2025-09-13 18:00:00
This story was originally published by Canary Media and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
A novel solar power project just went online in California’s Central Valley, with panels that span across canals in the vast agricultural region.
The 1.6-megawatt installation, called Project Nexus, was fully completed late last month. The $20 million state-funded pilot has turned stretches of the Turlock Irrigation District’s canals into hubs of clean electricity generation in a remote area where cotton, tomatoes, almonds, and hundreds of other crops are grown.
Project Nexus is only the second canal-based solar array to operate in the United States—and one of just a handful in the world. America’s first solar-canal project started producing power in October 2024 for the Pima and Maricopa tribes, known together as the Gila River Indian Community, on their reservation near Phoenix, Arizona. Two more canal-top arrays are already in the works there.
In California, the solar-canal system was built in two phases, with a 20-foot-wide stretch completed in March and a roughly 110-foot-wide portion finished at the end of August. Researchers will study the project’s performance over time, while a new initiative led by California universities and the company Solar Aquagrid will push to fast-track the deployment of solar canals across the state.
Proponents of this emerging approach say it can provide overlapping benefits. Early research suggests that, along with producing power in land-constrained areas, putting solar arrays above water can help keep panels cool, in turn improving their efficiency and electricity output. Shade from the panels can also prevent water loss through evaporation in drought-prone regions and can limit algae growth in waterways.
Plus, solar canals could offer a faster path to clean energy development than utility-scale solar farms, especially in rural parts of the US where big renewables projects increasingly face community opposition. Placing solar panels atop existing infrastructure doesn’t require altering the landscape, and the relatively small installations can be plugged into nearby distribution lines, avoiding the cumbersome process of connecting to the higher-voltage wires required for bigger undertakings.
“Why disturb land that has sacred value when we could just put the solar panels over a canal and generate more efficient power?” said David DeJong, director of the Pima-Maricopa Irrigation Project, which is developing a water-delivery system for the Gila River Indian Community.
The purpose of these early arrays is primarily to power on-site canal equipment like pumps and gates. But such projects could eventually help clean up the larger grid, too. A coalition of US environmental groups previously estimated that putting panels over 8,000 miles of federally owned canals and aqueducts could generate over 25 gigawatts of renewable energy—enough to power nearly 20 million homes—and reduce water evaporation by possibly tens of billions of gallons.
Still, the technology isn’t an obvious choice for many canal operators.
Elevating solar panels over canals is more expensive and technically complex than installing conventional ground-mounted solar arrays on trackers, and it can involve using more concrete and steel. Wider canals may also require support structures for panels within the waterway, which can disrupt the flow of water.
Earlier this year, a senior engineer at Arizona’s Salt River Project recommended that the power and water utility not pursue a solar-canal pilot “based on cost estimates and project concerns,” after comparing the unique design to both rooftop and utility-scale solar alternatives.
Solar-canal developers are hoping they can still gain a toehold in irrigation districts that are grappling with high electricity costs and have limited options for generating cheap power, said Ben Lepley, the founder of engineering firm Tectonicus, which designed the Gila River Indian Community’s 1.3-MW system south of Phoenix.
The initial costs are “definitely higher…but it can actually be really fast as a project,” Lepley said. “By the next year, you can have really cheap electricity, and that gives [irrigation districts] stability over the 30-year life of the project.”
For its part, the Gila River Indian Community is building solar-canal projects as part of its broader mission to “generate enough renewable energy to completely offset the electrical use by the irrigation district,” said DeJong. He noted the district pays about $3 million a year for the 27 million kilowatt-hours of electricity it needs to pump, move, and store water.
The community built its first solar-canal project over the Casa Blanca Canal with a nearly $5.7 million grant provided by the Inflation Reduction Act—part of a $25 million provision that supplied funding for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to design, study, and deploy projects that put panels over waterways. Irrigation districts in California, Oregon, and Utah received the remaining funds to develop their own installations.
The Trump administration is unlikely to support future programs, given its focus on gutting clean energy incentives, but a handful of projects are already moving forward without such grants.
DeJong said that construction is 90 percent complete on the tribal community’s second solar-canal project, a nearly 0.9-MW array built in partnership with the US Army Corps of Engineers, which is slated to go online later this year. The community is self-funding a similar-sized project over the Santan Canal and is developing a floating solar array on one of its reservoirs, with both systems set to be up and running by early 2026. All told, the installations will provide 4 MW in local clean energy generation, he said.
“We have become really familiar with the economics of building these [canal] projects,” said Lepley, whose firm also worked on the Gila River Indian Community’s second and third solar-canal systems. “We have a pretty good playbook of how to continue these projects going forward, even without any grant funding from the federal government.”
2025-09-13 08:17:13
When Utah authorities announced on Friday morning that 22-year-old Tyler Robinson had been apprehended in connection with the killing of conservative influencer Charlie Kirk, they quelled a storm of rumors and inaccurate reporting about the gender identity and motivations of Kirk’s shooter.
Almost immediately after Kirk was shot on Wednesday, right-wing social media accounts began speculating that his killer was transgender.
