Donald Trump is doing victory laps over Jimmy Kimmel’s suspension this week, using it as yet another excuse to threaten TV broadcasters who dare “hit Trump.” From Air Force One, he basically said: nice FCC license you got there, shame if anything happened to it. Which, yes, is completely illegal, but legality has never exactly been this guy’s love language. Jon Stewart, back at The Daily Show, roasted the whole thing, mock-saluting “our great father” Trump and lampooning the new state-approved media vibe we’re apparently living in now. Between Stewart’s monologue and the protests outside Disney studios, you can feel the country realizing we’re one FCC vote away from turning late-night TV into Live From the Ministry of Truth. Stephen Colbert, writers’ unions, the ACLU, and even Barack Obama are waving the giant red flag, calling the suspension what it is: unconstitutional government pressure.
Dems Asked to Canonize Charlie Kirk or Get Dragged: House Democrats are staring down a GOP resolution that both condemns political violence and canonizes Charlie Kirk, which is basically like being asked to light a candle for the guy who spent his career setting fires. Some Dems, like Rep. Jasmine Crockett, are flat-out refusing to play along, saying there’s nothing “honorable” about Kirk’s crusades against civil rights and queer people, while others are arguing that passing it might turn down the national rage machine a notch. Leadership is letting everyone vote their conscience, which means half the caucus is about to get smeared as pro-violence, and the other half will look like they just co-signed a Turning Point USA recruitment poster.
11 Dems Arrested for the Crime of Asking ICE What the Hell They’re Doing: Federal officers arrested 11 Democratic officials (city comptroller, public advocate, the whole crew) for trying to see what’s happening inside ICE’s holding cells in Manhattan. And when ICE told them to beat it, they did the most New York thing possible: sat on the floor, started chanting, and busted out a giant banner until DHS showed up and zip-tied them like it was WrestlePalooza. And the kicker is, a judge already said those cells are probably violating the Constitution.
RFK Jr.’s CDC Turns One Vax for Kids Into Multiple, Because Chaos: A CDC vaccine panel voted to split the MMRV shot into two separate jabs, one for measles, mumps, rubella and another for chickenpox, because apparently we needed to make it even harder for parents to keep up with their kids’ vaccine schedules. The panel also voted to push back the age that these shots are approved for: from 12 months old to four years old. These moves come as RFK Jr., who continues to run HHS like his own wellness podcast, fired the old panel and stacked it with advisers who either have no vaccine background or openly hate vaccines. Public health experts say this will tank compliance and actually make kids less protected, but sure, let’s pretend this is about “safety” instead of politics. The kicker? The change doesn’t even apply to the free Vaccines for Children program, leaving everyone, including some panel members, wondering what the hell just happened.
Trump’s Approval Rating Tanks Again: Trump’s approval rating just belly-flopped to 39 percent, the lowest of his second term, and 57 percent of Americans are officially giving him the presidential middle finger, according to the latest YouGov/Economist poll. His net approval sits at a grim -18, the second-worst of his presidency, though pollsters politely remind us it could “bounce back,” like that sad inflatable clown you punched as a kid. Sure, the MAGA die-hards are still chanting his name, but nearly two-thirds of independents and moderates are looking at his job performance and saying, “Hard pass.”
Senate Turns Into Trump’s Fast-Track Rubber Stamp: The Republican controlled Senate gave Trump a giant rubber stamp, ramming through 48 of his nominees in one vote under new rules that make it easier to stack the government with loyalists. After months of Democrats slowing things down, Republicans cut the brakes entirely, turning what was once a deliberative process into a conveyor belt for Trumpworld appointments. Democrats warn this is one more step toward a Senate that exists purely to greenlight the president’s agenda, no questions asked, and Republicans are already licking their chops for the next batch.
