Author: sauer@technologists.com

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Lamar Hankins: The death and life of Charlie Kirk

It should be axiomatic to any freedom-loving person that no one should be harmed for their beliefs, views, or opinions. Yet our country, the supposed citadel of freedom, has experienced assassinations, firings, and other negative actions toward those who express unpopular ideas. Upon learning of Kirk’s death, I thought of the period from 1963 to 1980, a seminal time of my life, and counted seventeen deaths, by guns, of people on the national stage who meant something to me. We are a tragically violent society.
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Before Charlie Kirk’s killing, he was barely known to me. In fact, if you had asked me whether Turning Point USA, Kirk’s organization, promoted views right, left, or center, I could not have given you an informed answer. Kirk was not on my radar. Since his death, I have learned why; he was a youth-influencer. He could not have cared less about those of us in our 80s. Maybe that was because some of us who lived through the civil rights struggles of the 1950s to 1970s could have educated him about why Martin Luther King, Jr., was not an “awful” person. King practiced non-violence, unlike the white people who killed four little girls with a bomb at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham in 1963, and the white killers of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman a year later. Did Kirk ever read King’s Letter From a Birmingham Jail? Had he done so, his views about race in this country might have been changed. Regardless, those of us with 80 years of living and learning could have explained to him that the term “awful” should be reserved for people who indiscriminately kill children because of their race, who murder peaceful civil rights workers trying to help black people register to vote, and those who kill people for what they believe or say.? Had he done so, his views about race in this country might have been changed. Regardless, those of us with 80 years of living and learning could have explained to him that the term “awful” should be reserved for people who indiscriminately kill children because of their race, who murder peaceful civil rights workers trying to help black people register to vote, and those who kill people for what they believe or say.
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Farm Aid 40

MSN: US farmers issue urgent warning of ‘farmageddon’ if Trump doesn’t help with this year’s harvest — is America’s heartland on the edge of ruin?

Sentient: What Is a CAFO, and Is It Different From a Factory Farm?

Most of the meat we consume comes from animals raised on [Concentrated Animal Feeding Operation] CAFOs.

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Jennifer Rubin: Undaunted

In Pennsylvania, Governor Shapiro gets it right
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With a solid record on public safety and personal experience with political violence, Pennsylvania’s Gov. Josh Shapiro was ideally suited to the task. Last year, when sitting at the Passover Seder table with his family, a man threw two Molotov cocktails into Shapiro’s home, igniting a fire. (Trump conveniently ignores the incident when reciting recent acts of political violence). His state was also the location of the worst mass murder of Jews in America (by a White nationalist) and of the first attempted assassination of Trump. Shapiro knows violence does not come from one ideological group.

He delivered remarks this week at the Eradicate Hate Global Summit. “I will not be deterred in my work for you, and I will not be silenced,” he declared. He then explained why violence is antithetical to democracy: “It tears at the fabric of American society, and the fundamental principles this nation was founded upon… A nation where civil disagreement should be welcome, because that discourse can lead to progress.”

He also rejected selective outrage. “Unfortunately, some—from the dark corners of the internet all the way to the Oval Office—want to cherry pick which instances of political violence they want to condemn,” he said, pointing out that such crass opportunism makes healing impossible.

Shapiro then made the critical point: “Censorship—using the long arm of government to silence people, businesses, and nonprofits and restrict their right to free speech—will not solve this problem.” He declared, “Prosecuting constitutionally protected speech will only erode our freedoms and deepen mistrust. That is un-American.”
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Yale School of Public Health: Ukraine’s Stolen Children: Inside Russia’s Network of Re-education and Militarization

…Russia is operating a potentially unprecedented system of large-scale re-education, military training, and dormitory facilities capable of holding tens of thousands of children from Ukraine for long periods of time. While this study does not answer the question of how many children from Ukraine are currently in Russia’s custody, it does reveal the logistical and operational capacity committed to Russifying children taken from their home communities in Ukraine. This is the first detailed effort to study the number, types, and roles of locations utilized by Russia’s federal government, particularly regarding re-education and militarization, in efforts to Russify Ukraine’s children.

