"This is the way Putin runs Russia. Threaten newspapers and broadcasters that they will be shut down unless they take the Kremlin’s line. ...

Nobody is safe with this fascist regime in power. Free speech is dead so long as Putin’s best friend is in the White House."

~ Lucian K. Truscott

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/2

https://luciantruscott.substack.com/p/trump-is-trying-to-cancel-the-first

"Kimmel’s suspension has produced an uproar. Comedian Paul Scheer noted that Kimmel is off the air but Brian Kilmeade of the Fox News Channel, who recently called for killing homeless Americans by 'involuntary lethal injection,' is still employed."

~ Heather Cox Riichardson

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/3

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/p/september-17-2025-wednesday

"Do people understand now what the authoritarian project is aiming for? ...

What happens in a society where one side is required to operate at all times and in all places in perfect good faith and the other side faces no such constraints?"

~ Jonathan V. Last

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/4

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/emergency-triad-first-they-came-for

"Jimmy Kimmel’s late-night talk show program was indefinitely suspended so billionaires can continue abusing Charlie Kirk’s murder to gain control of our media and lay the red carpet for Trump’s fascist agenda.

That’s the truth. Everything else is just propaganda, obfuscation, and pretext."

~ Wajahat Ali

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/5

https://thelefthook.substack.com/p/jimmy-kimmel-cancelled-as-trump-uses

"We are governed by liars and crooks whose agenda is to demolish the rule of law and the rights of the rest of us, including our First Amendment right to free speech (Happy Constitution Day, by the way!)."

~ Rebecca Solnit

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/6

https://www.meditationsinanemergency.com/the-war-on-truth-heats-up-just-in-time-for-constitution-day/

"What happened to Jimmy Kimmel Live! is not just about a late-night host or a single corporate decision. It is a flashing red warning sign of how fragile the foundations of free discourse have become in the United States."

~ Aaron Parnas

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/7

https://aaronparnas.substack.com/p/breaking-abc-pulls-jimmy-kimmels

"Fueled by the rhetoric of prominent politicians, social media platforms have turned into a staging ground for collecting names and orchestrating campaigns to call for firings. Conservative social media influencers have encouraged people to submit posts of coworkers or community members, and then have used their large platforms to amplify calls for punishment."

~ Daniel Moritz-Rabson

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/8

https://truthout.org/articles/conservatives-are-using-charlie-kirks-death-to-enact-sweeping-speech-crackdown/

"It is really important to understand the contrast between Trump’s behavior and those of previous presidents for two reasons [after a highly publicized murder of an outspoken ideologue]: First, to get a clear measure of the extent of our moral descent. And second, to fully understand the authoritarian dangers our republic is facing."

~ Berny Belvedere

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/9

https://www.theunpopulist.net/p/other-presidents-tried-to-heal-america

"As the nation reckons with the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk, there has been a notable trend from mainstream pundits and press outlets. They have tended to downplay or outright ignore the ugly things that he said and instead to stress the polite ways he said them. It's an emphasis on style over substance."

~ Kevin Kruse

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/10

https://campaign-trails.ghost.io/the-white-civility-council/

"This approach has been widespread in the punditocracy, which has almost uniformly moved to hold Kirk up as a rare avatar of civil disagreement in an uncivil era.

These pundits' paeans to Charlie Kirk's 'civil' approach to politics ignore the many illustrations of his incivility."

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/10

"Trump and MAGA did not get Kimmel suspended for a joke. They got Kimmell suspended for a show of power. They are sending the message to stick to their approved MAGA script or they will come for you."

~ Dean Obeidallah

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/11

https://deanobeidallah.substack.com/p/kimmel-wasnt-suspended-for-a-joke

"Don't you dare call us fascists, they say, as they force people off the airwaves for criticizing them while vowing to crush and criminalize their opposition."

~ Mehdi Hasan quoted by The Bulwark

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/12

“You may think you’re angry over Colbert and Kimmel but as someone who is familiar with the history of Nazi Germany I promise you, you’re not nearly angry enough yet.”

~ J David Clark

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/13

https://www.threads.com/@officialjdavidclarke/post/DOuyza8j3vZ

"Kimmel’s accusation that Trump is using the Kirk murder for political payback was right on the money.

It’s not as if this is surprising. It’s not as if we haven’t been warned about what’s coming again and again. It’s not as if the President of the Right hasn’t signaled his yearning for absolute rule day after day after day."

~ Lewis Grossberger

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/14

https://grossbergerbulletin.substack.com/p/jimmy-kimmels-show-assassinated-by

"It’s not just about one late-night comedian or even one assassination.

It’s about when America will finally wake up.

Or fail to."