Lisa Cook vs. Trump’s Hostile Takeover of the Fed: Trump has asked the Supreme Court for permission to fire Federal Reserve governor Lisa Cook, a Biden appointee, a respected economist, and the first Black woman to ever sit on the Fed board, in what looks a lot like a hostile takeover of the central bank. The White House is leaning on thin, unproven mortgage fraud claims to oust Cook while quietly stacking the Fed with loyalists like Stephen Miran, who immediately voted for even deeper rate cuts. It’s a direct shot at the Fed’s independence and a warning flare for anyone who thought Trump’s second term wouldn’t involve turning every neutral institution into an arm of Trump Inc.
Turning Point’s Memorial Tour Kicks Off in MAGA-chella: Erika Kirk, Charlie Kirk’s widow, is stepping in as CEO and board chair of Turning Point USA after his killing last week, keeping the far-right pipeline running without skipping a beat. TPUSA cast the move as a divine mandate to finish Charlie’s culture-war vision, vowing to make his project “more powerful and enduring than ever.” A public memorial-slash-political rally is planned for September 21 in Arizona, with Trump and other MAGA all-stars expected to show up.
Here Comes the Sun (Day): If you’re seeking some direct action, more than 450 Sun Day actions are set to pop off this Sunday, with climate legend Bill McKibben leading the charge and basically saying, “Enough of Trump’s fossil fuel fan club.” From solar panels on Habitat homes to electric school bus rollouts, these events are a nationwide clapback to an administration hellbent on torching climate protections and hand-feeding Big Oil. For folks near Seattle, the closest action will be at the Bainbridge Island Public Library.
And now to local news, where, believe it or not, things are mostly good, which in 2025 feels like spotting a unicorn on the light rail.
Decker Manhunt May Be Over: Authorities say they’ve likely found the body of Travis Decker, the former Army Ranger accused of murdering his three daughters, in the backcountry south of Leavenworth after a summer-long manhunt. The case, which horrified Washington state, started when Decker didn’t return the girls after a scheduled visit and ended with their bodies discovered near a campground in June. DNA testing will confirm the remains, but for now officials believe the manhunt is finally over.
Washington AG Tells Bikini Barista Mogul to Cut the Creepery: Washington Attorney General Nick Brown dropped a legal hammer on Jonathan Tagle, the guy behind the Paradise Espresso bikini barista chain, accusing him of running a decade-long nightmare factory of harassment, retaliation, and straight-up wage theft. The lawsuit says Tagle coerced women into sexual acts to get or keep their jobs, groped them, withheld wages and tips, and created a workplace so toxic it pushed employees out. The state wants him banned from ever doing this again, forced to pay back every stolen dollar, and held accountable for turning a coffee stand into a trauma machine.
One Tiny Heart, One Big Middle Finger to a Broken System: Nine-year-old Katja de Groot, who lives in Maltby, WA, is finally home after a summer so intense it makes most prestige TV look boring: heart failure, a pricey cross-country medevac, and a partial heart transplant so rare she’s basically a medical journal cover girl now. She survived thanks to what her mom calls a “domino effect” of donors, doctors, and random kind humans stepping in where America’s busted healthcare system clearly wasn’t going to. The family is begging folks to become organ donors, because in a country where getting lifesaving care can feel like buying a scratch ticket, community might be the only thing that keeps the whole row of dominoes from crashing down.
Even with suppression and censorship doing their worst, the sun still showed up today, and hope? That’s a team sport. So let’s kick it off with this:
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@49: A commenter like @3 doesn’t actually know anything about the persons he attacks; he just projects his own glaring flaws upon others, and castigate those others for his own character failings.
@35: Now you’ve been forced — yet again — to confront Mr. Kirk’s own words, I will ask: what was “coarse” about my version? What spirit or idea of his did I not communicate properly @34?
@50: Overall, I don’t find any of Charlie Kirk’s views objectionable regarding the 2nd Amendment or any of his views offensive to the point where I would want him to be murdered. I don’t get your quest to belabor the issue. Your views are fine for you, but not for me.
God Bless Charlie Kirk
what’s That
the True Believers
Say? “He in a Better Place now.”
when
it comes
to ‘Race,’ does
God pick Favorites?