The next morning, unvetted claims spread by right-wing political commentator Steven Crowder were quickly followed by a Wall Street Journal article claiming—based on an unquoted bulletin “circulated widely” by law enforcement officials—that expressions of “transgender ideology” were engraved on the shooter’s ammo. An hour later, Rep. Nancy Mace, a South Carolina Republican who frequently promotes anti-trans legislation, was hurling slurs on camera.
For years, if not decades, voices demanding gun reform have been accused of “politicizing” violence—and of casting blame “too soon” in the wake of tragedy. When it wasn’t gun rights but trans people on the line, that rhetoric went out the window—for media outlets, public figures, and government representatives alike. Here’s how quickly the claims made their way from far-right speculation to the Wall Street Journal and a member of Congress.
September 10, 12:23 p.m.: Charlie Kirk is shot during an event at Utah Valley University after taking a question about transgender people and mass shootings. Right-wing accounts on X immediately begin speculating, without evidence, that the shooter is transgender. An online witch-hunt ensues.
September 10, 4:40 p.m.: President Donald Trump announces on Truth Social that Kirk has died from his injuries.
September 11, 8:35 a.m.: Right-wing commentator Steven Crowder posts a screenshot on X of a supposed “internal message” leaked from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives alleging that law enforcement officials found gun cartridges at the scene engraved with unspecified “wording…expressing transgender and anti-fascist ideology.” Crowder’s post is viewed more than 25 million times.
September 11, 10:23 a.m.: The Wall Street Journal posts a link on X to a news story captioned: “Breaking: Ammunition engraved with transgender and antifascist ideology was found inside the rifle authorities believe was used in Kirk’s shooting, sources say.”
The article cites “an internal law enforcement bulletin and a person familiar with the investigation.” The post receives more than 11 million impressions. At 10:51 a.m., the Daily Beast publishes a story repeating the claims. At 11:20 a.m., the New York Post publishes a similar story.
September 11, 11:29 a.m.: Right-wing news outlet the Daily Caller posts a video of GOP Rep. Nancy Mace, an outspoken opponent of transgender rights.
“It sounds like the shooter was a tranny, or pro-tranny,” she tells the reporter. “And just because I want to protect women, that I’m worried about getting murdered? Are you fucking kidding me? It’s out of control, and enough is enough, and I’m going to double down on this.”
September 11, 1:18 p.m.: The New York Times reports that the internal bulletin has not been verified by ATF analysts and does not match other summaries of the evidence. According to a “senior law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the investigation,” such reports are usually not made public due to potentially inaccurate information.
September 11, 1:34 p.m.: The Trans Journalists’ Association “urges caution” in a statement, pushing outlets reporting about the investigation to “prioritize direct quotes and, to the greatest degree possible, identify the source and evidence” and emphasizing that “transgender ideology” is “a term coined for and used in anti-trans political messaging.”
September 11, 3:28 p.m.: Citing “reporting in multiple outlets,” conservative talk show host Megyn Kelly uses Kirk’s death as an opportunity to attack trans people.
“Charlie Kirk’s killer engraved the ammunition used to murder him with pro-transgender ideology, according to reporting in multiple outlets—to the surprise of literally no one,” she said. “There’s one particular group that’s been running around killing Americans in the name of transgender ideology lately and it’s transgender activists or individuals or those who proclaim that they are.”
In an interview on Kelly’s show, Donald Trump Jr. says, “I can’t name, including probably, like, Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, a group that is more violent per capita than the radical trans moment.”
September 11, 4:43 p.m.: The UK-based Telegraph asserts that the killer’s ammunition was “engraved with pro-trans messages.”
September 11, 5:00 p.m., CNN reports that, according to two law enforcement sources, at least one cartridge was marked with arrows, which could have been misinterpreted by ATF analysts to be connected to the transgender community. By the following morning, the Wall Street Journal alters its story to include the New York Times and CNN reporting, adding “Some Sources Urge Caution” to its headline.
September 12, 10:10 a.m.: At a press conference, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox identifies the suspect in custody as 22-year-old Utah resident Tyler Robinson, whom neither Cox nor law enforcement claim is transgender. Cox reads the inscriptions from the recovered bullet casings, none of which reference transgender people in any way.
September 12, 10:36 a.m.: Rep. Mace calls for prayers for Robinson. “We know Charlie Kirk would want us to pray for such an evil, and lost individual,” she writes.
Shortly after the revelations at Cox’s Friday press conference, Human Rights Campaign launched a petition demanding the Wall Street Journal retract and apologize for its article on the shell casings.
“Jumping to those conclusions was reckless, irresponsible, and led to a wave of threats against the trans community…Many online who peddled rumors with incomplete and untrue details did not care about the facts,” HRC press secretary Brandon Wolf said in a statement.
At 2:46 p.m. ET on Friday, the Wall Street Journal posted on X that it had appended an editor’s note to its original article acknowledging that Cox “gave no indication that the ammunition included any transgender references.” (The newspaper laid off five members of its standards and ethics team last year; its current deputy editor for standards did not reply to a request for comment.)
The phrase “transgender ideology” has “increasingly become a shorthand for everything that threatens the MAGA-preferred vision of the nation, of the people, of the family,” says Joanna Wuest, assistant professor of women’s, gender, and sexuality studies at Stony Brook University. Trump has led a policy crusade against transgender people since his first day in office, starting with an executive order against “gender ideology”—a move that has been used to limit trans people’s access to bathrooms, identification documents, and medical care, as well as their protections from discrimination in education and employment.
