<....In 2021-22 the Fed thought that it did, in fact, have a good reason not to follow the Taylor rule. Inflation was very high, and a Taylor rule would have called for very high interest rates to match. But the Fed believed that the inflation surge was temporary, driven by post-Covid supply chain disruptions, so it held off on raising rates. Here‘s what a Taylor rule (FOMCTaylor99UR, if you want to know, which you don‘t) said, versus what the Fed actually did:

The Fed was harshly criticized by many economists for waiting to raise the Fed funds rate, and there were many dire warnings that the Fed would have to put the economy through years of high unemployment to get inflation back under control.

Self-promotion alert: I didn‘t join that chorus. On the contrary, I argued that getting inflation down would not require an extended slump.

And it didn‘t. Chart 3, lifted from my first primer on stagflation, shows that the disinflation of 2022-2024 was nothing like the painful disinflation that followed the 1970s, involving almost no cost in higher unemployment.

What Nakamura et al showed was that the Fed was able to pull off the feat of taming inflation without putting the economy through a recession — in other words, to “look through” supply chain inflation — because of the credibility it had acquired over decades of monetary independence.

And Trump is trying to throw all of that away.

One more thing. Look back at Chart 2. Again, this chart compares the actual Fed funds rate with the rate recommended by a rule that has proved useful in the past. And right now the actual and recommended rates are about the same. So why is Trump demanding a huge cut in interest rates?

Nobody really knows. He may think lower interest rates will make him more popular. He may think of low interest rates as a reward for good performance — and in his mind the economy is doing great, he may want to reduce the budget deficit by cutting federal borrowing costs.

Whatever he’s thinking, if he succeeds in trashing the Fed’s independence, he won’t like the results. He might succeed in pushing short-term rates down for a while. But the interest rates that really matter to people’s lives are long-term — like mortgage rates. And Trumpifying the Fed, thereby destroying its credibility, will send long-term rates higher — maybe much higher.

MAGA!>

<Describing a “Californio” family as losing their land to Anglo “squatters,” which the yet-to-be-built National Museum of the American Latino does on its website, is apparently a DEI thought crime, according to the news release.

My query to the White House, asking what exactly is so offensive about this characterization of the Mexicans who stayed in California after it became part of the U.S., was acknowledged yet not answered.

But the focus on “Californio” and “squatter” — and putting those words in quotes, as the news release did — suggests the underlying issue, said UC Santa Barbara history professor Miroslava Chavez-Garcia, who specializes in 19th century California.

“They’re trying to question the legitimacy” of the Californios, she said. “Who matters as an American? [To Trump], it’s not people who come from Mexico. It’s people who came from the East.”

“The level of minutiae on this — it’s not him,” she added of Trump. “He’s not a reader. It must be a vast team doing this.”

Worrying about scare quotes around two words in a White House news release might seem like distracting piffle compared with Trump’s other anti-California volleys.

But how the U.S. government frames our yesteryear is one of this administration’s main battlefronts and something I’ve repeatedly warned about in my columna. History is written by the victors, goes the cliche, allowing them to shape a people’s sense of self and decide who’s important and who isn’t.

That’s why Trump and his goons have tried to remake our nation’s past as a triumphalist, so-called Heritage American story, in which people of Western European heritage are always the main actors and the heroes. They’ve done it with the obsession of a pharaoh chipping away all mentions of his predecessors from obelisks.

Trump’s campaign started on Inauguration Day, when he signed an executive order renaming the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth has removed the name of LGBTQ+ hero Harvey Milk from a Navy ship and restored the names of Army bases that had honored Confederate officers. The Department of Homeland Security keeps posting images and artwork that celebrate Manifest Destiny — the idea that white people, and white people alone, saved this savage continent.

Next up: a review of exhibits at national memorials and monuments to ensure they don’t “inappropriately disparage Americans past or living,” an “extraordinary celebration” for this country’s 250th birthday and a National Garden of American Heroes to “reflect the awesome splendor of our country’s timeless exceptionalism.”

In Trump’s mind, the United States has never done any wrong, and anyone who thinks so hates this country. It’s not surprising that casting Californios as victims of rapacious gringos might offend him or his lackeys. But this isn’t wokoso propaganda — it’s well-documented history.

In 1850, Sacramento’s sheriff and mayor died while attempting to remove white squatters, in what was quickly deemed the Squatter Riot. The following year, the U.S. government forced Californios to prove they owned the land they lived on, even though the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which ended the Mexican-American War, had ensured their property rights. In the meantime, white settlers could largely claim rancho land as they pleased.

California’s most famous historians — Hubert Howe Bancroft, Kevin Starr and Robert Glass Cleland, to name a few — wrote extensively about so-called squatterism, with Bancroft describing what happened to the Californios as “oppressive and ruinous.”

A new generation of scholars has focused on the writings of Californios, including “The Squatter and the Don,” an 1885 novel by María Ruiz de Burton based on her family’s fight to keep their rancho in what’s now San Diego County.

This was the book described on the National Museum of the American Latino website, prompting the ignominious “Californio” mention in the White House news release....>

<....Until now, “there’s never been much opposition, really” to the narrative of the Californios’ decline, Chavez-Garcia said, calling it “foundational” to the state’s mythology. She cited festivals in mission towns, such as Santa Barbara’s Old Spanish Days Fiesta, where people dress up like the Californios of yore to remember a romanticized era that was destined to end badly.

“The thinking was that the state’s prosperity was never meant to happen” to Californios, she said. “They were meant to die off.”

As a high school student in San José, Chavez-Garcia knew none of this history — “we learned more about the Homestead Act in the Midwest,” she joked. At UCLA, when she finally learned about the Californios, she was “outraged” and questioned why her beloved high school history teacher “didn’t teach us this basic thing.”

“Many people … don’t know our history, so whatever the government tells them to read, they’re going to accept,” she said. “You can’t just let someone take an eraser and erase these histories willy-nilly <lo que no le gusta> [what someone doesn’t like] and then put in whatever the hell you want because it makes you feel good.”

It can’t fall only on scholars such as Chavez-Garcia and nerds such as me to push back against Trump’s ahistorical assault. All Californians need to stand up to people who not only want to remain willfully ignorant about the bad parts of our history but also want to stop others from learning about them. Speaking only about the good prevents us from doing better and leads to a juvenile worldview that’s sadly taken hold in the White House and beyond.

We must take the stance expressed by Doña Josefa Alamar, a protagonist of “The Squatter and the Don.”

At the end of the novel, she is living in exile in San Francisco. Her husband has died from the stress of trying to keep their rancho, her sons live in hardship and her daughter is married to a white man. A friend urges her to stay silent and not malign the “rich people” who caused her so much grief. But Doña Josefa refuses.

