich in February, excoriated European countries for restricting speech and promised, ‘Under Donald Trump’s leadership, we may disagree with your views, but we will fight to defend your right to offer it in the public square, agree or disagree,’” the Times recalled.

But instead of living up to these principles, the Trump administration and its allies are attempting to restrict speech in ways that are more extreme than anything Democrats have done.

If Trump refuses to stand up for “the basic American right to disagree without fear of oppression, others still can,” said the Times, and it urged the Supreme Court to jettison Trump’s upcoming executive order targeting left-leaning organizations as “clearly unconstitutional.”

“The ability to disagree with other people on raw, difficult issues, without fear of repression, is the essence of American freedom.”

Read the New York Times report at this link.

One senator's ignorant Charlie Kirk whine shows how far the GOP has fallen

Ray Hartmann
September 18, 2025 

RAW STORY

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) questions FBI Director Kash Patel on Capitol Hill. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst




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Eric Schmitt tried to present himself as an intellectual at a hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.



He came off like a little boy trying on his father’s clothes in the mirror.

It was all swagger and no fit.

Schmitt thoughtfully entitled his remarks, “There Can Be No Unity Between Good and Evil.” Even the subject of the hearing — smarmy FBI Director Kash Patel — must have been wondering to himself about how that could possibly be helpful.

The problem wasn’t merely with the content of Schmitt’s falsehood-laden messaging. His role, after all, was to parrot Donald Trump’s reprehensible words dividing the nation at a time of national strife, as no American president ever has before.

But Schmitt’s speech — which you can watch here or read here — was nothing more than a faux-intellectual diatribe delivered with the gravitas of Daffy Duck doing a TED talk.

Early on in his remarks, Schmitt sounded like a U.S. Senator:
Over the past week, leaders from across the political spectrum have come out and condemned Charlie [Kirk]'s murder and political violence more broadly. For that, we’re all very grateful. We should be grateful. There have been calls together to come together in the wake of Charlie’s murder and I want to do that. Someday, I pray we can be united as a country again and go forward again as one people under one flag.

That sounded fine to me. My reaction in this space had been that “we should all as Americans deplore — without qualification — Kirk’s murder. It’s a moment that could bring us all together in revulsion, across the great political divide.”

Unfortunately, Schmitt’s gratitude lasted just a few paragraphs. He cited some random polling which he claimed showed that liberals are fine with political violence and conservatives aren’t. That junk doesn’t deserve further mention here, much less — with no vetting or validation — at a U.S. Senate proceeding.

As for “coming together,” it was probably not all that helpful for the senator to spew lies like this one:
The George Soros empire has financed a vast ecosystem of radicals all working together — dropping off bricks at riots — to unleash a tidal wave of violent anarchists on our streets and prop it up with an army of researchers and experts and journalists and propagandists who downplay political violence.

Nothing like serving up propaganda to call out propaganda. It might soothe the sensibilities of MAGA faithful, but Schmitt’s just another politician making stuff up.

But what sets Schmitt apart is his veneer of solemnity while delivering such truly unserious drivel. With no self-awareness, Schmitt persists in trying to dress up the basest political tripe in a wardrobe of make-believe intellectualism.

Behold the philosopher Eric Schmitt holding forth with large words:
Upstream from the dehumanization and demonizing political violence and rhetoric tearing apart our country, is a divide on how we view America and Americans. Are we good? Are we evil? Is there something inherently special about Western civilization or is this 2,000-year project rotten to the core? And if it is something worth fighting for, which I believe it is, how do we do it?”


What?

Now, I’ve written quite a few clunky paragraphs in my day — and mixed more than my share of metaphors — but I’m not certain how to decode Schmitt’s gibberish.


We’ve all heard our nation described as a grand “experiment,” but arguably not one spanning 2,000 years. With apologies to those who maintain Jesus was an American.

And who describes “Western civilization” as a “2,000-year project?” Mind you, this wasn’t a slip of the tongue: it’s in his speech text and was faithfully repeated in his live remarks.

Are we good? Are we evil? Does dehumanization flow upstream? Were the Dark Ages part of Western civilization? Is this the sort of work product you’d get if Plato impregnated Laura Loomer?


I’m not so sure about those questions, but I am about this one:

Does Eric Schmitt truly not comprehend the outrageous hypocrisy of viciously attacking people’s character and motives who disagree with him — and calling them “evil” — and then whining like this?

And I would point out we’ve heard years of the left — their loudest voices — calling anyone on the right an extremist MAGA Republican, a fascist, a Nazi, an existential threat to democracy.

Check yourself. And don’t give me this both sides bullshit!


It’s hard to counter such eloquence from such a towering intellect.


Still, here’s a thought: If you truly hold the worldview that in American politics, everything comes down to good versus evil — and that you’re good and those of us who disagree with you are evil — say it all you want. It’s a free country.

But don’t bother pretending to be smart about it.

(Note: this is the first of a two-part post. Tomorrow’s installment will examine Schmitt’s premise that political violence in America is not a “both sides” matter.)

