'Dictator thinks you're guilty': Legal expert disturbed by Trump's comments on Kirk case

Travis Gettys
September 12, 2025 
ALTERNET




A legal analyst highlighted a comment by President Donald Trump that shows an alarming lack of respect for the criminal justice system.

The president who famously stalled his own criminal prosecutions until he was re-elected and got those cases dismissed demanded a speedy trial for a man accused of killing Charlie Kirk, but former U.S. attorney Joyce Vance wrote on her "Civil Discourse" Substack page that Trump's comments were problematic.

"Today, after Donald Trump announced it on Fox and Friends, law enforcement told the public it had apprehended a suspect who turned in after confessing to the murder of Charlie Kirk to his father, a former Sheriff’s Deputy and minister," Vance wrote. "Also on Fox and Friends, Trump weighed in on how criminal cases should proceed. He said prosecutions should move more quickly and that the United States should become more like China."

"We have to have quick trials," Trump said on “Fox & Friends.” “I call it quick trials because in China, they do have quick trials. You know, they don’t wait six years.”

The suspect, 22-year-old Tyler Robinson, is eligible for the death penalty, according to prosecutors, and Vance said that makes Trump's demand for a speedy trial even more troubling.

"Donald Trump has never read and clearly doesn’t care about the Constitution," she wrote. "This morning, he suggested that the slow pace of trials in the U.S. is leading to unsafe streets. What comes next? Declaring yet another emergency? Suspending due process?"

Criminal trials, as Trump should know, take time because defendants have the right to review and challenge evidence against them, and insanity defenses and competency issues become likely during death penalty cases, she said.

"Is Trump suggesting that the entire criminal justice system and our history and tradition of respecting the rights of criminal defendants, even those accused of the most heinous crimes, should be tossed out the window?" Vance wrote. "Apparently, if you’ve been convicted in the court of public opinion — or if the dictator thinks you’re guilty — constitutional rights are just an inconvenience."

Judge defies resignation calls over 'disgusting' Charlie Kirk post

Daniel Hampton
September 11, 2025

RAW STORY


FILE PHOTO: Founder and president of Turning Point USA Charlie Kirk speaks at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at National Harbor in Oxon Hill, Maryland, U.S., February 28, 2019. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque/File Photo/File Photo


A suburban Detroit judge shrugged off calls to resign following backlash over her social media post about the killing of Charlie Kirk.

On Wednesday evening, Jaimie Powell Horowitz, an Oak Park district court judge, posted a quote from Kirk just hours after he was slain, in which he said in 2023, "I think it’s worth it to have the cost of unfortunately some gun deaths every year..so we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. It’s a prudent deal, a rational deal."

"Talk about dying for your beliefs," Powell Horowitz wrote in a Facebook post, according to The Detroit News.

Her post quickly drew criticism, including from Vance Patrick, chair of the county's Republican Party.

"Comments like the ones from Judge Horowitz are disgusting," Patrick said. "Any attempt to justify or lessen the severity of the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a clear indicator of the lack of character and moral fiber of that person. Judge Horowitz should resign immediately to help protect the integrity of our court system."

But Powell Horowitz said her post was factual — and rebuffed Patrick's call.

"The fact that Mr. Kirk — in his own words — had said these kinds of deaths are worth it to protect our Second Amendment rights, as if it's just something we’re willing to accept for gun rights, I think that’s a quote people should really think about," Powell Horowitz told the Detroit News. "I hope people will think about his quote, and whether or not gun deaths are worth it for Second Amendment rights. I certainly don't think his death or others' death is worth it."

The report comes as right-wing activists target people over what they see as insensitive or disrespectful social media comments regarding Kirk's slaying.

'Stephen King is a bitter man': Horror icon faces lawsuit threat over Charlie Kirk comment

David McAfee
September 12, 2025
RAW STORY


Author Stephen King at the Los Angeles premiere of The Manchurian Candidate (Featureflash / Shutterstock.com)

Horror icon Stephen King is being threatened with a lawsuit after a comment made about the late commentator Charlie Kirk.

Kirk was assassinated while doing a debate event at a Utah school, and authorities are still searching for the killer.

King first made headlines immediately after the Kirk shooting, when he said, "The motivation of the man who shot Charlie Kirk isn't clear (although he's probably mentally unstable--duh). What is clear is it was another example of American gun violence."

But King didn't stop there. He later doubled down with a post on his social media that said of Kirk, "He advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin’."

That led to outrage from some in MAGA, including GOP lawmaker Mike Lee. He wrote on X, "Please share if you agree that the estate of Charlie Kirk should sue Stephen King for defamation over this heinously false accusation."

"He’s crossed a line It will prove costly," Lee then added.

Fox News host Laura Ingraham responded to that, saying only, "Stephen King is a sad, bitter man."

Conservative influencer Paul A. Szypula claimed that, "Stephen King is defaming the memory of Charlie Kirk."

"King wrongly claims Kirk advocated for violence towards gay people. The clip King is referring to actually shows Kirk illustrating how some people cherry-pick passages from the Bible. Shame on King. He should apologize," the influencer wrote.

In an unrelated post, King also targeted the killer of Kirk, writing simply, "Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray, and the murderer of Charlie Kirk: Cowards who shot from ambush."

Ted Cruz also weighed in, writing, "You are a horrible, evil, twisted liar. No, he did not. Your party—which you shamelessly shilled for—sent $100 billion to the Ayatollah… who does routinely murder homosexuals. Why are you so dishonest & filled with hate?"

Kirk did indeed once say that it was "God's perfect law" to have homosexual men stoned to death.

'Proof morons pass the bar': GOP senator mocked for lawsuit threat against Stephen King

Travis Gettys
September 12, 2025 
ALTERNET

Author Stephen King (Featureflash / Shutterstock.com)

Charlie Kirk's allies vowed vengeance against novelist Stephen King for summarizing the slain activist's political views, but social media users pointed out a flaw in their strategy.

The best-selling author reminded his X followers that Kirk, who was fatally shot Wednesday at a speaking event at Utah Valley University, held virulently anti-LGBTQ views, pointing out that "he advocated stoning gays to death. Just sayin’."

Kirk often spoke out against what he described as the “LGBTQ agenda" and described the Bible verse Leviticus 20:13, which calls for the execution of homosexuals, as “God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters," but the right-wing influencer's supporters, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), demanded retribution.

"Please share if you agree that the estate of Charlie Kirk should sue Stephen King for defamation over this heinously false accusation," the senator posted on his person "Based Mike Lee" account. "He’s crossed a line. It will prove costly."

King ended up deleting the post in question, but legal experts and other social media users questioned the senator's call for accountability for criticizing the late Turning Point USA leader.

"Mike Lee allegedly went to law school and passed the bar," posted the popular Bluesky account "Kept Simple." "Aside from Stephen King's claim being true, a dead person's estate can't sue for defamation, on account of the fact that a dead person can't suffer an injury to their reputation, because they are dead."

"He pinned this tweet over there, too," said legal blogger Chris Geidner. "He’s so proud of his practiced stupidity."

"Mike Lee. Proof morons can pass the bar," agreed Bluesky user Common Sense Metalhead.