“Let the guilty rejoice and go unpunished, and the innocent suffer ruin and desolation,” she replies. “I slander no one, but shall speak the truth.”>

<You may have heard @POTUS’s frustration his nominees aren’t getting confirmed fast enough. I knew it was bad, but I was shocked at the scale of obstruction by Senate Democrats after digging into the history of Senate confirmations.

This is no way to govern, and the public needs to understand what’s happening. 🧵>

When bottom rail was on top, there was no problem, what with Thune and <the denier> obstructing every Democratic move.

<Many MAGA supporters are responding to Britt with disdain. As the X account “TexasSailorGal” replied: “Blah, blah, blah. Thune & Johnson blocked recess appointments. Republicans own this.”

“ANTI-RINO” replied: “Nope! Thune and Johnson gaveled in every few days to prevent Trump from recess appointments & the whole party will pay for this. None of you called these clowns out. Never has this been done to a president of the same party it's all of you and 78 million of us know.”

Another replied: “Republicans could have allowed him to do recess appointments, they blocked them by holding special sessions every few days that did nothing but keep him from doing this. They are useless.”>

<Donald Trump is coming to town. He’s making a list and he’s checking it twice… Trump’s MAGA minions — at least the remaining ones who are not fed up with his constant lying — still believe Santa Claus is coming to town. The rest of us are trying to move on.

We’d like to have a country where our politicians are sensible adults and free of brain worms, where they aren’t pedophiles, extortionists, thieves and other assorted criminals, or racists, misogynists and people who worship at Six Flags Over Jesus. Those who attend the Church of the Waving Hands are also suspect.

We’d love to live in a united country where we aren’t forced to have regional responses to serious health problems because our federal government denies science. We’d love to have a country that supports free speech, offers universal health care and free education through college, taxes the rich appropriately and truly supports families and workers.

There is nothing unique or radical in those requests from a government that is supposed to be of, by and for the people. They are only a sticking point for would-be kings and despots who successfully deceive and subjugate the masses.

Speaking of Trump, he certainly isn’t Santa Claus, no matter how white his hair gets or how wide his waist becomes. But he isn’t dead either. The idiots who thought he was dead — or dying — this weekend certainly got played. They were singing “Ding Dong! The Witch is Dead,” while he most certainly was (and is still) screaming “I’m not dead yet.” He is, however, at least slightly better dressed than a peasant screaming invectives in a whiny British accent.

Trump also will never resign. That speculation, which went around social media before Tuesday’s press conference, was pulled straight from someone’s nether regions who has neither access to accurate information nor common sense.

Donald Trump consumes power to survive. He’s a black hole of a human being who will never willingly give up the presidency unless someone offers him the title and power of world leader. Should he ultimately be impeached and convicted — fat chance of that — Trump would have to be pried from the Oval Office with a crowbar after being given a fistful of muscle relaxers.

What we actually saw this past week was merely business as usual for Trump: Deflection for a variety of reasons. His health is poor. His hand bruises, swollen ankles, thinning hair, widening waist, raspy voice, lack of energy, slovenly attire and seemingly incoherent speech is reason enough for him to avoid anyone but the mostly favorable press pool — and on an increasingly limited basis at that.

What we actually saw this past week was merely business as usual for Trump: Deflection for a variety of reasons. His health is poor. His hand bruises, swollen ankles, thinning hair, widening waist, raspy voice, lack of energy, slovenly attire and seemingly incoherent speech is reason enough for him to avoid anyone but the mostly favorable press pool — and on an increasingly limited basis at that.

But Trump also wants to avoid speaking about Jeff Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, any of their victims, Russia, China, India, North Korea, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., violence against immigrants, a possible government shutdown, the Posse Comitatus Act, recent federal court decisions that mock him and his administration, his ostentatious White House renovations, the Smithsonian, the Kennedy Center, Congress, the 2026 election — and everything else including but not limited to his marital status. The only way he will address any issue is if he can control the narrative and the questions.

So why not play golf? Three rounds in three days, and in the down time, they can prep him on all those issues and keep the press guessing. Then, issue a press guidance that he will be making an announcement on Tuesday and watch the tongues wag.

That is exactly, I’m told by a few close Trump sources, what happened during the long Labor Day weekend. God forbid Trump should just say he was on vacation. Instead, media reports indicate that he has spent 29% of his current term at his own golf courses, presumably having his caddy make favorable drops for him whenever the balls are out of sight. (Insert your own punchline here.)

For Trump, getting the tongues wagging is the key. As one of his strategists told me, “You use whatever you can. It’s an anything-that-will-stick-to-the-wall,” strategy. This tactic isn’t new in Puff Donny’s world, but it is worth remembering: Trump is an attention w***e, and as his advisers and staffers are well aware, he demands absolute fealty and flattery. You never give him bad news, and you keep him away from those who do....>

<....For the believers, Donny Claus is still coming to town. And for everyone else, whatever raw meat that is required to spare Trump is grist for the mill. Monday’s alert about a last-minute presidential announcement isn’t unusual. He’s done it several times before to keep you watching. It’s his standard cliffhanger — just stay tuned and thank you for your attention to the matter.

Trump, who weaponized age-based mockery, is now its target

So while the naysayers bleated out the idea that Trump might resign, or planned to turn into a unicorn in front of our very eyes, we all waited patiently for the president to declare that he was moving U.S. Space Command headquarters from Colorado to Alabama — because Colorado allows mail-in ballots. The sneer was only implied. Trump’s announcement seemed like a letdown after all the conjecture, but it served its purpose; another day passed without him addressing the Epstein case.

Interestingly, though, Trump’s weekend apparently included several conversations about Vice President JD Vance. The veep has tried to increase his visibility recently by going on vacation wherever he can still get a room and service, and he’s desperate to seem vital. His constant demand for gratitude has garnered international attention, but it isn’t covered much inside the U.S.

Instead, some Trump insiders who don’t get along with Vance and his staff laugh at “South Park” portraying the vice president as “Tattoo,” the sidekick from “Fantasy Island.” Some have even apparently imitated Hervé Villechaize shouting “Da plane, boss, da plane,” as they refer to Vance, though I’m told “discretion is advised” when and where such jokes are made. I just find it funny that anyone in Trump’s orbit even understands, much less exercises discretion.

Vance was even called “Alexander Haig” after he recently announced he was ready to fill in should a “terrible tragedy” befall the president. After Reagan was shot, it was Haig who stood in the press briefing room and declared he was in control.

If this were a mob movie, all sorts of nefarious thoughts would come to mind. But in this case the speculation is limited to removal by the 25th Amendment — not likely — a sudden malady that will compromise the president or Vance just wanting to signal to MAGA supporters that he, at least, was not comatose. Some members of Trump’s staff believe the vice president “overstated things” to make himself seem vital. Trump himself said little about it, choosing to focus instead on Vance’s comment that Trump was in great shape.