One Of Our Own: On Wonderful Americans Like Charlie



A young Tyler Robinson with one of his many guns

Family photo

Abby Zimet
Sep 17, 2025
FURTHER

COMMON DREAMS

The fiery shards from the murder of Charlie Kirk still ricochet in baleful ways, even as his shooter’s views and motives remain murky. Despite rabid calls by a regime eager for revenge to extinguish leftist “scum” who rendered their bigot hero “a martyr for truth and freedom,” the killer seems to be a muddled mix of gun freak, devout gamer and violent nihilist. In his bloody wake, many now beset by irrational vitriol are left to argue, “I don’t support what happened to Charlie, but Charlie supported what happened to Charlie.”

Political violence is, of course, as old as America: Federalists vs. anti-Federalists, indigenous genocide, slavery, lynching, war, Lincoln, the 1960s’ white and black assassinations, civil, women’s and gay rights struggles, Jan. 6 riots, police state troops, racist ICE raids and, in a country with perhaps 500 million guns, an estimated 125 Americans killed daily with guns - a rate 26 times higher than any other developed nation - and up to 800 children killed in school shootings impacting over 360,000 students. In 2023, the most recent year with full data, nearly 47,000 people died in gun violence. The first six months of this year saw an almost 40% surge in gun-related acts of terrorism and targeted violence over last year, with over 520 reported plots or acts of violence and, to date, 300 mass shootings, forty-seven at schools. In a nation awash in killing machines, an increasingly right-wing GOP and a mood of rage-fueled paranoia and polarization, each act of political violence makes the next more likely.

Charlie Kirk, 31, was shot and killed by an assassin’s bullet in the neck while speaking under a tent that read “Prove Me Wrong” on the campus of Utah Valley University on the first of a 15-stop “America Comeback Tour” by his right-wing Turning Point USA; he was struck just as he responded to a question about mass shootings by blaming gangs. It was the day before a historically freighted Sept. 11 symbolizing myriad acts of or against violence: It was the day when Gandhi launched the first nonviolent resistance in South Africa in 1906 to stunning political effect; when Chile’s democratically elected Socialist President Salvador Allende was assassinated; when Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center and Americans came together with such inspiring grace and strength the event came to represent “the ultimate failure of terrorism against the United States” - until a pernicious Bush Administration launched two bloody, pointless, illegal wars, which still haunt us, in its name.

Kirk was a vibrant, hateful, genial, incendiary mouthpiece for a MAGA worldview of bigotry and intolerance, a “loathsome human being (who) celebrated violence against people he didn’t like” and used his mocking, performative “debates” with students to effectively spread misinformation, inflame young, impressionable, vaguely discontent people, surreptitiously urge democracy be replaced by an emergent Christian Fascism, and make millions. “The language has been violent. The discord has been great,” wrote Rev. Graylan Scott Hagler. “There has been a consistent invitation to dine at the table of heated racist discussion posing as legitimate political speech,” in which Kirk “rhetorically violated” the safety of Blacks, Muslims, queers, immigrants and multiple ‘others’ in the name of a defaming, divisive “free speech.” “He (did) not care about the security of others. He did not show empathy,” said Hagler. “Charlie Kirk expanded hatred (and) marketed the vile speech of old racisms in new wineskins.”

Kirk claimed America was full of “prowling Blacks” who target white people “for fun.” He said “God’s perfect law” says gay people should be stoned to death, Black people were better off during Jim Crow, Democrats “stand for everything God hates,” the Civil Rights Act was a mistake, Islam is “the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.” He put liberal academics on watch lists to be targeted and harassed, called Dems “maggots, vermin and swine,” mocked the death of George Floyd, “joked” a “patriot” should bail out Paul Pelosi’s attacker, urged “a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming doctor,” charged prominent Black women like Michelle Obama “don’t have the brain power” to succeed unless they “steal a white person’s slot.” A fierce critic of gun control, he argued we cannot allow mass shooting victims to “emotionally hijack the narrative,” and championed as “prudent” and “rational” the cost of gun deaths in exchange for having “the 2nd Amendment to protect our other God-given rights.”

Like much of the right, he practiced “eliminationist rhetoric,” wherein political opponents aren’t just wrong but evil, less than human. Still, when the 2nd Amendment came for Charlie Kirk, thoughtful opponents wrestled in a deeply human way with the complexities. “He was a vile human being,” said one, “but I do not want to live in a society where vile human beings are assassinated.” Again and again, people echoed that pivotal duality: “We can condemn political violence and Kirk’s murder while also condemning Kirk for the hate he fomented,” “Murder is bad, and sometimes bad people are murdered,” “Kirk said and did many despicable things, but he did not deserve to die,” “Kirk should not have been shot and killed for his beliefs, and nobody else” - Minnesota lawmaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, whose deaths Trump still refuses to acknowledge, no pol, no child - “should be either.” This was not vengeance-tinged schadenfreude, he said; it was a moral and political reckoning with America’s dissonant reality.

