Column: These days, when you try to get people fired for their comments about Charlie Kirk's killing, you're joining a new White House censorship regime. Even celebrating his death, as one Tucson attorney did online, is First-Amendment protected. tucson.com/news/local/s...

1. BREAKING In an undercover operation last year, the FBI recorded Tom Homan, now the White House border czar, accepting $50,000 in cash after indicating he could help the agents — who were posing as business executives — win government contracts in a second Trump administration.

Yup - when a Trump capo says we can do this the easy way or the hard way, the only response as we’ve seen over and over is to make ‘em try and do it the hard way.

My story from Thursday about the post, the subpoena, and challenges filed to block DHS's effort to unmask IG accounts that share info about agents. Last night a judge ordered Meta not to hand over the data for one of the accounts, for now. theintercept.com/2025/09/18/d...

This stuff is incredibly dangerous. We just don’t live in a free country anymore.

With the news cycle focused on ABC's suspension of Jimmy Kimmel, a journalist with a valid US work permit and pending green card application is about to be deported for the crime of reporting www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

When will the first instance be of someone telling Brendan Carr, in earnest, "We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way. " www.pbs.org/newshour/pol...

BREAKING: Federal judge tosses out Trump's lawsuit against the New York Times, Penguin Random House, & journalists, finding that the complaint violated court pleading rules due to its expansive, over-the-top, "tedious" use of language. An amended complaint can be filed without all of the BS in it.

I bet they're going to go after ProPublica's nonprofit status

A federal judge has thrown out President Trump's lawsuit against The New York Times. The suit, he says, "stands unmistakably and inexcusably athwart the requirements" of federal court rules. It is "decidedly improper and impermissible." storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...

I canceled Disney Plus today, over Disney's capitulation to the Trump administration on Jimmy Kimmel, just like I canceled Paramount Plus a few months ago,over CBS' corrupt deal to facilitate the Paramount-Skydance merger. I l told them why. It's not much, but it's something.

This is the story:

Jimmy Kimmel doesn't matter except as a clear, relatable symbol of the attack on free speech and dissent by the Trump administration.

The FCC chairman appeared on CNBC this morning to talk about Jimmy Kimmel. But they discussed Kimmel's comments without playing the clip or even just quoting him directly. That didn't stop the CNBC host from insisting, “I don’t think anybody’s going to try and defend what Kimmel said..."

Also, notice Trump's complaint here - about the news, about Kimmel - IS NOT anything to do with Charlie Kirk. It's that he was personally criticized. He's not even hiding it! That's what this is all about. "Are you allowed to criticize the president?"

This guy will now decide which jokes are appropriate.

The Jimmy Kimmel fiasco, coming after others like CBS/Paramount, shows we need national news outlets with minimal exposure to the federal government. No FCC licenses, no mergers needing approval, no federal contracts, not even nonprofit tax status. Nothing that can be used as leverage by the feds.

If you're not following J.L. Cauvin, the best Trump mimic of the moment, you're missing out on some of the best political satire of our time. (Instagram still doesn't have an automatic way to post to Bluesky apparently.) www.instagram.com/reel/DOv4xiW...

Prosecutors must drop charges against two Cincinnati journalists arrested while covering a protest. Their jury trials are scheduled in just a couple weeks. A coalition of rights groups and journalism professors explained why this prosecution is so dangerous.

Column: There's not much excitement about the city of Tucson's Nov. 4 general election in which half the City Council will be chosen and get $96,000 per year. Jungle primaries might be the most useful reform to create general-election competition. tucson.com/news/local/s...

the death of bluesky has been greatly exaggerated

“what of the writers, the thinkers, and the pundits who cannot separate the great crime of Kirk’s death from the malignancy of his public life? Can they truly be so ignorant to the words of a man they have so rushed to memorialize?” - Ta-Nehisi Coates archive.ph/2025.09.16-2...

Far as I can tell, Robert Redford was: * successful at everything he tried * genuinely intelligent & insightful * desired by women * envied by men * an absolute mensch to everyone he dealt with * a tireless, lifelong philanthropist ... and he died peacefully in his sleep. 10/10 life. No notes.

The suspect who killed Charlie Kirk said his rifle-cartridge messages were all "a big meme," according to messages just released in court. "if I see 'notices bulge uwu' on fox new I might have a stroke," he said. So, yeah, it was all a shitpost. More here on the meanings: bsky.app/profile/drew...