"Over on Xitter, the troll account of UT's senior senator has launched a campaign to encourage Charlie Kirk's estate to sue Stephen King for ... describing something Charlie Kirk actually said," added legal analyst Marcy Wheeler.

"Aside from having these two insurmountable defects, how is Kirk damaged by people thinking he's a capital punishment favoring bigot?" wondered Bluesky user J.D., who describes himself as a defamation lawyer. "Doesn't that cover a third of his material? Would anyone who liked Charlie Kirk think differently of him even were it false? Does Mike Lee ever think anything through?"

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) accused King of lying about Kirk's stated views, as well, calling the author "a horrible, evil, twisted liar, and he also faced blowback.

"Kirk’s murder doesn’t change that he said this or the fact Ted Cruz is a lyin’ dick," said Jeff Timmer, a senior adviser to the Lincoln Project.

"Another Ted Cruz fail," added X user Darryl Livingstone. "Why don't you take another trip somewhere and maybe stay there permanently?"

BEFORE KIMMEL

This is how they silenced Stephen King

Image via Creative Commons License.

John Stoehr

September 17, 2025 

AlterNet 

If it feels like you’re being forced to honor and respect a demagogue and liar under penalty of … some bad thing, well, you’re not wrong.

As Radley Balko said Monday, “we're witnessing the most aggressive, fanatical crackdown on free speech in my lifetime. The speed and breadth of government censorship and private sector and nonprofit capitulation has been astonishing, as has the lack of urgency [or] silence from people who've long claimed to care about this stuff.”

How is this happening? Consider the case of Stephen King.

Yes, that Stephen King.

Last week, on Twitter, the novelist quoted-tweeted remarks by Fox host Jesse Watters. “Charlie Kirk was not a ‘controversial’ or ‘polarizing’ man,” Watters said. “Charlie was a PATRIOT. THIS is a turning point and we all need to turn in the right direction. Rest in peace, my friend.”

It should be said first of all that this is a lie. Kirk was nothing but controversial and polarizing. That was his entire shtick. And that’s why Stephen King said: “He advocated for stoning gays to death. Just sayin’.”

This set off a firestorm of outrage, perhaps the loudest coming from US Senator Mike Lee of Utah: “Please share if you agree that the estate of Charlie Kirk should sue Stephen King for defamation over this heinously false accusation. He crossed a line. It will prove costly.”

Actually, it won’t. You can’t defame the dead. Defamation is about an injury to one’s reputation. You don’t have an injury, and you don’t have a reputation, when you’re dead. Once you’re dead, there’s nothing anyone can say to hurt you. Mike Lee, who is an attorney, knows that.

If litigation wasn’t Lee’s point, what was? Silencing a famous and (nominally) liberal critic of the broader totalitarian project. And he and others succeeded by forcing King to apologize. “I apologize for saying Charlie Kirk advocated stoning gays,” King said. “What he actually demonstrated was how some people cherry-pick Biblical passages.”

But King wasn’t wrong – not exactly. While it’s true that Kirk never said, “I hereby advocate for the stoning of gays to death,” he did say a Bible chapter, which calls for stoning a man who lies with another man, “affirms God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.” That might not be advocacy, in the word’s strictest sense, but close enough.

The context matters, too. Kirk was criticizing Rachel Anne Accurso, the YouTube children’s video personality who goes by Ms Rachel. In June of last year, she made a biblical case for LGBTQ-plus inclusion. According to Factcheck.org, she said: “In Matthew 22, a religious teacher asked Jesus, what’s the most important commandment? And Jesus says, to love God and to ‘love your neighbor as yourself.’

“It doesn’t say love every neighbor except,” Ms Rachel said.

That’s what Kirk was responding to. Ms Rachel made no room for exceptions to God’s greatest law. In reply, Kirk did his own cherry-picking. He reached back to the Old Testament for a chapter that “affirms God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.” Instead of including LGBTQ-plus people in God’s beloved community, as Jesus Christ might have done, he made the case for excluding them.

Ms Rachel advocated for love.

Kirk advocated for hate.

That Kirk did not explicitly advocate for the stoning of gays to death, in the strictest sense and syntax of those words, is therefore a distinction without a difference – unless, like Kirk, you’re a liar. In that case, the distinction between saying what you’re saying and not saying what you’re saying is important. If that collapses, so does your deception.

As long as the distinction between what is said and what is intended to be understood is in place, it’s possible to bully people into silence.

That’s what happened to Stephen King and others. They spoke the truth about Kirk – not the strict letter of it but the true spirit of it – but did not have the courage to stand by the truth after being accused of slander. And in the process of apologizing, they ended up affirming the lie, making it grow bigger, such that a USA Today story about King’s apology says that he “repeatedly apologized for a false accusation.” (After all, it must have been false if Stephen King apologized for it.)


I dwell on this episode, because it’s a microcosm of a much larger and more pernicious pattern in American politics in which the Republicans and their media allies (not just in the rightwing media) have taken the deceit that resides between what is said and what is intended to be understood, and have made that deceit structural, so such that telling the truth – in this case, saying plainly what Charlie Kirk meant, as opposed to what he said – is a radical act deserving of punishment.

The AP reported Monday that “after years of complaints from the right about ‘cancel culture’ from the left, some conservatives are seeking to upend the lives and careers of those who disparaged Charlie Kirk after his death. They are going after companies, educators, news outlets, political rivals and others they judge as promoting hate speech.”

Or as Radley Balko said, expanding on his first comment, “the extreme, opportunistic, completely disingenuous reaction to Kirk's murder also makes clear that if there's an Oklahoma City or 9/11-level attack in the next few years, this administration will absolutely exploit it to try to end our democracy and permanently entrench itself in power.”

I want to end with a small litmus test that can help determine what demagogues like Kirk really meant, so the courageous can fight back.

Try this: make their statements true.

Jesse Watters said Charlie Kirk was neither “controversial” nor “polarizing.” “Charlie was a PATRIOT,” the Fox host insisted. His death “is a turning point and we all need to turn in the right direction.”

Kirk was controversial. He was polarizing. As I said, that was his shtick. He advocated for the exclusion (hatred) of racial, sexual and religious minorities. What needs to happen for Watters’ words to be true?

“Patriot” needs to mean loyalty to white power and all that implies – unequal treatment, legal prejudice, exploitation, corruption, and a social order that’s rigidly hierarchical, with rich white men on top.

Only then is Charlie Kirk neither “controversial” nor “polarizing” man. Only then is it clear what Jesse Watters really meant when he said “THIS is a turning point and we all need to turn in the right direction.”

“THIS” is the end of liberty and justice for all.

And he’ll prove it by trying to silence you for saying so.

Stephen King won't forbid AI from training on his writing, and he's not afraid of AI ... yet

Jordan Hart
Sat, August 26, 2023 


Stephen King weighs in on AI in an essay published by The Atlantic.

King said that he's not opposed to programmers using his works to teach AI about creativity.

Thousands of other authors have objected to their work being used in AI without permission.

Artificial intelligence may be getting more capable, but Stephen King believes it still has some learning to do before it can successfully mimic human creativity.

In an essay for The Atlantic, the author said he wouldn't object to his work being used to teach AI programs, and he's "not yet" nervous about technology's potential.