Vance has a natural insecurity about his job. John Adams, the nation’s first vice president, declared the position to be “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived, or his imagination conceived.” Just over a century later, Teddy Roosevelt said of the vice presidency, “I certainly do not want to hold a position of titular dignity and of no earthly practical importance for four years.”

Vance was never the first choice for even that obsequious role. That coveted position belonged to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, the man who wears at least four hats in the current administration. But the money men, along with the Project 2025 crowd, liked Vance.

Recently, Trump told Rubio he should never run for anything else. But Rubio has always coveted the living arrangements at the White House, and he would still love to replace Trump at the top of the ticket in 2028 — if Trump doesn’t end up on the ballot himself. Vance wants that spot too. But he isn’t as skilled a politician as Rubio, and he isn’t as adept at bending his knee.

Across town on Wednesday, as Epstein and Maxwell’s victims lined up on Capitol Hill and told the world that the dead sex offender often bragged about having the Don on speed dial, Trump was at the White House entertaining Karol Nawrocki, the right-wing president of Poland, and threatening to invade Chicago.

Vance, meanwhile, was in Minneapolis, backpedaling. “I mean, look, there are no immediate plans,” he said, “but the president has said he has the legal authority to protect American citizens, whether that’s in Chicago or Washington, D.C. Obviously, as the president said, we want the governor to be a partner here.” In the Oval Office, Trump made it sound like he was calling out the National Guard first thing in the morning.

“What was that all about?” former Tea Party Congressman Joe Walsh asked me on Wednesday. “He says he’s ready for the presidency? He’s ahead of his skis and he isn’t that popular.”

A MAGA insider told me that Vance is nothing more than a “whiny little b***h.”....>

<....At the Epstein press conference, six of the dead felon’s alleged victims held a press conference and urged the president to come forward with every single document in the Epstein files, some 100,000 pages.

Trump responded by again calling the Epstein case a “Democratic hoax.” He said, “Really, I think it’s enough,” making it clear he wants nothing to do with it.

“But if it’s all ‘a Democrat hoax,’ as Trump maintains, then why wouldn’t he release it?” some of my MAGA sources said.

That’s why this issue remains of interest to his MAGA minions, as Walsh noted, because “he told them this was the deepest of deep state cover-ups. So why doesn’t Trump release it all? That’s why he’s facing trouble with some of his supporters.”

A member of the Republican Party in Waco, Texas, told me this week that’s why Trump shouldn’t “absolutely count” on getting additional seats in Texas — even with the recent gerrymandering legislation endorsed by Governor Greg Abbott was signed into law. “If there is a reasonable conservative Democrat,” this person said, “they could get elected, except in the deepest of red districts, and even that could change.”

The problem, of course, is what constitutes a “reasonable conservative Democrat.” Or, in the words of many Republicans who voted for Trump once but now find him abhorrent, “I’m not given many choices. I don’t like Trump. He’s destroying the country. But I don’t think the Democrats can put it back together.”

Democrats face a hefty challenge: They must convince enough people that they have a better plan than a guy who wants to destroy the Constitution — and they must keep him from fixing the elections in 2026. Meanwhile, Trump’s people tell me it’s “all-hands on deck” to keep the plates spinning and convince the masses who are growing more disgusted with Trump that he “may be bad, he may be a tyrant, but he’s better than a Democrat.”

To that point, Trump is increasingly worried about California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who continues to successfully troll and frustrate the president by merely imitating him. Only “South Park” has gigged Trump better than Newsom. “He hates Newsom. He hates his hair. He hates everything about him. But it isn’t the insults,” I was told. “It’s the fact that Newsom is getting better audience reaction.”

Once again, Donald Trump is trying to lead a reality show. But what should concern him isn’t the Republicans who no longer like him or the Democrats who have trouble beating him. No, it’s the meeting of the leaders of China, Russia, India and North Korea last weekend. That’s the buddy-buddy club Trump wants to join. And they were having fun merely toying with him.

Perhaps that’s why, in addition to his health concerns, he simply refused on Thursday to be seen much in public — opting instead to limit himself to saying in a late dinner with fellow oligarchs that he’s unhappy with Putin. Trump repeated an oft-told lie to reporters, claiming he had “stopped three wars” — down from his usual claim of six or seven. But Putin is proving to be tougher than he realized.

Former President Barack Obama, while eulogizing Arizona Sen. John McCain in 2018, referred to the United States as the “indispensable nation.” While he and McCain were miles apart on many policies, they agreed on the essential need for a democratic nation, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all [people] are created equal.”

Trump has turned the indispensable nation into a country where he claims people want a dictator. And those who are left supporting him don’t see a dictator — they see Santa Claus coming to town.

But Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s Senate testimony on Thursday let everyone know that Santa isn’t coming — it’s the Grim Reaper, urging us to bring out the dead.>

<The leaders of Russia, China, and North Korea are not good men. They preside over brutal autocracies replete with secret police and prison camps. But they are, nevertheless, serious men, and they know an unserious man when they see one. For nearly a decade, they have taken Donald Trump’s measure, and they have clearly reached a conclusion: The president of the United States is not worthy of their respect.

Wednesday’s military parade in Beijing is the most recent evidence that the world’s authoritarians consider Trump a lightweight. Russian President Vladimir Putin, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and North Korea’s maximum nepo baby, Kim Jong Un, gathered to celebrate the 80th anniversary of Japan’s surrender in World War II. (Putin’s Belarusian satrap, Alexander Lukashenko, was also on hand.) The American president was not invited: After all, what role did the United States play in defeating Japan and liberating Eurasia? Instead, Trump, much like America itself, was left to watch from the sidelines.

But the parade was worse than a mere snub. Putin, Xi, and Kim stood in solidarity while reviewing China’s military might only weeks after Putin came to Alaska and refused Trump’s pleas to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. The White House tried to spin that ill-advised summit into at least a draw between Putin and Trump, but when the Kremlin’s dictator shows up with no interest in negotiation, speaks first at a press conference, and then caps the day by declining a carefully planned lunch and flying home, that’s a humiliation, not an exchange of views.

Nor has Trump fared very well with the other two members of this cheery 21st-century incarnation of SPECTRE. In the midst of Trumpian chaos, Xi is adroitly positioning China as the new face of international stability and responsibility. He has even made a show of offering partnership to China’s rival and former enemy India: Chinese diplomats last month said that China stands with India against the American “bully” when Trump was, for some reason, trying to impose 50 percent tariffs on India.