Cannot stop shaking my head at the predictable but still brazen hypocrisy.

Charlie Kirk was a champion of free speech and anyone who says otherwise will be fired

incredible that people are writing long, brow-furrowing posts about "blueskyism" while the owner of x, the everything app whips up one hate-filled mob after the other

Column: In-person politics like town halls were already dwindling before Charlie Kirk was shot. You can see the change in Tucson, from Gabby Giffords' Congress on your Corner to the current congressman's absence of public events. Violence is erasing retail politics. tucson.com/news/local/s...

Charlie Kirk was killed by a meme www.garbageday.email/p/charlie-ki...

I know everyone is consumed with other news, but this is a big fucking deal: The Trump administration says that IUDs and the Pill are actually abortions. Here's what USAID told the NYT about the $10m in birth control they plan to destroy. www.nytimes.com/2025/09/11/h...

Kirk didn't serve in the military or hold office. The war hero treatment -- half-mast flags, military guard, Air Force Two escort, calls for a statue at the Capitol or to lie in the Rotunda -- shows that for MAGA, service to Trump has become the highest, most honorable form of service.

Watching the cable news commentary on the bullet engravings is wild because none of these people seem to realize that the content of the engravings are indicative of extremely online meme brain rot

Political Notebook: Republican state senator Vince Leach has announced he will not run for re-election next year. That opens up a Tucson-area seat that Dems and the GOP will fight hard for. Plus more, on an absent Arizona governor and a departing candidate. tucson.com/news/local/s...

Quite the sunset tonight in Tucson.

Turns out it is possible. www.nbcnews.com/world/brazil...

BRASILIA, Brazil (AP) — Brazil's Bolsonaro sentenced to more than 27 years in prison after Supreme Court panel convicts him of attempting coup.

Just maybe remember Melissa Hortman🙏, her husband Mark🙏, & their dog Gilbert🙏, along with John Hoffman who survived. They didn't get nearly the press I'm sure this will, no matter the outcome.

BREAKING: Federal judge in Los Angeles issues preliminary injunction against Department of Homeland Security to restrict use of force against press, legal observers and protesters. Judge in LA Press Club v. Noem calls out "surprising savagery" of DHS officers: "The First Amendment demands better."

My main observation from the last few hours of monitoring US social media is that Democrats are universally denouncing political violence and calling for calm while MAGA are escalating language and openly lusting for retribution against broad categories of people they identity as their enemies.

Very, very bad stuff coming from leading right-wingers

Column: This year's monsoon in Tucson was disappointingly dry. What compounded the disappointment were long- and short-term National Weather Service forecasts that repeatedly predicted rain that never arrived, culminating in a hurricane that veered away. tucson.com/news/local/s...

Column: A lot of Tucson is upset over the 1.5 year prison sentence for a man who took a gun into a school. I'm more worried about the "revolving door" of repeat criminals, even violent ones, who get light sentences under plea deals with the Pima County Attorney's Office. tucson.com/news/local/s...

Political Notebook: AZ's Democratic Party is taking another stab at picking the right chair for 2026 -- a special election next week to replace the chair they ousted. Voter registration figures show they have a steep hill to climb. Plus much more on city of Tucson stuff. tucson.com/news/local/c...

Twitter is owned by a neo-Nazi, the LA Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal are owned by pro-Trump billionaires, and CBS News will soon be run by a far-right Likud extremist. American media still has a liberal bias problem.

We used to mock the French for being on their fifth constitution. Now who looks stupid.

Trump's anti-press rhetoric is "not bluster; it is not a personality trait. It is deliberate," @stephaniesugars.bsky.social told @di-sly.bsky.social. "It is very much at the cost of the strength of our social fabric and our shared reality."

All kidding about this nonsense answer aside: The regime is asserting the power to murder without trial a boat full of people suspected of drug trafficking, who easily could have been intercepted and arrested instead. That is unconscionable and horrifying even assuming everyone aboard was guilty.

reminder that as trump looks to expand his terror to other cities, shit is still very much going down in LA

National Guardsmen now stationed outside our DC building confirmed that the only thing they can do if they witness a crime is call 911. The have no more authority than my office mate to intervene. Despite the handcuffs, they can't make arrests. They are very expensive mall cops.