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/15

"Donald Trump and his loyal enforcer Stephen Miller have once again revealed the heart of their political project: to recast the state as an instrument of vengeance against dissent. ...

Trump and Miller do not simply want to punish their critics—they want to reshape America into a machine of loyalty and fear. Their vision requires enemies because enemies justify repression."

~ Mark Mansour

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/16

https://mmansour.substack.com/p/the-death-of-free-speech

"And while they cloak their project in American flags and talk of law and order, the blueprint is the same one authoritarian regimes across the twentieth century wrote in blood: silence the critics, glorify the leader, criminalize dissent."

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism
/17

"One of the necessary conditions for an authoritarian takeover is control of the media. It’s a critical step to quash dissent—turning a free press designed to hold power accountable into a propaganda organ that amplifies the state’s message."

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism #media
/18

https://www.messageboxnews.com/p/does-maga-control-the-media-now

"That could never happen here, right? Not with our long tradition of a vibrant, free media?

Well, the MAGA Right is on the verge of controlling the vast majority of the American media ecosystem.

A dynamic highlighted by the fact that Disney announced it was bowing to pressure from the Trump Administration and pulling Jimmy Kimmel off the air indefinitely because of comments he made about Charlie Kirk."

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism #media
/19

"Time and again, the corporate media would rather surrender than fight for their First Amendment rights.

But ownership is also driving the shift. …

There are exceptions, but much of the corporate press is now too loyal to, or too afraid of, Trump to act as a true check on power."

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism #media
/20

"The timing isn't coincidental. This is happening while people are still being fired for not mourning Charlie Kirk appropriately. Karen Attiah lost her Washington Post column. Airline pilots got grounded. Hospital workers were terminated. Now a comedian with one of the longest-running shows on television gets yanked off the air for making a joke about Trump…."

~ Parker Molloy

#Trump #CharlieKirk #JimmyKimmel #FreeSpeech #fascism #media
/21

https://www.readtpa.com/p/read-the-jimmy-kimmel-monologue-that

If you don't enforce #tax laws in the United States,
Why have any law at all?
#501c3
#charliekirk
#NoKings !

@RememberUsAlways What if #charliekirk was killed because #charliekirk hated #charliekirk?!

People know that death by cop is a thing.
How is this all that different?!

#joekernen is suggesting #charliekirk was killed because #Democrats hate the president"

Live. #CNBC

“Whether you agreed with Kirk’s ideas or Hortman’s, their murders, their silencing is blood on the First Amendment,”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/michael-keaton-says-irony-charlie-021433799.html
#Guns #GunViolence #HateSpeech #CharlieKirk

Imagine.
#Republicans were aware of #CharlesManson politics for decades but failed to prevent this style of politics from taking over their party.
The #dynastic grooming is OVER #Republicans!
#premarket
#investing
#NoKings!
#CharlieKirk
#election2026
#2026election
#CNBC
#Squawkbox

Pretty accurate progression so far. #Charliekirk

Alt...

A tweet from Molly White satirically lists several entities as being "trans," including a shooter, bullets, and a roommate.

Here's a thread of commentators noting and pushing back against the attempt of journalists and others to whitewash Charlie Kirk's legacy:

"I also find it bizarre and frankly insulting that much of the coverage of this—again, bad—event is asking us to pretend that Kirk stood for civil disagreement and engagement and that we as a nation must come together to mourn him."

~ Emily Tamkin

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/1

"To pretend that Kirk was this other, more civil person is to do two things. First, it is to lie, and to pretend that homophobia and racism and antisemitism and sexism are tolerance. They are not. But second, it is to put conditions on our denouncements of violence. I don’t need Kirk to have been good to think that it was bad he was shot."

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence #homophobia #racism #sexism #fascism
/2

"Voltaire once said, 'To the living, we owe respect. To the dead, we owe only the truth.' That’s what Voltaire said. So to honor Voltaire, we’re going to tell the truth about this person who is no longer with us. ...

His life’s work was to put other people in harm’s way and to make life more miserable for other people who were not like him."

~ Greg Olear

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/3

https://gregolear.substack.com/p/ramble-on-damnatio-memoriae-video

"So that’s what he did. That’s what he did with his life. And the fact that he is now dead doesn’t make anything that he did with his life go away."

G. Olear provides an extensive list of what Charlie Kirk ACTUALLY SAID and did, which makes whitewashing his legacy and pretending he was a uniter and admirable political leader difficult if not absurd:

Anti-empathy, anti-woman, anti-women’s rights, anti-abortion, virulently anti-LGBTQ, especially anti-trans.

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/4

Anti-vax, anti-mandate, a “climate skeptic," anti-going to college, pro-Great Replacement Theory, pro- the Second Amendment not being regulated at all.