Likewise, the North Koreans, after playing to Trump’s ego and his ignorance of international affairs during meetings in the president’s first term, have continued their march to a nuclear arsenal that within years could grow to be larger than the United Kingdom’s. Trump was certain that he could negotiate with Kim, but the perfumed days of “love letters” between Trump and Kim are long over. Pyongyang’s leadership seems to know that it costs them little to humor Trump politely, but that they should reserve serious discussion for the leaders of serious countries.

Trump responded to his exclusion from the gala in Beijing by acting exactly like the third-tier leader that Xi, Putin, and Kim seem to think he is. As the event was taking place, Trump took to his social-media site—of course—to express his hurt feelings with a cringe-inducing attempt at a zinger. “May President Xi and the wonderful people of China have a great and lasting day of celebration. Please give my warmest regards to Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un, as you conspire against The United States of America.”

Now, the reality is that Russia, China, and North Korea are conspiring against America, but it is beneath both the dignity and the power of an American president to whine about it. Trump continued his unseemly carping with a demand that China recognize the valor of the Americans who died in the Pacific:

<The big question to be answered is whether or not President Xi of China will mention the massive amount of support and 'blood' that The United States of America gave to China in order to help it to secure its FREEDOM from a very unfriendly foreign invader. Many Americans died in China’s quest for Victory and Glory. I hope that they are rightfully Honored and Remembered for their Bravery and Sacrifice!>

This message does not exactly project confidence and leadership; instead, it sounds like the grousing of a man beset by insecurities. A more self-assured commander in chief would have ignored the parade and, if asked about it, would have said something to the effect that the United States has always respected the sacrifices of our allies in World War II. But not Trump: He petulantly declared that he would not have attended even if the cool kids had invited him....>

<....Authoritarians are unfortunately in good company in treating Trump as an incompetent leader. Even America’s allies have recognized that Trump may be their formal partner, but that they mostly get things done with the American president by soothing his ego and working around him. After Trump emerged from the summit in Anchorage essentially parroting Putin’s talking points, seven top European leaders rushed to Washington to tell Trump that he had done well and that they truly, really respected him, but that perhaps he should hold off on being a co-signer of Kremlin policy.

Trump’s damage to American power and prestige would be less severe if the president had a foreign policy and a team to execute it. He has neither: Trump ran for president mostly for personal reasons, including to stay out of prison, and his foreign policy, such as it is, is merely an extension of his personal interests. He holds summits, issues social-media pronouncements, and engages in photo ops mostly, it seems, either to burnish his claim to a Nobel Prize or to change the news cycle when issues such as the economy (or the Jeffrey Epstein files) get too much traction.

Worse, Trump is no longer surrounded by people who care about foreign affairs or can competently step in and create consistent policy. In his first term, Trump had a secretary of defense, James Mattis, who helped to create a national-defense strategy, a document that Trump might have ignored but was at least promulgated to a national-security establishment that needed direction from someone, somewhere. Now, at the Pentagon, Trump has Pete Hegseth, who shows little apparent inclination or ability to think about complexities.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio was supposed to be one of the new “adults in the room,” but he has instead become a man in a Velcro suit, with the president sticking jobs and responsibilities onto him without any further guidance. He has been reduced to sitting glumly in White House press sprays with foreign leaders while Trump embarrasses himself and his guests. Meanwhile, the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, is spending her time trying to root out the spies she thinks hate the president. Unfortunately, the agents she’s hunting are Americans, which must bring a smile to Xi’s face and perhaps even produce a belly laugh from former KGB officer Putin.

America is adrift. It has no coherent foreign policy, no team of senior professionals managing its national defense and diplomacy, and a president who has little interest in the world beyond what it can offer him. Little wonder that the men who gathered in Beijing—three autocrats whose nations are collectively pointing many hundreds of nuclear weapons at the United States—feel free to act as if they don’t even think twice about Trump or the country he leads.>

PHI -7.5 Dal
Kc -3.5 LAC

My genius has racked up a quick 0-2 hole.

Da rest:

<The Trump administration has a problem. The latest jobs report showed just 22,000 jobs were added in August. Employment data for June was revised to a loss of 13,000 jobs, the first net loss since the end of 2020. The president’s economic policies aren’t likely to change, though, driven by the impulses and fantasies of a man whose tether to reality grows thinner by the day.

But in this White House, every day’s news must be characterized as a spectacular success. So what to do when the fantasy doesn’t match reality? First, you get rid of the messengers, as when Trump fired the head of the Bureau of Labor Statistics after last month’s bad jobs report. Next, you posit a conspiracy theory, as Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick did Friday, and assure the public that once the apostates have been purged, everyone will understand what a glorious utopia Trump is creating for the country. But when it comes to the economy, there’s only so far you can get with spin to persuade people not to believe what they’re experiencing in their own lives.

Just before the new numbers were released, Lutnick told CNBC that BLS data “will get better because you’ll take out the people who are just trying to create noise against the president.”

“The holdovers from the Biden administration are just bent against the president’s success,” Lutnick said. “He can’t replace somebody two weeks ago, and you expect fundamental change, but what you will get is an agency that’s on [Trump’s] side, just trying to do the best and put out the correct numbers.”

Lutnick didn’t provide any evidence for his assertion about BLS staffers’ motivations. And for his claim to be true, hundreds of people would have had to conspire to cook the books, with not a single person in the agency speaking the truth publicly.

There’s no doubt that political spin can work — the last 10 years are proof of that. But the greater the distance between reality and the story you’re telling, the less persuasive it tends to be. It’s one thing to convince the public that, say, a country is hiding weapons of mass destruction and another to tell them the economy is fine when no one is hiring.

Right now, the administration is telling a preposterous story about the economy, yet the public isn’t buying it. Most Americans say they disapprove of the job Trump’s doing on the economy. A recent Wall Street Journal/NORC poll found that just 25% of Americans think they have a good chance of improving their standard of living, the lowest since that survey started asking the question in 1987.

People only have to look at their own lives and communities to see how poor the economy is — and if anything, the public hasn’t yet tuned in to just how bad things are going to get. Trump promised a manufacturing renaissance, but there are 78,000 fewer manufacturing jobs now than at the beginning of the year. His mass deportation effort will have a significant drag on the economy, leaving employers unable to fill positions in key sectors and depriving the country of both the production and the consumption those immigrants contributed. His tariffs are an outright catastrophe, ever-changing in ways that make it impossible for companies to plan, imposing higher costs on both consumers and businesses and producing retaliation from other countries that hurts American exporters....>

<....Elsewhere, the new administration’s evisceration of the federal government has added thousands to the unemployment rolls. Trump’s insane war on renewable energy not only undermines one of the most dynamic industries in the country, but it will most likely raise electricity prices for all of us. Millions of Americans will soon lose their health coverage because of the GOP budget. The White House’s devastation of universities and scientific and medical research will make America less competitive and dynamic.