The right, obviously, ignored those subtleties, unable to recognize any space between “endorsing over-the-top grief for white men who espouse violence” and not endorsing that violence. Here, as usual, appeasement is in vain. “They are going to claim we (left/liberals/Democrats/non-white non-supremacists) said whatever is most convenient for them to say we said, no matter what we say,” wrote Rebecca Solnit. “They’ve already decided all of us were the shooter.” And they did. Within minutes, with zero information on the killer, Trump, elected on a platform of fomenting online rage against the “other,” seized the deadly moment to foment more. He raved against “a radical left group of lunatics” - “we just have to beat the hell out of them” - “the agitator,” “the scum,” who for years “have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis...This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we’re seeing in our country.” Elizabeth Warren, asked if Dems should “tone down” their rhetoric: “Oh, please.”

After he ordered the nation’s flags flown at half-mast - never once done for the hundreds of schoolchildren gunned down over the years - fellow brownshirts picked up the vengeful tiki torch and feverishly ran with it. Musk: “The Left is the party of murder...Our choice is to fight or die.” Libs of Tik Tok: “THIS IS WAR.” Matt Walsh: “We are up against demonic forces from the pit of Hell.” Seethed Paulina Luna, “EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS,” charging, “You were busy doping up kids, cutting off their genitals, inciting racial violence...YOU ARE THE HATE you claim to fight.” Logically, they also vowed to use the power of the state to exact retribution against Dem pols, “libtard” pundits, anyone who may have viewed Kirk as anything but a flawless hero and martyr. Clay Higgins urged social media posts be banned, business licenses revoked, students or teachers be kicked out, non-citizens be banished: “Cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals.”

As usual, a spewing, psychotic Stephen Miller won the talking-evil-bullshit-out-of-your-Nazi-ass award, raving about “a wicked ideology” that “hates everything that is good, righteous and beautiful and celebrates everything that is warped, twisted and depraved,” an ideology that views “the perfect family with bitter rage while embracing the serial criminal with tender warmth” as its adherents “tear down and destroy every mark of grace and beauty while lifting up everything monstrous and foul.” Say what the fuck? In a posthumous Kirk podcast in the White House hosted by J.D. Vance - who flew Kirk’s body home in Air Force Two and pledged to “go after” fictional leftist NGOs, including The Nation, that “foments violence” - a smitten Miller decried those “cheering the evil assassination that cruelly robbed this nation of one of its greatest men” and vowed to use his “righteous anger,” “as God is my witness,” to “use every resource” to destroy the left’s “vast domestic terror movement...in Charlie’s name.”

Experts say the first, vital violence the authoritarian right commits is against fact, truth, history, meaning, language - reality itself. And so, again, it comes to pass. There has been no “cheering” of an act everyone knows with “horror” will spiral into chaos and repression. Though Miller said his last message from Kirk “before he joined his creator in heaven” was “we have to dismantle radical left organizations...fomenting violence,” there is no such organization; nor is there a leftist “vast domestic terror movement.” But there is, well-documented, on the right. See here, here, and here: Far-right plots and attacks have “significantly outpaced terrorism by other types of perpetrators” since 1994, and 2024 was the third year in a row that all extremist-related killings in the U.S. were carried out by right-wingers.” A study by the DOJ itself likewise found, “The number of far-right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism.” It was just scrubbed from its website.

But who needs facts. Not a desperate, unhinged right that increasingly views everyone else as an existential threat to the white, straight, Christian nationalist oligarchy they seek to create. And now, notes Chris Hedges, they have their martyr, “the lifeblood of violent movements”- albeit “a reprehensible human being and Christo-fascist who enacted his agenda by preying on weak minded people” - often critical to “turn the moral order upside down” en route to “full-scale social disintegration.” Inevitably, he predicts, the right’s new-found, giddy, sanctimonious “intoxication with violence will feed on itself like a firestorm.” In less than a week, it already is, with dozens of people across the country facing retribution - hounded, fired, threatened, arrested - in a GOP-sanctified ”witch-hunt” against anyone who dares to not mourn Kirk, or accurately, scathingly quote him, or decline “to be sad that a guy willing to sacrifice school children for the Second Amendment wound up getting shot at a school.”

MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd for musing, “Hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which lead to hateful actions.” The Washington Post fired Karen Attiah, their sole Black columnist, for noting Kirk’s racist history, especially toward Black women. Dem Rep. Seth Moulton was flooded with threats - “Cute kids - be a shame if they didn’t have a father” - for arguing Trump should make it clear political differences can’t and shouldn’t be solved by violence. And in what Thaddeus Howze calls “deafening hypocrisy,” a populace who long (if selectively) quoted Scripture to make their pious points has abruptly banished their “live by the sword” tenet after “the gun culture (Kirk) championed did not exempt him.” “Here was a man who minimized other people’s agony, suddenly forced to taste the violence he once dismissed,” he writes. As a result, his “2nd Amendment justice” is neither celebration nor solution; it’s simply the fact that, “The logic he defended and normalized folded back on him.”