Those who use the phrase “gender ideology” are generally referring to the idea that someone can have a gender identity—a deeply felt, internal sense of gender—that differs from their sex assigned at birth. “There’s been this movement on the right, but also just in general, to frame that as an ideology,” says Saskia Brechenmacher, a senior fellow researching gender, civil society, and democratic governance at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “Other people would say, ‘No, that’s just the way the world is.’”
Laurie Marhoefer, a professor of LGBTQ history and Nazi Germany at the University of Washington, says his transgender friends reacted with alarm as soon as news broke of the shooting. But the panic increased when the false statements about the shell casings came out. Friends began to check in with him, asking how worried they should be about retaliation.
“People are just terrified,” Marhoefer says. “I think we’re getting used to being terrified.”
2025-09-13 07:30:49
On September 25, the left-wing Twitch streamer and political commentator Hasan Piker was supposed to debate Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk. But one hour into an eight-hour stream on Wednesday, Piker’s chat started posting that Kirk got shot.
“Oh my God, he definitely got shot in the neck,” Piker said, his hand covering his mouth as he watched the footage (which was not on the livestream). “Oh, fuck.” After a few moments of silence, Piker told his audience not to watch the clip. “There’s very little chance that he will survive that.”
Piker was immediately clear that what happened to Kirk was reprehensible, telling his viewers not to joke about the killing—and that what followed likely would be, too. “The reverberation of people seeking out vengeance in the aftermath of this violent, abhorrent incident is going to be genuinely worrisome,” he said.
We reached out to Piker to discuss Kirk’s murder and its aftermath, including his concerns that President Donald Trump, who called Kirk a “martyr” and moved immediately to blame the political left, will lead his followers in using Kirk’s death to clamp down on progressive organizing.
How are you feeling? What’s been going through your head since you learned that Charlie Kirk was shot, and then the news that he died, on stream?
“[It] happened to be the 46th school shooting of the year so far…the 47th took place in Colorado, only an hour after.”
I was pretty distraught after watching the horrifying incident. It’s obviously a little different when you watch someone that you’ve known for many years, someone that you have been ideologically opposed to, but sat across from on multiple occasions, and someone who—we were supposed to debate two weeks from now.
When you see someone like that get shot, it’s very different. I don’t think human beings are supposed to see that. It’s definitely horrifying. I don’t even know what his family feels like. I don’t even want to think about that, but it was a traumatic incident that, unfortunately, is all too common in this country.
That experience for me is new, but it’s not new for many Americans who have experienced that they are the unfortunate victims of sending their children to school where a school shooting takes place, right? And Charlie Kirk’s assassination also happened at a school—that happened to be the 46th school shooting of the year so far, and the 47th took place in Colorado, only an hour after, where two kids were shot and critically injured. It’s not something that people are supposed to experience. But unfortunately, that experience is all too common in a country like ours.
You’ve talked about some people seeing far-right rhetoric as inherently violent. How do you think about the differences between what you do and what Charlie Kirk did—where your views are rooted, and the kinds of conversations you want to have?
My worldview is empathy-first politics. I think Charlie Kirk said it best when he said that empathy is a made-up concept that he thinks is problematic. He thinks it is just a made-up concept that people have designed to advance a leftist agenda, something along those lines. I think that dichotomy perfectly demonstrates the way we view the world.
I believe in universal programs for everyone, unconditionally, regardless of their ideological background, their ethnic background, their nationality. I believe everyone has a right to health care. Everyone has a right to a free college education, a chance for upward social mobility, decent housing, decent job, good wages, just an opportunity to better themselves and the next generation, that is at the root of my worldview. That’s what I believe in in an uncompromising manner.
“It’s very clear that they’re using this as a Reichstag fire moment…as an opportunity to further persecute and prosecute political dissidents.”
Whereas I think reactionary ideals oftentimes revolve around striking the clock of progress back to the best of their ability, and assuming that if we were to maintain some semblance of traditionalism, some semblance of conservatism in the way that we govern, that society would improve.
I don’t agree with that, of course, because a lot of that traditionalism and a lot of that conservatism is ultimately about targeting marginalized, vulnerable populations and trying to design a society away from a class structure and a society defined by inalienable characteristics and traits that people can’t change, that must be excised. And the most extreme version of that we have seen time and time again, I think, has been very damaging throughout history, absolutely.
What concerns do you have about Trump and other right-wing figures using Kirk’s death to crack down on their perceived political enemies?
They’ve already started doing that. I think Donald Trump, his first statement immediately after Charlie Kirk’s untimely demise was to, without even profiling the shooter, go on this mission. [Trump and other right-wingers] were like, “This was done by radical leftist extremism, and it must be destroyed.”
“The first interaction that many…have with Charlie Kirk is going to be, from these reputable institutions, a completely whitewashed perspective.”
