Q: Do you think it would've been fitting to lower the flags to half staff when Melissa Hortman, the Minnesota House Speaker, was gunned down by an assassin?TRUMP: I'm not familiar. The who?
It needs to be said that by rebranding Charlie Kirk's views as moderate by both right wingers and liberal cowards resets the extremist views he held as normal and pushes the Overton window to the far right
New from me — There’s been a lot of ink spilled since Charlie Kirk's murder about the "right" way to honor his death. Getting liberals fired from their jobs and forcing devoted civil servants to resign in disgust couldn’t be a more fitting tribute to his life.
“Seems one of trump’s top advisors excited the frogs. This would have never happened if Biden was president.” John Buss, @repeat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
Today, I’m going to suggest we give up on the old Greek saying “Don’t speak ill of the Dead” and replace it with “Speak honestly about the Dead.” I’ve just about had it with all the forced piety behavior surrounding the death of a person well known for his antisemitism, racism, GLBTphobia, and keeping women subservient. I’ve already printed my reaction here and on Facebook. If we are not honest about the actions and words of the dead, we start sounding like this … I’d better speak badly about Putin now because when he’s dead, I’ll be breaking some ancient Greek saying.
I’m sorry, students, if I have to, I can’t speak badly of Pol Pot since he’s dead, but we should learn about what he did in Cambodia, so we just have to avoid mentioning him.
You know, George Wallace did questionable things to black people while governor, but we mustn’t talk about him… speaking ill of the dead and all is not allowed to speak ill of the dead. So, let history forget about all that.
Yeah, let’s talk about the hypocrisy in those piety performances … sounds a lot like sick right-wing Political Correctness to me. From the Link:
“How the concept of ‘don’t speak ill of the dead’ is typically utilized is fraught with dismissal and erasure. Every time someone problematic dies, it is nearly inevitable to hear statements of “don’t speak ill of the dead,” but who does that idea serve? What benefit does it have? Certainly, if we want to learn from the past and honor those who have been harmed by people now deceased, we must speak honestly of the dead, even if being honest means speaking ill.”
So, does not speaking ill of the dead Hitler erase the Jewish community and the holocaust experience, or what? I guess that probably doesn’t apply to Stalin or Saddam Hussein, though. They’re on the official approved right-wing Slander List.
Opps, my bad … I’m so politically correct, but I must not speak ill of the dead! Or is not speaking ill some sort of contorted “political correctness” that shows your “woke” to hatred in the name of right-wing politics? I really hoped we’d seen the last of making a martyr of someone who hid behind the First Amendment to normalize hate speech. He even dropped out of college and spent time studying the career of Rush Limbaugh, whose antics included taking trips to Latin America to purchase children trafficked for sex.
The thing that pushed me over last night was reading that the NFL mandated a pre-game tribute for Kirk. It appears that only five teams ignored the order. I would like to announce that the Saints are dead to me now. I dumped my one jersey that I bought after the Hurricane Katrina season in the trash this morning. I was still wearing it up to yesterday. It’s gone where my shrimp scales and tales go. It’s gone where all of the worthless things go. It’s in my trash can.
My Saint shirt is on the way to the New Orleans Garbage Dump. It’s cotton, so it should disintegrate nicely.
This is from Heavy.com, and I still can’t believe I’m reporting on sportsball anyway. “Five NFL Teams Don’t Hold Moment of Silence for Charlie Kirk.
Among the 13 NFL home teams that held a game on Sunday, five chose not to hold a moment of silence for slain political organizer Charlie Kirk.
Just a day after he was shot on a college campus in Utah, the NFL chose to hold a moment of silence for Kirk before the “Thursday Night Football” between the Detroit Lions and Green Bay Packers at Lambeau Field.
The NFL said it was a league decision not a team decision, but Sunday’s decision to hold a tribute would be left to the franchises.
“Last night’s moment was the league’s decision,” the league said in a statement Friday. “It’s up to the clubs for this Sunday’s games. There have been a variety of moments of silence and tributes in-stadium and on-air in all games or a game immediately following events that rise to a national level. Clubs also often hold moments following a tragic event that affects their community.”
The Saints team reportedly added all victims of gun violence to the tribute but did not feel the need to even show the pictures of the 168 children (ages 0-11) who were killed by gun violence, and 716 teenagers (ages 12-17) who were killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive as of September 15, 2025. Team owner Gail Benson has also been involved in the Archdiocese of New Orleans pedophile priest scandal. This scandal has been adjudicated and active since 2018, but the Archdiocese still hasn’t provided any of the compensation required by the courts.
The New Orleans Saints say they only did “minimal” public relations work on the area’s Roman Catholic sexual abuse crisis, but attorneys suing the church allege hundreds of confidential Saints emails show the team’s involvement went much further, helping to shape a list of credibly accused clergy that appears to be undercounted.
New court papers filed this week by lawyers for about two dozen men making sexual abuse claims against the Archdiocese of New Orleans gave the most detailed description yet of the emails that have rocked the NFL team and remain shielded from the public.