Enter Tyler Robinson, who on Tuesday appeared by video in court to be charged with aggravated murder and six other counts; prosecutors will seek the death penalty. After Kash Patel’s error-ridden, “amateur hour” clown show of an FBI search, Robinson was ultimately convinced by his father and a family friend to turn himself in. Described as a quiet, “squeaky clean” kid, he came from a Trump-voting, gun-loving family; his father was a sheriff turned evangelical pastor, online, his mother often posted (now-deleted) photos of Tyler and his brother grinning with guns, and they’d gifted him the rifle he killed Kirk with. Early reports suggested he was part of Nick Fuentes’ “Groypers,” a white-nationalist group from the “toxic underbelly of the MAGA ecosystem” who use Internet memes, ironic cultural references and racist dog whistles to spread hate, and who’d publicly harassed Kirk as not extremist or “pro-white” enough. Now, it’s only clear that Tyler, who friends describe as “terminally online,” was “a guy who plainly had Internet brain poisoning.”

As “experts” struggled to decipher reported markings on the killer’s ammunition - “Hey fascist, catch!” with a sequence of arrows etc - gamers quickly identified them as symbols from Helldivers 2, in which elite forces battle against aliens on behalf of a fascist state. Meanwhile, more facts emerged: Tyler, his politics shifting left, was in a romantic relationship with a roommate transitioning from male to female, and he’d told them and his father he killed Kirk because he “had enough of his hatred.” All told, his views were so hazy he could be deemed a “nihilist violent extremist” (NVE), often alienated young men, desensitized to violence by gaming and right-wing subcultures, who lack a coherent political belief system but feel an inchoate rage - a reminder to a partisan world, wrote Ken Klippenstein, “of the actual diversity of the nation, and the cost of polarization that demonizes the other side.” The lack of “tidy narrative,” said Rep.Sean Casten, suggested this was merely the tale of “a young man who made a bad choice with a gun.”

Online, some declared MAGA’s civil war had been cancelled “due to shooter being demographically uncooperative.” But the regime, fired up, had no interest in leading us out of “this ugly toxic pit.” Ignoring facts, law, nuance and their ostensible mission to unite, they’ve used the shooting to launch “the biggest assault on the First Amendment in our country’s modern history.” Pam Bondi, appearing on Goebbels’ wife Katie Miller’s malignant podcast, vowed the Justice Department would “go after” those engaging in “hate speech,” or “violent rhetoric designed to silence others from voicing conservative ideals,” aka accurately quoting Charlie Kirk. “There’s free speech and there’s hate speech,” she said. “We will absolutely target you.” Heather Lyle on the “staggering irony” of selectively outraged, right-wing grievance politics “collapsing under the weight of its own contradictions...A movement that insists mass death is acceptable collateral in the name of liberty also demands national mourning when its own suffers.”

Trump, meanwhile, has helped stifle free speech by threatening an ABC News reporter who asked about it - “We’ll probably go after people like you. You treat me unfairly - you have hate in your heart” - an Australian reporter - “You are hurting Australia right now. Your leader is coming to see me soon, I’m going to tell him about you...Quiet” - and “the degenerate” New York Times with a bizarre, “hilarious,” $15 billion libel lawsuit packed with lies, boasts and juvenile praise for his “transcendent ability to defy wrongful conventions” and “greatest personal and political achievement in American history” despite a pernicious paper that “has engaged (in) decades-long lying about your Favorite President (ME!).” Like any eight-year-old sociopath, he has a notably short attention span: Asked how he’s doing after losing his “friend” Kirk, he said, “Very good. And by the way, right there, you see the trucks just started construction of the new Ballroom...It’s going to be a beauty...one of the best in the world, actually. Thank you very much.”

Elsewhere, everyone spoke of Kirk and the havoc his death has wrought. “Pay attention,” urged Sen. Chris Murphy of moves to crush dissent: “Something dark may be coming.” A somber Bernie warned of political violence that “threatens to hollow out our public life”; many followers, citing the “paradox of intolerance,” argued tolerance is a social contract the right has already ravaged: “Charlie Kirk is a self-inflicted gunshot statistic. Kirk’s widow Erika, 36, a glossy former Miss Arizona with a “Christian clothing company” and “devotional blessings” podcast, gave an ”address to the nation” at a lectern reading, “May Charlie be received into the merciful arms of Jesus, our loving savior”; she told “evil-doers” they have “no idea what you have unleashed,” and vowed the tour, mission and “wisdom” of Charlie, “wearing the glorious crown of a martyr,” “will endure.” At a shabby Kennedy Center vigil - bad music, red caps, USA chants, shrieking pastors - regime fans and officials proclaimed, “We are all Charlie Kirk now.”