The State Department has already made an announcement saying that they are going to look at people’s profiles at the point of entry into the country to see if they actually sufficiently grieved Charlie Kirk—which is, of course, a violation of the First Amendment, regardless of whether I personally think that’s inappropriate or not. I’m just simply talking about how ridiculous it is to make this kind of enforcement a priority and how unconstitutional it is.
And it’s very clear that they’re using this as a Reichstag fire moment, very clearly, using this as an opportunity to further persecute and prosecute political dissidents.
What do you think it says about the state of our media ecosystem and state of mind as a country that we’re reacting to this with such fervor, compared to other political violence, like the atrocities in Gaza?
I think there are many different reasons for this. Myself, I am very close to the situation, and as someone who has talked about the ongoing genocide of Palestinians since far before October 7, and has consistently talked about the genocide every single day post–October 7, I assume for like many Americans, seeing someone that they’ve seen on television get assassinated like this is probably a little bit more traumatic, because it hits close to home.
But the overall reflection on foreign policy decisions that are ultimately incredibly consequential for the lives of millions of Palestinians is oftentimes simply seen as collateral damage. There is a collateralization of human lives when they are seen as an unfortunate byproduct of our endless violence and bloodshed overseas. It sucks and it’s it’s sad to see, but it is the overall attitude.
“It’s clear to me that they see it differently than the wholesale slaughter of schoolchildren…we didn’t see flags at half-mast in the aftermath of 45 other school shootings.”
Obviously, some people recognize how cruel this is, and they take action. But I think many others, even naysayers, even people who are critical of the state of Israel, people who are critical of American foreign policy, still see it as something a little bit different than the assassination of a high-profile person.
It’s clear to me that they see it differently than the wholesale slaughter of schoolchildren as well, because we didn’t see flags at half mast in the aftermath of 45 other school shootings. We didn’t see it.
Donald Trump didn’t even attend the funeral, as a symbolic gesture of the Minnesota Democratic state legislator—that was a high-profile political assassination, where the far-right shooter had numerous targets, virtually every single person involved in the Democratic Farmer-Labor Party in Minnesota.
And yet Republicans either made fun of the incident, even though it was harrowing—or they decided that the shooter was actually a radical leftist and moved along, and they just never really apologized for it. They never cared to show any grace whatsoever, even when it was a colleague, right? So I think we are living in an increasingly polarized time, or at the very least, I think people are becoming more vicious in the way that they communicate.
I personally think this is a foreseeable consequence of our material conditions deteriorating and people becoming more and more angry and resentful towards institutions, towards those in positions of power, and they feel rudderless, directionless in that anger. So these violent incidents continue, decentralized forms of violence and adventurism continue, and I fear that it will only continue to increase in frequency and magnitude.
Is there something that you see for a way for society to steer us away from further going down this path?
“Republicans will…redirect that anger back to vulnerable populations, marginalized communities, immigrants, trans people, gay people, Black people, women.”
I think that radical change and the progressive direction must be presented by a truly anti-fascist party, a truly progressive party. And unfortunately, I think right now, the Democrats are simply plugging their ears and closing their eyes to the realities of growing fascism in this country.
Even before that, the the material conditions that have created this perfect environment for fascism to grow in this country: not addressing any of the economic pain that people experience, and simply offering platitudes or saying that we must defend these institutions at a time when people want these institutions to be blown up, is very clearly not the solution, and it pushes people in the opposite direction.
The direction where Republicans will take advantage of that anger, that growing anger and enmity, and redirect that anger back to vulnerable populations, marginalized communities, immigrants, trans people, gay people, Black people, women and very successfully capture the attention of a lot of these people that don’t really know why they’re mad, successfully shift their priorities away from the systems to more vulnerable neighbors that these people have that are much easier to dominate with, with legislation, much easier to dominate, with a militant police force, much easier to dominate than than to tackle the affordability crisis, for example, And that’s where we’re at in our increasingly violent rhetoric. That’s where we’re at with our increasingly violent political system.
What do you think of the whitewashing of Kirk’s legacy, and the kinds of things that he proudly said? Why do you think that’s happening?
I think it’s dangerous and maybe even part delusional. I always say that right-wing politics, conservatism, more often than not, revolves around hallucinating an alternative reality. It’s always born out of collective hysteria, right? I think it’s also delusional to look at that, to look at growing anger and resentment in this country and just simply say, well, some of the more extremist figureheads, especially if they have mass appeal, are simply young activists who wanted to have discourse, who wanted to have spirited debate.
It’s very obvious that the Steven Crowders of the world and the Ben Shapiros of the world, and even Charlie Kirk as well, [are] not actually invested in the Socratic method, but were just using easy slam dunks against hysterical college freshmen to make their side seem more appealing, seem stronger. It was entertainment. It was political entertainment, for the most part. For some weird reason, I think aesthetic fetishists and civility fetishists, more often than not, are liberals.
“It’s a dishonest assessment to refuse to reckon with some of those opinions that he was very proud of.”
Having said that, I think we must be honest about the role that Charlie Kirk played—especially liberals. I find it very damaging that the first interaction that many older liberals and many older Americans are going to have with Charlie Kirk is going to be from these reputable institutions, a completely whitewashed perspective, without actually accurately reflecting on his political output as a political actor.
