The most accurate description of Charlie Kirk we've seen
September 14, 2025
Some real Charlie Kirk quotes
Compiled by Huffington Post
“We must also be real. We must be honest with the population. Having an armed citizenry comes with a price, and that is part of liberty... We need to be very clear that you’re not going to get gun deaths to zero. It will not happen. But I think it’s worth it. I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year, so that we can have the Second Amendment,” he said.
“I can’t stand the word empathy, actually,” he said. “I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that does a lot of damage.”
Black women “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.”
“This is something that I hope will make Taylor Swift more conservative,” he said. “Engage in reality more… Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge
“Gun control, like vaccines and masks, is focused on making people feel ‘safe’ by taking freedoms away from others. Don’t fall for it.”
“If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, ‘Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’
Word
If I won the lottery, I’d still teach.
Not because the system works—it doesn’t.
But because one quiet student whispering “you made me think differently” is worth the whole mess.
How the US rightwing is taking over news media and choking press freedom
The Guardian - The US right has appeared to increase its influence on mainstream media in America in recent weeks, especially in television news which has been a major target of the Donald Trump administration.
CBS News – once home to legends of US journalism like Walter Cronkite and Edward R Murrow – installed a Trump ally as its ombudsman, weeks after the family of Larry Ellison, one of the world’s richest men, and a friend of the US president, sealed control over Paramount, the owner of CBS.
Now Paramount is reportedly looking to buy Warner Bros Discovery, the media behemoth behind CNN, which would potentially bring the influential news network under the roof of an increasingly Trump-friendly conglomerate.
At the same time a long-running family feud among Rupert Murdoch and his children was settled with a deal that will assure Fox News – and other powerful media outlets run by the family – will retain their conservative bent.
The moves deepened concerns among many US media critics and observers of authoritarianism that press freedoms in the US were undergoing capitulation to the Trump administration’s rightwing authoritarian leanings.
Ex Israeli army commander confirms huge Palestinian casualty rate
The Guardian - A former Israeli army commander, Herzi Halevi, has confirmed that more than 200,000 Palestinians have been killed or injured in the war in Gaza, and that “not once” in the course of the conflict were military operations inhibited by legal advice.
Halevi stepped down as chief of staff in March after leading the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) for the first 17 months of the war, which is now approaching its second anniversary.
The retired general told a community meeting in southern Israel earlier this week that more than 10% of Gaza’s 2.2 million population had been killed or injured – “more than 200,000 people”. That estimate is notable as it is close to the current figures provided by Gaza’s health ministry, which Israeli officials have frequently dismissed as Hamas propaganda, though the ministry figures have been deemed reliable by international humanitarian agencies.
Schools
NPR - There have been more than 400 school shootings since Columbine in 1999, according to a Washington Post analysis. Since then, an industry to protect students in schools has emerged — and business is booming. The school security industry is now worth as much as $4 billion and is projected to keep growing, according to market research firm Omdia.
Health
NPR - Some 154 million Americans get health care through their employers — and it's about to get a lot more expensive. That's because employers will be paying a lot more — almost 9% more per employee on average for the same level of coverage — to provide health benefits for their workers. Many of them plan to pass those higher prices along to their workers in the form of "cost-cutting changes," according to a survey from the benefits consulting agency Mercer.
The rise in political violence
Rachel Leingang, The Guardian: Charlie Kirk’s killing came amid a rise in political violence in the US, the kind now so frequent that it moves swiftly out of news cycles it would once have dominated.
The list is long and growing. From the two assassination attempts on Donald Trump during his campaign last year to Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home burnt in an arson attack in April and the Democratic Minnesota state lawmaker and her husband gunned down by a man dressed as a police officer in June, to name a few.
In the first six months of 2025, more than 520 plots and acts of terrorism and targeted violence occurred, affecting nearly all US states and causing 96 deaths and 329 injuries. This is a nearly 40% increase over the first six months of 2024, according to data from the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the University of Maryland.
Mass casualty attacks, where four or more victims were killed or wounded, increased by 187.5% in the first six months of 2025 compared with the same period last year. Michael Jensen, the research director at START, wrote on LinkedIn in late August that “the warning signs of growing civil unrest in the US are evident” in the group’s data.