"Would I forbid the teaching (if that is the word) of my stories to computers? Not even if I could," King stated.

Even human writers need to be readers if they hope to write well, according to King. Uploading the works of others to computers, or "state-of-the-art digital blenders" as he put it, can teach AI how to produce better art.

As of now, the 75-year-old wrote, AI's creativity isn't on par with the mental capabilities of a person. He compared AI-generated poems to "movie money: good at first glance, not so good upon close inspection."

Fellow authors Margaret Atwood and James Patterson joined over 8,000 other writers in signing an open letter demanding compensation for their work being used by AI companies without consent. The letter was sent to tech CEOs Sam Altman of OpenAI, Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, Sundar Pichai of Alphabet, and more in July.

"Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the "food" for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill," the authors wrote in a letter published by the Authors Guild.

Elsewhere in the literary community, audiobook narrators have also raised concerns of their voices being cloned by AI. Audiobook sellers — including Apple Books — have already rolled out their own AI narrators.

King said that forbidding programmers from using his to teach AI is essentially pointless.

"I might as well be King Canute, forbidding the tide to come in. Or a Luddite trying to stop industrial progress by hammering a steam loom to pieces," King wrote.

Stephen King's Justice Samuel Alito Remark Takes Internet By Storm

By Billie Schwab Dunn
Pop Culture and Entertainment Reporter
May 18, 2024 

Writer Stephen King has "no words" after learning an upside-down U.S. flag was flying outside the home of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, following the violent aftermath of the 2020 election.

The distress signal—used at the time by some supporters of former President Donald Trump to contest the election results—was spotted on Alito's lawn in Alexandria, Virginia, on January 17, 2021, The New York Times reported Thursday. In an email to the newspaper, Alito denied any involvement in flying the flag upside-down, claiming his wife, Martha-Ann, was solely responsible, the Times stated.

"A Supreme Court justice—Samuel Alito—flying an upside-down flag outside his house, indicating Stop the Steal. I have no words," horror author King posted to X, formerly Twitter. At the time of writing, his post had been viewed 702,700 times.

Despite a lack of evidence, Trump and his allies have repeatedly claimed that his 2020 loss to President Joe Biden was due to widespread election fraud. The photograph of the inverted flag at Alito's home was captured just 11 days after a mass of Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol on January 6 while Congress was certifying Biden's win.

The Times report comes a few weeks after the Supreme Court heard arguments on whether Trump is protected by presidential immunity in his federal election subversion case. The High Court is expected to issue a ruling in the coming weeks.



Newsweek has emailed a spokesperson for King and the Supreme Court, for comment by Judge Alito and his wife Martha-Ann, on Friday.

King, who joined the Democratic Party in 1970 and is a vocal critic of Trump, often takes to social media to share his thoughts on various political issues—and Thursday was no different. People have taken to the comments to share their anger and frustration over the news.

"And the fact that Alito thinks it's all ok as long as he blames it on his wife is insane. Between Thomas and Alito, this is very, very bad," one person wrote.

"The [sic] is precisely why the Trump immunity case will get dragged out to the very last day of the Supreme Court's session," said another.

A third added: "And he doesn't recuse from any of the 1-6 cases. [angry emoji]"
Stephen King and United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Samuel Alito. King has weighed in to comment on an upside-down flag being displayed outside Alito's home. JOHN LAMPARSKI/ALEX WONG/WIREIMAGE/GETTY IMAGES

However, others disagree, justifying the upside-down flag hanging outside Alito's home.

"How dare others have opinions which differ from mine," a different X user commented.

"That's not what the upside-down flag means. It means 'distress.' You'd think your team could do some research," said another.

While an upside-down flag has traditionally been used as a call for help, in 2020 it took off as a symbol of Trump's "Stop the Steal" campaign.

"Everyone in America who cherishes our way of life oughta do the same," another person wrote.

The conservative justice said in a statement emailed to the Times that he "had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag" and that it was "briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor's use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."

Alito is not the first justice to face questions over his potential partiality to the former president. Justice Clarence Thomas has also faced calls to recuse himself from Trump's immunity case after his wife, Ginni, said that she attended the former president's rally before the January 6 attack.

Thomas has also been questioned over his relationship with conservative figures like billionaire GOP donor Harlan Crow, who, according to reports by ProPublica, has paid for several luxurious trips for Thomas and his wife. He defended their relationship in a statement: "Early in my tenure at the Court, I sought guidance from my colleagues and others in the judiciary, and was advised that this sort of personal hospitality from close personal friends, who did not have business before the Court, was not reportable."

The Supreme Court adopted its first code of ethics in November 2023 following the scandals involving Thomas. The policies were met with swift criticism, however, for lacking a clear enforcement measure for how justices would be held accountable.

The ethics code, similar to the long-standing one to which lower courts are held, states that judges need to remain impartial and avoid political statements on issues that could be brought before them.

According to the Times report, which cited a list of guidelines that was handed to the Supreme Court staff, the court has warned its employees to avoid public political displays. The court's internal rule book also bans employees from displaying signs or bumper stickers.

 

Farah Griffin: If Sotomayor flew upside-down flag GOP would call for her resignation

BY SARAH FORTINSKY - 05/19/24  - THE HILL

Former White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin said Sunday that Republicans would be demanding resignations from liberal justices if they were reported to have displayed upside-down flags on their lawns after former President Trump was elected in 2016.

New reporting from the New York Times revealed an upside-down flag had been on display outside Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s house briefly on Jan. 17, 2021, days before President Biden’s inauguration and less than two weeks after the deadly Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.

The upside-down flag had largely been associated at the time with the “Stop the Steal” movement and efforts to stop the transfer of power based on false claims of election fraud. Alito has said his wife was responsible for the flag.

In a panel discussion on CNN’s “State of the Union,” the former Trump aide-turned-CNN pundit criticized the Republican response to the reporting, which she called “deeply disturbing.”

“If after Donald Trump won in 2016, Justice [Sonia Sotomayor] hung a flag upside down on her front lawn, we, Republicans, would be calling for her resignation,” Farah Griffin said Sunday.

“I find it deeply disturbing, and I don‘t think we can gloss over it,” she added.

The reporting has been met with widespread criticism from Democrats, many of whom have also called on Alito to recuse himself from all Jan. 6-related cases before the Supreme Court.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) on Friday called on Alito to apologize for “disrespecting the American flag and sympathizing with right-wing violent insurrectionists.”

“He must recuse himself from cases involving the 2020 election and [former President Trump],” Jeffries continued, referring to Alito. He added that Congress should consider new ethics reform legislation for the high court.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) also called on Alito to recuse himself from cases related to Jan. 6, 2021, and the 2020 election, saying, “Flying an upside-down American flag — a symbol of the so-called ‘Stop the Steal’ movement — clearly creates the appearance of bias.”

In a statement to the Times, Alito said, “I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag,” adding, “It was briefly placed by Mrs. Alito in response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs.”

