From the Associated Press:
UK fires ambassador to the US Peter Mandelson over his links to Jeffrey Epstein
LONDON (AP) — U.K. Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Thursday fired the country’s ambassador to the United States, Peter Mandelson, over his links to the convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
In a statement in the House of Commons on Thursday, Foreign Office minister Stephen Doughty said the decision came in the wake of the publication this week of emails Mandelson sent to Epstein in the 2000s, in which he gave his support to the disgraced financier even when he was facing jail for sex offenses.
Doughty said the emails showed that the “depth and extent” of Mandelson’s relationship with Epstein was “materially different” from what was known when he was appointed ambassador to Washington last year in the wake of the Labour Party’s election victory.
Meanwhile, Epstein’s best friend still gets to be president.
***
The cops are still trying to find the person who shot Horst Wessel. (AP)
Authorities in Utah are working to identify the shooter, who jumped off a roof and fled after firing the fatal shot. A high-powered, bolt-action rifle was recovered from area where the suspected Kirk shooter fled, the FBI said. Kirk’s killer “appears to be of college age” and “blended in” with the college population on the Utah campus where Kirk had drawn a crowd of thousands, an official said.
Meanwhile, Trump recorded a four-minute Oval Office address yesterday. He called Kirk a “martyr,” condemned “radical leftists,” and decried other incidents of alleged political violence, including the wounding of GOP Rep Steve Scalise, the murder of a health insurance CEO in NYC and that time Trump’s own precious ear was winged in an assassination attempt in PA.
He didn’t say a word about the assassinations in Minnesota earlier this year, let alone the January 6th attack carried out by his own supporters. Those incidents aren’t helpful to him politically.
***
Prices are rising even as the job market softens: (AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation rose last month as the price of gas, groceries, and airfares jumped, while a measure of layoffs also increased, putting the Federal Reserve in a tough spot as it prepares to cut rates at its meeting next week despite persistent price pressures.
Consumer prices increased 2.9% in August from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Tuesday, up from 2.7% the previous month and the biggest increase since January. Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 3.1%, the same as in July. Both figures are above the Federal Reserve’s 2% target…
Hiring has slowed sharply in recent months and was lower than previously estimated last year. The unemployment rate ticked up in August to a still-low 4.3%. And weekly unemployment claims rose sharply last week, the government also reported Thursday, a sign layoffs may be picking up.
Authoritarians who come to power via democratic means usually manage to deliver a tangible benefit to people so they can maintain a baseline of popular support before they choke out democracy. Our would-be authoritarian isn’t that competent.
What Steve said:
Radio Rwanda.
— Steve M. (@stevemnomoremister.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 7:22 PM
This is all sucks, so here’s a puffin:
Atlantic Puffin with a full beak of sand eels heading on to Skomer Island ~ Pembrokeshire ~ West Wales back in June this year😍🦉 #birdingwales #ukbirding #birds #naturephotography #ukwildlife #photography #naturetherapy #birdphotography #seabirds @bbcspringwatch.bsky.social
@rspbcymru.bsky.social— Fraggs Photography 📸🦊🦉🦋🏴 (@fraggenstein.bsky.social) September 10, 2025 at 8:26 AM
Open thread.
trollhattan
Evidently this guy is now American’s greatest thought leader in history. How long before a memorial on The Mall?
knowyourmeme.com/photos/1305518-turning-point-usa
BBC World Service overnight led with his murder at the top of each news summary, which doubtless has 95% of listeners going “Huh?”
ETA “high-powered bolt-action rifle” sounds like a deer rifle. Hardly any of those in Utah.
Elizabelle
Thank you for calling him Horst Wessel.
That is exactly what is going on.
Handsome puffin!
LurkerNoLonger
Fuck Trump. Fuck Waters.
New Deal democrat
Just a nitpick on this week’s jobless claims report.
The increase was almost entirely driven by a doubling of claims in Texas, a 15,000 increase from 16,000 to 31,000. I guess everything really is bigger there!