Read the Full Report
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Oliver Darcy: Canceling Kimmel

Inside ABC, emergency meetings were convened after the FCC chair’s Jimmy Kimmel threat, with the late-night host ready to respond on-air—but Disney brass ultimately decided to bench the marquee talent instead.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 17, 2025

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Benny Johnson, the podcaster on whose show Carr threatened Kimmel, was one of the influencers Russian state media funded to spread propaganda before the 2024 election. After Kimmel’s suspension, Johnson posted on social media: “We did it for you, Charlie. And we’re just getting started.”
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JON KARL: What do you make of Pam Bondi saying she’s gonna go after hate speech? A lot of your allies say hate speech is free speech

TRUMP: We’ll probably go after people like you because you treat me so unfairly. You have a lot of hate in your heart. Maybe they’ll have to go after you.

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Dispatch: The Coming Tripolar World Order

A new defense strategy could squander America’s post-World War II advantage.

In words and actions, key foreign policy decision-makers within the Trump administration seem to be signaling a shift away from the United States’ global leadership role. If borne out, these changes are likely to usher in a new tripolar international system in which the United States, Communist China, and revanchist Russia divvy up spheres of influence. The result? A more dangerous world for Americans everywhere.
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We will woefully miss the day when the U.S., through maintenance and vigilance, enjoyed an order that upheld free trade and fostered the continued expansion of human liberty. If we wish to remain a superpower, we should choose to act like one.
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Heather Cox Richardson: Letters from an American – September 14, 2025

At 10:22 on the morning of Sunday, September 15, 1963, a bomb ripped through the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Alabama. It was Youth Day in the historic brick church, and five young girls dressed in their Sunday best were in the ladies’ lounge getting ready for their part in the Sunday service that was about to start. As Denise McNair, Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson, and Addie Mae Collins were chatting and adjusting their dresses, a charge of dynamite stashed under the steps that led to the church sanctuary blasted into the ladies’ lounge. It killed the four girls instantly. Standing at the sink in the back of the room, Addie’s sister Sarah survived with serious injuries.
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For white supremacists in Birmingham, the children and the 16th Street Baptist Church where they had organized were the symbols of the movement that had beaten them.
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Al Jazeera: Venezuela condemns US destroyer for hostile occupation of fishing vessel

US military action against a Venezuelan boat sparks condemnation and troop deployments

Venezuela has accused the United States of illegally boarding and occupying one of its fishing vessels in the country’s special economic zone, further escalating tensions between Caracas and Washington.

In a statement on Saturday, Venezuela’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said the vessel, carrying nine “humble” and “harmless” fishermen, was intercepted by the US destroyer USS Jason Dunham (DDG-109) on Friday.
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Bill McKibben: A Tale of Two Countries

Two superpowers, one behaving pathetically
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China first. Remarkable new details emerged yesterday of a trend we’ve been talking about for years in this newsletter: the rapid spread of clean energy and its associated appliances not only in China but in all the countries increasingly in their sphere. The folks at the Net Zero Industrial Policy Lab at Johns Hopkins published a huge new study detailing the “rapid scale- up of overseas Chinese clean-tech manufacturing investments.”

Investment volume: Chinese firms have pledged at least USD 227 billion across green manufacturing projects. A high-end estimate approaches USD 250 billion. This surge of overseas green manufacturing investment is unprecedented; it now surpasses the USD 200 billion (in current 2024 dollars) invested by the US over four years of the Marshall Plan, at a time of similar American dominance of manufacturing in key industries.

I want you to go back and reread the last sentence of that paragraph—bigger, in real dollar terms, than the Marshall Plan. The Marshall Plan, of course, was what America spent to rebuilt the world in the wake of World War II, and it was a key driver of what became the most prosperous economy the world has ever seen. The American century was built in no small part on making sure that our allies (and enemies) in the Second World War recovered and were fitted into our trading system. Now the Chinese are doing the same thing, except somewhat bigger and faster. …
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