In short, if Trump had set out to intentionally sabotage the American economy, he couldn’t have done much worse.

Electricity prices are a perfect example of the limitations of the reality-distortion field in which Trump attempts to envelop the country. He promised in 2024 that he’d cut electric bills in half within a year, but instead, prices are rising. There is no clever spin or blame-shifting that can convince most people their energy costs have gone down when their monthly bills are going up.

Let’s recall how much invective was directed at Democrats during Joe Biden’s presidency every time one of them suggested that, in fact, the administration’s economic record was pretty good — which it was. Inflation spiked in most of the world in 2022, but in America it came down more quickly than in many other countries, helping us recover far more quickly from the pandemic-induced recession. Biden had the best job creation record of any presidential term in history. Yet whenever Democrats would defend the administration’s economic record, they would be denounced for allegedly dismissing people’s economic pain.

Today, Trump and his aides are doing what Democrats were falsely accused of: brazenly lying to the public by insisting that the economy is terrific when it’s actually heading south. We know they won’t stop saying Trump is a genius and the economy has never been better. But if you want to know the truth, all you have to do is look around.>

Whaddaya think, <evilfred>? Yer boy tries to play the hero of the piece yet again, especially in the face of an ever-increasing daily reality of fresh hells at every turn.

By the bye, <fredthejackal>: how's that spin campaign on the Epstein Files working out? The truth is set to emerge--and very soon. 'Course, yew don't do truth at all well, contemptible piece of flotsam that yew are.

#evilfredvermin
#heartlandscumnomore
#goodlittlenazifred

<Hey folks, I know it’s Saturday, and I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad news. But as I promised you from day one—I don’t sugarcoat. I bring you the inside story the way I hear it, the way I know it. No spin, no filter, no corporate agenda. Just the truth.

Donald Trump has completely lost it. He’s not only planning to go to war with Venezuela—to manufacture a crisis that gives him cover to implement Project 2025 and stay in power forever—but he’s also preparing to go to war with America itself. Plans are on the table to unleash the National Guard on cities like Chicago and Portland. And make no mistake, folks: none of this is about the safety or security of our country. It’s all part of Trump’s authoritarian playbook—an orchestrated campaign of chaos designed for one purpose only: to cement himself in power for good.

My sources tell me this is the week. Plans are being drawn to deploy the National Guard into Chicago—and possibly another city, maybe Portland. And you won’t believe it until you see it with your own eyes: Donald Trump is now using AI-generated propaganda that he blasts out on Truth Social and the White House even reposts. Complete with helicopters, fire, and his chilling line, “I love the smell of deportations in the morning.” And now he’s going even further, threatening, “Chicago is about to find out what the Department of War is all about.” This isn’t satire. It’s not a movie trailer. It’s the President of the United States openly fantasizing about turning our cities into war zones.

Illinois Governor JB Pritzker called it an “invasion.” Chicago’s Mayor Brandon Johnson said flatly, “Unconstitutional.” And yet, Trump doesn’t care. He’s already renamed the Department of Defense into the Department of War, bragging that America needs a “warrior ethos.” Folks, that isn’t policy—it’s the vocabulary of dictatorship.

But here’s where you have to look deeper.

While the cameras are fixed on Trump threatening to occupy American cities, my sources are telling me the bigger play is brewing south of our border. Preparations are already underway for military strikes against Venezuela.

You’ve heard the drumbeats: warships in the Caribbean, F-35s to Puerto Rico, a $50 million bounty on Nicolás Maduro. He says it’s about gangs and terrorism. But let me tell you what it’s really about: declaring a state of war that gives him cover to do whatever he wants. No oversight. No due process. Eleven men blown up in international waters, no trial, no evidence, just his word—and we’re supposed to accept it.

This is how autocrats seize power. Manufacture chaos at home, declare enemies abroad, and then insist that only one man—the “strongman”—can keep order.

It’s Putin’s playbook. It’s Xi’s playbook. It’s Kim’s playbook. And Donald Trump is begging to be accepted into their club.

Think about what this means.

A president who does nothing to stop Russia’s daily attacks on Ukraine. Who stands silent while Putin kidnaps over 25,000 Ukrainian children. Who laughs nervously as Xi, Putin, Kim, and Modi mock him at their parades. Yet, when it comes to his own people, his own cities, he’s ready to send in troops.

It’s grotesque. It’s un-American. And it’s a warning.

What Trump is preparing isn’t just a deployment. It’s the beginning of a doctrine: Trump versus America. If he can frame Chicago as “the enemy,” then he can frame anyone—any governor, any journalist, any protester, any survivor—as an enemy of the state. And from there, it’s one step to the death of democracy.

And if you think that’s shocking, you won’t believe this. While Trump is preparing to send the National Guard into Chicago and preparing for war abroad, he’s also busy turning the White House into his personal Mar-a-Lago

My sources tell me that just yesterday, he quietly unveiled a new “Rose Garden Club” — a members-only society with buy-in at a staggering $500,000 a head. Yes, you read that right: half a million dollars just to secure access. Trump has literally transformed the people’s Rose Garden into a private playground for the wealthy elite, just as he did with Mar-a-Lago in Florida. Cocktail parties, whispered deals, donors rubbing shoulders with lobbyists — all from inside the very heart of American democracy.

At the unveiling, Trump boasted that the Rose Garden was now “a place where our members can gather with congressmen, senators, and leaders to talk business and make America strong again.” In other words, he’s selling direct access to power—half a million dollars for a seat at the table....>

<....This is more than just a grift. It’s a message. He is not planning on leaving. He’s planting roots in the White House as though it were his personal estate, a gilded club for sale to the highest bidder. George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, the great leaders who saw the White House as a sacred trust of the people — they would be turning over in their graves. Trump has reduced it to another cash register, another hustle, another monument to himself.

Folks, this is what dictatorship looks like: while the nation burns, Trump uses the Rose Garden to sell access to the White House.

I want to take this moment and talk to you from the heart. I’m not trying to scare you, but I need you to understand just how serious this is. What’s transpiring right now—the planned attacks on Venezuela, the deployment of National Guard troops into American cities, the Rose Garden being turned into a half-million-dollar pay-to-play club—it all points to one thing: Donald Trump is not preparing to leave power. He is preparing to stay in power forever.

And if we don’t stand together now, if we don’t raise our voices now, there will come a day when we wake up and regret that we didn’t do everything we could while we still had the chance. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: everybody can do something. Spread the message.....

....I want you to remember something about me. I wasn’t always on this side of the fight. I was once deep inside Trump’s circle. I saw firsthand how the deals were made, how the lies were spun, how the money flowed and the corruption spread. I know these people because I lived in their world—and I chose to break free, to speak the truth, to risk everything to expose what I saw.