But inflation shows unambiguous signs of some renewed acceleration, right at the time that the jobs market has been weakening. A/k/a stagflation. The Fed is in a terrible, no-win position, exacerbated mightily by T—-p’s desire for free money to (he thinks) goose his economy.
Betty Cracker
@Elizabelle: I’m hoping to see some Atlantic Puffins in Maine next year. I saw Tufted Puffins in Oregon a few years ago but didn’t manage to get any decent pics. They were nesting high up on a giant rock!
Betty Cracker
@New Deal democrat: Do you think they’ll cut rates?
Elizabelle
@Betty Cracker: I hope you do! Have only seen them in zoos, but they must be even more charming in the wild.
comrade scotts agenda of rage
Quotes from the ineffable Frank Conniff:
Baud
Today everyone should be especially racist and sexist in honor of the fallen.
rekoob
@Betty Cracker: Miles O’Brien did a segment on Puffins in Maine on the PBS News Hour recently:
pbs.org/newshour/show/how-researchers-restored-a-thriving-habitat-for-atlantic-puffins-in-maine
frosty
@Betty Cracker: If you’re going to be near Bar Harbor see if you can get a seat on the Puffin and Lighthouse Cruise by Bar Harbor Whale Watch. I saw a whole circus of Puffins.
Hoodie
@New Deal democrat: I’ve heard from several quarters that a lot of tech is deserting TX and returning to CA. Seems like Austin just can’t measure up to the Bay Area, even with the lower taxes. I could have told them that years ago and saved them the trouble. Austin is a sweltering hellhole from June to September. Think Arizona with humidity. From what my cousin there says, the traffic has become insufferable and the schools are truly awful because the crooks in the TX leg have completely defunded them.
Baud
Reddit
Baud
Reddit
MobiusKlein
Let’s remember that the White House is in favor of summary executions when they are giving the orders.
Killing a boat full of alleged drug runners is a crime. Mass murder.
sab
@Baud: I had tater tots for breakfast. I hadforgotten we even had ghem in the freezer.
trollhattan
@Baud: No Wingnut Christmas for JD? The horror.
x.com/ENERGY/status/1966124817192522168
Professor Bigfoot
Perhaps that “tangible benefit” was to erase women and Black people from the Federal government and ultimately from American society.
We often speak of their “voting against their own interests,” but I think that’s because we mistake just what their actual interests are.
Hoodie
@rekoob: Just back from a trip through Quebec, Labrador, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Overall a great trip, only disappointment was not seeing puffins in Newfoundland. The day we went to Cape St. Mary’s it blew up a gale of about 70 mph and the bird colonies were completely obscured by driving rain and fog. Could barely open the car doors. The only bad weather day the whole trip.
Lyrebird
@LurkerNoLonger: Agreed.
Agree with Steve M too about “Radio Rwanda”
There’s a professor named Erwin Staub who has written about predictors of genocide. It’s been a while since I read his work, but I think Watters is doing at least one of the things that make it more likely.
Staub has also worked with police depts here in the US to reduce abuse of force. Well worth checking out.
Wish he had a TV show instead of these other creeps.
trollhattan
@Hoodie:
You might be on to something. Per Zillow the Austin median house price is down 7% year over year. Last time I checked they were above my metro by nearly $200k and now we’re all of $30k apart.
The bloom is off the SXSW.
Elizabelle
@Hoodie: If you see articles about that, please post the links. Interesting!
Hoodie
@trollhattan: I’m wondering if we’ll see something similar in the RTP area. Raleigh has been a nice place to live, but as a friend says, I wouldn’t particularly want to visit there. Austin has some interesting aspects, but it’s kind of a curio. The overcrowding has just about killed that. The rest of Texas pretty much sucks. You can find quirky little districts in just about any town, including places like OKC and Chattanooga, but overall they’re pretty lacking. When I visit my son in San Diego, I immediately get why so many people live in CA.
TONYG
@Baud: I’m genuinely curious about how many normal Americans (i.e., people who don’t obsessively follow politics) have even heard of Charlie Kirk. To me he was basically a Junior Varsity version of Tucker Carlson — a mediocre version of a mediocre fascist.
Suzanne
@Hoodie:
Arizona is just West Florida, so if you want to think about Arizona with humidity….. think that!