“This goes beyond public relations,” the attorneys wrote, accusing the Saints of issuing misleading statements saying their work for the archdiocese involved only “messaging” and handling media inquiries as part of the 2018 release of the clergy names.
Instead, they wrote, “The Saints appear to have had a hand in determining which names should or should not have been included on the pedophile list.”
It appears that some Saints Fans did not approve of the so-called tribute. This is from marca.com. “NFL fans reportedly boo during moment of silence honoring Charlie Kirk and victims of gun violence. An eyewitness report from the Saints’ game suggests a divided fan reaction, though broader video confirmation has yet to emerge.”
At the New Orleans Saints’ home game, KADN News15 sports director Will Herren reported that the team did observe a pre-game moment of silence. According to Herren, who was in attendance, “some fans booed, while others cheered” during the pause before the national anthem.
His account remains one of the few on-the-ground reports, as no widespread video evidence has yet surfaced to corroborate the extent of fan reaction. Renowned X.com account MLFootball reported the same.
Several teams, including the Jets, Cardinals, Dolphins, Saints, Steelers, Titans, Chiefs, and Cowboys, held moments of silence. Some displayed images of Kirk on stadium screens.
Others, such as the Bengals, Lions, Colts, Vikings, and Ravens, opted not to take part in the tribute.
The Saints’ game has drawn the most attention due to the reports of booing. Fans online seized on the reported boos as evidence of growing divides over how public tributes intersect with political identities.
Others argued the cheers, which Herren also noted, highlighted that not all fans reacted negatively. There are also unconfirmed reports that San Francisco 49ers fans had filled home areas of the Saints’ stadium.
Still, the lack of broad, independent video confirmation leaves uncertainty about how widespread the reaction truly was. Most social media claims of booing come from individual users and have not been backed by national outlets.
This reeks of forcing religion-specific enforced prayer when it’s not your religion or belief system. Right-wing political correctness has shown itself boldly this week. The Washington Post steps in its shit by firing Karen Attiah. This is posted on her blog, The Golden Hour. “The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced. I spoke out against hatred and violence in America — and it cost me my job.” Right-wingers only let wipipo define what hatred and violence are.
Last week, the Washington Post fired me.
The reason? Speaking out against political violence, racial double standards, and America’s apathy toward guns.
Eleven years ago, I joined the Washington Post’s Opinions department with a simple goal: to use journalism in service of people.
I believed in using the pen to remember the forgotten, question power, shine light in darkness, and defend democracy. Early in my career, late Washington Post editorial page editor Fred Hiatt told me that opinion journalism is not just about writing the world as it is, but as it should be. He told me we should use our platform to do good. That has been my north star every day.
As the founding Global Opinions editor, I created a space for courageous, diverse voices from around the world — especially those exiled for speaking the truth. I was inspired by their bravery. When my writer, Global Opinions columnist Jamal Khashoggi was brutally murdered by Saudi Arabia regime agents for his words, I fought loudly for justice for years, putting my life and safety on the line to pursue accountability and defend global press freedom. For this work, I was honored with global recognition, prestigious awards and proximity to the world’s most powerful people.
As a columnist, I used my voice to defend freedom and democracy, challenge power and reflect on culture and politics with honesty and conviction.
Now, I am the one being silenced – for doing my job.
On Bluesky, in the aftermath of the horrific shootings in Utah and Colorado, I condemned America’s acceptance of political violence and criticized its ritualized responses — the hollow, cliched calls for “thoughts and prayers” and “this is not who we are” that normalize gun violence and absolve white perpetrators especially, while nothing is done to curb deaths.
Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences.
If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. On his podcasts, and on the podcasts of friends and adversaries, and especially on college campuses, where he would go to debate students, Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric frombigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.
Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.
On race
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … 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.
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
I think it’s worth it to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023
On immigration
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
This huge compilation of quotes was provided by Chris Stein. There are pages more of it on things like Islam, debate, and religion. Charlie Boy had no respect for the U.S. Constitution.
There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.
This man was a hero only to the vast White Nationalist Basket of Deplorables. I have one more to share, which specifically focuses on his bigotry against Black Americans. This was written by Vernellia Randal at Race, Racism, and the Law. Charlie Kirk, White Supremacist, Dead at 31.”
Charlie Kirk built himself into the face of a conservative youth movement through Turning Point USA (TPUSA). Behind the branding of “patriotism” and “freedom,” the record shows a pattern of rhetoric, organizational culture, and alliances that echoed white supremacist and Christian nationalist ideologies. The Southern Poverty Law Center documented how TPUSA repeatedly framed immigrants, LGBTQ+ people, and racial justice advocates as existential threats to “white Christian America,” warning followers that their families, religion, and entire way of life were under attack. In later years, Kirk openly embraced Christian nationalist language, claiming that liberty was only possible with a Christian population—a narrative tying freedom to demographic dominance, a cornerstone of supremacist logic (SPLC).