@51: “Overall, I don’t find any of Charlie Kirk’s views objectionable regarding the 2nd Amendment or any of his views offensive to the point where I would want him to be murdered.”
We agree completely on the murder part. I disagree with his stated views on the 2nd Amendment for a number of reasons, which I’ve described elsewhere in Slog comments. Do you believe his death was one of “some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights”? He laid his position out very clearly. Do you agree with it or not?
@53: Yes, I agree. It parallels the philosophical argument that the 2nd Amendment carries a risk of gun deaths because there’s not a complete ban. Hence, the logic.
Of course, once it’s personalized as in the case of Charlie Kirk or anyone else as a victim of gun violence, the above construct is seen as inflammatory and upsetting when it’s simply being logical.
@52: Are you worried about your own salvation?
@54: Thank you. I wish more of his supporters would say this, even though I disagree with it. As you noted, it’s tough for any humans to stay cooly logical after a violent act of injustice.
@55
are you Kidding?
I’m White
AF.
@57: That’s not on St. Peter’s checklist.
@56: anytime
@58
St. Pete?
what’s He got to
Do with anything!?
Cadet Bonespurts had
Republican Jesus replace him
with St. Beelzebub whose gotta
color chart he holds up against your
Complexion — it you’re not White or Pink
(NOT Commie Pink, you Fool!) you get First Class
Accommodations and what is it now 50 Slaves of your Choosing?
you’ve gotta
Keep Up,
son.
and
Don’t
Forget
to Bleach!
White Guilt causes stupidity
@20 kristofarian: I know, I know, don’t feed the usual gang of trolling idiots.
But they’re getting so batshit crazy these days, and it’s too late to administer
rabies’ shots to “save” ’em. Will they finally just kill and eat each other up?
@22: Calm down already you unhinged fascist goon, before you develop dysentery as well as priapism and fatally blow it out both ends.
@60: A glut of Felon Mu$k’s Mein Trumpf’s smoke and mirrors act, FOX TeeVee, cheap beer, and stale Twinkies are the #1 causes of stupidity in this country, Bioopsy dear. Try to keep up.
@60~guilty af.
Oh!
and now
that Charlie’s
in that “better place”
won’t He be Surprised af
to Learn that (non-Republican!)
Jesus was (Actually) WOKE AS FUCK.
oops!
to swap an
Ideology for an
Eternity in that ‘better place’?
ouch.
@63: Quit your nasty anti-Christian BS and let the faithful say goodbye to Charlie Kirk in peace.
@64 — speaking of anti-“Christian”:
the very same
“Peace” good ole
‘Charlie’ brought to
non-Whites, Asylum Seekers
here, let’s hear Another Opinion:
“In his rhetoric and
so-called debate style this
31-year-old evangelical firebrand
of the right has stated that Black pilots
were incompetent; gays should be stoned;
ironically, he was opposed to gun control, abortion,
LGBTQ rights; criticized the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and
Martin Luther King Jr.; promoted Christian nationalism; ad-
vanced COVID-19 misinformation; made false claims of electoral
fraud in 2020; and was a proponent of the Great Replacement conspiracy theory.
Born in Chicago’s northwest suburbs, Kirk infused politics
with racial innuendo and rhetorically violated the safety
and security of Black people and other people of color,
and the LGBTQIA community. He perverted the history
of race and racism in America, attempted to legitimize
the nation as a white bastion of civilization and Christ-
ianity, and, in general, perfected the use of racial and
hateful language — molding it into a form of ac-
ceptable and legitimate political
debate and viewpoint.”
Why on Earth
should Charley’s
Disciples get to OWN
the fucking Narrative?
Oodles:
https://baystatebanner.com/2025/09/17/racism-rhetoric-and-charlie-kirk-a-reality-we-cant-ignore/
your
Authoritarian
DEMANDS’re oh so
Reminiscent of the Wormtongue’s.
are you two
Related?
oh and
Fuck Off.
nasty antichristian bullshit is when you say jesus wasn’t a bigot
@66
ah yes
Let the
Parsing
begin anew.