I can’t change my past, but I can use it to warn you about the future they are building.

My son Aaron is on the frontlines exposing Trump and his inner circle, being attacked by his minions for daring to report the truth. And I’m risking my freedom every single day to bring you information the media won’t touch, stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Why? Because I know these people. I know what they’re about to do. That’s why I’m sounding the alarm—because if we don’t save our democracy now, it may be too late.

That’s why I’m asking you, personally, to stand with me in this fight....

....Trump is betting on fear. But our strength is solidarity....

This is not just about Chicago. This is about whether America becomes another chapter in the book of failed democracies—another dictatorship where one man rules by fear....>

<For a week, it was MAGA versus meatloaf. Last month, the rustic restaurant chain Cracker Barrel committed the grave offense of introducing a new logo. Gone were the titular barrel and overall-clad Uncle Herschel, the Tennessee-based eatery’s mascot. In a saner universe, this switch would have been a mundane exercise in corporate repositioning. Instead, Christopher Rufo and Donald Trump Jr. accused the company of abandoning its heartland roots in favor of “wokification.”

Cracker Barrel’s stock value promptly fell by $94 million. Finally, President Trump himself weighed in, taking to Truth Social to urge the casual dining chain to undo the logo change. Later that day, the company announced that it would do just that. On X, one Trump staffer crowed that the chain’s executives had called the White House to personally telegraph their capitulation.

But this wasn’t just another skirmish in America’s never-ending culture war. Instead, it was a deliberate and profoundly disingenuous distraction from the real crises facing the heartland—crises that the Trump administration’s policies are exacerbating. Trump has won rural voters in each of his presidential campaigns, and his share of their vote increased every cycle from 2016 to 2024. But he is repaying this loyalty with policies that endanger the lives and livelihoods of rural Americans.

Take healthcare. The One Big Beautiful Bill’s trillion dollars in Medicaid cuts are expected to disproportionately impact rural areas, where nearly a quarter of the population is Medicaid insured and the program covers almost half of all births. Republicans, alert to the political perils of subjecting their voters to literal bodily harm, have tacked on a $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Fund. But it’s projected to cover just 37 percent of the Medicaid dollars rural communities will lose. Labor and delivery wards, which hospitals often operate at a loss, are especially vulnerable. In Kentucky, one hospital has already suspended the opening of a birthing center in anticipation of the cuts. That this is unfolding under the self-proclaimed “fertilization president” only compounds the hypocrisy.

Meanwhile, Trump’s trade war has whipsawed American agriculture. Facing metal tariffs and weak crop prices, John Deere, which netted record profits two years ago, is now struggling to sell tractors. China, the largest market for American soybeans in 2024, has yet to order even a bushel from this season’s harvest. Last month, the American Soybean Association penned a letter to the president warning that its farmers were at a “financial precipice.” And the gutting of USAID, which last year purchased $2 billion of food from American farms to distribute as aid, will certainly hurt the heartland.

The administration is also cutting infrastructure relied on by rural areas. With “equity” now a dirty word, Trump defunded the Digital Equity Act, which supported programs providing tech access and education to remote communities. Congressional Republicans erased public media funding, leaving at risk 245 rural radio stations, which broadcast crucial local updates and emergency alerts. And Trump has long mulled privatizing the US Postal Service, which could result in cuts to mail service in rural areas....>

<....But Democrats share some of the blame for these looming disasters. The party seems to have all but given up on organizing in rural communities. According to one recent study, they haven’t bothered to name party chairs in a fifth of rural counties since 2016. And in that election year, as well as in 2020 and 2022, a similar share of rural counties hosted an uncontested congressional race thanks to Democratic absenteeism.

Yet these communities are far from a lost cause. In fact, if only 3 percent of rural voters had shifted to Kamala Harris last year, she might have won the presidency.

Organizers are working to change this trajectory. Contest Every Race, which recruits Democratic candidates in areas with little party infrastructure, has pledged to invest $12 million in rural mobilization. In a previous column, I covered The Rural Urban Bridge Initiative’s calls for a 10-part Rural New Deal. The organization has since asked the DNC to contribute 10 percent of its budget to rural and working-class districts. If the Dems had done so last year, $400 million would have been funneled to the cause.

If the right funding meets the right candidates, Democrats can be competitive in rural areas come the midterms. In Nebraska, Dan Osborn is running again as a populist independent after his long-shot Senate bid far outperformed Harris in the state last year. And in Iowa, gold medal–winning Paralympian Josh Turek is campaigning as a “prairie populist” seeking to raise the minimum wage and create affordable housing and healthcare.

No campaign, though, can succeed without robust grassroots organizing. In June, hundreds of rural communities staged No Kings protests in every state. And last month, as MAGA-world was hectoring Cracker Barrel, Bernie Sanders—himself a representative of one of the nation’s most rural states—brought the “Fighting Oligarchy” tour to tiny Viroqua, Wisconsin. In a town with a population of 4,400, hundreds gathered for the event.

Cracks are starting to appear in Trump’s base. Between February and April of this year, the president’s rural approval rating slumped from 59 percent to 40 percent. It opens a space through which Democrats might be able to drive a wedge—if only they can offer the progressive populist solutions needed by town and country alike.>

<The push for the Trump administration to release its files related to the investigation of Jeffrey Epstein shows no signs of dissipating. On Monday, Democrats on the House Oversight Committee posted an image of a birthday note Trump allegedly sent Epstein in 2003 (MSNBC has not independently verified the note). Most GOP lawmakers are defending — or at least avoiding criticizing — the president amid the Epstein “hoax,” as Trump continues to call it. Yet one of his most ardent supporters, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., has said she will side with the survivors of Epstein’s sex trafficking operation. And Greene can use one of the most powerful tools of her office to aid them.

With calls to release the files from across the political spectrum growing louder and louder, the Department of Justice and Republicans in Congress have largely run interference for the president. They’ve professed a commitment to justice for the survivors, but blocked any efforts at meaningful transparency. In July, Speaker Mike Johnson sent the House home early for its summer recess to prevent more votes on proposals to require the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.

If Epstein’s victims also name names, they could quickly find themselves defendants in defamation suits, too.

With the House back in session, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna and Republican Rep. Thomas Massie are gathering signatures for a “discharge petition” that would enable the resolution to come up for a vote, and they are close to securing the number of signatures necessary for it to pass in the House. Though the White House said that supporting this effort would be deemed a “hostile act,” several Republicans, including Greene, have signed the petition.

