WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 2025
It arrived in several parts: As we walked home from the subway stop subsequent to a medical event, we were thinking about what President Trump had said.
More specifically, we were thinking about what he said in the aftermath of the Russian drone excursions into Poland. It was, indeed, a "head-scratching reply." The Truth Social post says this:
Truth Details
Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones? Here we go!
We were also thinking about what he said to President Macron, recorded through an open mike, a few days after the Alaska summit. We think it's the most revealing thing we've ever heard an official say:
PRESIDENT TRUMP (8/18/25): I think he wants to make a deal. I think he wants to make a deal for me.
Do you understand that? As crazy as it sounds.
By now, it seems clear that the president's assessment was wrong, possibly trending toward delusional. Everyone else in the world thought they had already known that.
Had we ever seen a public official make such a revealing remark? In person, probably not—but we thought of the passage in President Clinton's memoir where he says how much he liked and admired the Arkansas Pentecostals, even though they were disinclined to vote for him.
The ability to like (and admire!) those with whom you disagree? Formulated slightly differently, we've referred to something similar as the ability to "pity the child."
When we got home, we heard the news—that Charlie Kirk has been shot. We thought of the portrait Gene Brabender drew:
Where I come from, we only talk so long. After that, we start to hit.
And just this minute, we see the next news—the news that Kirk has now died. "They perish. They cannot be brought back."
As this latest death has been imposed on the world, Putin has seemed to surrender his pose. In the aftermath of the president's odd Truth Social post, we must wonder, with concern and with fear:
What might be coming next?
We suggest that we all learn to pity the child. "Their fate is like the chronicle of planets," Yevtushenko said.
What the earlier president said: Part of the much longer passage from Bill Clinton's book:
PRESIDENT CLINTON (page 251): Far more important than what I saw the Pentecostals do were the friendships I made among them. I liked and admired them because they lived their faith. They are strictly anti-abortion, but unlike some others, they will make sure that any unwanted baby, regardless of race or disability, has a loving home. They disagreed with me on abortion and gay rights, but they still followed Christ’s admonition to love their neighbors.
[...]
Knowing the Pentecostals has enriched and changed my life. Whatever your religious views, or lack of them, seeing people live their faith in a spirit of love toward all people, not just your own, is beautiful to behold. If you ever get a chance to go to a Pentecostal service, don’t miss it.
Some will disagree with the logic of what Clinton said. They deserve to be heard from too.
Deep thoughts and fervent prayers.
ReplyDeleteThank God my prayer to have some idiot shoot the idiot Kirk has been answered. I now pray that more idiots shoot more idiots. Greatest country in the world! Amen, pass the Luger.
DeleteTrump threatens to sue the NY Times for their reporting on the Epstein birthday card.
ReplyDeleteJames Copenhaver
ReplyDeleteDavid Dutch
Corey Comperatore
Charlie Kirk
Donald Trump
Bob says blue America is dying. Of course that's meant figuratively. Trump supporters are literally dying.
That's a disgusting comment, David. Political violence in our country has not been directed only at Trump supporters or the right.
DeleteDavid dutifully adopts the current Trump/GOP playbook. If they can push this notion, that the left are all violent psychopaths, then guess what? They can be arrested and prevented from voting.
DeleteSomerby eagerly attacks Gutfeld, but he needs to address this rot in his own comment section.
It was an unbelievably savage assassination no matter what the partisan framing may be. Absolutely savage. It was grotesque.
DeleteKirk's assassination was much less savage, cleaner and more efficient than the killing on the subway. It was a typical political shooting, only with fewer bystanders killed. People hysterically calling this grotesque or savage are responding emotionally to Kirk's death, not describing the killing itself, which was just a fatal gunshot. Magnifying the death because of one's feelings about who was shot, is propagandistic.
DeleteThe President is already blaming the “left.”
DeleteGutfeld said:
Delete"“It’s interesting — you know, we don’t know who did this,” Gutfeld noted. “But I do know it doesn’t help the left. Which makes me think, is it the left? I don’t know. I don’t know. We don’t know. But it feels professional.”
Gutfeld has become well known for his own provocative style of conservative politics, but revealed that he is still very much an outlier, offering a nuanced explanation amid a sea of conservative social media anger and finger-pointing at the left and its own over-the-top rhetoric, and how that played into this tragedy." [Mediaite]
I'm using the words objectively, not as emotional terms. Objectively, it was a savage and grotesque assassination. Describing it as efficient, clean and typical doesn't change that. It only serves to reframe the reality for your own purposes, whatever they may be.