The killing of a high-profile Trump ally at a public event on a Utah college campus this week could serve as a turning point for political violence – but it’s not clear in which direction. As the right declared war on the left following Kirk’s murder, prominent politicians canceled events over safety concerns and historically Black colleges went on lockdown over threats.
“I absolutely believe this is a watershed in American history,” said Spencer Cox, Utah’s Republican governor, at a press conference on Friday. “The question is, what kind of watershed? That chapter remains to be written. Is this the end of a dark chapter in our history or the beginning of a darker chapter in our history?”
Those who study political violence say the current moment looks similar to the US in the 1960s, when assassins killed John F Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr amid a time of massive social change and backlash. But two key differences make this era more dangerous: social media and widespread availability of very lethal weapons, said Amy Pate, the acting director and executive director at START.
Increased adoption of conspiracy theories and online networks where those theories thrive mean that radicalization is “speeding up”, giving people less time to intervene when someone is on the path toward violence, she said.
September 13, 2025
Another fired for saying something true about Kirk
Washington Post - Within 24 hours of Charlie Kirk’s killing, an assistant dean at a Tennessee college, a communications staffer for an NFL team, a Next Door employee in Milwaukee, and the co-owner of a Cincinnati barbecue restaurant were fired after posting about it.
“Looks like ol’ Charlie spoke his fate into existence,” Laura Sosh-Lightsy, assistant dean of students at Middle Tennessee State University, posted Wednesday on Facebook. “Hate begets hate. ZERO sympathy.”
Before the day was over, MTSU President Sidney McPhee had issued a statement announcing that Sosh-Lightsy had been terminated over her “inappropriate and callous” comments as they “were inconsistent with our values.”
Suspected Kirk killer's family is hardcore MAGA
MAGA
world flies into panic mode as the grandmother of Charlie Kirk's
suspected assassin Tyler Robinson reveals that his entire family is
hardcore MAGA.
The Republican narrative has collapsed in record time...
“My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump. Most of my family members
are Republican. I don’t know any single one who’s a Democrat," the
suspect's grandmother Debbie Robinson told The Daily Mail.
“I’m just so confused. [Tyler] is the shyest person. He has never, ever
spoke politics to me at all," she added.
 |
Appeals Court: deportation of 500,000 can begin
Newsweek - An appeals court ruled on Friday that the Trump administration can begin deporting around 500,000 immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela.
DHS ordered half a million migrants to self-deport, issuing termination notices to nationals of Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who had entered the country under "humanitarian parole" programs that started under the administration of former President Joe Biden.
This marked the first mass revocation of humanitarian parole, according to the Associated Press.
...The Supreme Court in May issued a single-paragraph decision, unsigned, that granted a stay against an initial order issued by a judge that halted the deportations pending a decision in appeals court. Democrat-appointed Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson dissented.
Today's two-page decision lifts a district judge's ruling that blocked the Trump administration from canceling the "humanitarian parole" programs.
The administration sought to continue its deportations while the legal question played out in courts, which the initial order blocked.
....The three-judge panel of the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston delivered a final decision Friday evening. Immigrants who entered the U.S. under the program will now lose their permits to work and are at immediate risk of deportation.
ICE
Independent, UK - Donald Trump’s border czar has admitted that ICE is running out of space to house migrants arrested as part of the ramping up of the president’s deportation sweeps. “We’re almost at capacity,” Tom Homan told reporters at the White House earlier this week, but added that “we got beds coming online every day.”...
Under the direction of White House special advisor Stephen Miller, ICE agents were tasked with making 3,000 immigration arrests per day, with reports that officials were asked if that number could go even higher. “It’s interesting timing because we don’t have the bed space to support all the arrests,” an anonymous administration official told Politico, echoing Homan’s remarks to reporters.
Figures from late August showed that the Trump administration is holding more than 61,000 people in detention, often giving rise to instances of medical neglect and other poor conditions. The government has fewer than 65,000 beds to house immigrants, the official told Politico.
Despite the number of people being held having almost doubled – some 39,000 were held by ICE during the final days of the Biden administration – capacity has not increased in any significant way.
Trump’s Cuts Cripple NPR and PBS Stations
NY Times - Radio and television stations, facing enormous budget holes, are pleading with NPR and PBS to lower their fees as they examine whether to drop national programming altogether.