In the face of this stonewalling and threats, the survivors are speaking up more than ever. At a news conference held by dozens of survivors last week, survivor Lisa Phillips said they would be compiling the so-called Epstein client list. But, she added, “We’re not quite sure, you know, how we’re going to release that or even if we’re going to.” That caution reflects the fact that sharing a list with the public could prove hazardous for the survivors. They already face threats and intimidation and releasing a client list carries the risk of legal action against them, including claims of defamation.

For instance, in 2019 Virginia Giuffre sued attorney Alan Dershowitz for defamation, alleging that he was “one of the men to whom Epstein lent out [Giuffre] for sex” and that he falsely claimed Giuffre made up allegations about him and Epstein. Dershowitz denied the accusations and countersued Giuffre for defamation. In 2022, both sides dropped their lawsuits, with Giuffre acknowledging that it might have been a case of mistaken identity. (Giuffre tragically took her own life earlier this year.)....>

<....If Epstein’s victims also name names, they could quickly find themselves defendants in defamation suits, too. That’s where Greene — and the Constitution — come in.

Thanks to the “speech and debate” clause in the Constitution, members of Congress have immunity for statements and acts carried out as part of their official duties, especially when they make statements within the legislative chambers or pursuant to their legitimate legislative powers.

That immunity for members of Congress may help shield them from Trump’s wrath is somewhat ironic.

This immunity is not without limits, but since 1880, the Supreme Court has interpreted the speech and debate clause broadly, immunizing members of the House and Senate for a wide range of official acts. By the express terms of the Constitution, when a federal legislator carries out their official duties, “they shall not be questioned in any other Place” for their actions. That means that, at a minimum, when their actions are covered by this clause, and a statement on the House floor related to Congress’ efforts to investigate the Epstein matter certainly would qualify, they cannot be sued for defamation.

That immunity allows Greene to say, as she did last week, that if the survivors “want to give me a list, I will walk in that Capitol on the House floor and I’ll say every damn name that abused these women. I can do that for them, and I’d be proud to do it.” Unlike the victims who might speak out, then, Greene, Massie and any federal legislator who wants to communicate the testimony of the victims would be completely immune from claims of defamation for their statements.

Greene or any other member of the House or Senate could also go on the floor of either chamber and read out the statements and testimony of Epstein’s alleged victims without fear of any legal consequences. And the political consequences, for the president and those who are trying to fight transparency with respect to the lingering Epstein scandal, could be profound.

The fact that immunity for members of Congress may help shield them from Trump’s wrath is somewhat ironic. Just last year the Supreme Court gave the office he now holds broad immunity, apparently even to commit criminal acts. But as members of his administration threaten Republicans who're helping to bring justice to the survivors, they should remember that the members of Congress have their own immunity as well.>

<Just hours after MAGA activist Charlie Kirk was pronounced dead from a gunshot wound — and without any suspect yet arrested or motive discovered — President Donald Trump blamed his death on "radical left political violence" in a video posted to his social media platform. Now, multiple journalists and commentators are sounding the alarm over his remarks.

In his speech, Trump promised to find and prosecute both the person responsible for Kirk's murder, and then broadened his focus by pledging to crack down on "other political violence, including the organizations that fund it and support it, as well as those who go after our judges, law enforcement officials and everyone else who brings order to our country." Trump did not immediately elaborate on which particular organizations he had in mind, but his words raised red flags among many political observers on social media.

"The president is laying a pretext for investigations and other actions against a currently undefined group of people and organizations in the wake of Kirk’s murder, in ways he has not for other murders," CNN reporter Edward-Isaac Dovere wrote on X.

"It won’t make a difference, but I can’t help but point out that they don’t know who did it or why and it doesn’t make any difference to them," Jewish Currents podcast editor Jesse Brenneman wrote. "They know what they want to do and they don’t even care enough about us to bother with a pretense."

Vox writer Eric Levitz argued that Trump's comments prove Americans are "living in an Orwellian nightmare," noting that Trump "fomented an insurrection, then bestowed pardons and military honors on its perpetrators." He also observed that Trump lauded "free speech" before "attribut[ing] all political violence to his ideological foes and vow[ing] to crack down on their organizations." Pennsylvania Capital-Star reporter Nick Field tweeted: "They haven't even found the murderer yet but he's talking about retribution."

"Donald Trump's response is irresponsible and the opposite of what presidential leadership requires," wrote The Lincoln Project's Jeff Timmer. "But it's par for the course with him. Anyone looking to capitalize on senseless tragedy for partisan/power gain is deplorable. None of us should tolerate this."

"Imagine if Biden or Obama had done a televised address attacking only ‘radical rightwing political violence’ just weeks after a GOP lawmaker was murdered with her husband by a Biden or Obama supporter," Zeteo News co-founder Mehdi Hasan wrote. "Imagine if they hadn’t even mentioned the GOP lawmaker’s death. Just imagine.">

<A House committee hearing Wednesday erupted into chaos when Rep. Maxwell Frost (D‑Fla.) and Rep. Clay Higgins (R‑La.) engaged in a shouting match so heated that Frost accused Higgins of being a “lapdog” for President Donald Trump, forcing the panel to pause proceedings.

The confrontation began midway through a session debating law-enforcement powers and public safety. Higgins, who is sponsoring a bill expanding police ability to pursue fleeing suspects, was asked by Frost why he had not called up the National Guard in his state, as he had done in the capital.

"Louisiana is the state with the second highest rate of death in this nation. (You are) more likely to be shot standing on a random street in your state than you are in Washington D.C.," Frost said.

Later in the back-and-forth, Frost unleashed his barb directly at Higgins, calling him a "lap dog to the president."

“You're here because you're lap dogs to the president of the United States," he said.

Reacting to the comments, Higgins demanded his words be expunged.

“Words taken down, Mr. Chairman. My colleague just called me a lap dog of the president of the United States. I move for his words to be taken down.”

As the chairman weighed Higgins's motion, members from both sides exchanged shouts, effectively suspending the hearing’s business.

Following the outburst, the chair insisted on strict decorum, calling for calm and refocusing members on the oversight agenda. But the disruption had already shifted the tone of the session, leaving officials scrambling to restore order.

Meanwhile, House Republicans on Wednesday advanced a package of bills targeting Washington, D.C.’s criminal justice system and limiting the city’s self-rule. This legislative push coincides with the expiration of Trump’s temporary federal control over D.C.’s police department, granted under emergency authority.

Even as Congress declined to extend that federal oversight, limited to 30 days without congressional approval, these bills signal Republican efforts to continue the president’s agenda in the capital city.>

<President Donald Trump mounted a defense of the “radical right” and bashed the left when asked by Fox & Friends co-host Ainsley Earhardt about “fixing this country” in the wake of the killing of Charlie Kirk.

The stunning moment came roughly 20 minutes into a significantly newsworthy Friday morning appearance on the decidedly pro-Trump Fox News morning show. The conversation mostly focused on the political assassination of Kirk, the conservative firebrand shot dead in Utah on Wednesday.