DeleteKirk was hit by a single shot in the throat. It was "professional" in Greg Gutfeld's words. All murder is savage, but there was nothing bloodthirsty or grotesque about this shooting at all. It was clean, efficient and effective and the shooter got away. Savage is when a person is beaten to death with blunt objects, or dragged behind a truck or tortured to death. The people reframing this obvious execution are the ones reframing reality as worse than it was.
DeleteClean, efficient, typical political assassinations that put a bullet through the target's neck instantly producing a twisting, dark rope of blood that emerges horizontally out of their neck that, within seconds, gushes liters of blood down their shirt as their chin collapses flat on their chest and their body falls backwards, dead, onto the floor are objectively savage and grotesque events.
DeleteMinimize it all you want if you must.
It says something about you.
DeleteYes, you can make it sound horrible with more adjectives. His heart pumped that blood out of the wound and where else would he go, but down?
DeleteBut compare this to the Butler shooting. There, the shooter missed his target, Trump, and hit bystanders. One was killed as he threw his own body across his wife and child to save them, losing his own life. Secret service agents were hit by bullets and shrapnel, two critically wounded. Trump may or may not have been hit by anything in the incident. The shooter was caught and killed by law enforcement.
That is a clusterfuck full of grotesque events. Compare the details to Kirk's shooting.
I don't like the way the right is exaggerating what happened in order to make Kirk into a saint or martyr when he was not a good person. The leopard finally ate his face.
DeleteHe was in the process of calling trans people mass shooters, a total lie, when he himself was shot. At this point we don't know whether he might have escaped death if he had told the truth.
You'd like to change the subject from your original argument that calling Kirk’s assassination savage or grotesque is a propagandistic overreaction to an event that was really only a clean and typical killing? Instead, you now want to debate the degree of grotesqueness in comparison to the Butler shooting?
DeleteI’d prefer if you continued with your categorical argument that the shooting was “not grotesque at all.”
Go ahead and finish that line of reasoning, and then we can move on to the altogether different argument you’re now proposing.
People who think they are “trans” should be institutionalized and they are red flags for depraved violence.
DeleteI know you like pushing this hateful rhetoric, 12:01. Why not give it a rest?
DeleteThis is what Charlie Kirk posted in April
ReplyDeleteAssassination culture is spreading on the left. Forty-eight percent of liberals say it would be at least somewhat justified to murder Elon Musk. Fifty-five percent said the same about Donald Trump.
In California, activists are naming ballot measures after Luigi Mangione.
The left is being whipped into a violent frenzy. Any setback, whether losing an election or losing a court case, justifies a maximally violent response.
This is the natural outgrowth of left-wing protest culture tolerating violence and mayhem for years on end. The cowardice of local prosecutors and school officials have turned the left into a ticking time bomb.
We don't yet know the identity of Mr. Kirk's killer or that person's motive. But don't let that stop you from making assumptions.
DeleteAn old chefs idiom:
Delete"If you can't stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen".
If that one doesn't work, try this one from former Conservative Firebrand, Charlie Kirk :
"“I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God-given rights."
6:22,
DeleteIt's far too soon to discuss such things.
Let's talk about mental health for a few months, until you forget about America's gun problem, instead.
I don't make the Right-wing rules. I just play by them.
There's been a lot more political violence against conservatives than against liberals in this century. In addition to the people listed above, consider
DeleteOn June 14, 2017, a mass shooting occurred during a practice session for the annual Congressional Baseball Game in Alexandria, Virginia. 66-year-old James T. Hodgkinson shot four people, including then U.S. House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, U.S. Capitol Police officer Crystal Griner, congressional aide Zack Barth, and lobbyist Matt Mika....Hodgkinson was a left-wing activist
And, don't forget
Rand Paul attacker sentenced to additional prison time over yard assault
Rene Boucher broke the senator's ribs in 2017
Not to mention
Man, 80, run over for putting Trump sign in yard, say police
Remember Richard Cranium in Cal complaining about the MN political couple being murdered or bitching about the thug Bryan Kohberger? Fuck off DiChead. You a nasty little nut.
DeleteYou're counting the feud Paul had with his neighbor as "political violence"?
DeleteOK.
Melissa Hortman
DeleteMark Hortman
John Hoffman
Yvette Hoffman
Gabrielle Giffords
Paul Pelosi
Josh Shapiro
Gretchen Whitmer
and, of course, the entire U.S. Capitol police.
So come down off your cross. MAGA needs the wood to build a gallows.
Those are great statistics DiC. Keep up the good work. Very convincing.
DeleteIs the excerpt you posted an example of "calm and reasonable" debate, David?
