I’ve been disturbed for the last day by all the unfounded speculation that Charlie Kirk’s killer was a far left fanatic, gay or trans, and that this was a hate crime against conservatives, which I had to recognize as a possibility. That was the constant drum beat from social media (and Donald Trump, and Nancy Mace, and all sorts of irrational people) at any rate, but suddenly, since late this afternoon, the drums have stopped pounding. The shooter has been caught. His personal history revealed. Suddenly, it has become apparent that he is a weird gamer from a right wing family who had criticized Kirk for not being conservative enough…and he may be a follower of Nick Fuentes and a groyper. The Serfs summarize what we know so far.

Oops. Don’t expect an apology, though, the right wing version of the story wasn’t based on facts or evidence, so facts won’t change their mind.

Somebody is compiling a public list of people who “support political violence online,” which seems to mean only people who are insufficiently upset about the assassination of Charlie Kirk, and only Charlie Kirk. It’s a curious list: they post photos of the “violence supporters”, but I noticed that most of them seem to be young and attractive men and women. I am forced by the empirical evidence to conclude that if you hated Charlie Kirk, you are probably very pretty (do not submit my name to their list, or you’ll ruin the streak.) Also most of the comments by these “haters” are mild — pointing out the Kirk was a radical 2nd amendment absolutist is enough to qualify you.

TPUSA has also long maintained a Professor Watchlist targeting people who speak against TPUSA’s agenda, which is a very strange thing for a free speech advocacy group to do. By the way, I’m on that list already. I wouldn’t want to not be on that list.

It’s weird how the worst people on the internet aspire to be List Lords.

Did you know that Melissa Hortman’s murderer has still not been charged with domestic terrorism, despite the fact that he specifically targeted Democrats in Minnesota?

Also, we still have no serious restrictions on gun ownership. You can gun down small children and far-right political figures, and we still can’t get gun control. In South Korea, guns are tightly regulated — even hunting rifles are expected to be locked up in the city courthouse, and if you want to use them, they have to be checked out. I would vote for that.

Trump went to court again, to claim that he should not have to pay the large sum he was expected to pay to E. Jean Carroll for sexual assault. He lost.

A federal appeals court on Monday upheld a civil jury’s finding that President Donald Trump must pay $83.3 million to E. Jean Carroll for his repeated social media attacks and public statements against the longtime advice columnist after she accused him of sexual assault.

Does anyone believe he will ever pay that penalty, no matter how many courts and judges declare that he must? He’s just going to delay and delay and claim that no one is allowed to interfere with a US president, and wait out the judgement until he dies. That’s how the rich operate. If I had a legal claim of millions of dollars against me that I refused to pay, the sheriff would come to tow my car away, the city would start carving away my property, I’d be kicked out of my house and it would be auctioned off, and if I were really obstinate, I’d be hauled off to jail. But if you’re rich enough that you could pay the sum, they’ll respectfully watch you dither and scheme to get out of it.

One law for the wealthy, another law for the rest of us.

The MAGA or Mar-A-Lago face is the new costly signal for anyone who wants to be part of MAGA (or right-wing news), and it’s pretty darned creepy.

It has a signature look.

Defined by copious use of Botox, a Miami-bronze tan, puffy lips and silky smooth skin, plastic surgeons told DailyMail.com it was giving Trumpland an almost ‘plastic’ and ‘Real Housewives’ look.

We can thank Donald Trump for this weird habit.

I wouldn’t normally be snarky about someone’s looks but let’s be clear: nobody is born with Mar-a-Lago face. These are not human faces, they are luxury meat-masks meant to signal wealth and in-group belonging. People such as Laura Loomer, Kristi Noem, and Matt Gaetz can afford excellent surgeons and subtle cosmetic work but, unless they’ve all had botched procedures, it seems they deliberately chose to look like AI-generated caricatures. One can only surmise that they live in such weird little bubbles, where everyone is addicted to filler, that this sort of conspicuous consumption of cosmetic surgery has become desirable.

Having the right look is certainly desirable to optics-obsessed Donald Trump, whose chief concern for his underlings appears to be how they perform on TV. In 2017, an Axios report claimed that Trump wanted his female staff to “dress like women” and demanded that his male employees have a “certain look.” Over the years it seems the “certain look” has only become more extreme.

An obsession with traditional gender norms also seems to factor into today’s exaggerated aesthetics. Earlier this year a New York-based dermatologist told Politico that fashion often shifts to more traditional gender expression in culturally conservative times. “It’s ironic … that they’re so against trans-ness and gender-affirming care for trans people,” the dermatologist said of Trump’s inner orbit. “Because, you know, they’re all doing their own gender-affirming care.” The Zambian bum-stick chimps seem positively sophisticated in comparison.