Samuel Alito's snide denial of his Jan. 6 flag is just as ugly as flying it in the first place

The Supreme Court justice views his fellow Americans with contempt, and not as citizens he's serving

By AMANDA MARCOTTE

Senior Writer

SALON

PUBLISHED MAY 18, 2024 

Samuel Alito | An upside down American flag (Photo illustration by Salon/Getty Images)

Add one more incident to the "shocking but not surprising" pile that grows

 mountainously high in an era of rising fascism: Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito flew a flag at his house signaling support for the Capitol insurrection in the days after January 6, 2021.

The inverted American flag was a popular signal of support for Trump's lies about the 2020 election and the MAGA riot on the Capitol. As reported Thursday by Jodi Kantor of the New York Times, photographs and testimony from Alito's northern Virginia neighbors show an "upside-down flag was aloft on Jan. 17, 2021" at his home. At the same time, the Times notes, Alito unsuccessfully attempted to get the court to take a case undermining the 2020 election.

Republicans are rubbing people's noses in the fact that there's nothing the rest of us can do to stop them from advertising their fascist sympathies.
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Gross and undeniable in its meaning, of course. But Alito, who has never been interested in honesty with the public, offered a glib rebuttal, telling the New York Times, "I had no involvement whatsoever in the flying of the flag." Instead, he blamed his wife, saying she flew the inverted flag as a "response to a neighbor’s use of objectionable and personally insulting language on yard signs."

As Joe Scarborough on MSNBC retorted Friday morning, "nobody believes him." There's no universe, Scarborough noted, in which the upside-down flag is used as a way to throw the finger to neighbors you're in a spat with. This is Alito lying by omission. As Kantor swiftly discovered, the argument the Alitos were having with their neighbors wasn't over loud parties or defecating dogs, it was over Jan. 6, which the neighbors in question vociferously objected to. Martha-Ann Alito took offense to a neighbor who "displayed an anti-Trump sign with an expletive" around the election. Things escalated, and, as neighbors and documentary evidence show, the inverted flag was up in the days after the riot.

A more honest description of the conflict would be that the Alitos rejected their neighbor's right to express their political opinions freely. In order to convey their disapproval of this use of First Amendment rights, the Alito household sent a message of support to people who used violence in an attempt to destroy American democracy. As more than one commentator pointed out, Alito continues to run around pretending he's a champion of "free speech," but when his neighbors expressed an opinion held by most Americans, he (or his wife, if you believe him) responded with an endorsement of violence to end constitutional democracy as we know it.

When asked about this by Shannon Bream of Fox News on Friday, Alito doubled down on the faux outrage over curse words and claimed his wife only expressed support for the Jan. 6 rioters after neighbors said mean things to the couple about how violent insurrections are, in fact, bad.

As a reminder, four rioters and five police officers died as a consequence of the riot. Alito is unsubtly suggesting that those deaths somehow are less offensive than some kids seeing a curse word. Even then, his "logic" falls apart at first blush. After all, children visit the Capitol every day, yet Alito is apparently fine with it being subject to people breaking windows, smearing feces, shedding blood, and threatening murder — all with quite salty language, as the voluminous video evidence from that day shows.

Related
Samuel Alito scandal shows why conservative justices on the Supreme Court are so whiny

Additionally, Alito's snide dishonesty is insulting, and it is meant to be.

For someone who feigns outrage at curse words, he is basically throwing a big middle finger to all American citizens. He's not just rejecting his duty as a public official to uphold democracy, but sneering at the idea that he even owes an explanation to the people he was supposedly hired to serve, who pay his salary. He feels no need to put the effort into a better lie. After all, what are any of us little people going to do about it?
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Alito's quasi-denials operate as confessions, and not just of his and his wife's sympathies for fascist seditionists. His open contempt for the idea that he has to answer to anyone radiates through these fake excuses. It ends up underscoring why he and the Mrs. were so enthused about Trump's attempted coup: They agree with the foundational sentiment that the American people should not be in control of their government. As Adam Serwer recently wrote in the Atlantic, Alito "expects the public to silently acquiesce" to his authority, "without scrutiny, criticism, or protest." Alito sees us as subjects whose duty is to bend the knee to him and his preferred leaders, like Trump. With this flag gesture, he's signaled support for violence as the enforcement mechanism.

Again, shocking but not surprising. Alito has long taken a "tough on crime" attitude that leads to almost no sympathy for the rights of criminal defendants — unless those defendants are aligned with him politically. When it comes to Trump and the Jan. 6 defendants, Alito has expressed a view that the criminal charges are illegitimate. As Scott Lemieux of Lawyers, Guns & Money noted, Alito's belief that he and his are above scrutiny of the law was evident even during Alito's confirmation hearing in 2006. When Alito was questioned about his participation in an organization dedicated to keeping Princeton's student body white and male, his wife threw a massive public tantrum, weeping giant crocodile tears and stomping out of the hearing. Their self-perception is not "public servant," so much as "medieval royalty."

As Don Moynihan wrote in a recent newsletter, far too many Republicans and their apologists seem to excuse this far-right radicalism because the people who are expressing it have expensive clothes, elite educations, and fat investment portfolios. He notes that Speaker of House Mike Johnson, R-La., is laying "the groundwork for another coup attempt in plain sight," while the media's outrage is far more focused on "scruffy students" expressing their perfectly democratic right to disagree with their country's foreign policy. Meanwhile, Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., signaled support for an organization, the Proud Boys, whose leaders are currently in prison for violent sedition.

I have one quarrel with Rep. Jason Crow, D-Colo.'s claim that Gaetz is trying to be "subtle" with his message. As with Alito, the dog-whistling is no longer about trying to smuggle fascist messages to supporters without the press or liberals noticing. Republicans are rubbing people's noses in the fact that there's nothing the rest of us can do to stop them from advertising their fascist sympathies. Their impunity is part of the argument against democracy. By flaunting their untouchability, they're treating the end of democracy as a done deal. If people as unapologetically hateful can't be removed from office, their behavior suggests, then democracy is dead already.

And yes, it's hard not to look at these self-satisfied moral monsters without feeling despair. But no one should fall for their tricks. Because of Trump, anti-democratic forces have had some major victories, but the fight is far from over. President Joe Biden's presence in the White House shows that democracy prevailed in 2021. Trump's ability to mount another coup will be hamstrung by the fact that he's out of office and has fewer levers of power. That's why people like Gaetz and Alito are so focused on demoralizing their opposition. They know Trump's ability to end democracy depends heavily on whether or not people fight back. They haven't won until they've successfully scared people into thinking it's already over.

Amanda Marcotte is a senior politics writer at Salon and the author of "Troll Nation: How The Right Became Trump-Worshipping Monsters Set On Rat-F*cking Liberals, America, and Truth Itself." Follow her on Twitter @AmandaMarcotte and sign up for her biweekly politics newsletter, Standing Room Only.

Why Stephen King testified for the government in a major publishing merger trial
Hannah Murdock - Yesterday 

Stephen King testified Tuesday against his own publisher, Simon & Schuster, in a major antitrust trial.

© Patrick Semansky, Associated Press

Author Stephen King arrives at federal court before testifying for the Department of Justice as it bids to block the proposed merger of two of the world’s biggest publishers, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster, Tuesday, Aug. 2, 2022, in Washington. King gave testimony opposing the merger.

The horror author was the star witness for the government in a lawsuit against the proposed merger of Penguin Random House and rival publisher Simon & Schuster, The Associated Press reported.