DeleteAI contradicts David:
Delete"Right-wing extremists in the U.S. have committed more politically motivated homicides and attacks than left-wing extremists since the 1990s, with a disproportionate number of these acts resulting in fatalities. While left-wing violence has involved activities like arsons and assaults, right-wing groups are responsible for the majority of domestic extremist-related killings, including racially motivated mass shootings. "
Right wingers tend to consider property crimes as serious as assaults and murders because for them, there is little difference between people and property. Left wingers prioritize people over stuff.
DeleteShall we create an algorithm that can weigh and score each act of violence and the political party it affected? We can have it dynamically updated every minute get Draft Kings to sponsor it and allow wagers on which side is in the lead.
DeleteOh I'm sorry. I can see that AI has settled the debate. Now all we have to do is get the world to surrender their brains to AI as 8:11 has.
DeleteIt's the latter day Kristallnacht, and David is on board.
DeleteAI is software that searches and finds relevant info and then synthesizes it into an answer to a question. You can easily find the statistics on politically motivated violence in the reports of federal agencies and researchers who collect and analyze such data, at least until Trump does away with all such reporting.
Deletehttps://ccjs.umd.edu/feature/umd-led-study-shows-disparities-violence-among-extremist-groups
https://nij.ojp.gov/topics/articles/what-nij-research-tells-us-about-domestic-terrorism#:~:text=Since%201990%2C%20far%2Dright%20extremists,for%20violent%20actions.%5B3%5D
https://www.csis.org/analysis/escalating-terrorism-problem-united-states
https://www.journalofdemocracy.org/articles/the-rise-of-political-violence-in-the-united-states/
8:13 Pretty funny. The evolving right wing fact free narrative is however exemplified by the nonsense DiC spouts as well as the clown at 7:53. Remember Rush Limbaugh? There is no left wing counterpart to that mound of drug addled hate. And what is it about Republican thought leaders that seems allergic to higher education : Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, Matt Drudge, and Charlie Kirk cumulatively batting 0/4 in college diplomas , among others. There is plenty of footage of Charlie Kirk engaging in "debates" on YouTube including with students at Oxford, and to be fair, he does OK for some guy without a community college degree. But not well enough to be considered a debater by his mentor, Joe Walsh, who ultimately distanced from Kirk and rather considered him a provocateur. RIP, but as he said, casualties occur in the service of the second amendment. Something tells me that the right wing trolls will be all over this like they never were over twenty unprovocative children in Sandy Hook.
DeleteKirk was provocative.
DeleteThe shooter may have been provoked.
8:17. Better to surrender yourself to your fact- free biases. Go ahead and show us your data. But I suggest that you fastidiously avoid the FBI assessments of domestic terrorist threats and crime statistics.
Delete"A witness told CNN what Kirk was talking about:
Delete“A kid came up and he asked a question about how many transgender shooters there were… And then he asked one more question, and so the question was about shooters. And before Charlie Kirk could pick up the mic again, that’s when the shot happened.” [Political Wire]
You can see it here: Kirk's last word is "violence".
Deletehttps://youtube.com/shorts/MSZApZx71c8?feature=shared
Kirk once said that he hated the concept of empathy, that it was dangerous. This is a theme that as I recall was also uttered by Musk. Is there anything wrong with openly stating a conservative tenet?
DeleteAgreeing with Right-wingers is the quickest way to make them cry.
DeleteYou know what they say about Charlie Kirk?, one down.
DeleteI mean come on DiC, even you have to agree if any neighbors deserves a punch in the face it would be Rand Paul and you.
DeleteI am so glad David in Cal pointed out what a horrific inflammatory liar Kirk was. Lying and making shit up about lefties is all he had. Too bad his secret lover shot him, but he was still a lying fucking creep of a human being. Dead don't change what a fucking lying scumbag he was. Sorry, not sorry.
DeleteThere is something deeply wrong with Democrats. Hateful, violent, destructive, unhinged. It’s time to deal with the evil rot infesting our society.
ReplyDeleteGo for it dude.
DeleteMost domestic terrorism in this country is the result of right wing activity, so why don't you join one of those groups and put an end to these liberals?
Delete7:53,
DeleteSuck it up, buttercup.
I never owned a gun and I am an old, but not a bald nasty old fascist like David in Cal. So if you own a gun you own that fucking asshole Kirk getting shot. You own that poor bastard who accidentally shot himself to death cleaning 'ol Betsy. You own all the mutilated children. Go fuck yourselves, ideally up your ass with your rifle. Pew, pew, pew, pew.
Delete"...but we thought of the passage in President Clinton's memoir where he says how much he liked and admired the Arkansas Pentecostals, even though they were disinclined to vote for him."
ReplyDeleteThis seems to be the only part of Clinton's autobiography that Somerby has read. There is a lot of other interesting stuff in the book. This fragment doesn't even make any sense in the context of today's events.