Charlie Kirk was a very successful political actor. He believed and stood by his principles and stood by his opinions, no matter how extreme I found them, no matter how distasteful or morally repugnant I found them. It’s a dishonest assessment to refuse to reckon with some of those opinions that he was very proud of.
I think it’s also a disservice to your audience if you don’t actually reveal what his positions were and then allow your audience to make up their minds for themselves on whether or not this person was simply a moderate voice and a champion of truth and justice, or if they were a very apt, very successful conservative firebrand and an agent provocateur of the highest order, who was one of Donald Trump’s most beloved advisors by the end of his by the end of his life.
You mentioned on your stream yesterday this idea of Kirk creating “content” and “propaganda” versus actual debate, and testing your ideas and truth against those who disagree. What did you mean by that?
I think it’s all content and propaganda down to what I do as well. Propaganda is just PR marketing and advocacy, and that’s precisely what Charlie Kirk was doing, and that’s, in many respects, what I do. Debates are one part of that. The reason why I think debates can be constructive and instructive is that there is always a 20 percent in the margins, in the middle, that can go in either direction.
I think there are plenty of people who look to debates, that back-and-forth, to perhaps, for the first time ever, actually see the opposing side and their arguments and their talking points in the most honest way they possibly can. That’s the reason why I think debates can still be useful overall, and that’s precisely the reason why I was willing and able to debate Charlie Kirk.
So I’m not saying it’s unproductive completely, but I think the way that the format is designed—the way that people talk about it is the actual reason for it.
Has Kirk’s murder changed how you think about doing public events?
There’s definitely an environment of fear right now. I am never going to let fear dictate my life. If I, obviously, was fearful of death threats, threats being made to my life or my safety, I probably would have to choose a different business. Death threats are, unfortunately, a very common part of what I do. Seeing it materialize in front of me in real time is a very different story.
There’s also an air of vengeance right now where a lot of people are, where a lot of people are, understandably frustrated, understandably angry. I think in all of that anger and resentment, they are redirecting their attention back to those who they perceive as being responsible for this.
One of the things I find very interesting about this is that they say Charlie Kirk wanted to debate people and engage in a real back-and-forth, an earnest back-and-forth with interlocutors, right? Good-faith free speech conversations.
Well, I’m one of those people that he obviously wanted to do that with. I was the person he was supposed to debate, the high-profile person he was supposed to debate on the other side. And yet, many conservatives have decided that our back and forth throughout the years was the reason why he was assassinated.
When I find this sort of violence to be completely abhorrent and repugnant, and also even from the position of self-interest—like, why would I advocate for Charlie Kirk to ever be dealt with violently if I, myself, was going to sit next to him in a public event? The knives are out there. They’re looking for a target, and they put me in the crosshairs. It seems in ways that many right-wingers always had, but it’s definitely escalated a bit.
But as I’ve said over and over again, I’m just going to wait for the temperature to cool down a little bit and then most likely, go back to doing the same things that I was doing. There is always going to be a threat, but we just have to keep continuing, because the work continues.
Anything else you’d like to leave us with?
It’s been an interesting past 48 hours. Tensions are high. Emotions are high. A lot of people are very frustrated. They feel like they need a pressure valve. They need to release this pressure, this anger that has fomented and has grown. I worry that in the absence of good leadership, good governance that earnestly seeks to address their material conditions deteriorating, people will redirect their attention to dominating marginalized populations. It’s only going to get worse. So we need radical empathy more than anything else.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
2025-09-13 02:37:47
After the shocking murder of MAGA influencer Charlie Kirk on Wednesday afternoon, tributes and expressions of grief poured in from conservative politicians and activists, along with expressions of sympathy and denunciations of political violence from both sides of the aisle. Now, however, numerous government and elected officials are taking their protection of Kirk’s legacy a step further, indicating they’ll use the power of their offices to discourage, punish, or, in some cases, fire anyone who speaks ill of him.
Several Trump administration officials and members of Congress have said they’re tracking statements that appear to impugn Kirk. A partial list of those threatening retribution include: Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and one of his assistants, Sean Parnell; Navy Secretary John Phelan; Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau; and members of Congress like Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) and Clay Higgins (R-Louisiana). In some cases, people accused of disparaging Kirk or refusing to sufficiently mourn his death are alleged to be members of the military or work for the federal government in some capacity. But in numerous other cases, they’re private citizens who wrote comments about Kirk’s death on their extremely small social media accounts.
No matter how small the reach of these posters may be, their comments are being brought to light by several MAGA activists, including Trump confidante Laura Loomer, who has spent much of the last two days identifying people she says have posted mocking or disparaging comments about the slain, 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA. Chaya Raichik, the person behind the MAGA-friendly Twitter account Libs of TikTok has done the same. (Loomer, whose feuds with other right-wing figures are manifold and very complicated, denounced Kirk herself online in July, writing, “Lately, Charlie has decided to behave like a charlatan, claiming to be pro-Trump one day while he stabs Trump in the back the next.”) They’re joined by an army of smaller accounts who have also taken up the cause of identifying—and in some cases doxxing—people they accuse of mocking Kirk’s death or simply speaking ill about his career, for example, by accusing him of promoting racist or anti LGBTQ sentiments.