Not quite. “Grief is not a performance,” offered a therapist to those struggling to respond. “When a public figure dies, you are not obligated to manufacture sorrow (to) honor a life (that) caused harm.” “You are inheriting a country where politics feels like rage,” Utah Gov. Spencer Cox told traumatized students. “Words are not violence. Violence is violence.” After the arrest, Cox said he’d been praying the shooter “wouldn’t be one of us” - a queer immigrant would be better? - “so I could say, ‘We don’t do that here.‘” But of course he was, and we do. “What the actual hell have we become?” asked Catholic writer Emily Zanotti. From another, “We have met the enemy, and he is us.” White, male, home-grown, needy, beset by an inchoate animus and fury now wretchedly reflected in a regime whose leaders choose to use power only for hate. Compare and contrast with, say, Stephen Colbert, who this week spoke of love, and loss, and “desperately loving” a country now unrecognizable. Even Tyler Robinson decried hate, and, to his partner, voiced love.

The same day he shot Charlie Kirk, the “uniquely American cycle” was reprised one state over when a male student opened fire at a Colorado high school, wounding two before killing himself; so much blood was already flowing it barely made the news. Two days later, also under-reported, a police SWAT team arrested a 13-year-old boy near Seattle for “unlawful firearms possession.” Evidently fixated on school shootings, the boy had amassed an arsenal of 23 guns with accompanying ammunition, including tactical style rifles mounted on the walls of his room, handguns strewn through the house and, in a backpack beneath a turtle habitat, AR assault magazines; police also found drawings of school shooters and social media posts that said, “When I turn 21 I am going to kill people” and, “It’s over! My time is almost hear!” (sic). In an interview, his mother, who home-schooled him, said the posts were an attempt by her son to “be cool,” and he had no intention of harming anyone.

Conservatives Are Using Charlie Kirk’s Death to Enact Sweeping Speech Crackdown

The US has entered a new era of McCarthyism as the Trump administration equates leftist critique with “terrorism.”

By Daniel Moritz-Rabson ,

Truthout

September 17, 2025

U.S. President Donald Trump shakes hands with conservative activist Charlie Kirk at a forum dubbed the Generation Next Summit at the White House, on March 22, 2018, in Washington, D.C.Mark Wilson / Getty Images

Conservative politicians and activists are calling for retribution against a wide range of perceived opponents in the wake of Charlie Kirk’s killing on September 10, sparking fears about a sweeping crackdown on free expression.

Even as law enforcement officials sought to determine the motive behind Kirk’s fatal shooting and the ideological alignment of his alleged killer, prominent right-wing figures quickly began using the outrage sparked by his death to blame the political left, vowing to enact a broad range of measures that could clamp down on civic society.

On September 15, Vice President J.D. Vance said he would “work to dismantle the institutions that promote violence and terrorism in our own country” and swore to “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.” Vance made the comments while hosting “The Charlie Kirk Show,” the daily podcast Kirk hosted before his killing. Although law enforcement officials have said they think Kirk’s shooter was acting alone, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, who joined the podcast as a guest, also vowed to “uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks.”

“With God as my witness, 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,” Miller said. “It will happen, and we will do it in Charlie’s name.”

The remarks have sparked fear among civil rights leaders, free speech advocates, and extremism monitors who have been tracking the response to Kirk’s assassination. In the days since the shooting, right-wing figures have variably declared that a “war” with the left is occurring, decried the nation’s polarization, and promoted the Turning Point USA founder as a venerable defender of free speech. Now, Vance and other political leaders are encouraging people to call the employers of those whom they consider to be “celebrating” Kirk’s death.

Vice President J.D. Vance swore to “go after the NGO network that foments, facilitates, and engages in violence.”

“It is 1952 in too much of America right now,” Ken Paulson, the director of the Free Speech Center at Middle Tennessee State University, told Truthout, comparing the modern political moment to the widespread repression and persecution that swept the country during McCarthyism. “We have not seen anything like this since and I never thought we would see it today.”

The calls to crack down on speech deemed undesirable have emanated from a wide cross-section of government personnel. As employees across a range of federal agencies have been disciplined for social media comments about Kirk, multiple cabinet secretaries have sworn to punish those who mock or condone his killing. Federal legislators including Sen. Marsha Blackburn and Rep. Nancy Mace have called for professors and other university employees to be fired. Florida Rep. Randy Fine asked people to report individuals celebrating Kirk’s death, and that he would “demand their firing, defunding, and license revocation.”

“Those celebrating the death of Charlie Kirk must be thrown out of civil society,” Fine wrote on social media.

Related Story

State Department Warns “Foreigners” Not to Mock Kirk’s Killing
A State Department official asked people to report “foreigners” who post on social media “making light of the event.” By Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg , Truthout September 12, 2025

Similar dynamics are also unfolding at the state level. Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita said that teachers reported to his office by the public would be included in a state government dashboard used to document “objectionable” political ideology in the classroom. Iowa state lawmakers signed a letter supporting the firing of university employees who they claimed “publicly celebrated [Kirk’s] killing online.”

While these government-endorsed calls for sanctions have provoked quick backlash from free speech advocates, employers have even more swiftly doled out punishments. Many of those fired have mocked Kirk or said they have no remorse for his death. Others have been censured for critically describing the activist’s work and statements.