THIS was Never
about “Charlie” — it was
ALWAYS About Seizing the Gov’t
of these United States INCLUDING, like
your tried to do, up there @64, CONTROLLING
the fucking Narrative
and Silencing
Any and ALL Criticism
of thedjt aka cadet bonepurts
& his Turd Reich.
or is it The Fourth?
fuck the
fuck off.
& let
Charlie
enjoy his
Martyrdom
whilst the Rest of US
Mourn the Loss
of OUR little
Democracy.
sorry, barth
thought I was
talking our
reich-wing
Troll. was
Jesus a bigot?
did he hate
as MAGAs’d put it
did Jesus Hate the Jews?
was He an
“Anti-semite”?
The naive goofy White-Guilt libprogs at Slog deleted my “teens = blacks” comment the other day, but I was correct once again, as always. Just stick your fingers in your ears and chant “nanny-nanny boo-boo, I can’t hear you”, goofy naive White Guilt Slogprogs:
Final 2 suspects arrested in hate crime attack on transgender woman in Renton
https://komonews.com/news/local/final-2-suspects-arrested-in-hate-crime-attack-on-transgender-woman-in-renton-4-suspects-2-brothers-beating-homophobic-slurs#
@66: Jesus wasn’t a bigot, unlike like Allah who was also a misogynist.
A Proper Memorial for Charlie Kirk
In His Own Words — Who He Really Was (and Wasn’t)
When eulogies turn into myth,
memory has to do its job. This record
isn’t a celebration of violence; it’s a refusal to let
the public story skip over what Charlie Kirk said and pushed.
Political violence is wrong.
I condemn the assassination of Charlie Kirk, full stop.
Nothing in this piece should be read
as celebrating his death.
Today, many on the right are working to make him a martyr—to treat him as a civil-rights activist when, if anything, he was a civil-rights annihilator. I usually write long essays threading the truth, but in this case his own record is the best evidence. So here is Kirk—in his own voice, on video.
Watch, judge for yourself, and share with others,
so history isn’t rewritten to cast him as a
paragon of justice or righteousness.
When eulogies turn into myth, memory has to do its job. This record isn’t a celebration of violence; it’s a refusal to let the public story skip over what Charlie Kirk said and pushed. Share these receipts with anyone being sold the martyrdom—because democracies don’t survive on flattering fables, they survive on facts.
We can mourn a killing and still reject the whitewashing of the ideas he championed. If you found this useful, pass it on. If you disagree, point to the clip and make the case. Either way, let’s keep the conversation evidence based.
–Lukium; September 21, 2025
video clips of “Charlie”‘s Inflammatory
and Vile commentariat
and More:
https://americanmanifesto.news/p/a-proper-memorial-for-charlie-kirk
rip
indeed
@71: The only thing that Charlie Kirk pushed was the gospel. We, including me, had disagreements over many things he said. But that’s the marketplace of ideas.
“When eulogies turn into myth, memory has to do its job.”
Of course, the naysayers and pouters always cometh and disparage. They have no tact.
speaking of fucking “tact”
@72
yeah
‘Charlie”s
words Surely
do Suck, don’t they?
@72. Holy shit quit virtue signaling you cloy putz. And Allah is the same god you worship if you claim to be Christian, that’s just the Arabic name of Yahweh. Man for a self-proclaimed Christian you sure are ignorant of your own faith. Like most of Charlie Kirk’s sycophants who never even heard of him before he died. Now they are treating him like Mother Theresa when he was really just a loudmouth bigot asshole troll.
@32 You have to be able to read between the lines.
What Kirk said, starting about 53 minutes into his July 13, 2023 show, was this, two weeks after the Supreme Court ended affirmative action in college and university admissions:
If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they’re comin’ out and they’re saying it for us! They’re comin’ out and they’re saying, “I’m only here because of affirmative action.
Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.”
He said that 4 specific black women who had nothing to do with each other growing up and have nothing in common but the color of their skin “don’t have the brain processing power to be taken seriously” and they “stole a white persons slot.”