Hoodie
@Elizabelle: The last thing I heard was on Kara Swisher’s podcast. Anecdotal, but probably some truth to it. Newsom guest hosted a few episodes ago and said the net migration was again positive.
Anonymous At Work
@Professor Bigfoot: Agreed. The “tangible benefit” is usually an illegal expropriation from an out-group to an in-group. However, Herr Miller has been removing cheap labor and Trump has been enacting cost-increasing tariffs, which take from everybody, and therefore they have nothing to offer in return.
Hoodie
@Suzanne: Yeah, Austin’s a bit drier than Florida, but generally hotter. I have a law school classmate there who says he gave up trying to play golf in the summer.
Harrison Wesley
Horst Wessel? More like Horse’s Asshole.
Kelly
@TONYG: Mrs. Kelly didn’t know who he was
dr. luba
@Betty Cracker: When I was a novice birder, I was excited about seeing puffins in Scotland. Didn’t know they spent September out at sea…..
Some day.
I have had the opportunity to see lots of penguins, though: fairy, Magellanic, Galapagos, Humbolt.
Hoodie
@TONYG: Kirk had a following among a younger crowd, a kind of hipster fascist. Carlson is Fox News grandpa stuff.
dr. luba
The shooter remains at large, and the FBI apparently have no clues to his identity.
I guess mass firings and putting podcasters in charge of the FBI wasn’t a genius move after all.
trollhattan
@Hoodie:
The ICE raid on the Georgia Korean auto-battery plant might be a harbinger of more raids to come. If the SE has attracted all those foreign brand factories via their right to work laws, literally attacking their workers could put a real damper on the whole economy.
The Korean government is saying the quiet things out loud right now.
M31
@Kelly: lol yeah my normie friend didn’t know either
I’ll say that I knew the name and that he was a right wing asshole but not which one.
“Oh yeah, the professor watch list/prove me wrong guy” — me, yesterday
Suzanne
@Hoodie: When I lived in Phoenix and Tucson, I tried to give up leaving the house in the summer.
I remember the record high day of 122, in 1989, and many other days almost that hot. Terrible.
trollhattan
@Hoodie: Weather that kills. This is from 2023.
Just nope.
Hoodie
@trollhattan: Based on my own experience working several years with Koreans, this would really piss them off. They’re a proud people, deservedly so.
Fucking idiots ruin everything. However, part of me thinks they don’t care, they’d rather be top dog in a shithole than have nice things they’d have to share with someone else.
Deputinize America
I mentioned it this morning, but you Downton fans really need to see the movie. Edith out-Edith’s herself in an awesome and entirely satisfying way.
Plus, Mary is still a prat and Robert is a moron. Tom Branson is still the best character by far.
jonas
@Hoodie: Austin has become completely unaffordable and congested, plus, as you say, the weather sucks. If you want long commutes and expensive housing, why not just stay in CA? At least the weather is decent.
Nettoyeur
@Professor Bigfoot: Hitler boosted German employment by building the Autobahns and lots of military hardware. Mussolini made the Italian trains run on time. So something somewhat positive. On the other hand, Trump has cut immigration, harming agribusiness, tech, and education, defunded the research that made the US rich, and is now making foreign investment in the US unattractive by arresting the S. Korean workers sent to accelerate plant construction worth hundreds of millions. He’s also seizing company profits, either outright (Intel, NVIDIA) or via tariffs (companies taking losses to avoid passing costs on to customers). Pretty much the definition of National Socialism , run by a guy with a long history of bankruptcy
Librettist
Kirk is now just another sucker and a loser.
Trump is way more pissed about getting run out of Joe’s Crab Shack.
Hoodie
@trollhattan: Like I said, Arizona with humidity. Worse than fucking Florida, where at least you can get ocean breezes. I’ve been thinking we should quit wasting water on ag in California and relegate that to places like Florida and Texas, including automating as much of it as possible.
Elizabelle
@Deputinize America: I forget who Robert is?
Will take your recommendation.