Last week, MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd hours after he said on air that “I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” Karen Attiah, a former opinion columnist at The Washington Post, wrote in a Substack piece that she was fired by the paper after a series of posts condemning the country’s acceptance of political violence.

Her social media posts only directly referenced Kirk while referencing a time when, in speaking Joy Reid, Michelle Obama, Sheila Jackson Lee, and Ketanji Brown Jackson and describing them as “affirmative-action picks,” Kirk said: “Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”

Attiah’s Bluesky post shared an activist’s slight reworking of Kirk’s quote — “Black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot.”

The termination letter from The Washington Post said Attiah’s Bluesky posts “about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not comply with our policy.”

Fueled by the rhetoric of prominent politicians, social media platforms have turned into a staging ground for collecting names and orchestrating campaigns to call for firings. Conservative social media influencers have encouraged people to submit posts of coworkers or community members, and then have used their large platforms to amplify calls for punishment. Laura Loomer, for example, promoted a tip line to help get people who work for the federal government fired for “celebrating political violence.” Later, she posted: “So many people have been fired. I’m so proud of you guys.” An anonymous site called “Expose Charlie’s Murderers” shared the names, employment information, locations, and social media accounts of people it claimed were “supporting political violence” and said it had received tens of thousands of submissions. Though the site has since reportedly been taken down via a hack, WIRED reported that many of the posts included did not glorify or promote violence.

“They’re definitely trying to destroy people’s lives,” Heidi Beirich, co-founder of the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism, told Truthout. “This is like a crusade for them at this point.”

One thread on X purporting to document people who have faced consequences due to comments about Charlie Kirk now includes at least 100 people. The crackdown has touched a wide array of sectors. The Carolina Panthers fired a communications worker. An employee of the Nashville Fire Department was placed on paid administrative leave for a social media post. Three major U.S. airlines said they suspended employees for posts about Kirk’s death.

In the rush to expose those who aren’t mourning Kirk appropriately, the online army has made some notable errors. User Mag reported 30-year-old IT technician Ali Nasrati was flummoxed when he began receiving a slew of threatening messages telling him to “get the fuck out of America.” A series of right-wing accounts had begun circulating the man’s personal information, claiming he’d been running an X account that cheered Kirk’s death. Back in May, someone had set up an account using photos from Nasrati’s real LinkedIn and Instagram accounts and has been impersonating him. By the time Nasrati figured out what was going on, his phone number and personal address had already spread widely and his job had suspended him.

Educators at all levels have been heavily swept up in the backlash. The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that at least 11 faculty members at colleges and universities have been disciplined since Kirk’s shooting. The rapid doling out of punishment led PEN America to warn that “colleges and universities risk undermining free inquiry and academic freedom if they treat all online expression as grounds for termination.”

On many campuses, that chilling effect has already been playing out for years.


“It’s going to suppress free speech, political activity, and make people terrified to speak their mind.”

In the days since Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at Utah Valley University, conservatives — as well as some liberals — have effusively paid tribute to him by praising his dedication to free and open debate and willingness to speak with those he vehemently disagreed with. This depiction of a charismatic champion of civil discussion has contradicted the experiences of the university professors who have been targeted by Kirk’s organization.

In 2016, Kirk’s Turning Point USA launched the Professor Watchlist. Soliciting tips from the public, the project proclaims to “expose and document college professors who discriminate against conservative students and advance leftist propaganda in the classroom.” Much like the social campaign unfolding now, educators whose names appeared on the list were subjected to threats. Many feared for their safety.

“I’ve seen faculty put on the professor blacklist and then have to get security to escort them around campus,” Todd Wolfson, the president of the American Association of University Professors, told Truthout.

While Kirk’s watchlist helped foment an environment of fear among educators, so have Trump’s attacks on academic freedom and aggressive efforts to force universities to reshape their curricula. Widespread firings and censorship for pro-Palestinian activism on college campuses further instilled a chilling effect. The backlash to faculty who protested Israel’s conduct “was a testing ground for ‘Can you shut up the speech of students and faculty?’ And now we’re seeing that there could be a much broader attack on our speech,” Wolfson said. Those fears are even more amplified in the current moment, as conservative leaders from the president down encourage retribution.

“This terrain that has been created — where faculty are constantly a target of the right and a target in a way that’s getting escalated and escalated and escalated — scares the death out of my faculty,” Wolfson said. “They are worried about a paper they wrote five years ago. They’re worried about walking to campus.”

The impact of the widespread clampdown at universities and beyond will reverberate across the country, Beirich warned. “It’s going to suppress free speech, political activity, and make people terrified to speak their mind.”


This article is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), and you are free to share and republish under the terms of the license.

Daniel Moritz-Rabson is a New York-based researcher and investigative journalist whose work focuses on the criminal legal system. His reporting has appeared in outlets including ProPublica, The Intercept, and The Appeal.