The Department of Justice is suing to block the proposed $2.2 billion merger, which would bring the “Big Five” book publishers down to four, according to The Associated Press.

The government argues that the merger would create less competition in the publishing market, leading to fewer options for consumers and potentially leading to authors being paid less.

“The evidence will show that the proposed merger would likely result in authors of anticipated top-selling books receiving smaller advances, meaning authors who labor for years over their manuscripts will be paid less for their efforts,” the government argued in a brief, per Reuters.

King has been outspoken about his disapproval of the merger, tweeting last year, “The more the publishers consolidate, the harder it is for indie publishers to survive.”

While on the stand, King stated that “consolidation is bad for the competition.” He also talked about the difficulties to earn a living that authors experience in the publishing industry today.

“It’s a tough world out there now. That’s why I came,” he said, according to Deadline.

The trial is expected to last two to three weeks, according to Reuters.

Jen Psaki schools male reporters after abortion questions: 'You've never faced those choices'

Sarah K. Burris
September 02, 2021

Jen Psaki (AFP)

White House press secretary Jen Psaki had little patience for male reporters demanding she addressed abortion at the Thursday press briefing.

President Joe Biden announced Wednesday and again Thursday that he was committed to protecting women's health and reproductive freedom after the Supreme Court nullified Roe v. Wade by allowing a Texas law to take effect. The key part of the court ruling gave the constitutional right to privacy and an explicit liberty provision. Individuals in Texas can now demand private health details from those they suspect have had an abortion.

"The effort and the focus of the federal government is to look for every resource, every level at our disposal to ensure that women in Texas have the ability to seek healthcare," said Psaki as questions about the ruling began.

"Why does the president support abortion when his own Catholic faith teaches abortion is morally wrong?" asked one reporter.

"He believes that it is a woman's right, a woman's body, her choice," said Psaki. "He believes it is up to a woman to make those decisions and make those decisions with her doctor. I know you have never faced those choices nor have you been pregnant. But for women out there who have faced those choices, this is an incredibly difficult thing in the president believes that their rights should be respected. Go ahead. I think we need to move on. You have had plenty of time today."

See the video below:

Jen Psaki schools male reporters after abortion questions: 'You've never faced those choices'youtu.be

Joe Biden slams US Supreme Court refusal to block Texas' new 'extreme' abortion ban

The US president said the Supreme Court's ruling was "an unprecedented assault on a woman's constitutional rights".

A protest against the six-week abortion ban at the Capitol in Austin, Texas 

Source: Austin American-Statesman

US President Joe Biden lashed out on Thursday at the Supreme Court's refusal to block a Texas law banning abortions after six weeks of pregnancy, warning that it threatens to unleash "unconstitutional chaos."

"The Supreme Court's ruling overnight is an unprecedented assault on a woman's constitutional rights under Roe v. Wade, which has been the law of the land for almost fifty years," Mr Biden said in a statement.

Roe v. Wade is the landmark 1973 Supreme Court case that enshrined a woman's right to an abortion in the United States.

"This (Texas) law is so extreme it does not even allow for exceptions in the case of rape or incest," Mr Biden said.

Texas valedictorian takes aim at state's 'dehumanising' new abortion law in viral graduation speech

The Democratic president took particular aim at a provision of the bill passed by Republican politicians in Texas that allows members of the public to sue doctors who perform abortions or anyone facilitating the procedure.

"By allowing a law to go into effect that empowers private citizens in Texas to sue health care providers, family members supporting a woman exercising her right to choose after six weeks, or even a friend who drives her to a hospital or clinic, it unleashes unconstitutional chaos and empowers self-anointed enforcers to have devastating impacts," Mr Biden said.

"Complete strangers will now be empowered to inject themselves in the most private and personal health decisions faced by women," he said.

Mr Biden said he was launching a "whole-of-government effort" to "see what steps the Federal Government can take to ensure that women in Texas have access to safe and legal abortions."

Stephen King buries Susan Collins: 

‘Women in Texas must pay the price for her gullibility’
Bob Brigham
September 02, 2021

Composite image of author Stephen King (screengrab) and Maine Republican Senator Susan Collins, photo by Gage Skidmore.

Famous Bangor resident and bestselling author Stephen King on Thursday slammed his home-state's senior senator after the United States Supreme Court refused to block the controversial anti-abortion law passed by Texas Republicans.

Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) voted to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the high court and the vote has haunted her since the court's overnight decision, as she repeatedly insisted that Kavanaugh did not pose a threat to abortion rights.

King slammed Collins for being gullible.

"Remember when Susan Collins said she was convinced that Brett Kavanaugh believed a woman's right to choose was 'settled law?' She was wrong," King wrote.



"Women in Texas must pay the price for her gullibility," he added.

King had previously slammed the Texas law as religious extremism.

"The Taliban would love the Texas abortion law," he wrote.

Minnesota braces for influx of out-of-state abortion patients

The U.S. Supreme Court decision on Texas' 6-week ban means more patients will travel to Minnesota for care.
By Emma Nelson Star Tribune
SEPTEMBER 2, 2021 — 6:58PM

LM OTERO - ASSOCIATED PRESS
A security guard opened the door to the Whole Women’s Health Clinic in Fort Worth, Texas, Wednesday, Sept. 1, 2021.

Minnesota physicians and organizations that help women access abortions are bracing for a spike in demand, days after Texas enacted a law considered the most restrictive abortion ban since Roe v. Wade.

The law prohibits abortions as early as six weeks — before some women know they're pregnant — and is already pushing people in Texas and surrounding states to seek abortions elsewhere. Destinations include Minnesota, where abortion access is constitutionally protected and less restrictive than many states. Meanwhile, in neighboring North Dakota, lawmakers on Thursday signaled that they plan to introduce their own version of the Texas law.

Though reproductive health advocates in Minnesota were anticipating a major challenge to Roe v. Wade, many expected it would come next year, when the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule on Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban, said Megumi Rierson, communications manager for Our Justice, a Twin Cities-based organization that helps pay for abortions. The court's decision early Thursday not to block the Texas law changed that calculus.

"Providers and advocates were all preparing for an increase in requests, but we thought that we had a lot longer to develop some infrastructure," she said. "And we don't, because now it's here."

The pressure on Minnesota is only expected to rise if more states follow Texas' lead — something advocates say they predict after the court's decision. Minnesota is home to a handful of abortion clinics in the Twin Cities, Duluth and Rochester, as well as the telemedicine clinic Just the Pill, which provides medication abortions to women in Minnesota and surrounding states.

Dr. Julie Amaon, Just the Pill's medical director, said Thursday she's already hearing from patients in Texas and other states looking to travel to Minnesota for medication abortions. Just the Pill is not currently providing services to those patients and does not provide direct referrals for patients in Texas, according to a statement.

The availability of medication abortions via telemedicine helped lower some barriers to abortion that the pandemic created, and it is seen as a potential solution as state restrictions increase. But "it is not the answer to everything," said Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer with Planned Parenthood North Central States, which serves Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Patients may need or prefer surgical abortions, Traxler said. And though the pandemic prompted the Food and Drug Administration to temporarily allow doctors to mail the drugs to patients, most states surrounding Minnesota restrict telemedicine abortion, she said. Telemedicine laws apply to the state where the patient is, not the provider, so patients in other states would still need to travel to Minnesota to access it.