Geminid
@trollhattan: I wonder what happens with Turning Point USA now. It’s quite a large organization, with 800 some campus chapters, 400+ employees and revenues of over $90 million a year. TPUSA attracts big donors like the Uhlen family and others.
But for all its institutional heft and sizeable donor base, TPUSA was centered on Charlie Kirk. I suspect he will prove to be irreplaceable.
Professor Bigfoot
@Suzanne: I am physiologically very strange, because I LOVED IT.
I grew up in Tennessee, and living in Phoenix where there was usually almost no humidity made it easy— “drink plenty of water and stay out of the sun” and of course, living in the pool… I miss it, I do.
Hoodie
@Librettist: Is that where he went to eat? A fucking chain restaurant with frozen seafood? There are literally hundreds of awesome restaurants in DC. He is a truly a classless turd.
rikyrah
If only they hadn’t fired the very qualified and decorated Non-White WOMAN who used to be in charge of the FBI- SLC office..
the Immigrant, Non-White WOMAN
trollhattan
@Geminid:
They should recruit Eric Trump to run it.
I’d watch.
Old Man Shadow
Karimar Nicole Rios age 18
Tedarius Montez Seawright age 33
Chadwick Thompson age 37
Darnell Allen Watkins age 40
Donnie Bender Jr age 32
Isaiah Locke age 21
Kaylee Taylor age 26
Kh’aden Johnson age 2
Michelle Johnson age 47
Romeca Meeks age 31
Vernelle Wright age 40
Alexis Jasso age 30
Bausley Gwinn-Bowles age 20
Benjamin Francis age 59
Darrick Jones age 48
DaShayla Jones age 21
Dorian Johnson age 33
Eiver Valecillos age 27
Elizabeth Cui Domingo age 74
Emilia Vinokur age 79
Eric Morgan age 31
Eugenio Nicolas Bolainez Vanegas age 44
Francisco Navarrete age 43
Jacob Volkert age 25
James Jenkins age 20
Jan Keneth Meza Figueroa age 18
Jesse Dean Rau age 43
Jose Buenostro-Vasquez age 31
Kapil Sharma age 25
Kelley Davis Thornton age 57
Matthew Mark Vandersande age 40
Melissa Cui Domingo age 37
Michael Durley age 31
Michael J Wiseman age 44
Najii Mercer age 20
Robyn Jones age 44
Rogerick Llevon Currie age 35
Stefan Pierce age 35
Taylor Last age 29
Timothy Thornton age 71
Tracy Collins age 62
Tyree Reese age 32
Tyrone Howard age 21
These are the victims of gun violence from September 7th – 9th.
43 names.
This is the America that men like Kirk have built. He isn’t a martyr. He isn’t special. He’s now just another name on a list that keeps getting longer and which men like him assure will keep getting longer.
And if there is an afterlife, I hope the Lord has a long chat with him and makes him listen to the stories of every victim of the policies he advocated and the words he spoke before sending him off for a VERY LONG penance.
AM in NC
People like Watters ABSOLUTELY think the right has a monopoly on gun ownership, threats of violence and violence. He completely forgets that gun control kicked off under Ronald Reagan in California because the Black Panthers started open carrying. And he could be right – because we have NO IDEA who the shooter is or what he believed.
They wanted a highly armed, highly polarized, and highly radicalized society, and now they’ve got it.
This is horrible for all of us, but more horrible for those of us who didn’t birth, nurture and feed this entire evil movement.
tam1MI
“Incoherent and rambling” = Shitfaced drunk
rikyrah
@trollhattan:
Did Brian Kemp or any of the GOP Georgia Congresscritters say ANYTHING about what they did at that Hyundai Plant?
Old Man Shadow
@AM in NC: People like Watters imagine their position or wealth will insulate them from the violence that results from a breakdown of civil order.
They have no problem sending their listeners and viewers off the meat grinder. They imagine they’ll still be able to enjoy the comforts of New York City.
Professor Bigfoot
@rikyrah: Reminds me of Ijeoma Oluo’s “Mediocre: The Dangerous Legacy Of White Male America.”
It should be obvious that when the first sieve is always “white and male,” a lot of white male idiots will go through.