On race, Kirk was blunt and dismissive. He denied the existence of systemic racism, called white privilege a “racist idea,” and vilified critical race theory as dangerous indoctrination. In one speech, he called George Floyd a “scumbag,” showing open contempt for a man whose death triggered a national reckoning on race and policing (WHYY). These rhetorical choices were not accidental—they functioned as a political strategy to delegitimize Black pain and deny the realities of structural racism in America.
Inside TPUSA, the culture reflected the same hostility. A New Yorker investigation described the workplace as “difficult … and rife with tension, some of it racial.” One African American staffer reported being the only person of color when hired in 2014, only to be fired on Martin Luther King Jr. Day. The organization’s then–national field director, Crystal Clanton, was exposed for texting, “I hate black people. … End of story.” TPUSA claimed it acted after the texts surfaced, but the damage was undeniable—the rot reached the top (New Yorker).
Kirk’s movement also courted or tolerated figures openly tied to the far right. Political Research Associates documented cases where TPUSA chapters hosted or aligned with Nick Fuentes and his white nationalist followers. Kirk’s allies relied on antisemitic tropes, praising authoritarianism in Israel while denouncing “liberal Jews” in the United States (PRA). TPUSA severed ties when public exposure threatened its reputation, but the repeated associations revealed how far Kirk was willing to go in pursuit of influence.
The mainstream press tracked this trajectory. The Guardian reported that Kirk’s rhetoric increasingly mirrored white supremacist and authoritarian themes, while campus watchdog groups chronicled repeated incidents of racist, homophobic, and transphobic speech at TPUSA events (Guardian; AAUP). This was not about “a few bad apples.” It was a culture, nurtured by leadership, that normalized bigotry and dressed it up as “truth-telling.”
The evidence remains overwhelming: Kirk and TPUSA did not need to wear hoods or wave Confederate flags to advance the logic of white supremacy. By denying systemic racism, vilifying movements for justice, and legitimizing extremists, Kirk and his organization reinforced the architecture of racial dominance in America. That was the through line of his political project. He positioned himself as a defender of liberty, but the liberty he envisioned was conditional—anchored in whiteness, Christianity, and exclusion. His legacy is not simply conservatism. It is a record of advancing ideas and practices that aligned with white supremacy, even if he never wore the label himself.
The deepest irony of Kirk’s legacy came in the manner of his death. In 2023, he declared that “it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights,” framing gun deaths as a tragic but acceptable price for liberty (Wikipedia). Two years later, he was killed by gunfire at one of his own public events (AP News). His own words came back in the most devastating way, embodying the very cost he had justified. For critics, this was not just irony but a brutal illustration of how the normalization of preventable violence eventually consumes even its defenders. For supporters, his death was framed as tragic but consistent with the risks of freedom. Yet the broader truth remains: when a society accepts death as the “price” of a constitutional right, it abandons any serious effort to build policies that protect life alongside liberty. Kirk’s fate exposed the hollowness of his argument. He did not just preach the acceptance of gun deaths as a cost of freedom—he became that cost.
I’ve spent enough time on the literal white-washing of Charlie Boy. I’m likely to the point where I may be testing my University’s Academic Freedom and Diversity policies. I just cannot sit aside while someone so vile and dangerous is being sanctified to rile up a base needed for the midterms. Tolerance only works so far for me. You may have different political views, but hatred of others is not a political view. It’s a sign there’s something seriously evil working inside your brain. This one was a cold-hearted snake. I don’t care if you’re dead or alive. The truth about you shall set the rest of us free.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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Q: My condolences on the loss of your friend Charlie Kirk. How are you holding up?TRUMP: I think very good. And by the way, right there you see all the trucks. They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they've been trying to get for about 150 years.
That last one may cause you to wash your eyes with bleach after viewing.
This cartoon explains the Groypers.
Cartoons via Cagle:
A few more cartoons and memes:
Ugh…it all makes me sick.
**Quick update on the Kilmeade shitshow:
He apologized. Good. He didn't elide the horror of what he said. Also good.Still, we need to talk about why what he said was so awful, why three days passed before it was called out, and how it echoes tragedies and tyrannies of the past—lest we repeat them.www.foxnews.com/video/6379403917112
It has been a terrible week in the news, and it has also been a difficult week for me personally. I’m having trouble thinking clearly today. It all seems like a bad dream. Today I’m going to focus on Tyler Robinson and why he might have hated Charlie Kirk. I know there’s plenty of other news, but I’m still trying to understand this awful event and its aftermath.
Since it’s Caturday, and since we all likely could use some comfort, I’m going to begin with this article about people and cats by neuroscientist Laura Elin Pigott: The Conversation: What owning a cat does to your brain (and theirs).
Cats may have a reputation for independence, but emerging research suggests we share a unique connection with them – fuelled by brain chemistry.
The main chemical involved is oxytocin, often called the love hormone. It’s the same neurochemical that surges when a mother cradles her baby or when friends hug, fostering trust and affection. And now studies are showing oxytocin is important for cat-human bonding too.