If you can’t understand that he clearly means this applies to ALL black women, that’s on you.
@75: Justice Jackson and Vice President Harris were DEI hires. Michele Obama is just a “wife”.
@72, Do you find it odd that none of the charlie kirk eulogies we’ve endured over the past week use the man’s own words? He spent his entire adult life in front of a microphone “only pushing the gospel” and they can’t find one clip worth sharing? No one had that problem when the pope died.
weak
lazy slow ignorant
Entitled! top-a’-the-Food Chain
White men’ve ALWAYS had Priority Seating
it took DEI
to open the seats
to a MERIT-Based system
so
YEAH
they’re
gonna kick
and scream
bitch and moan
when ‘their’ Entitlement
they’ve HAD SINCE BIRTH
is
not
There
Their’s
anymore.
therefore the
Pushback.
duh
sans
patriarchy
racism and
stockholm syndrome
Ineffectual White Men
AIN’T GOTTA
CHANCE
and THAT’S
what’s On
the Line.
@77: A eulogy is whatever reverence the grieving wishes to bestow on the departed.
77: I also heard several biblical passages referenced. I’m not sure what you’re talking about.
@79, I didn’t ask for a definition, i asked if you find it odd that no one is using the words of a an extremely public figure who “only preached the gospel” to remember him by? If he was just a simple man of god you would think there would be an abundance of media to share so the public could understand what we’ve lost.
80 charlie kirk didn’t write the bible
@81: Which Charle Kirk words are you referring to? Lots of stories and anecdotes were told. He wasn’t a preacher per se, and his debates with students is where you find most of the memories.
I honestly don’t know what you’re driving at.
@83, really you can’t figure this out for yourself
Charlie kirk spoke into microphones and cameras for a living, yet no one covering his death in the media is playing any clips of him speaking, because everything he said was awful. You definitely know this because you keep getting mad when people mention stuff he said, only to pretend it’s completely inoffensive when your reaction is pointed out to you. Now you’re pretending to be a complete moron because that’s less shameful than admitting charlie kirk was nothing more than a shock jock who said hateful things for a living.
84: I will not be as snarky as you are now when Obama dies.
85 you can say anything you want about anyone when they die for all i care, but i know that dropping non-sequiturs when you’re cornered is your way of admitting you’ve got nothing, so we can leave it here and you can still call obama a dei hire when he dies (or whatever n-word alternative is trendy at the time)
86: Don’t conflate my not wanting to parse your babble as being cornered.
No, I’m taking your refusal to engage with a very simple observation that people have avoided using charlie kirk’s own words when reporting on his death — along with your taking offense at people quoting him — as proof that you know exactly what I’m saying but lack the integrity to admit it.
88: Admit what? Maybe by being specific you’ll start to make sense in which case I’d be happy to engage.
84: “yet no one covering his death in the media is playing any clips of him speaking, “
That is an exaggeration, even if you’re in your own bubble.
don’t worry hon you’ve already admitted it in your own special way so we’re all set here
90 i mean you can probably hear unredacted clips of him on newsmax or fox but i’m talking about media that normal people consume like cbs or whatever, anyway i thought you couldn’t understand my point
Obama WAS a DEI hire though. Also, Obama had been in office less than nine months and he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when he hadn’t really done anything.
@92: Provide a link to an offensive Kirk clip, so maybe I’ll finally get some context.
@58: “anytime”
That’s really breezy, considering it took a week of our conversations just to get you there, and along that way, you also pretended not to understand what Kirk clearly said, or why it was important — just as you’ve again done here, in the comments since @58.
@94: We spent that week parsing Kirk’s quote @39. It’s one of his many NOT being recited now, and you even admitted why. As barth noted, Kirk’s admirers won’t repeat anything said, because they know how offensive it all is. They don’t want to admit that’s (at least part of) why they admired him.
@95: So are you taking back the “thank you?”.
@96: No. It’s obvious that going so far, so fast, took real serious effort for you. I would not so begrudge your painful sacrifice.