That means more pressure on brick-and-mortar clinics, which already face hurdles of their own. Though abortion access is constitutionally protected in Minnesota, there are restrictions including a 24-hour waiting period, mandated counseling and a requirement that minors notify both parents.

"If Minnesota ends up having to take care of a large number of women who come from outside of the state, that may create a further access-to-care problem," said Rep. Kelly Morrison, DFL-Deephaven, an obstetrician-gynecologist who has introduced legislation to strengthen reproductive rights. "This is an American problem, but because it's being fought in state legislatures across the country right now, some of the burden is falling disproportionately on certain areas."

In 2019, the legal and policy advocacy organization Gender Justice sued the state on behalf of a group of plaintiffs to challenge Minnesota's abortion restrictions, arguing that they are unconstitutional. The case is expected to go to trial in Ramsey County District Court in June, said Gender Justice Executive Director Megan Peterson.

Meanwhile, Peterson and other advocates said, abortion access in Minnesota remains unchanged.

"A lot of people, including people who maybe need abortion care, will see the news and be really worried about, what does it mean?" Peterson said. "This is very much worth freaking out over, but we don't want to have people think abortion is illegal in Minnesota — it's not."

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Stephen King quits Facebook, 'not comfortable' with false information in political ads

I HAD NO CHOICE THEY KICKED ME OUT SUMMARILY WITH NO NOTICE NOR CHANCE OF APPEAL SO THANKS FOR THE SOLIDARITY 

by WGME Staff Saturday, February 1st 2020

FILE - This May 22, 2018 file photo shows Stephen King

 at the 2018 PEN Literary Gala in New York.

 (Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision/AP, File)

BANGOR, Maine (WGME) -- If you're looking to keep up with Maine author Stephen King on Facebook, don't bother. He isn't there anymore.

Friday night, King tweeted he is quitting Facebook. A search for his page on Facebook Saturday morning came up empty.

According to his tweet, King said he is "not comfortable with the flood of false information that's allowed in its political advertising."

He also expressed doubts over Facebook's ability to protect users' privacy.

Concerns have been raised as to how accurate political advertisements are on Facebook and the company's apparent unwillingness to address those concerns.

MONOPOLY CAPITALI$M
EXPLAINER: Bid to block book merger sets competition fight


Book Publishers Antitrust Explainer

FILE - Stephen King poses for a photo May 22, 2018, at the 2018 PEN Literary Gala in New York. The government and publishing titan Penguin Random House are set to exchange opening salvos in a federal antitrust trial Monday, Aug. 1, 2022, as the U.S. seeks to block the biggest U.S. book publisher from absorbing rival Simon & Schuster. The government’s “star” witness will be Stephen King, the renowned and genre-transcending author whose works are published by Simon & Schuster. 

Photo by Evan Agostini/Invision

MARCY GORDON
Sat, July 30, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — At a time of mega-mergers and flashy high-tech corporate hookups, the biggest U.S. book publisher’s plan to buy the fourth-largest for a mere $2.2 billion may seem somewhat quaint. But the deal represents such a key test for the Biden administration's antitrust policy that the Justice Department is calling an out-of-the-ordinary witness to The Stand: author extraordinaire Stephen King.

In Penguin Random House’s proposed acquisition of rival Simon & Schuster, which would reduce the “Big Five" U.S. publishers to four, the administration is burnishing its antitrust mettle and its fight against corporate concentration.

The Justice Department has sued to block the merger. The trial opens Monday in federal court in Washington.

The government contends the merger would hurt authors and, ultimately, readers, if German media titan Bertelsmann is allowed to buy Simon & Schuster from U.S. media and entertainment company Paramount Global. It says the deal would thwart competition and give Penguin Random House gigantic influence over which books are published in the U.S., likely reducing how much authors are paid and giving consumers fewer books to choose from.

An appearance at some point by King, whose works are published by Simon & Schuster, will be a highly unusual for an antitrust trial and will draw wide attention.

The publishers are fighting the lawsuit. They counter that the merger would strengthen competition among publishers to find and sell the hottest books. It would benefit readers, booksellers and authors, they say.

A look at the case:

PUBLISHING HEAVYWEIGHTS:

The two New York-based publishers each have impressive stables of blockbuster authors who’ve sold multiple millions of copies and have scored multimillion-dollar deals. Within Penguin Random House’s constellation are Barack and Michelle Obama, whose package deal for their memoirs totaled an estimated $65 million, Bill Clinton (he received $15 million for his memoir), Toni Morrison, John Grisham and Dan Brown.

Simon & Schuster counts Hillary Clinton (she received $8 million for hers), Bob Woodward and Walter Isaacson.

And King. His post-apocalyptic novel “The Stand," published in 1978, swirled around a deadly pandemic of weaponized influenza.

Bruce Springsteen split the difference: His “Renegades: Born in the USA," with Barack Obama, was published by Penguin Random House; his memoir, by Simon & Schuster.

___

THROWING THE BOOKS AT THEM

The Justice Department contends in its suit that as things now stand, No. 1 Penguin Random House and No. 4 Simon & Schuster (by total sales) compete fiercely to acquire the rights to publish the anticipated hottest-selling books. If they are allowed to merge, the combined company would control nearly 50% of the market for those books, it says, hurting competition by reducing advances paid to authors and diminishing output, creativity and diversity.

The Big Five — the other three are Hachette, HarperCollins and Macmillan — dominate U.S. publishing. They make up 90% of the market for anticipated top-selling books, the government’s court filing says. “The proposed merger would further increase consolidation in this concentrated industry, make the biggest player even bigger, and likely increase coordination in an industry with a history of coordination among the major publishers,” it says.

The Justice Department case reaches beyond the traditional antitrust concern of concentration raising prices for consumers, pointing to the impact on consumers’ choices and viewing authors as workers as well as sellers of products in the global marketplace of ideas. The notion is that fewer buyers (publishers) competing over the same talent pool reduces sellers’ (authors) bargaining power.

The case “potentially creates a precedent that could be used in the labor area," says Rebecca Allensworth, an antitrust expert who is a law professor at Vanderbilt University.

___

BIDEN’S COMPETITION CRUSADE

The Biden administration is staking out new ground on business concentration and competition, and the government's case against the publishers’ mergers can be viewed as an important step.

President Joe Biden has made competition a pillar of his economic policy, denouncing what he calls the outsized market power of an array of industries and stressing the importance of robust competition to the economy, workers, consumers and small businesses. He has called on federal regulators, notably the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission, to give greater scrutiny to big business combinations.

Biden issued an executive order a year ago targeting what he labeled anticompetitive practices in tech, health care, agriculture and numerous other parts of the economy, laying down 72 actions and recommendations for federal agencies. Targets range from hearing aid prices to airline baggage fees.

Another trial on competition starting Monday in federal court: The Justice Department is suing to block UnitedHealth Group, which runs the biggest U.S. health insurer, from acquiring health-tech company Change Healthcare. The government contends the $13 billion deal would hurt competition and put too much health care claim information in the hands of one company.