You know, I’m not unhappy at all about this. Remember the end of Inglourious Basterds, in which Brad Pitt pulls out a big knife and carves a swastika into Christoph Walz’s face, before he follows orders and takes him to the US to reward him for betraying the Nazis? This is the same thing. If we ever overthrow our fascist regime, the people behind it will have all self-labeled themselves.

Put this post by Donald Trump on Truth Social front and center when he’s tried for treason.

“I love the smell of deportations in the morning…”
Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR

He thinks it is amusing to threaten an American city of almost 3 million people with apocalyptic destruction. He’s a criminal despot.

His pretext is that crime is too high in Chicago. Unfortunately for that excuse, invading the city to deport a subset of people whose primary “crime” is being brown and speaking Spanish would not address that problem, the statistics show that crime has been declining already, and Chicago is not the most crime-ridden city in the country. That distinction belongs to cities in red states.

The four cities of populations larger than 100,000 with the highest murder rates in 2024 are in Republican states: Jackson, Mississippi (78.7 per 100,000 residents), Birmingham, Alabama (58.8), St Louis, Missouri (54.1) and Memphis, Tennessee (40.6).

…Chicago is bracing to be the next city targeted by the Trump administration. To date this year, 278 people have been killed in Chicago, 118 fewer people killed when compared with 2024. It is at pace for 412 deaths for the year, which would be a rate of about 15 per 100,000 residents. The rate is likely to be lower still than that, because homicide rates increase during summer months.

The Windy City ranked 37th in homicide rate in 2024 for cities larger than 50,000 residents in the United States. For cities with more than 100,000 residents, it placed 14th. This year, it is likely to slide farther down the list, even as violence falls to 60-year lows.

What are the National Guard going to do in Chicago, anyway? Stand around on street corners, eat deep dish pizza, guard the Bean in Millennium Park, visit the Field Museum? Trump is putting on a show, the same as renaming the Department of Defense the Department of War was an empty gesture.

They’re coming to take away the guns!

“In the wake of the Minneapolis Catholic church shooting, senior Justice Department officials are weighing proposals to limit transgender people’s right to possess firearms,” CNN reports.

“Such a move would represent a dramatic escalation of the Trump administration’s fight against the rights of transgender Americans.”

Interesting. The majority of trans people are not mass murderers, so this is a plan to punish the innocent for one person’s actions. As long as we’re going down this road, I must point out that 98% of the perpetrators of these shootings are men, and further, that the majority are white men.

Number of mass shootings in the United States between 1982 and August 2025, by shooter’s race or ethnicity

Obviously, the most effective approach would to limit white men’s right to possess firearms. It’s the only statistically sensible plan.

Now you too can take the Oklahoma teacher test without giving your name to PragerU. The list of 34 questions has been revealed! These guys are obsessed with religion and sex, the stuff teachers don’t usually deal with, and there’s very little that is content-appropriate.

For instance, should we really care about the details of an authoritarian loyalty oath?

Question 33 of 34:
Which of the following is a phrase from the Pledge of Allegiance?
A) Life, Liberty and the pursuit of happiness
B) Of, by and for the people
C) One nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all
D) One nation, Under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all

“Under god” was an addition made in the 1950s during the Red Scare. We’re not going to discuss that, though.

Some of the questions are misleading.

Question 9 of 34:
Why is freedom of religion important to America’s identity?
A) It protects religious choice from government control
B) It makes Christianity the national religion
C) It bans all form of public worship
D) It limits religious teaching in the public square

Yeah, “A” is the official rationale, but this is PragerU — what they really want is “B”.

Four of the 34 questions are about propagandizing for their binary view of sex.

Question 2 of 34:
What is the fundamental biological distinction between males and females?
A) Height and weight
B) Blood type
C) Personal preference
D) Chromosomes and reproductive anatomy

Question 3 of 34:
How is a child’s biological sex typically identified?
A) Parental affirmation of child’s preference
B) Personal feelings
C) Visual anatomical observation and chromosomes
D) Online registration

Questions 4 of 34:
Which chromosome pair determines biological sex in humans?
A) AA/BB
B) XX/XY
C) RH/AB
D) EX/XQ

Questions 5 of 34:
Why is the distinction between male and female considered important in areas like sports and privacy?
A) For equity in minority communities
B) To preserve fairness, safety and integrity for both sexes
C) To increase participation in sports
D) To enhance the self-esteem of transgender children

They are very concerned with chromosomes. Haven’t they gotten the word that the excuse of the day is gamete size, rather than chromosomes? Also, chromosomes are not typically evaluated when assigning sex.

Look over all the questions yourself. You be the judge whether these are an appropriate assessment of general teaching ability and qualifications, or just a test of conservative political ideology.

To answer the question in the title, some unqualified billionaire gave him a lot of money.