The crusade to silence any voices that may not conform to the hagiography has unfolded quickly. Hegseth and Parnell—who serves as his assistant at the newly-renamed Department of War—said they will adopt a “zero tolerance” policy for mockery of Kirk’s death. “It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” Parnell wrote on X.
“We are tracking all these very closely — and will address, immediately,” Hegseth added. “Completely unacceptable.”
Navy Secretary John Phelan tweeted, “I am aware of posts displaying contempt toward a fellow American who was assassinated. I want to be very clear: any uniformed or civilian employee of the Department of the Navy who acts in a manner that brings discredit upon the Department, the @USNavy, or the @USMC will be dealt with swiftly and decisively.”
Nor does the state-backed protection of Kirk’s legacy apparently stop with US citizens. Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau tweeted that foreign nationals who mocked Kirk’s death would be barred from entering the United States. “In light of yesterday’s horrific assassination of a leading political figure,” he wrote. “I want to underscore that foreigners who glorify violence and hatred are not welcome visitors to our country. I have been disgusted to see some on social media praising, rationalizing, or making light of the event, and have directed our consular officials to undertake appropriate action. Please feel free to bring such comments by foreigners to my attention so that the @StateDept can protect the American people.”
In a similar vein, Tennessee Sen. Blackburn wrote on X that she was calling for the firing of a Secret Service agent who reportedly said on Facebook that Kirk “spewed hate and racism on his show.” She added, “It’s time to root out the rot in the Secret Service.”
It makes some sense that service members would be punished for mocking or making light of Kirk’s death—after all, they have stringent social media guidelines that extend back decades. The Secret Service, too, conducts social media screenings of employees and potential employees.
In other cases, though, elected officials seem to be targeting private citizens exercising their First Amendment rights to speak about Kirk’s exceedingly polarizing career.
“I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa), for instance, wrote on X that she had contacted the superintendent and principal in a district where an art teacher is accused of writing “One Nazi down” on Facebook after Kirk’s murder.
“Cheering political violence is always wrong,” Miller-Meeks tweeted, “and should NEVER be done by those who educate our children. I will be contacting the superintendent and principal first thing in the morning to ensure this is addressed immediately.” The art teacher was subsequently placed on leave pending an investigation.
Rep. Clay Higgins of Louisiana suggested several measures against people who either criticized Kirk online or celebrated his murder. “I’m going to use Congressional authority and every influence with big tech platforms to mandate immediate ban for life of every post or commenter that belittled the assassination of Charlie Kirk,” Higgins declared on X, in a statement suggesting actions that were not legal and one that clearly overstepped his authority. “If they ran their mouth with their smartass hatred celebrating the heinous murder of that beautiful young man who dedicated his whole life to delivering respectful conservative truth into the hearts of liberal enclave universities, armed only with a Bible and a microphone and a Constitution… those profiles must come down. So, I’m going to lean forward in this fight, demanding that big tech have zero tolerance for violent political hate content, the user to be banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER. I’m also going after their business licenses and permitting, their businesses will be blacklisted aggressively, they should be kicked from every school, and their drivers’ licenses should be revoked. I’m basically going to cancel with extreme prejudice these evil, sick animals who celebrated Charlie Kirk’s assassination.”
In response to public pressure from the people finding negative comments about Kirk, private companies have also posted a cavalcade of statements on X indicating that they’ll fire or suspend identified employees. That includes, thus far, entities as diverse as restaurants, universities, Fox Sports Las Vegas, and MSNBC, which fired analyst Matthew Dowd for saying Kirk promoted hate speech. Other people who have been quickly dismissed from their roles include a man who served on the Las Vegas Realtors board of directors and who’d been scheduled to begin serving as the incoming board chair, while the New Orleans Fire Department said it would conduct an “administrative review” of a comment from one of its employees.
Meanwhile, the honors for Kirk have come thick and fast. After ordering that flags be flown at half mast, President Donald Trump has announced plans to award Kirk a posthumous Presidential Medal of Freedom. Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Florida) has called for a statue of Kirk to be placed in the US Capitol, while Nancy Mace (R-South Carolina) announced that she would introduce a resolution to have Kirk lie in state in the Capitol Rotunda, an honor usually reserved for elected officials and veterans. Vice President JD Vance, a close friend of Kirk’s, used Air Force Two to bring Kirk’s casket back to his home state of Arizona, helping to carry the casket himself to the waiting plane. In a video of their arrival, Vance’s wife Usha could be seen holding the hand of Kirk’s wife Erika as the two women emerged together, Erika’s head bowed.
Soon after Kirk’s death, many conservative and far-right activists called loudly and widely for revenge, variously blaming the left, the Democratic Party, the media, and an “anarcho-terrorist” network for the environment that led to the murder. Prominent extremist groups and pardoned insurrectionists have also said they’ve been galvanized by Kirk’s death, and plan to use it to intensify future organizing, as well as seek their own forms of revenge. When Trump announced Friday afternoon on his favorite TV show Fox & Friends that a suspect had been arrested, he downplayed the idea that the far-right acts violently. “The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime. The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.”
2025-09-13 01:57:43
“Good afternoon,” is how Magistrate Judge Heide Herrmann welcomed detainees into DC Superior Court room C-10 when it was their turn to stand in front of the bench on Monday.