“What do we do about our country?” Earhardt pressed, after Trump complained about the state of the nation he leads. “We have radicals on the right and left, people are watching videos and cheering, some people are cheering that Charlie was killed. How do we fix this country? How do we come back together?”

“I tell you something that is going to get me in trouble, but I couldn’t care less,” Trump replied. “Radicals on the right are radical because they don’t want to see crime.”

He continued with a jeremiad of political attacks on the left.

“We don’t want people coming in, we don’t want you burning our shopping centers, shooting our people in the street,” he said. “Radicals on the left are the problem and they are vicious and horrible and politically savvy. They want men in women’s sports, they want transgender for everyone, open borders. Worst thing that happened to this country.”

“I solved inflation,” he boasted, which isn’t entirely accurate as the consumer price index is flat from a year ago. “Worst thing is when we let 25 million people in, many of which and I say 80% should not be in our country, they empty their prisons into our country, they empty mental institution and insane asylum. That is a mental institution on steroids. They empty out insane asylums into our country by the millions, it is the hardest thing.”>

<Charles James Kirk, 31, died on Wednesday from a gunshot to the neck at a Utah Valley University campus event just as he was trying to deflect a question about mass shootings by suggesting they were largely a function of gang violence. He died with a net worth of $12 million, which he made by espousing horrific and bigoted views in the name of advancing Christian nationalism. The foundation of his empire was the group he cofounded and led, Turning Point USA, which is a key youth-recruitment arm of the MAGA movement. Kirk was able to launch Turning Point at the age of 18 because he received money from Tea Party member Bill Montgomery, right-wing donor Foster Feiss, and his own father, also a prolific right-wing donor. He was an unrepentant racist, transphobe, homophobe, and misogynist who often wrapped his bigotry in Bible verses because there was no other way to pretend that it was morally correct. He had children, as do many vile people.

It is rude of me to say all of this, because we live in a culture where manners are often valued more than truth. That is why a slew of pundits and politicians have raced to portray Kirk’s activities, which harmed many vulnerable people, in a positive light—and to give him the benefit of the doubt that he did not grant to anyone who wasn’t white, Christian, straight, and male. California Governor Gavin Newsom framed Kirk’s project as a healthy democratic exercise: “The best way to honor Charlie’s memory is to continue his work: engage with each other, across ideology, through spirited discourse. In a democracy, ideas are tested through words and good-faith debate.” This downwardly defines both “discourse” and “good-faith.”

There is no requirement to take part in this whitewashing campaign, and refusing to join in doesn’t make anyone a bad person. It’s a choice to write an obituary that begins “Joseph Goebbels was a gifted marketer and loving father to six children.”

Many of the facile defenses of Kirk and his legacy are predicated on the idea that it’s acceptable to spread hateful ideas advocating for the persecution of perceived enemies as long you dress them up in a posture of debate. This is just class privilege. The man who said, “Black women do not have brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person’s slot” said it while wearing a nice shirt and a tie on a podcast instead of tattered overalls in the parking lot of a rural Walmart. That does not make it any less racist.

It’s true that we cannot know what was in Charlie Kirk’s heart because we are not telepathic. But we can make reasonable inferences based on the things he said and did publicly because we are also not colossally stupid. He built a large following, and acquired real political power saying these things—to young people, to the president and his minions, to deep-pocket right-wing donors—and there are far too many people who have been ready to suggest that he was able to do this through a combination of natural charisma and good old-fashioned hard work. Speaking about and addressing the late Texas Representative Sheila Jackson Lee, who is Black, he said, “It’s very obvious to us you are not smart enough to be able to get it on your own. ‘I could not make it on my own, so I needed to take opportunities from someone more deserving.’” Kirk was smart enough to ask his father for a check when wanted to found Turning Point, and had always been happy to curtail opportunities for more deserving people when they failed to conform to his own ideology.

It’s this that makes it particularly galling to see him cast by some as a free-speech warrior. He created a professor watchlist explicitly designed to get academics fired who dared talk about the right’s usual assortment of verboten topics—anything to do with race or gender, in particular. He also offered the standard right-wing plaint about left-wing indoctrination in American universities even as he went on campus tours trying to indoctrinate young people into his hard-right Christian nationalist worldview.

When we decline to speak ill of the dead, it’s because we have compassion for the living. In this respect, I am sorry for Kirk’s children. I don’t know if Kirk was a good father, but if he was, that does little to mitigate the damage he did to other people’s children. I can only hope for the sake of his kids that they have role models who will teach them that it is wrong to profit off the dehumanization of people because of who they are....>

<....When asked about mass shootings he said, “I think it’s worth it. 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.” Perhaps Kirk did not believe that his own life would be cut short by gun violence, but, like the rest of us, he has witnessed countless school shootings. When he said “some gun deaths” are acceptable, he surely knew he lived in a country where the deaths he deemed acceptable included those of children, some of whom were the age of his own. There is no inherent virtue in caring about your own children; that is the bare minimum requirement for effective parenting. Virtue lies in caring about the safety and well-being of children you don’t know.

On that front, I’m fairly sure Kirk did not care about my child. My child lives in Brooklyn, in a progressive family. His mother works and does not have a marriage where she is considered inferior to her husband or required to obey him, as Kirk arrogantly told Taylor Swift she should do after learning of her engagement. (“Reject feminism,” he said. “You’re not in charge.”) We also live in a Haitian immigrant neighborhood, and if you only listened to Charlie Kirk, you might be under the impression that my neighbors eat pets. You would also be encouraged to believe that, simply by virtue of being non-white immigrants, they were “replacing” white people—and that, since they are also Black, they are dangerous. “Happening all the time in urban America,” he said, “prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact.”

I do not believe anyone should be murdered because of their views, but that is because I don’t believe people should be murdered generally, regardless of who they are or what they’ve done. I am against the death penalty, pro–gun control, and believe war is a failure of humanity, not a necessary byproduct of it. Kirk was fine with murder as long the right people were dying.

Some of the people valorizing Kirk insist that all of his toxicity was acceptable because at least he was open to debate—a bar so low, you’d have to dig into the Mariana Trench to get to it. And he certainly paid lip service to it. “We record all of it so that we put [it] on the Internet so people can see these ideas collide,” he said of his own streaming operation. “When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.”

But Kirk’s actions undercut that notion every day. His entire business was saying the other side was evil and dehumanizing them. The debates were simply performances, and he could not have an entertaining public fight without opposition. Turning Point did not work to bring people together; it worked to bring about a country where anyone who wasn’t a white Christian nationalist wasn’t welcome. I won’t celebrate his death, but I’m not obligated to celebrate his life, either.>