There's much worse about to come than just silencing Jimmy Kimmel

Thom Hartmann
September 18, 2025 

RAW STORY

Donald Trump smiles as he attends an event in the Oval Office. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

The FCC chairman just threatened to pull ABC’s license because of a comment Jimmy Kimmel made about Charlie Kirk, and ABC just indefinitely took him off the air. This is the sort of thing you’d expect in Russia, not America.

But let’s back up a minute.

First, those who use violence come for the politicians. Then they come after the pundits and reporters. And finally they encourage average people to turn their guns on each other.

The dark story we’re living — this rise of fascism and destruction of civil order — fits a pyramid, not a straight line. And it explains why the killing of Charlie Kirk, aside from the right’s incessant amplification of their outrage, actually is a big deal and very dangerous sign for today’s political moment.

At the apex of the pyramid of people first targeted for violence are politicians, people who choose to live in the blast radius of public power.

When the taboo against political bloodshed cracks, it often cracks there first, with, for example, the attempted assassinations of Mike Pence and Nancy Pelosi by Trump’s mob, the murder of Minnesota State House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, the bombs Trump fanboy Cesar Sayoc send to President Obama and other elected Democrats, and our history of political assassinations.

The second tier down from the apex is the world of thought leaders, editors, and reporters, the people who interpret events for the rest of us. In healthy times they’re noisy, sometimes infuriating, and very much alive.

The brutal assassination of conservative activist and organizer Charlie Kirk in Utah wasn’t just another awful headline, it was America making the transition into that second tier on the way toward civil war or a police state. You don’t have to like Kirk's views to see that this is part of the transition from public debate to public violence.

I really wish we didn’t have to be having this conversation, to be considering the possibility that our politicians, our thought leaders, and eventually each one of us ourselves could be the victims of violence incited by political conflict. But that’s where we are.

And instead of trying to bring the nation together or heal it, Trump and those around him appear committed to turning the heat up.

When countries are sliding into fascism, after politicians are cowed, this middle level of the pyramid — the thought leaders and reporters — become targets.

We’re already tracking a surge of assaults on journalists in the United States this year, recorded by nonpartisan monitors, and the warnings from press freedom groups are growing louder as we head into another supercharged election cycle.

It’s why Trump threatening Jonathan Karl this week was such a big deal.

At the base of the pyramid is everyone else, the broad foundation of ordinary citizens who expect to disagree without fear of dying for it. In the last stage of democratic decay, the taboo collapses here too.

Conflict trackers that normally study civil wars abroad are now publishing monthly briefs on our own streets, and their July readout flagged spikes tied to political flashpoints and the growing risk of lone-wolf attacks.


That’s the tremor you feel underfoot; it’s a warning that a nation has been seized by authoritarians and could be on the verge of civil war.

This is not an abstract model that I just came up with this week: it’s American history.

In the 1850s the pattern first announced itself in Washington when rightwing Congressman Preston Brooks walked into the Senate chamber and nearly beat Senator Charles Sumner to death for denouncing slavery.


The attack wasn’t just an assault on a man, it was a public declaration that the rules had changed and that violence could now answer argument. The country was shocked, and then it was hardened. That moment signaled that the apex of the pyramid had been breached.

From there the target set widened into the second stage, the “killing pundits and reporters phase.” In Kansas, proslavery posses sacked the Free State stronghold of Lawrence, destroyed printing presses, and burned the Free State Hotel while waving banners that proclaimed “Southern Rights.”

Across the Deep South, meanwhile, newspaper publishers and editors who called out the Confederate oligarchs or opposed slavery were lynched, shot, or driven out of town.


The point was terror and silence. Smash the presses, you smash the story. The attack was part of the cycle we remember as Bleeding Kansas, when political dispute metastasized into raids and reprisals across towns and farms. Once the middle layer began to break, the base wasn’t far behind.

We can see the rhyme today.

Minnesota mourned Speaker Emerita Hortman and her husband, Mark Hortman, after a stalker hunted them down. Federal prosecutors have indicted the suspect. You don’t get a clearer sign that the apex is under fire than a state’s senior legislative leader and her spouse being killed.

We’re now seeing a loosening of the bolts on that middle tier with the Kirk assassination. Political leaders sneer at reporters and pundits, crowds chant for punishment of the press, and too many people decide that a camera and a notebook are acts of war.


And then comes the revenge. After our Attorney General, Pam Bondi, threatened to prosecute people for what she called “hate speech” (which is not a crime: remember the Nazis in Skokie, Illinois?), Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor was blunt:
“Every time I listen to a lawyer-trained representative saying we should criminalize free speech in some way, I think to myself, that law school failed.”


The data points stack up, each incident small enough to shrug off, all together large enough to chill a newsroom and make a young journalist, podcaster, or influencer think twice about showing up. Which is exactly what the authoritarians want.

If we want to keep the base of the pyramid steady, we must keep that middle standing, because when people can’t trust that their words will be heard without violence or censorship, some will reach for other tools.


The lesson from the 1850s isn’t that violence always walks in a single file, but that it climbs down the side of the pyramid. Once elites normalize it, once opinion-makers are bullied or bloodied into silence, the next stop is the rest of us.