Oxytocin plays a central role in social bonding, trust and stress regulation in many animals, including humans. One 2005 experiment showed that oxytocin made human volunteers significantly more willing to trust others in financial games.
Oxytocin also has calming effects in humans and animals, as it suppresses the stress hormone cortisol and activates the parasympathetic nervous system (the rest and digest system) to help the body relax.
Scientists have long known that friendly interactions trigger oxytocin release in both dogs and their owners, creating a mutual feedback loop of bonding. Until recently, though, not much was known about its effect in cats.
Cats are more subtle in showing affection. Yet their owners often report the same warm feelings of companionship and stress relief that dog owners do – and studies are increasingly backing these reports up. Researchers in Japan, for example, reported in 2021 that brief petting sessions with their cats boosted oxytocin levels in many owners.
In that study, women interacted with their cats for a few minutes while scientists measured the owners’ hormone levels. The results suggested that friendly contact (stroking the cat, talking in a gentle tone) was linked to elevated oxytocin in the humans’ saliva, compared with a quiet resting period without their cat.
Many people find petting a purring cat is soothing, and research indicates it’s not just because of the soft fur. The act of petting and even the sound of purring can trigger oxytocin release in our brains. One 2002 study found this oxytocin rush from gentle cat contact helps lower cortisol (our stress hormone), which in turn can reduce blood pressure and even pain.
Click on the link to read more about oxytocin’s effect on the human-cat relationship.
Yesterday, we learned that the man who murdered Charlie Kirk on Wednesday is the product of a gun-owning, Republican family who for the past couple of years spent most of his time on-line. There are suggestions that he may have been a follower of Nicholas Fuentes, who hated Kirk because he wasn’t far right enough. Fuentes followers call themselves “groypers.” Regardless of whether that hypothesis pans out, Robinson clearly was not a “far left lunatic,” as Trump claimed the murderer must be. We can’t be sure of Robinson’s motives, because he is not talking to investigators.
In the conservative southern Utah city where Tyler Robinson grew up, neighbors and classmates described him as a reserved, intelligent young man raised in a Republican family who was deeply interested in video games, comic books and current events.
On Friday afternoon, people who knew Mr. Robinson struggled to reconcile their memories of him and his seemingly ordinary suburban upbringing with his notorious new image: the latest face of political violence, accused of fatally shooting the conservative influencer Charlie Kirk on a Utah college campus earlier this week in what the authorities have called a political assassination.
By Irina Babichenko
“It’s really sad that someone with his mind put it to that sort of use,” said Keaton Brooksby, 22, a former high school classmate of Mr. Robinson’s.
Mr. Robinson had recently spoken with a family member about the fact that Mr. Kirk was going to hold an event in Utah, according to a police affidavit, and he and his relative discussed “why they didn’t like him and the viewpoints he had.”
But as elements of the nation’s political left and right scrambled for motives, the image that has initially emerged of Mr. Robinson is not at all clear. Neither is his trajectory from a scholarship-winning high school student to an apprentice electrician to a suspect.
Mr. Brooksby said that Mr. Robinson was generally considered a quiet pupil when they were growing up in the conservative St. George area, but one day in high school, the topic of the 2012 attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya, came up during lunch. Few there knew exactly what had happened, but Mr. Robinson was sure of himself.
“He gave us a whole spiel on what happened,” Mr. Brooksby said. “I just remember thinking, he’s got a lot of information on this for someone who’s 14.”
A bit more info:
Mr. Robinson is registered to vote in Utah, but he is not affiliated with a political party and had never voted in an election, according to the Washington County Clerk. His parents are registered Republicans, both with active hunting licenses in a part of the country known for its outdoor life, near Zion and Bryce Canyon national parks.
Social media photos posted by his family over the years show Mr. Robinson and his two younger brothers shooting and posing with guns….
Adrian Rivera, 22, who had been in a high school woodworking class with him, said that Mr. Robinson would often hang around the area designated for the Junior R.O.T.C., or Junior Reserve Officers Training Corps, with other students who were interested in the military program. It was unclear whether Mr. Robinson had actually been a member of the corps.
Mr. Rivera said that Mr. Robinson was a “massive Halo guy,” referring to the popular science fiction game, and that he also liked to play Call of Duty, and other shooter games.
Sam New, 23, remembered a different video game, Minecraft, which Mr. Robinson, an introvert from a conservative family, played obsessively.
Use the gift link to read more, if you’re interested.
The Wall Street Journal: Tyler Robinson’s Descent From Promising Student to Murder Suspect.
Tyler Robinson was the pride of his Utah family. He was a 4.0 high-school student who won a prestigious college scholarship, according to social-media posts.
“His options are endless,” his mother wrote on Facebook.
Four years later, authorities say the 22-year-old Robinson used an old bolt-action rifle to fire a single shot that killed Charlie Kirk while the conservative activist spoke Wednesday at Utah Valley University. He allegedly had ammunition etched with phrases borrowed from internet and gaming culture like “Hey, fascist! Catch!” and “If you read this, you are gay, lmao.”