Do that enough times with enough positions in enough places… and you end up with the Jim Crow South. Poor, ignorant and backwards.
For everyone.
Suzanne
@Professor Bigfoot: Lots of people do love it, and it’s so weird to me. I love cool weather, and I don’t mind the cold anywhere as much as I mind the heat. Spending time in the pool is fantastic, but when you have, like, to go to work or walk to school….. dealing with the heat is misery. I hated the dust, the constant nosebleeds, the cracked skin, and of course, the threat of skin cancer. My grandfather got a raging melanoma on his ear, where everyone forgets to put sunscreen. Now that my friends and I are in middle age, I have been watching multiple friends get Mohs surgery.
Make sure you get your skin checks, friends!
sab
@Suzanne: The one thing I liked about the dry heat in Las Vegas was that I could wash my hair in the morning before work, and it would be dry by the time I got to my car in the driveway.
ETA My German shepherd had her own indoor treadmill to run on in the summer.
Sister Golden Bear
@Hoodie:
Last time I was in Austin it was 97 degrees with 90+ humidity—at 11 p.m.
Suzanne
@sab: Funny you mention. My grandparents (who I lived with) had a Siberian Husky who needed a ton of walks, and when my grandmother had a stroke and got a therapy treadmill, I trained the doggo to use it. Walking the dog in the summer was a thing I dreaded.
trollhattan
@rikyrah:
IDK but my money is on not one peep out of Kemp or any other lapdog Republican. More likely “Thank you sir, for saving us from this unwanted foreign invasion.”
Meanwhile, who’s cooking the books here?
I’ll bet they “found” it.
Deputinize America
@Elizabelle:
Lord Grantham
They Call Me Noni
@Deputinize America: I can’t wait to see it!
brendancalling
I went to the grocery this week, and bought a loaf of rye sandwich bread. It had gone up from $3.50 or so to $4.99. Huge increase. I did a little research, and guess what we don’t produce much of here? Your answer better be rye. Guess who our number one source of rye is? Canada, and rye isn’t exempt from that 25% tariff. Neither is the rye from our #2 and #3 sources, Germany and Italy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
That was the reaction from my family when I mention Kirk as been killed – “Who?”.
I also have to say, thinking about it – this always how Kirk was going to end up since he ether had find more offensive things to say or lose his career.
trollhattan
@Sister Golden Bear:
My sole Arizona trip during monsoon season at midnight in Tempe it was 99 and something like 40% humidity. The hell?
At noon you could film a post-apocalypse flick anywhere because not a soul is outdoors.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
Oh, I am going to have to save that for any Wingnut I run into.
Indeed, tragic.
Suzanne
@trollhattan:
Oh, so a fairly nice day.
Sister Golden Bear
@Suzanne: Extreme low humidity isn’t fun, but I’d much rather have dry heat like Arizona, Nevada or the CA deserts than Florida/Austin/East Coast hot humid weather. The latter is the one type of weather I can’t tolerate well.
trollhattan
If you think it might be true, it’s probably true.
me
After High-Profile ICE Raid, Trump Reportedly Wants Korean Workers to Stay in U.S.
Maybe they realized the fucked up too late.
rikyrah
@Geminid:
profitable grift. someone will step up to spread the hate
trollhattan
@Suzanne: I’d put the frolicking level at 8.
Will attest to the outdoor water feature being VERY busy.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Nettoyeur: To be fair, Trump isn’t importing truck tires and rendering them down for the oil, so he hasn’t done a full Nazi on the economy, yet.
trollhattan
@me:
Trump: “So, they’re the right kind of foreigners? Why didn’t anybody tell me, damn it!“
rikyrah
@me:
I’ll say it again…
they realize the extent of the mistake because Noem and Homan were nowhere on tv flapping their yaps about it.
rikyrah
Covie
@covie_93
Minutes after former President Jimmy Carter’s death was announced Scott Jennings was on CNN calling him a “terrible president” with a “big ego”. He wasn’t fired. He never apologized.
After Paul Pelosi was attacked Fox News hosts joked about it on air. They weren’t fired. They never apologized.