But at 8:37 p.m., it was hardly “afternoon” anymore. Nor was it a good day for most of the inmates. They had been brought over from DC’s central cellblock, where accommodations consist of metal “beds” without mattresses. Some of the detainees were still in the pajamas they were wearing when they were first arrested. All were shackled at the wrists and ankles.
“MPD knows how to do this. The other law enforcement mentioned who are out making arrests apparently do not.”
Judge Herrmann was responsible for deciding whether they would continue to be held or released on the promise to appear at their next court date. The constitution requires defendants see a judge within 48 hours of arrest, but because superior court is closed on Sundays, Mondays consist of two days’ worth of criminal misdemeanor arraignments and felony presentments. It’s often the courtroom’s busiest day.
Several of the 105 cases Herrmann considered involved serious allegations: one defendant allegedly shot someone, requiring the victim to undergo bladder surgery, and there were also a litany of domestic violence charges. But since President Donald Trump has unleashed scores of federal law enforcement officers to help police DC’s modest population of 702,000, the caseload has been especially long—and often frivolous. Just a couple Mondays ago, it took a judge until almost 1:30 a.m. to get through what lawyers call the “lock-up list.” (A lawyer who sometimes represents defendants in C-10 says that before Trump’s crackdown, ending between 7-8 p.m. would have been considered an especially late Monday. )
The recent liveliness of C-10 should concern DC locals as well as the residents of blue cities that Trump has alluded to targeting next. But not because the room’s fullness proves Trump’s bold thesis that the entire city has been “overtaken by violent gangs and bloodthirsty criminals.” Rather, experts say, the surging volume of charges and the allegations therein indicates a different problem: overzealous and ineffectual prosecuting.
“We are in the DC Superior Court pretty much every day and have seen
enormous changes under Trump,” says Abbe Smith, the director of a Georgetown Law School clinic that provides criminal defense assistance to people who can’t afford other representation. “None of them good.”
The aggressive posturing is no doubt putting a tremendous strain on judges and public defenders.
“Aye yai yai,” grumbled one of about five public defenders in the room on Monday when she learned she had more than a dozen clients left to represent after 6 p.m.
At one point, even the stoic judge bemoaned the contents of some of the arrest affidavits. She attributed this to federal agents who, unlike members of the Metropolitan Police Department, are not accustomed to street patrol duty.
In this case, federal agents had helped apprehend a young man arrested for smoking weed in a park. Possession of marijuana is legal in DC, but public consumption of it is not (though it’s rarely prosecuted). After he was arrested, MPD and federal agents performed a subsequent search that led them to conclude the young man was storing THC wax—a more concentrated form of weed that isn’t legal in DC—in a backpack. Law enforcement tacked on a possession charge, but the affidavit said nothing about how agents knew the backpack (and the THC wax) belonged to the defendant.
“MPD knows how to do this,” the magistrate judge said of the incomplete affidavit. “The other law enforcement mentioned who are out making arrests apparently do not.”
In early September, another man was approached by law enforcement because DEA agents “observed a bulge consistent with a bag of marijuana coming from the pants pocket” of the individual, the affidavit says. He willingly showed the agents the bag of marijuana (which, again, is legal in DC). They then patted him down and noticed an “abnormal bulge” in his sock. It was a small bag containing what the agents described as five Oxycodone pills. They arrested the man for possession of a controlled substance.
This case was recently dismissed, but normally, such cases wouldn’t have been prosecuted in the first place. Instead, they are usually “no-papered,” meaning the prosecutor would opt against filing formal charges after the arrest. Smith says it was previously common for as many as a quarter or a third of cases to be no-papered misdemeanors because the allegations lack sufficient evidence to convict, or because there are questions about whether the defendant’s constitutional rights were violated. But now in DC, she says, “nearly every single misdemeanor is being papered.”
Anecdotally, law enforcement seem to be more aggressively pursuing searches that may not be legally justified. In one instance, federal agents approached a man in a lawn chair merely for being close to a miniature bottle of wine—the kind you can buy on an airplane. Moments later, he was thoroughly searched and then charged for drug possession and for carrying a handgun without a permit.
Less that two blocks from the superior court sits DC’s federal district court. Here, convictions are generally accompanied by stricter sentences. Yet, the federal charges defendants have faced in recent weeks haven’t necessarily been any more serious than those judged in local court.
In between a sprinkling of serious child pornography and narcotics hearings were more negligible matters, such as shoving and vague threats. A man who allegedly shoulder-checked a National Guard member and said “I’ll kill you” was initially charged with assault and threatening to kidnap or injure a person, which carries a penalty of up to 20 years in prison. (On Tuesday, a grand jury declined to indict him. Subsequently, DC US Attorney Jeanine Pirro’s office charged him with two misdemeanor counts instead.)
There was also a woman arrested for assault while protesting ICE agents in July. Amid efforts to restrain her, an FBI agent’s hand was allegedly scraped against a cement wall. Extraordinarily, a grand jury opted against indicting her for felony assault three times. She’s since been charged with a misdemeanor and awaits from home a trial in October.