That’s why the response must be immediate and nonpartisan. Every decent official, left and right, should make it crystal clear that assassination is not politics, that stalking is not activism, that censorship or threatening a reporter or a comedian isn’t patriotic.

And that the worst response to violence is to blame an entire political party, the people who make up half of America, calling them “crazy,” “lunatics,” and “terrorists.”

Tragically, that’s exactly the path Trump and the GOP are following. They’re trying to turn Charlie Kirk into America’s Horst Wessel, the martyr that Hitler used to successfully rally people around the Nazis’ shared sense of victimhood.

We still have time to shore up the apex, protect the middle, and keep the base from cracking, if only Democratic leadership (talking about you, Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries) would find the courage to speak out loudly every day against the explosion of blame and hate being promoted now by Trump and the rightwing media that brought him into power.

The few Republicans of good conscience left must reach out to the Trump administration and demand they dial down their own violent and provocative rhetoric. And stop throwing people off television for exercising their First Amendment rights.

We don’t have time to pretend the pyramid will hold itself together without our intervention and that of our political leadership.

Jimmy Kimmel wasn't suspended for what he said about Charlie Kirk

Ray Hartmann
September 18, 2025 

COMMON DREANS

Jimmy Kimmel delivers his opening monologue at the Oscars. REUTERS/Mike Blake

It is important to get this right.

Comedian Jimmy Kimmel was suspended indefinitely Wednesday by ABC and his late-night show appears to have come to an end. It has been widely misreported that the action was related to the Charlie Kirk murder and its aftermath.

It was not.

Virtually every story about the sacking carried a headline referencing Kirk. The implication was clear that Kimmel was dismissed for something he said about Kirk. That’s the first thing I thought when the news broke.

That did not happen.

Donald Trump had Kimmel taken off the air — as he has suggested would happen after a similar fate befell Stephen Colbert as CBS — because he wanted to.

And because he could.

No need to call in Sherlock Holmes. Trump has long despised Kimmel, along with the entire mainstream media, which he routinely describes — in the grand tradition of history’s worst authoritarians — as “the enemy of the people.”

It’s obvious that Trump dispatched Brendan Carr, his sycophantic chairman of the FCC to put out the hit on Kimmel. Carr, a co-author of Project 2025, apparently did just that, and Disney — pushed by Nexstar, owner of roughly 30 of its ABC affiliates — rolled over.

This is the same Disney that folded a poker hand with four aces in December 2024, to “settle” for $15 million in a sham defamation lawsuit filed by Trump. It seems that Disney had far more to lose than $15 million — exponentially more — by crossing the incoming president.

So, it’s just another footnote to the story that Nexstar also has much larger fish to fry with the Trump administration — needing approval from Carr’s FCC for a pending, controversial, $6.2 billion merger with Tegna. It’s an instant replay of CBS putting profits above principle when it paid off Trump to save a proposed Paramount mega-merger with Skydance from sleeping with the fishes.

Carr offers no pretense of serving as anything but a corrupt political hack. Hours before the Kimmel announcement, he visited the friendly confines of Benny Johnson’s prominent conservative podcast and said this:

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. These companies can find ways to change conduct and take actions on Kimmel, or, you know, there's going to be additional work for the FCC ahead."

Sneering at the theoretical independence of the FCC, Carr made himself exclusively available to Sean Hannity and Fox News after the Kimmel sacking. It did appear, however, that lawyers had advised him by then to lose “easy way or hard way” gangsta rap.

As for Kimmel, he should have been the last one targeted for disrespecting Charlie Kirk. This is what Kimmel had posted on Instagram in the wake of Kirk’s tragic passing:
“Instead of the angry finger‑pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human? On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

Kimmel has said nothing on air since to disparage Kirk or even revisit Kirk’s previous statements that were inflammatory and now seem ironic. I happen to agree with that, having taken the old-school view that Kirk’s murder be “deplored without qualification.”


If you want to view the Monday monologue from Kimmel that has been absurdly linked to his suspension, knock yourself out. You can view it here.

If you do, you’ll be shocked as I was to find that nothing Kimmel said even remotely approached mean-spiritedness about Kirk. Kimmel ridiculed Trump, and deservedly so, for the president’s pathetic response to a sympathetic reporter’s question about how he was “holding up” in the wake of Kirk’s death.

Trump said he was fine and immediately changed the subject to how exciting it was that he was building a big, fancy White House ballroom. It was a singular validation of the daily, brilliant reminders from Trump’s niece — psychologist Mary Trump — that this a man suffering severely from untreated narcissistic personality disorder.


Humiliating Trump can come at a grave price to any company needing anything from Trump’s corrupt FCC. But, as I’ve suggested, Kimmel’s monologue Monday was just a fig leaf for going after him.

It was only a matter of time.

Just remember this: When Trump exerts his will and power over media that depend upon the federal government for their licensing — and in the case of giant corporations, far more — he is not acting like a dictator.

He’s acting as a dictator.