Authorities, friends and even his own family were trying to understand how Robinson went from a top student raised by parents who were registered Republicans in a Mormon stronghold in southwest Utah to a suspected assassin who authorities said targeted one of the country’s most popular conservative youth leaders. Robinson was in the past registered as nonpartisan….
As everyone knows by now, Robinson’s family turned him in to authorities after he confessed to his father.
Robinson was from the small city of Washington, nestled in southwest Utah between red-rock canyons and snow-capped mountains. Striking national parks like Zion and Bryce Canyon aren’t far.
Like many boys in this area, Robinson grew up hunting and was well-versed in the use of firearms, according to law-enforcement officials. Photos shared on social media show the family shooting rifles.
State records show his parents own a custom-countertop business, and his mother is a licensed clinical social worker. The family lives on a suburban street that a neighbor described as quiet with many households attending the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Robinson, who has two brothers, was a stellar student, according to his mother’s posts on her Facebook account. He had a perfect GPA and scored a 34 out of a possible 36 on his ACT….
Robinson’s mother hoped he would stay close for college, and in the fall of 2021, she posted pictures of him in his dorm room at Utah State, a 5-hour drive north of the family home in Washington. He arrived with a scholarship worth $32,000 over four years.
But he wasn’t there long. Utah State said he attended the school for just one semester. More recently he has been enrolled in the electrical apprenticeship program at Dixie Technical College, where he is a third-year student, according to the Utah Board of Higher Education.
On the speculation about Robinson’s political leanings:
One thing is apparent about Robinson: He lived much of life on the internet. By age 15, he had developed enough of an online presence that he dressed up as “some guy from a meme” for Halloween, according to his mother. Writings on the bullet casings found by police appeared to reference various memes and online culture.
One unfired casing was inscribed with lyrics from “Bella Ciao,” an Italian song dedicated to those who fought against fascism during World War II that has been revived on TikTok.
“It’s very clear to us and to the investigators that this was a person who was deeply indoctrinated with leftist ideology,” Cox said in an interview with the Journal.
Online, however, X users have noted that a version of the song also appears on a Spotify playlist for Groypers, the name for followers of Nick Fuentes, a white nationalist personality who has criticized Kirk, including for his support of Israel. Fuentes has publicly condemned the shooting of Kirk and posted on X that “my followers and I are currently being framed” for Kirk’s killing “based on literally zero evidence.”
Although MAGA figureheads have been quick to point fingers at the left for Kirk’s death, Tyler’s grandmother, Debbie Robinson, 69, insisted that they come from a family of Trump supporters.
She spoke with the Daily Mailon Friday after news of Robinson’s arrest broke. “My son, his dad, is a Republican for Trump,” Debbie told the outlet. “Most of my family members are Republican. I don’t know any single one who’s a Democrat.”
According to the outlet, Robinson’s father, Matt, 48, was the one to turn Tyler into the authorities after he confessed to the grisly crime. Debbie has not been able to get in touch with her son since news of her grandson’s arrest went public.
“I’m just so confused,” Debbie said of her grandson’s arrest. “[Tyler] is the shyest person,” she said. “He has never, ever spoke politics to me at all.”
Extreme right groups, Charlie Kirk, and Tyler Robinson
It ideologies of far right groups are more complex than us “normies” generally realize.
For years, extremist groups, white nationalists, and militias like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers saw Charlie Kirk not as their ally, but as their enemy.
But in the immediate aftermath of Kirk being fatally shot while speaking at a Turning Point USA event Wednesday at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, these same groups were quick to frame the incident as an attack on one of their own, portraying Kirk’s death as part of what they see as an ongoing war against white, Christian men. The same groups were relatively quiet on Friday after police announced they had arrested a 22-year-old from Utah for the killing who had no obvious ties to the left.
By Giuseppe Mariotti
These groups, many of which have been relatively dormant since the mass arrests surrounding the January 6 attack on the Capitol, have used the outpouring of grief around Kirk’s death as a lightning rod, a signal that they need to mobilize and take action. Many of them, including the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, have used Kirk’s death as a recruitment and radicalizing tool to convince his supporters to take a more extreme worldview.
“Nothing can stop what is coming,” Ryan Sánchez, the leader of the far-right National Network, who was caught on video giving a Nazi salute during last year’s Conservative Political Action Conference, wrote on his Telegram channel. “We are mobilizing young Nationalists to defend our communities against the Radical Left—we need your help!”
The appeals appear to be at least somewhat working: Sánchez’s post was accompanied by a screenshot showing a $1,000 donation he received on Christian crowdfunding platform GiveSendGo.
“This is the beginning of a movement that may define our nation,” the donor wrote on the site. “Use it for good and purge the country of these insane ideologies.”
On Friday, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah native, was identified by federal law enforcement as a suspect in the murder of Charlie Kirk. During Friday’s press conference, officials said that several bullet casings recovered from a hunting rifle found near the crime scene had messages inscribed on them.