___

PUBLISHERS MAKE THEIR CASE

Hold on, Penguin Random House and Simon & Schuster say as they prepare to enter trial: The merger would actually strengthen competition among publishers to find and sell the hottest books, by enabling the combined company to offer greater compensation to authors.

It would benefit readers, booksellers and authors, the publishers say, by creating a more efficient company that would bring lower prices for books. The government has failed to show harm to consumers as readers because the merger wouldn’t push up prices, the companies contend.

“The U.S. publishing industry is robust and highly competitive,” they say in their filing. “More readers are reading books than ever before, and the number grows every year. Publishers compete vigorously to reach those readers, and the only way they can compete effectively is to find, acquire and publish the books readers most want to read. ... The merger at issue in this case will encourage even more competition and growth in the U.S. publishing industry.”

The companies reject the government’s central focus on the market for anticipated best-selling books — defined as those acquired for advances to authors of at least $250,000. They represent only a tiny sliver, about 2%, of all books published by commercial companies, according to the companies’ filing.

___

Follow Marcy Gordon at https://www.twitter.com/mgordonap

BEST DAVID SOUL OBIT

David Soul, Stephen King and the terrifying power of Salem’s Lot

Alexander Larman
Fri, 5 January 2024

David Soul in Salem's Lot - Alamy

The actor and singer David Soul, who has died at the age of 80, will best be remembered for his iconic performance as the detective Kenneth ‘Hutch’ Hutchinson in the ever-popular TV series Starsky and Hutch. Soul tended to be associated with roles that played on his apparently straight-arrow persona honed in the show, which, as time went by, he tended to play up to for comic effect. The highest-profile parts that he took in later years, unsurprisingly, were self-parodying cameos in everything from the Irvine Welsh adaptation Filth to the likes of Little Britain and Holby City on British television.

Soul’s twinkly, likeable presence made him a natural fit for roles in comedy and light drama, but these unchallenging roles did his acting abilities a disservice. Not only had he managed to subvert his clean-cut looks as early as 1973, in which he played a treacherous police officer in the Dirty Harry picture Magnum Force, but his finest hour as an actor came when he starred in the lead role of the Stephen King adaptation Salem’s Lot in 1979, which was broadcast on CBS as a two-part drama just after Starsky and Hutch came to its conclusion. Had an impressionable teenager watched the miniseries because they were a fan of Soul’s, they would undoubtedly have been scared witless.

Although King was already a bestselling author with a considerable fanbase by November 1979, with several iconic novels including The Shining, Carrie and – naturally – 1975’s Salem’s Lot terrifying millions of readers worldwide, he was not yet a known quantity in TV and film adaptations.

Although Stanley Kubrick was hard at work filming The Shining, which would ultimately, and publicly, disappoint King upon its release in May 1980, the only film of his work that had been released prior to 1979 was Brian de Palma’s Carrie. It had been a considerable box office hit in 1976, as well as winning critical plaudits for the lead performances by Sissy Spacek as the telekinetic teen and Piper Laurie as her religious fanatic mother.

Stephen King in 1970 - Getty

Any adaptation of Salem’s Lot had to live up to this precedent, and Warner Bros Television, who produced the film on a $4 million budget, were careful not to derail the King bandwagon before it had begun. After all, if it was done properly, it could be the beginning of a long and lucrative association.

Yet King was unenthusiastic at first, later saying that “TV is death to horror. When [Salem’s Lot] went to TV, a lot of people moaned and I was one of the moaners.” Initially, attempts to adapt it were dismal; King complained that “Every director in Hollywood who’s ever been involved with horror wanted to do it, but nobody could come up with a script.”

For it to succeed, it would have to take risks, and for them to pay off admirably, and terrifyingly. Its story of a successful writer, Ben Mears – something of a King trope throughout his novels – who returns to his hometown of Salem’s Lot, only to realise that vampirism is rampant in the town, whipped up by the charismatic and villainous Richard Straker, was rich in potential but would need to find the right filmmakers and stars. Otherwise the results could be disappointing, or even ludicrous.

James Mason, Tobe Hooper and David Soul on the set of Salem's Lot - Alamy

The hot horror director of the moment, Tobe Hooper, was hired, fresh from the vast commercial success of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and veteran screen villain James Mason would prove to be a seductive and terrifying Straker, He managed to make even the words “Good evening” sound frighteningly ominous. But in the lead role of Mears, Hooper and the screenwriter Paul Monash – a King veteran, having already produced Carrie – needed to find someone who was a familiar face but not over-associated with the horror genre, who could stand toe-to-toe with Mason and also provide a steadying figure that the audience might empathise with amidst the scares. The producer Richard Kobritz met with Soul, in what the actor later described as an appropriately “black, bleak” office, and offered him the role.

Soul was delighted to be acting opposite Mason, which he called “a real kick”, and the production was set in the town of Ferndale in Northern California. The crucial location was the Marsten House of the novel, a hilltop property with a reputation for being haunted which Mears is planning on writing a book about. An elaborate set was constructed outside Ferndale, in the style of a New England house, although as Soul said “they built the exterior, [but] it wasn’t a whole house…it was a façade, and the interior was at the Warner Brothers lot back in California.

“One day, when we were preparing to shoot up at the house, we heard this horrible crash, and there was this car that had run into a telephone pole. When we reached the car, the driver had this look on his face like he’d seen something impossible, and sure enough, this man had lived in Ferndale for 30 years, and had never seen this before.” Soul would not be the only person aghast at what the production would conjure up there.




Several of Soul’s Starsky co-stars, including Juliette Lewis’s veteran character actor father Geoffrey and George Dzunda – later to meet a grisly end in Basic Instinct – were reunited with him in Salem’s Lot, and Soul enjoyed working with them. But he reserved his highest praise for Mason, who he called “absolutely a marvel…a legend, a real legend, someone who came out of the old school, and boy, you could tell the difference. He really knew his craft.” Belying his terrifying persona on-set, Soul praised Mason as “a joy to be with, and a joy to be around.”

The two may have been deadly adversaries on set, but when not filming, they would head to Mason’s trailer and play cards together, which Mason was a keen aficionado of. And the veteran actor was not above punning humour, either; he referred to Soul and his young co-star Lance Kerwin, who played Mark Petrie, a boy whose knowledge of horror film lore helps solve the mystery of Salem’s Lot, as “Lancesky and Hutch.”

One of the film’s most terrifying characters was that of Kurt Barlow, the Nosferatu-esque vampire who Straker has come to Salem’s Lot in order to resurrect. As played by the Austrian character actor Reggie Nalder, Barlow’s character was changed from the conventional-looking villain of the novel to a demonic apparition, on the grounds that, as Kobritz said, “I wanted nothing suave or sexual, because I just didn’t think it’d work; we’ve seen too much of it.” (The fact that he had the velvet-voiced Mason as his lead villain meant that suavity was also assured, too.)

Chilling: a scene from Salem's Lot - Alamy

Soul remarked that “Nadler was born to play this role. He didn’t like it very much, because he had to wear these contact lenses, and his make-up kept falling off, so we had to stop and reset his face, eyes, teeth and eight-inch fingernails.” He quipped that Nalder may have been dissatisfied with the requirements of the role – the actor commented “The makeup and contact lenses were painful but I got used to them. I liked the money best of all” – whereas, in Soul’s knowing words, “I did it for the art.”