On the windswept prairie of South Dakota, a tribal public radio station is selling off its old records to pay the bills. In Warm Springs, Ore., the NPR affiliate is considering dropping “All Things Considered” to focus on tribal issues.
In Bunker Hill, Kan., (population 103), the public TV station may eventually have to cut ties with PBS, pulling children’s shows like “Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood.”
“We are crippled here,” said Betsy Schwien, the general manager of Smoky Hills PBS in Bunker Hill. “It is the absolute worst-case scenario.”
The decision by President Trump and Republicans in Congress to strip $500 million from public broadcasters this summer is forcing profound changes that will reshape the airwaves, especially in rural and tribal areas of the country.
Some stations are beginning to go off the air, as Congress was warned before it went ahead and eliminated funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the taxpayer-backed company that supports public media, ultimately shutting it down. But short of that, no station will be immune from impacts
NPR and PBS, aware of the strain, have lowered fees for impacted stations. But for many, that’s not enough. Some are considering dropping nationally produced shows from NPR and PBS amid enormous budget shortfalls.
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Despite what the GOP tells you, mass transit is safer than driving
New Republic - According to one recent study, car travel is 10 times as deadly as travel by mass transit. Another report from the nonprofit National Safety Council finds that, for every 100 million miles traveled by passengers, rates of car deaths were 17 times greater than deaths from train travel, and 50 times greater than deaths from bus travel. The United States boasts a road-traffic fatality rate higher than that of any other high-income country. According to data collected by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, 8,055 people died in car crashes in the first three months of 2025....
The dangers aren’t confined to crashes. Roadway crime, such as car theft and road rage–related violence, is also far more prevalent than crimes committed on public transit. As transportation researcher Todd Litman recently pointed out, mass transit is the setting for a tiny proportion of serious crimes committed: “About 1 in 1,000 murders and 1 in 10,000 reported rapes take place in transit stations or vehicles across the US,” Litman wrote. “Travel by car exposes drivers and passengers to a wider range of criminal threats, including vehicle homicide, road rage and carjacking attacks, and robberies and assaults in parking lots, plus vehicle thefts and vandalism.”
Climate
Inside Climate News - Both House and Senate lawmakers have advanced bills rejecting the Trump administration’s proposal to eliminate climate research at NOAA.
The Trump administration has proposed cutting funding for a pair of climate satellites, which are in good working order and provide some of the best data on carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere.
Indigenous territories are a crucial bulwark against the destruction of the Amazon rainforest. A new peer-reviewed study shows they also safeguard the health of millions living there. The study, published Thursday in the journal Communications Earth and Environment, examined the impact Indigenous territories have on human health across the Amazon biome, a region that’s home to 33 million people. Amazonian municipalities located close to indigenous lands with intact forest have reduced risk from two categories of health harms, the study found: fire-related illnesses and diseases spread by animals and insects.
Polls
Pew Research - Overall, 84% of U.S. Catholics have a positive view of Pope Leo XIV, though most also say they know little or nothing about him. And while a third of Catholics predict Leo’s leadership of the church will be similar to that of his predecessor, Pope Francis, a much larger share aren’t sure.
Moves to the right
A growing number of Republican-led states have advanced or enacted bills that make it more difficult for citizen-led ballot initiatives to succeed
The Missouri state Legislature passed a new Republican-drawn congressional map that would give the GOP an additional seat in the U.S. House after the 2026 midterm elections.
Trump said that he's planning to send federal law enforcement and the National Guard into Memphis, Tennessee.
Organized labor is shifting to the right in Ohio, where several unions have issued surprisingly early endorsements of Republicans in the state’s races for governor and U.S. Senate.
Charlie Kirk’s outsized influence on the MAGA movement
More Kirk stories
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his staff to identify any members of the military who have mocked or condoned Kirk’s killing so that they can be punished, two defense officials told NBC News.
Toxic rhetoric, including calls for “civil war” and retribution, is growing among far-right activists, Republican politicians and conservative influencers after Kirk’s assassination.
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth told his staff to identify any members of the military who have mocked or condoned Kirk’s killing so that they can be punished, two defense officials told NBC News.
Toxic rhetoric, including calls for “civil war” and retribution, is growing among far-right activists, Republican politicians and conservative influencers after Kirk’s assassination.