During the press conference, officials appeared to take the inscriptions literally, to the extent they ascribed meaning to them at all. But the four messages apparently written by the alleged shooter instead seem to invoke a variety of memes and video game references.
One of the casings was said to be engraved with the phrase “Hey Fascist! Catch!” followed by an up arrow, a right arrow, and three downward-facing arrows. That sequence is an apparent reference to the “Eagle 500kg bomb” in the popular third-person-shooter game Helldivers 2. The bomb has become a meme in the Helldivers community for being comically excessive.
By Elias-Mollineaux-Bancroft
Arrowhead Game Studios, the developers of Helldivers 2, did not immediately respond to a request for comment from WIRED. Launched in 2024, the game has grown a cult following for its Starship Troopers–like storyline. The cooperative shooter allows teams of up to four players, called “Helldivers,” to spread “freedom” across a fictional universe—fighting bugs, robots, and squid-like aliens rather than other humans. Their form of managed democracy is “basically fascism,” says independent extremism researcher Harry Batchelor, who works with the Extremism and Gaming Research Network.
Helldivers 2 is satire, and the vast majority of players are in on it. The game, says Batchelor, “takes “the whole ‘pretending to be democracy while actually being a fascist government’ so seriously, it’s obviously a joke.” The community around the game has generally maintained a positive reputation, even working together to combat “review bombing”—coordinated negative reviews intended to hurt a game’s chance of success.
The arrows that activate the Eagle 500kg bomb have been used in other memes to show that a user is “going to do a big, violent action,” Don Caldwell, editor in chief of Know Your Meme, tells WIRED. “That’s maybe a cheeky way of expressing it on the casing.”
More bullet engravings and their meanings:
One of the other alleged memes on the casings says, “If you read this you are gay LMAO,” which seems to be more of a common online insult than a specific reference. “I believe this person is genuinely just always online,” Batchelor says.
“They knew that they’d be discovered and posted about,” says Caldwell of the decision to include meme references on the casings. “People understand that memes are very powerful and get a lot of attention. As soon as people read them, they’re going to desperately try to figure out what the reference means. It makes it more interesting.”
As of yet, little is known about Robinson’s alleged motivations or ideology. But the few details surrounding the 22-year old point toward a troubling trend: young shooter suspects who communicate primarily via obtuse memes and digitally inflected irony.
All sorts of young adults are familiar with the culture of video games, Twitch streamers, and YouTube, speaking a language completely foreign to those who do not spend as much time online. Is that language inherently sinister? No more than, say “Skibidi Toilet,” a series of crude animated shorts about toilets from which talking heads emerge. (There’s a movie in the works.) None of the phrases Robinson allegedly wrote are known code words for anything nefarious; they signal little beyond a connection to a contextless internet, where memes take on a life of their own and are used by the benign and malignant alike.
By Tatyana Ornisana
Some memes, however, aren’t so neutral. The young men who admired, and still admire, Charlie Kirk tend to be extremely online—which doesn’t necessarily mean that they all share exactly the same ideology. Internecine conflict between conservative factions is common, both on social media and at events for young conservatives. The most notable of these are the “Groyper Wars” of 2019. “Groypers” are fans of white nationalist agitator Nick Fuentes who like to hide their racism behind ironic jokes; when Kirk began making an effort to mainstream his ultra-right-wing Turning Point USA movement, Fuentes instructed them to publicly troll Kirk.
A Facebook photo in which Robinson appears to reference a Groyper meme has led to early speculation that Kirk’s killing may have been an outgrowth of these intra-far-right skirmishes. But another feature of the modern far-right is an embrace of the post-truth huckster. In these circles, it’s always possible that someone is playing a character—or will claim to be doing so, muddying the waters so no one can accuse them of having a sincere belief beyond the desire to rile up their targets. For people like this, the whole world is a forum board, where lewd public comments and real-world violence are becoming increasingly interchangeable. (Consider the messages left behind by the deceased shooter of Annunciation Catholic School, which were full of references to both other shooters and innocuous memes.)
I think Rivera’s last paragraph is important:
In every respect, the circumstances surrounding Kirk’s murder are alarming for those with the understandable impulse to make some kind of sense out of terrifying events. It is true that real-life violence is the end result of our cultural coarsening. It is also important to remember that Robinson’s generation is entering public life with frames of reference that are totally foreign to its elders, regardless of individual ideology. We cannot properly comprehend the harm of bad actors or the concerns of the innocent until we have taken the time to learn their language—and sometimes, even then we won’t understand.
I’ve tried to gather the latest speculation about Tyler Robinson’s possible motives and ideology. We’ll likely learn more in the coming days, especially if he begins talking to investigators. We are dealing with a right wing culture that is very dangerous.
“The idolization of Charlie Kirk is gross.” John Buss, re@peat1968
Good Day, Sky Dancers!