After Charlie Kirk was killed Matthew Dowd said on MSNBC that he was “divisive” adding, “hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions.” He was fired after apologizing.
Free speech only goes one way.
10:08 PM · Sep 10, 2025
x.com/covie_93/status/1965975675166212445
Sister Golden Bear
@trollhattan: As I said last night, MAGA won’t miss a chance to use this as pretext for eliminating trans people, with extreme prejudice.
The local LEOs and the FBI either have to follow the evidence, even if it contradicts MAGA’s “conclusions” and makes Trump ragey, or validate their predetermined narrative no matter what. One guess which road they’ll take.
New Deal democrat
@Betty Cracker:
At this point, if they didn’t Wall Street would have an absolute fit. And if they didn’t want that to happen, they’d be dampening Wall Street’s expectations. So almost everyone is expecting a 0.25% cut.
Dave
@Professor Bigfoot: Agree with you on this really don’t mind desert heat that much especially compared to more humid areas.
Now I love the ocean but can’t afford anywhere super great ocean but I always found intense desert heat almost pleasant.
Biggest negative for me is unlike to run and running when it’s that dry is not pleasant.
Kelly
It’d have to be rather succinct transgender and antifascist ideology to fit on a 30-06 cartridge. case length is about 2.5 inches diameter .47 inch for a little over a square inch of curved brass to engrave.
RevRick
@New Deal democrat: If Trump really wanted to goose his economy, he wouldn’t do stupid things like impose tariffs or extend his dumb ass tax cuts while gutting healthcare, food assistance and programs to address climate change.
But he’s stupid. He tells us all the time how stupid he is when he claims that he knows better than anyone else.
Dave
@Kelly: Yeah I hate conspiracies (obviously there are conspiracies and then there are Conspiracies) but that little asserted fact makes my mind go straight to false flag.
May not be or the report may be BS but I God I hate this timeline.
Suzanne
@Kelly: Yeah, that was my thought. Like….. what could it possibly say?
I bet it’s engraved with something like BOOBIES and they’re calling that “trans ideology”.
bbleh
They are at war with us. Whether we want to accept it or not, they are at war with us. And what are we going to do about it?
Aw they’ve been saying this for decades, and blaming every atrocity they commit on us. Anything to get angry about, even if they have to invent it.
And while Dem politicians and commenters uniformly express outrage about the shooting AND condolences for his family, right-wingers froth about committing yet more violence. How many more Kyle Rittenhouses will we see now, first killing people and then being celebrated by the Right?
Phooey.
tobie
@Kelly: Thanks for those data points. I was wondering what one could possibly say on a bullet casing that would count as “transgender ideology” but didn’t have a clue about the size of the casings. I’m assuming this is propaganda being spread by Kash Patel and his cronies.
I guess I’ll have to look to Bellingcat, ProPublica, and Capital Hunters for any unbiased reporting on the shooting.
p.a.
I don’t get it… why isn’t American society getting more polite?🤷🏻
Dangerman
@trollhattan: Curious that Kirk was making noise about the Epstein files and the Epstein Birthday Note was getting some serious attention.
My money is on false flag.
trollhattan
@Kelly:
And on the eighth day after a nice nap, The Lord created 2-point type.
—Selah
Elizabelle
@trollhattan: Interesting. That is indeed at the top of the Wall Street Journal’s website.
So. We possibly have a copycat who decided to “Luigi” Charlie Kirk? Or a false flag tactic? Maybe just a celebrity shooter. To hear.
And remember how media could not read the room on the murder of the United Healthcare CEO. Did not realize how fed up Americans are with health insurance price gouging and denial of care.
I mean, murder is a crime. We are not celebrating that Charlie Kirk was murdered. But a lot of people were not that sympathetic to the insurance CEO.
Harrison Wesley
@trollhattan: Ah, that infamous woke ammunition.
Gin & Tonic
@Hoodie: Ages ago I went to Newfoundland because Cape Spear, outside of St. John’s, is the easternmost point in North America. I camped there thinking I could be the first person in North America to see the sun come up that day. Nobody told me about the fog. Two days wasted.