The series was packed full of immediately iconic scares. The moment in which the child vampire Ralphie Glick tries to enter his brother Danny’s room from outside, while scratching terrifyingly at the window, remains the most memorable, and has been alluded to in everything from The Simpsons to Eminem’s song Lose Yourself. Guardians of the Galaxy director and DC supremo James Gunn wrote, after Hooper’s death in 2017, that the filmmaker “created the moment that scared me the most as a child – that floating, dead kid tapping on the window.”

Bearing in mind the demands of television, rather than film, it largely eschewed explicit bloodshed in favour of what Hooper called “the overtone of the grave.” He said “A television movie does not have blood or violence. It has atmosphere which creates something you cannot escape – the reminder that our time is limited and all the accoutrements that go with it, such as the visuals.”

Soul enjoyed working with “the very fine director”, who he praised for being “very well prepared”. There were lighter moments, too. The actor celebrated his birthday on set; he later quipped, “they told me I had a good time, but I don’t remember a hell of a lot...I’m told I was enjoying it too.”

Reggie Nalder as the villain of Salem's Lot - Alamy

Salem’s Lot was enthusiastically received on its first screening, and was later followed by a sequel, Return to Salem’s Lot, and another 2004 miniseries adaptation, this time starring Rob Lowe. It has subsequently proved to be one of the most influential of all modern-day vampire stories, inspiring everything from such Eighties classics as The Lost Boys and Fright Night to Buffy the Vampire Slayer and King regular interpreter Mike Flanagan’s 2021 Netflix miniseries Midnight Mass.

And another film remake is planned, this time directed by It screenwriter Gary Dauberman. Yet it will struggle to surpass the original, which remains one of the most successful King adaptations, with the emphasis on suggestion and subtlety over bloodshed making it all the more terrifying.

As Soul put it: “Salem’s Lot is responsible for a whole new genre, particularly in terms of television. I think the film we did is the legendary film, the real thing, and everything else tried to copy elements of what we accomplished.” The obituaries will salute this versatile actor for being forever Hutch, but Salem’s Lot is surely his truest – and longer-lasting – legacy.

STANDARD OBIT

Starsky & Hutch actor David Soul’s 50 years on screen and stage

Jordan Reynolds, PA
Fri, 5 January 2024

Actor David Soul was best known for his role as Detective Kenneth “Hutch” Hutchinson in the classic crime-solving television series Starsky & Hutch.

US-born Soul, who starred opposite Paul Michael Glaser, who played Detective Dave Starsky, in the 1970s US TV series, was also known for his roles in Here Come The Brides, Magnum Force and The Yellow Rose.

With a career spanning 50 years, Soul also made a name for himself as a director, producer, singer/songwriter and social activist.

David Soul (Yui Mok/PA)


David Solberg (Soul) was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 28 1943, then spent the next 12 years between South Dakota and post-Second World War Berlin.

His father Dr Richard Solberg, a professor of history and political science and an ordained minister, moved his family to Berlin where he served as a religious affairs adviser to the US High Commission.

Soul was affected by his experiences in Berlin and initially considered following in his father’s footsteps, later becoming involved with the South Dakota Young Democrats.

He was also an avid sportsman and was offered a professional baseball contract with the Chicago White Sox after high school in 1961.

David Soul arriving for the Theatregoers’ Choice Awards, held at Planet Hollywood in central London, in November 2005 (Yui Mok/PA)

But instead, during his second year of college, he left to go to Mexico City with his father who went to be a professor at a graduate school for young diplomats.

Here he was introduced to the indigenous songs of Mexico and when he returned to the US, he secured a job singing folk music at a coffee house at the University of Minnesota.

It was in Minneapolis where Soul got his first taste of theatre.

He was 21, married and with a child when he took over his friend’s role as the “Pugnacious Collier” in the Firehouse Theatre’s production of John Arden’s Sergeant Musgrave’s Dance.

Then, separated from his wife, Soul sent an audition tape and a photo, calling himself “The Covered Man” – while wearing a mask and shortening his name to Soul – to the William Morris Agency in New York, which signed him.

Actor David Soul in 2004 (Ian West/PA)

Soul travelled to New York in 1965 and appeared on The Merv Griffin Show for multiple singing appearances, as well as with MGM Records.

His first release was The Covered Man. Soul wore a mask for four months and would not show his face, saying he wanted to be “known for his music”.

Studying in New York with Uta Haugen and Irene Daily, Soul was given his first television role in 1960s dolphin series Flipper.

He was spotted on The Merv Griffin Show by a talent executive at Columbia/Screen Gems, then signed a contract with Screen Gems which saw him move to Los Angeles.

Soul acted in Star Trek, Here Come The Brides, Perry Mason and Johnny Got His Gun, throughout the 1960s and 1970s.

He got his break as officer John Davis in Clint Eastwood’s police yarn Magnum Force, about Inspector Harold Callahan, which led to a part in Starsky & Hutch from 1974 to 1979.

David Soul arrives for the annual National Television Awards at the Royal Albert Hall in central London in 2004 (Ian West/PA)

In the years following, Soul directed different television series, produced and directed theatre shows and produced and directed three documentaries.

He also funded, produced and co-directed a documentary on the shutdown of Pittsburgh’s steel industry between 1982 and 1985.

At the height of his fame he released the UK chart-toppers Don’t Give Up On Us and Silver Lady, and the hits Going In With My Eyes Open and Let’s Have A Quiet Night In.

Soul toured across large parts of the world with his band and performed as part of the late Queen’s silver jubilee in 1977.

But in the 1980s Soul hit the headlines when he was arrested for attacking his then-wife, and he went on to be part of a BBC programme in the early 2000s which aimed to tackle domestic violence.

He also went on to appear in TV series Salem’s Lot, an adaptation of Stephen King’s novel of the same name, as Ben Mears, who returns to his home town, which has been taken over by vampires.

Soul was also in Miami Vice, Harry’s Hong Kong, Homeward Bound and a TV series remake of Casablanca.

David Soul on stage at London’s Phoenix Theatre (Rebecca Naden/PA)

In the last 30 years of his life, Soul moved from Los Angeles to New Zealand, then to Australia, where he performed in Willy Russell’s Blood Brothers, Paris and finally London where he worked in theatre, television and film.

In the 1990s, he made his debut on the West End stage in the award-winning play Blood Brothers while he was living in the UK.

Some of his many television and film credits in the UK include appearances on Little Britain, Top Gear, Holby City, Agatha Christie’s Poirot: Death On The Nile, as well as films Tabloid and Puritan.

He and Glaser reprised their roles in the 2004 remake Starsky & Hutch, starring Ben Stiller as Starsky and Owen Wilson as Hutch.

Soul, who was a dual US and UK citizen, was married five times, including to actresses Mirriam Solberg, Karen Carlson, Patti Carnel Sherman and Julia Nickson, and had six children and seven grandchildren.

Soul died on Thursday at the age of 80 surrounded by his family, his wife Helen Snell said in a statement.