Lots of pain for lots of people unlike himself: that's what he appears to have promoted by his direct, documented statements. And the "liberal" commentators pretending he was a "uniter" appear oblivious to those people and their pain.

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/5

"Charlie Kirk did not practice politics the right way: We don't have to lose our humanity to bear faithful witness, but we do have to keep our nerve. ...

'You can dislike much of what Kirk believed and the following statement is still true,' asserted Ezra Klein. 'Kirk was practicing politics in exactly the right way. He was showing up to campuses and talking with anyone who would talk to him.'

The statement is not true."

~ Brian Beutler

#CharlieKirk #violence
/6

https://www.offmessage.net/p/charlie-kirk-did-not-practice-politics

"Some people … have gone beyond the denunciation of the violent attack on Kirk, and have argued that Kirk’s cause, and his political life, were virtuous. Most notably, Ezra Klein at the New York Times published an op-ed declaring that 'Charlie Kirk was Practicing Politics the Right Way.' …

By cosigning Kirk’s political approach, Klein cosigns Kirk’s contempt for democracy and his embrace of political violence."

~ Noah Berlatsky

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/7

https://www.everythingishorrible.net/p/whitewashing-charlie-kirk-promotes

"Klein thinks that by reaching across the aisle and praising Kirk’s free speech while ignoring the content of the speech, he is doing good work to ratchet down political animosity and political violence. But he is not. Instead, what he is doing is giving the far-right cover to terrorize, harass, target, and even (in the case of January 6) murder opponents."

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/8

"Klein is saying that political violence against the right is wrong, but that political violence perpetrated by the right is 'practicing politics the right way.'”

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/9

"Only conservative deaths deserve empathy in the GOP."

~ Emily Singer

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/10

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/11/2343020/-Only-conservative-deaths-deserve-empathy-in-the-GOP

"This afternoon [Trump] told reporters that in response to Kirk’s murder 'we have to beat the hell' out of the 'radical left lunatics.'

Needless to say this libelous and criminal threat is something a president should never say but which comes easily to President Trump and is treated as mostly expected by the elite political class."

~ Josh Marshall

#CharlieKirk #Trump #guns #violence
/11

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/we-remain-adrift-in-an-ocean-of-lies-30-hours-after-the-charlie-kirk-shooting

"I was struck yesterday by the sight of Republican policymakers holding Kirk up as a champion of free speech while at the same time using his death to call for state crackdowns on the speech of others."

~ Andrew Egger

#CharlieKirk #Trump #guns #violence
/12

https://www.thebulwark.com/p/kirk-killing-suspect-in-custody-cdc-shooting-officer-david-rose

"We should trust ourselves and those we address to hold two thoughts at the same time: That we must forcefully condemn political violence but also acknowledge that it festers and thrives in a deeply unhealthy political culture that Kirk himself helped create."

~ Thomas Zimmer

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/13

https://thomaszimmer.substack.com/p/the-right-wants-a-reichstag-fire

"The message should not be that political violence is bad and requires a strong response because it targeted a good guy who was 'practicing politics the right way' (which Kirk definitely was not)."

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/14

"Too much of the media coverage and reaction I am seeing to the shooting of right-wing provocateur, Charlie Kirk, is completely absurd and very, very dangerous.

At a time when truth and context are absolutely vital, I am seeing too damn little of both today."

~ D. Earl Stephens

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/15

https://dearlstephens.substack.com/p/spare-me

"Kirk used his politics as a weapon, and aimed to hurt innocent people. My God, his final words were cloaked in the racist hate he spent his life peddling.

I am not celebrating his death, but I am lamenting the demise of truth in this country."

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/16

Dan Froomkin notes that "top news outlets underplay right-wing declaration of war against the left.
The Times and the Post try to shoehorn the shocking statements into their both-sides framing of the Kirk shooting as a symptom of political polarization."

~ Dan Froomkin

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/17

https://criticalread.substack.com/p/top-news-outlets-underplay-right

Oliver Willis offers a detailed list of statements that Kirk ACTUALLY MADE, targeting one vulnerable community after another, which makes whitewashing his legacy and pretending he was a "unifier" appear downright dishonest if not silly.

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/18

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2025/9/11/2342963/-The-whitewashing-of-Charlie-Kirk-s-toxic-legacy-is-underway

"Until we stop treating some lives as disposable, the cycle will go on. So, let's be clear. Telling the truth about who someone was is not the same as dancing on their grave. It's refusing to lie and make cruelty look respectable."

~ Andrew Joseph Duffer

#CharlieKirk #guns #violence
/19

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UaSaqDA4SCo