This is when I was young and stupid. Now that I’m old, stupidity manifests itself in different ways.
Warblewarble
Tony Jay please pick up the phone. Yesterday Starmer expressed full confidence in Lord Mandelson, time for the Truss lettuce to come out of retirement.
Kelly
@Dave: @Suzanne:
Of course if the prosecution can prove the eventual suspect had micro engraving skills it’d be damning evidence ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Chief Oshkosh
@LurkerNoLonger: An additional evil wrt Waters is the his mom (don’t know about sibs and dad) is not rightwing and has admonished him before about his bullshit. I wonder if Waters knows he’s putting his mom at risk from the rightwing yahoos? I wonder if he cares.
mrmoshpotato
@comrade scotts agenda of rage: A great eulogy.
But this makes it art.
Elizabelle
What the WaPost is reporting re alleged engraving on the bullets:
NotMax
@Nettoyeur
Um, nope. Propaganda.
@Hoodie
Betcha the whole meal was comped, also too.
Lamh47
@Elizabelle: it’s beyond a paywall so I cant see entire article…but isn’t that convenient “reporting”. This along with all the repub statements targeting Dem party is sus AF🤨 they can’t find the shooter but they found the ammunition…cough…bullshit…cough
Hoodie
@RevRick: You’re assuming he really wants to goose the economy. Trump doesn’t give a shit how the economy is actually doing. He just wants to be able to get away with saying the economy is great and get all the benefits that tariffs and tax cuts get him and his oligopolist friends. Tariffs are about control. He wants to use them to extract compliance, favors, etc., from corporate and other interests.
trollhattan
Thought crimes? Thought crimes.
Put your phone in a blender, I guess.
Professor Bigfoot
@Kelly: THANK YOU.
These idiots…
cmorenc
@Hoodie: As a Raleigh resident – spot on observation. Ok place to live, but the only distinctively interesting places to show visitors are the campuses of Duke in Durham and UNC-Chapel Hill.
Harrison Wesley
@Elizabelle: Sounds like the rifle is an ATF plant.
Elizabelle
@Lamh47: Going to be an interesting story, and I hope that someone susses out the true story. Which might take a while. Lot of dis and misinformation out there in the meantime.
Good luck with getting a DFW job. Your new employer will be lucky to have you!
Ishiyama
Engraved? Or just scratched with a pointed object?
I mean, using a bolt-action rifle that only fires a single shot, without ejecting the cartridge, and booking after one shot, it doesn’t seem like you would need to bring along extra ammo.
Elizabelle
@Harrison Wesley: Laughed at your comment about “that infamous woke ammunition.”
Nettoyeur
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Trump tariffs on imported potash (essential for fertilizer) in combination with loss of customers (China.. ) could do in US agriculture……and the effect of tariffs and immigration restrictions on the auto industry is just starting. Then there is also the nascent brain drain as STEM professionals emigrate….this is how Nazi policies pumped up US science and engineering in WWII.
trollhattan
Evidently they’re narrowing the search to a college-age spiderman who can leap down from building roofs.
Sounds like some parkour shit. BOLO French college-age spidermen.
trollhattan
@cmorenc: My one-week NC sampling last fall I liked Winston-Salem over Raleigh-Durham, but it was a whirlwind trip so just first reactions. RD seemed really bad for pedestrians outside the city core. Sidewalks? What are those?
mrmoshpotato
Along with the fucking New York Times, fuck the Chicago Tribune today too. Front page, above the fold (print edition).
Chief Oshkosh
@trollhattan: It is more likely that the rifle was planted. There is nothing they say or do that can be trusted. Which is an awful accomplishment on their part.
Bill Arnold
@Ishiyama:
With an engraving tool, it would be easy to fit e.g. 1488 and some sort of transgender symbol on 30-06 cartridges. Or even just a diamond-tipped scribe. Simiarly easy for unscrupulous law enforcement.
Until the suspect is captured and investigated/interviewed, this is all speculation.
Chief Oshkosh
@rikyrah: Yep. They fucked up and are walking away from it all. And the fucking press is letting them disappear without explanation.