I have to admit that when I first read my undergrad psychology textbook, and when we hit the unit on personality disorders, I really had never heard the term “sociopath”. I read it and recognized my father-in-law right there in the definition.
When Doctor Daughter had her rotation and classes in psych, she was told by her professor that the perfect example of a narcissist was good ol’ Yam Tits. Evidently, the “reality show” he had at the time–which I never bothered to watch–was chock-full of examples good enough for med students to use as examples for diagnosis. This day and age I get to experience all that human toxicity constantly.
When I was getting my teaching certificate in the 1970s, we were part of the first generation of teachers who had to know all kinds of disabilities and emotional and mental issues so we could identify students with possible issues and suggest they see the school psychologists. We had the duty to report any signs of abuse, also. That’s the point at which I started working more diligently towards my terminal degree. Little did I know that the same problems invaded all levels of education.
There was a shooter recently in the library at the campus where I taught for years. Just yesterday, there were lockdowns and shooter alerts at many campuses, including all historically Black colleges, the Naval Academy, and UMass Boston. That includes Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where evidently one sociopath took out another. The AP reports, “A list of all deadly shootings on college campuses in the USA.” Thankfully, several of the ones yesterday–specifically UMass Boston and the Naval Academy–were false alarms. The shooting at a high school in Colorado was real and has been conveniently ignored by the majority of the media. The one at FSU yesterday was real and deadly.
The latest deadly shooting on a college campus in the U.S. unfolded Thursday at Florida State University, where two people were killed and at least six others were wounded.
Frightened students, faculty and parents there for a tour took cover and waited in classrooms, offices and dorms across the university in Tallahassee after it issued an active shooter alert. Some crammed into a freight elevator after hearing gunshots outside the student union.
The gun used in the shooting belonged to the 20-year-old suspect’s mother, who has worked for the sheriff’s office for 18 years, authorities said. They described the gun as her former service weapon.
The gunman, believed to be a student at the university, was shot and wounded by officers and was taken into custody, according to authorities. The two people who died were not students.
Florida State’s main library was the site of another shooting in 2014, when a 31-year-old gunman wounded three people before he was shot and killed by police.
Experts say mass shootings on college campuses, although rare, are often on the minds of students today because they grew up participating in active shooter drills in elementary and high school.
It was only natural that one sociopath with a gun would eventually shoot another sociopath who viciously spread hate throughout the internet and the country. Here are some of Charlie Kirk’s “Greatest Hits.” He basically hated everyone who wasn’t a cis White Christian Male in the mode of his form of Christianity. There are two historical concepts of historical justice that come to mind. The first one is Karma. The second is “You reap what you sow.” The third one is a morphed version of an older one. “Live by the gun, die by the gun.” Of course, I support free speech. Of course, I abhor gun violence and all kinds of killing.
It doesn’t take much in the way of brains, though, to determine that when you basically dare the world to argue with your hate speech, you’re going to attract some unwanted attention. It’s kind of like the old male stereotype that if you wear provocative clothing and show up in the wrong place, you deserve to be raped. If a lot of sick men believe this about women, then a lot of sick men are going to be violent in the face of taunting, also. There are a lot of lone white male shooters out there just willing to go on a hunt. Charlie Boy enabled them with weapons and hate speech.
Here are some of Charlie Boy’s greatest hits. There are many more. I’m also pretty sure that I wonder if a little girl is better off under a father who tells her she should be a slave to a husband and would force her to carry the product of a rape to term at 10 years old.
The victims of mass shootings in this country–including children and the elderly worshipping in their holy place–basically become numbers unless their grief-stricken relatives force us to remember them by asking the media and the public to listen to their stories and the acts of violence that ended their lives. Why aren’t they victims of political assassination whose ends are covered relentlessly on the internet and TV? What about the details of the other folks this week who lost their lives to gun violence? I found this article on The Verge that contains a lot of good questions as we investigate Charlie Boy’s shooter, whose own family turned him in.
The fatal shooting of Kirk on Wednesday led to an intense manhunt across Utah, though it encountered numerous complications along the way. Several leads, publicly teased by FBI Director Kash Patel, quickly petered out. Leaked documents from law enforcement published by MAGA influencers led to false narratives about how markings on the bullet indicated that the shooter was in favor of “transgender ideology.”
It was nearly impossible to divorce politics and internet misinformation from Kirk’s death, however. The 31-year-old was a powerful figure in the MAGA movement, as the founder and leader of the right-wing college group Turning Point USA, and a prominent podcaster and MAGA influencer himself, famous for appearing on college campuses to confront liberal students. President Donald Trump credited Kirk and TPUSA as a factor in his return to office, and frequently relied on him as an emissary to youth voters.
In the aftermath of Kirk’s death, his allies in the MAGA movement, including lawmakers and influencers, promised swift retribution against the left should the killer share their ideology. The themes of Helldivers 2 could have an ideological meaning, albeit not necessarily a straightforward one. But ultimately, the messages on the shooter’s bullet casings can best be described as bizarre and extremely online.