September 12, 2025
Health
Reuters - Trump health officials are planning to link coronavirus vaccines to the deaths of 25 children as they consider restricting which Americans should receive the shots, the Washington Post reported on Friday, citing four people familiar with the matter. The findings appear to be based on information submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System that contains unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences with vaccines, the report added.
Aggregating Trump's misdeeds
- Trump
put corporate interests first by “often cutting [workers’] pay or
making their jobs more dangerous.” This includes gutting regulations
that protect miners from a debilitating, often deadly lung disease. He
fired the chair of the top labor watchdog – The National Labor Relations
Board, whose now stalled mission is to “protect workers from
corporations’ illegal anti-union tactics.” Then “Trump stripped one
million federal workers of their right to bargain collectively and tore
up their union contracts.”
- “Trump
has hurt construction workers by shutting down major wind turbine
projects and ending Biden-era subsidies that encourage construction of
factories that make renewable-energy products.”
- Trump
is pressing to end “minimum wage and overtime protections for 3.7
million home-care and domestic workers,” and has already ended a “Biden
plan to prevent employers from paying disabled workers less than the
$7.25-an-hour federal minimum wage.” Trump adamantly opposes raising
this frozen minimum wage for 25 million workers who would benefit from a
$15 federal minimum wage. He ended a “requirement that federal
contractors pay their workers at least $17.75 an hour.”
- Tariffs
and reckless, wholesale deportations are “pushing up prices and slowing
economic growth.” His big tax cut for the super-rich is being paid for
by “millions of working families by cutting food assistance and causing
many to lose health coverage” (from Medicaid). As for deportation, it is
“undermining their employers’ businesses,” and I might add closing down
some of them and impairing farmers from harvesting their crops.
- “In
her annual State of the Unions address, AFL-CIO president [Liz] Schuler
said: ‘We want cheaper groceries, and we get tanks on our streets. We
want more affordable healthcare, and we get 16 million Americans about
to be kicked off their coverage.’”
- Trump
is swinging an axe to end worker safety protections, cutting OSHA staff
and pushing those still working at OSHA to weaken all kinds of
essential safety and health protections, ranging from coal miners to
workers under extreme heat, to reducing fines for violating safety
rules, and much more. He “froze enforcement of a Biden-era regulation
that protects miners from silicosis, a serious lung disease.” “…a major
killer among coal miners.”
- The Economic Policy Institute (EPI) “forecasts that Trump’s effort to deport 1 million immigrants a year will result in 5.9 million lost jobs after four years: 3.3 million fewer employed immigrants and 2.6 million fewer employed US-born workers. ‘If you don’t have immigrant roofers and framers, you’re not building houses, and that means electricians and plumbers lose their jobs.’ ‘Plus, you lose the consumer spending from those workers,’” and tens of billions of withheld tax revenues annually, one might add.
Polls
Newsweek - PNC Bank's third annual Financial Wellness in the Workplace Report found that Gen Z is the most confident about their post-working years, with 56 percent saying they are "somewhat" or "very confident" they will reach their retirement goals. Millennials and Baby Boomers reported equal confidence at 50 percent. But only 43 percent of Gen Xers expressed confidence—the lowest among all age groups.
Healthcare inflation hits three year high
Axios - Health care inflation hit a three-year high last month in the latest sign that workers could soon be juggling big premium increases with higher prices for groceries, clothing and other items subject to President Trump's tariffs.
Medical prices have been steadily rising, but corporations projecting hikes of 9% or more next year are no longer willing to insulate their employees from the pain.
Medical care costs rose 4.2%, compared with an overall inflation rate of 2.9%, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said yesterday.
- The cost of doctors' visits increased 3.5%, and hospital and outpatient services rose 5.3%.
The rising costs are being felt beyond workplace insurance; Affordable Care Act marketplace plans are seeking median 18% premium hikes for next year, according to KFF. That's the largest rate change insurers have requested since 2018, they said.
- The insurers cite high-priced drugs, increasing labor costs and general inflation, as well as concern about the expiration of enhanced subsidies that could hike out-of-pocket premiums an average of 75% for over 20 million enrollees.
The bottom line: Inflation is hitting health care harder than the broader economy, setting up a painful year ahead for both patients and employers. MORE
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