Pirro’s office also won’t give up on convicting the infamous former Justice Department paralegal, Sean Dunn, accused of assault for tossing a wrapped Subway sandwich at the chest of a Customs and Border Patrol agent in August. A grand jury opted against indicting him, too. (He’s since been charged with misdemeanor assault; jury selection for the trial is slated to begin November 3.)
Shootings have continued amid the crime crackdown, but Trump and Pirro can count at least one win: Nobody in DC has thrown a sandwich at an officer since prosecutors tried to throw the book at Dunn. Our long national nightmare is over.
2025-09-13 00:03:25
Last week, organizers for the “European Conference of Health and Human Rights” announced a change: Their keynote speaker, US Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., had withdrawn after Estonian politicians reportedly called Kennedy a “quack” and “cuckoo.”
It was the end of an odd saga. A month earlier, organizers announced Kennedy was set to appear remotely as the keynote speaker at the conference hosted by the Estonian chapter of the World Council for Health (WCH), a group that promotes vaccine skepticism and bogus claims about the effectiveness of both ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine to treat Covid. Kennedy had featured prominently in promotion and in social media posts for the event, which began on Thursday.
But, earlier this month, the conference ran into trouble. According to a report from Estonian Public Broadcasting, the World Council for Health Estonia event was organized to be held at the Riigikogu, Estonia’s parliamentary building. Two Members of Parliament from the Estonian Conservative People’s Party (EKRE)—which has been described as “ultranationalist”—planned to attend. And the EPB report even described one EKRE MP, Martin Helme, as an organizer of the conference. (EKRE is known for its hardline stances against gay marriage, feminism, and immigration.)
This mixing of Estonian government resources with pseudoscience and Kennedy caused outrage. According to EPB, the country’s Minister of Social Affairs, Karmen Joller, objected strongly to the conference being held in the Riigikogu. She called the conference organizers a “bunch [who are] spreading pseudoscience” and said having the conference there would cause reputational damage. “Such an event would undoubtedly affect the reputation of Estonia as a state,” she reportedly wrote. The World Council for Health claimed that Social Minister Joller also publicly called Kennedy “cuckoo in the head.” (Joller did not respond to several requests for comment.)
On September 1, the WCH announced in a press release both Kennedy’s withdrawal and that the conference would also no longer be held in the Estonian parliamentary building.
Designed to look like a legitimate health organization with an anodyne name and bland logo, the WCH, which first appeared in 2022, was set up to serve as an international umbrella organization for groups that promote vaccine skepticism and Covid misinformation. WCH’s subgroups include the Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance, which promoted ivermectin use in the US (and which has since changed its name to the Independent Medical Alliance), and the BIRD Group, which pursues a similar agenda in Britain.
The schedule for the conference that Kennedy dropped out of shows the group’s focus on anti-vaccine material and medical freedom claims. The speakers include Dr. Peter McCullough, an American cardiologist whose board certifications were revoked after he spent years promoting Covid and vaccine misinformation. (His address is titled “Conseqences [sic] of Heart Damage after COVID-19 Vaccination.”).
Dr. Mark Trozzi, a Canadian doctor who has also been accused of promoting vaccine misinformation, is giving a speech about Covid vaccine injury.
A spokesperson for HHS did not answer questions about why Kennedy agreed to appear at the conference, whether he considers WCH legitimate, or why he withdrew, confirming only that he was not participating in the conference.
“[D]ue to political and personal attacks directed at Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has withdrawn his video participation,” the release read, in part. “It is deeply concerning that in today’s Estonia, open dialogue on health-related matters is being suppressed, and fundamental freedoms, including freedom of speech, are increasingly disregarded at official levels.”
The conference is now taking place at a Radisson hotel in downtown Tallinn, a slightly less impressive venue than a parliamentary building.
Helme, the current EKRE member who was listed as an organizer of the conference, wrote on Facebook that Estonian politicians had been “beyond disrespectful” towards Kennedy, accusing them of referring to him as a “quack.” Helme also praised Kennedy as someone who “has stood firm against the corruption in the medical system for years and stepped up to protect children in the attempts of super powerful lobby groups to make money at the expense of children’s health.” (Helme’s statement also appears to refer to Kennedy as “a scientist,” which he is not.)
The planned content of Kennedy’s speech suggests that his health policy ambitions may go beyond the United States. In it, he speaks of his goal of further “collaboration” between the US and Europe.
A press release—still available on WCH Estonia’s website—gave extensive detail about what Kennedy hoped to discuss, saying he would focus on “key areas of international and regional relevance including the WHO Pandemic Treaty and the International Health Regulations (IHR). He will also likely discuss his perspective on why European countries should consider not ratifying the proposed WHO Pandemic Treaty, noting that the deadline for IHR amendments has already passed for most European nations.” (The WHO Pandemic Treaty was signed by member countries in May and is an agreement to work together to help prevent and respond to future pandemics; the United States did not sign it after President Trump announced the country’s withdrawal from the WHO in January.)
Additionally, the press release added, “[Kennedy] is anticipated to address the major issues shaping healthcare policy, including transparency, accountability and public trust, and explore opportunities to strengthen collaboration between Europe and the United States, particularly in areas of health sovereignty, policymaking, and the protection of human rights.”