The writings on the bullet were clever, cruel, and spot on.
It’s not hard to see where the “antifascist” conclusion came from on two of the other bullets: “Bella ciao” is an Italian song adopted by partisans and resistance fighters while Italy was governed by the fascist dictator Benito Mussolini. Cox said in response to a question during the conference that the “hey fascist” message “speaks for itself.” Three downward-slanting arrows are a symbol used by both historical and contemporary antifascists.
But the full arrow sequence was quickly recognized as something else: a combo from Helldivers 2 for calling the Eagle 500kg Bomb stratagem. The world of Helldivers — which evokes Robert Heinlein’s book Starship Troopers and the subsequent movie — concerns fascism thematically; developer Arrowhead has characterized it as a satire where players fight for a fascist state.
As for the use of “Bella ciao,” the song has no obvious connection but given its historical significance, unsurprisingly does appear in a Helldivers 2 mod, as well as in at least one other video game, a World War II-themed strategy game called Hearts of Iron IV.
There is no doubt that Charlie Boy was a fascist. He’s left a trail that would reach the sun. However, we do have free speech; fascists can speak as they wish. But what happens when that talk reaches into vile hate speech and suggests things like “Gay people should be stoned to death”? We need to have a huge conversation on the fine line between exercising your right to free speech and making suggestions that crazy white men with guns will act on.
This is my very short post today with its very short questions. While this shooter used a slightly modified long gun typically used for hunting, do we really need military style weapons floating around a society where we can identify so many personality disorders and severe mental illnesses? Germany has basically outlawed anything NAZI-related. If that’s going too far, what’s the point at which we hold public figures accountable for out-and-out hate speech and suggestions that might provoke action? Also, shouldn’t there be some point at which giving a Presidential Medal of Honor to someone who dedicated their career to hate speech should be universally condemned? When is saying don’t speak ill of the dead too passive? Can we celebrate the death of Hitler while ignoring the fact that NAZIs are among us? What happened to the only good NAZI is a dead NAZI? Is that just rhetoric or going to far? I sure wouldn’t shoot aNAZI even though my father bombed them, but I sure would spit in their face and then meditate on the nature of karma.
My fellow Americans, we need to have a good, long talk and stop all this fawning over your basic bully and start discussing how the fuck we’ve lost our way so badly.
Don’t forget we have a Department of War now. Don’t forget the mission of ICE now. We’re in this deep and for some time. My guitar and I gently weep.
What’s on your reading and blogging list today?
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The Sky Dancing banner headline uses a snippet from a work by artist Tashi Mannox called 'Rainbow Study'. The work is described as a" study of typical Tibetan rainbow clouds, that feature in Thanka painting, temple decoration and silk brocades". dakinikat was immediately drawn to the image when trying to find stylized Tibetan Clouds to represent Sky Dancing. It is probably because Tashi's practice is similar to her own. His updated take on the clouds that fill the collection of traditional thankas is quite special.
You can find his work at his website by clicking on his logo below. He is also a calligraphy artist that uses important vajrayana syllables. We encourage you to visit his on line studio.
So, does not speaking ill of the dead Hitler erase the Jewish community and the holocaust experience, or what? I guess that probably doesn’t apply to Stalin or Saddam Hussein, though. They’re on the official approved right-wing Slander List.
It appears that some Saints Fans did not approve of the so-called tribute. This is from 
This reeks of forcing religion-specific enforced prayer when it’s not your religion or belief system. Right-wing political correctness has shown itself boldly this week. The Washington Post steps in its shit by firing 
Do not ever forget that Charlie Kirk used his First Amendment rights to spread hatred and bigotry. This is from
This man was a hero only to the vast White Nationalist Basket of Deplorables. I have one more to share, which specifically focuses on his bigotry against Black Americans. This was written by Vernellia Randal at
There was a shooter recently in the library at the campus where I taught for years. Just yesterday, there were lockdowns and shooter alerts at many campuses, including all historically Black colleges, the Naval Academy, and UMass Boston. That includes Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah, where evidently one sociopath took out another. The AP reports,
It was only natural that one sociopath with a gun would eventually shoot another sociopath who viciously spread hate throughout the internet and the country. Here are some of Charlie Kirk’s “Greatest Hits.” He basically hated everyone who wasn’t a cis White Christian Male in the mode of his form of Christianity. There are two historical concepts of historical justice that come to mind. The first one is Karma. The second is “You reap what you sow.” The third one is a morphed version of an older one. “Live by the gun, die by the gun.” Of course, I support free speech. Of course, I abhor gun violence and all kinds of killing.
The victims of mass shootings in this country–including children and the elderly worshipping in their holy place–basically become numbers unless their grief-stricken relatives force us to remember them by asking the media and the public to listen to their stories and the acts of violence that ended their lives. Why aren’t they victims of political assassination whose ends are covered relentlessly on the internet and TV? What about the details of the other folks this week who lost their lives to gun violence? I found this article on 
The writings on the bullet were clever, cruel, and spot on.
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