About this week’s display of knuckle dragging, I don’t have an organized story for you, just a collection of items.

Top coverage by top journalists

I did not follow Charlie Kirk. He was a social conservative, whereas I am a post-liberal libertarian. I usually heard about him when he said something my libertarian friends disagreed with, and I usually disagreed too. That is not what this is about.

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The following coverage comes from excellent journalists who are progressives, liberals, and post-liberals of various stripes, able to walk almost entirely without touching their knuckles to the ground.

Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn

America This Week, September 12, 2025: "The Assassination of Charlie Kirk, and a New Age of Political Violence"

(Sorry, this episode has gone behind a paywall. I heard the first 30 minutes as a “free preview,” thinking that the whole episode would go public within the week. It was really good. Too bad you missed it! 🤪)

Racket News

America This Week, September 12, 2025: "The Assassination of Charlie Kirk, and a New Age of Political Violence"

Link Here: Listen to subscriber-only audio in your podcast app…

Listen now

a year ago · 307 likes · 245 comments · Matt Taibbi and Walter Kirn

Podcast direct link, Racket News
12 Sep 2025

Glenn Greenwald

Charlie Kirk Assassinated; NATO Alleges Russian Drones Flew Over Poland, and More | SYSTEM UPDATE #512

https://rumble.com/v6yrhl0-system-update-show-512.html
10 Sep 2025

No shock, Sherlock!

⁉️ Does it matter who shot Martin Luther King, Jr.? Legally, historically, of course! Politically and culturally, NO! Whether his killing was arranged by the FBI, the KKK, or a shack-dwelling weirdo, the political leverage in killing him—the battery, if you will—came from nationalized anti-black racism. The spectacle of his assassination made him a martyr, supercharged his cause, eliminated a populist voice, struck fear into the black population, rallied racists with a victory… every faction had something to gain, and only because of racism on a national scale. Take away the racist environment, and there is little reason to shoot him.

(I mean, was World War I really about an archduke named Franz? Who even shot him… I’ll have to look that up…)

In the same vein, I do not ultimately care, in the big picture, who shot Charlie Kirk. My entire adult life, which began quaintly as a “default liberal,” has unfolded in an environment of escalating, institutionalized, violent rhetoric against people like Charlie Kirk, fanned into a bonfire of hate by the illiberal Left, careening past Western appeals to the “marketplace of ideas” from all other sides—including the more liberal and naïve 🙈 Left. Anyone who could possibly have shot him did so because of that depraved rhetoric. I have been marinating in it since entering an elite university in the late 1980s, I am very familiar with the subcultures that propagate it unwittingly and on purpose, and you simply cannot gaslight me about how it developed.

Man with cane gestures elegantly in dreamlike space — Painting called "No shock, Sherlock!" by Substack AI

Cultural misappropriations

✡️ My Jewish ancestors were not collegially debated to death by Nazis. They were physically slaughtered on an industrial scale, in a demonic factory process. They also were not DEPORTED! They could only wish Hitler had deported them instead of keeping them in his camps. When you call people like Charlie Kirk “Nazis,” you are shamefully minimizing the Holocaust—which makes you a Nazi sympathizer, a shriveled soul, and a COMPLETE twadpockle!

⚧️ MY GENDER—the one I identify as—does not have its own pronouns[1][2]. When you intentionally demand my pronouns, without first even bothering to find out whether I have any, you are creating a climate of alienation and willfully misgendering me, which is now illegal in my state, as well as other jurisdictions and your favorite social media sites. I will not be letting this slide any longer. STOP MISGENDERING ME! Be as tolerant and grown-up as my Christian friends, who have never demanded that I conform to their beliefs or trappings.

🪃 In mid 2020, I became deeply disappointed in most people I knew. On an individual and group level, they behaved in ways I had not thought possible, and I saw them in ways I will never unsee. I unplugged from key streams of mass culture and have not gone back. Charlie Kirk’s assassination has left me in a similar state. Though I would not have anticipated it cutting so deeply, it struck immediately Wednesday afternoon, even before I had heard details or commentary. I did not think it was possible for us to sink lower, but we did. I will tolerate even less cultural abuse now than I ever have, while continuing to treat all individuals about 20% better than they treat me.

Time Capsule

Black YouTuber “Dumsybrown” five months ago, before it was cool

Charlie Kirk Brings Black Student To TEARS In “White-Privilege” Debate!

Direct link, YouTube
17 Apr 2025
WITNESS the dangers of spirited debate, free hats, and both parties walking away chuckling! You WON’T BELIEVE the final exchange!! 🫣

Student: “Mind if I have a hat?”
Dangerous Charlie: “Sure.”

In my gender, pronouns reside in languages, not people. When you refer to people of my gender, you use the constructs of whichever language you are speaking.

English has pronouns for biological sex, Spanish thinks boats are feminine, East Asian languages rarely use personal pronouns, and when they do, the indigenous ones lack gender, which is why your sweet Korean friend has trouble with “he” and “she.” When you inform a citizen of the world that your pronouns are “she/they,” you are committing simultaneous acts of Western cultural tyranny and gender colonization. (Don’t worry, that is nowhere near enough to make you a Nazi!)

What is my gender? It is called the “biological” gender. It is what I identify as. I will write a dedicated post on it soon. Then you will know how to address me without committing violence. In the meantime, I’ll be nice to you as long as you’re not mean to me. Is that cool?
Ghe is a pronoun I like, the “personal pronoun of mutual respect.” It has potential. I am working up the courage to ask my doctor about it.

DON’T ask your doctor about CrowdHealth!

Ghe probably thinks it’s illegal.

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The Twadpockle Report

Charlie Kirk