Clinton was an adolescent when he met the Pentecostals during his canvassing for Fulbright. He was dealing with his own hypocrisies over the Vietnam War, as is well-described by Robert Reich, who was a close friend of Clinton's when they were both sweating out the draft in Oxford. Searching for authenticity and avoiding hypocrisy is peculiar to young people who are forming their own identity and learning how to make adult choices in their own lives.
DeleteWhether the Pentecostals live their principles has nothing to do with whether their lifestyle harms the children who grow up in such communities, whether they themselves are less hypocritical about adhering to their religion or not. Being friendly to people who believe different things is what Clinton was all about -- he liked everyone and was a huge extrovert with charisma and an ability to relate to a wide range of people. Those are useful qualities for a politician but Somerby doesn't seem to question whether they informed his politics. Personally, I find his commitment to his Global Initiative Foundation after leaving office to be more admirable than talking with Pentecostals. He and Hillary and Chelsea have arguably done more good through that family charity than he was able to do while president. You will never see Trump or most right wingers engaging in any similar efforts, no matter how much they admire religious zealotry. Look what Musk is doing with his money. He is building his own shrine to ego, just like Trump, except his involves going to Mars instead of putting gold in every room of any building he touches. None of that helps other people, the way Clinton's efforts have helped in all those shithole countries. I admire that more than Clinton's ability to talk to farmers.
There are about a half million little people alive today in the US alone, who would have been killed without Trump’s Supreme Court handing down the e Dobbs decision, their bodies thrown in Planned Parenthood dumpsters.
DeleteLiving youngsters all over the country who would have been murdered but were saved by laws Hillary and Chelsea Clinton tried to defeat.
There are also a lot of maternal deaths that would not have occurred without the Dobbs decision. Planned Parenthood does not throw bodies in dumpsters. That is a propagandistic lie. Hillary and Chelsea Clinton have devoted their lives to helping women and children. Using them to promote your anti-woman agenda is another form of lie.
DeleteWhere does Planned Parenthood discard the bodies of the helpless human beings they kill?
DeleteThere are zero maternal deaths resulting from Dobbs.
DeleteThere are zero Republican voters who aren't bigots.
Delete"There are about a half million little people alive today in the US alone," Half are little girls, and half are white. That leaves about 125,000 little girls for Trump to rape.
DeleteRemember that completely discredited Brietbart video where he pretended to dress up like a pimp at Planned Parenthood and made up a bunch of stupid shit. These fucking imbeciles are still humping that fucking idiocracy. Fucking weirdos and idiots, A bad combo if there ever was one.
DeleteI'm not going to worry about Pentecostals when our country is treating people this way:
ReplyDeletehttps://digbysblog.net/2025/09/10/he-looked-like-a-mexican/
I wonder if our nation being run by a psychopathic president has consequences?
ReplyDeleteJust before the 2024 election an entity called the Public Religion Research Institute, together with the Brookings Institution, collected data regarding public acceptance of violence as a means to effect political change. They found that 33% of Republicans surveyed considered it acceptable versus 23% of Independents and 13% of Democrats. Among Republicans, those supporting Trump were three times as likely to advocate violence than those not supporting Trump. Not particularly surprising in the aftermath of January 6. But when trolls suggest that the liberal faction in this country is particularly susceptible to violent political behavior they can fuck off.
Delete
ReplyDelete"By now, it seems clear that the president's assessment was wrong, possibly trending toward delusional."
Huh? How did you arrive at the conclusion that it was wrong, let alone "delusional"? The assessment that Mr. Putin wanted to make a deal, that is.
Are you dumb? Don't you know that not everything we want comes to be?
I started to realize that yesterday afternoon.
DeleteUmm, where is the fucking deal Putin proposed genyus? Oh here it is, "give me the Soviet States back or I'ma gonna war on all of you mother fuckers until I die."
DeleteLet's not let the murder of some Right-wing hack distract us from high grocery prices and the country's pedophilia epidemic.
ReplyDeleteSocial media says the shooter is a parent of one of the kids Kirk molested.
ReplyDeleteBoth, the shooting of Charlie Kirk and the martyrdom of him, will do nothing to lower grocery prices.
ReplyDelete#nodistractions
It may enhance King Orange Chickenshit's chances of going to war on democratic cities.
DeleteNo one listens to Trump.
DeleteRoberts, Alito, Thomas, Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett ask how high when Trump says "jump".
DeleteLittle girls only listen to Trump when he holds them down to rape them.
DeleteThe sooner Daddy Government stops subsidizing rural electricity, the sooner people move into cities, where they belong.
ReplyDeleteGreat job!
ReplyDeleteThe tree of Liberty hasn't looked this refreshed in years.