OGliberal
@Baud: Obligatory “imagine if Obama/Biden/Pelosi/etc did this”.
Kelly
Oops surface area of a 2.5x.47 inch cylinder is about 3.7 sq inches. Still small
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Are there couches at the racist sexist’s memorial service?
kwAwk
My thoughts today start with something I’ve been saying for a long time. You can’t have your political ideology based about a 2nd Amendment which is sacrosanct because guns are needed if you feel political figures in this country are infringing upon you and then be surprised when people use guns to attack and kill political figures they disagree with. You can’t tell everyone over and over that guns are the solution to your problems and then be shocked when people use guns to solve their problems.
And the snarky internet trolls are right, it can’t be that gun deaths are a necessary sacrifice for having a 2nd amendment when someone else’s friend or family member is killed and then have it be a national tragedy when it’s your friend or family member is killed. The killing of Kirk is a tragedy, just like the killing of the kids at Sandyhook.
This destabilization of our country is only going to get worse the longer Trump is President. We’ve got a little less than 3.5 years to go. It is a direct symptom of Trump’s gaslighting which shows no signs of easing. Other news yesterday was that congress isn’t going to investigate Trump’s birthday letter to Epstein, because the representative is going to take Trump’s word that he didn’t sign or send it.
Sometimes you have to listen to what you don’t hear. If Trump didn’t send or sign the picture, then who was it in the Epstein camp that forged Trump’s signature on the document? Who was trying to set Trump up? Trump isn’t bashful about lashing out at people he thinks have wronged him, why is he being so nonchalant about this one? Why, because he’s just lying and gaslighting people, and they’re just covering up for him yet again. It has to stop.
There isn’t really anything all that bad in the Epstein drawing. It was overhyped that his signature looks like pubic hair, it’s a few inches too low on the paper for that to be the conclusion. The picture of the woman wasn’t graphic enough to warrant all of the hullabaloo. It’s all a big deal just because Trump lied about sending it, and now he can’t be forced to admit his lie.
gene108
Was the Trump supporter, who was in attendance with his wife and young kids, who was murdered at the Butler, PA rally mentioned?
Republicans, in their praise of God of sparing Trump that day, seem to forget this man died that day.
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle:
Seconded!
Elizabelle
The Bezos WaPost deplores the killing of Charlie Kirk. Here it is in full.
Look at that sloppy assed opining.
It was one elected official who was assassinated, and she had a name. Minnesota Speaker of the House emerita Melissa Hortman, a Democrat. Her husband Mark was also murdered, and their dog Gilbert was killed as well. A Minnesota state senator, John Hoffman, and his wife Yvette, survived eight bullets between the two of them.
Say their names. And identify their political party, as inconvenient as it might be for your argument.
Goddamn sloppy writing. They couldn’t be bothered to look for the “Minnesota elected officials” [sic] names. Of course, Steve Scalise is identified as R-Louisiana.
And Mr. and Mrs. Hortman’s murders did fall right down the memory hole, didn’t they? How accidental was that?
Tobie was right. Her comment:
The Kirk murder has borne that out.
ETA: I just noticed. The Bezos WaPost did not even mention Paul Pelosi. Jebus. That was clearly political violence.
He was attacked solely because his wife was so constantly demeaned and vilified.
scav
Damn foreigners taking away jobs Real ‘Merkans are more than qualified and happy to do!
OGliberal
@TONYG: I work in downtown Nashville and I was saying to my family yesterday that if, during my walk home on Broadway, I grabbed random people going in and out of the honky tonks and told them Charlie Kirk got murdered, most would respond “who?” What is wrong with the Newsom’s and Bibi’s and Liz Truss’ and Ezra Klein’s of the world that they are lionizing a hate mongering jerk who is really no better than that James O’Keefe character. And I would argue O’Keefe is better because, at least, he had a musical: youtu.be/hm_pH0ucc68?si=PqHG27n5MYz-o5f0
tobie
@Ishiyama: do bolt-action rifles only hold one cartridge at a time? Hmm…seems weird to find multiple cartridges next to the rifle.
rikyrah
🇫🇷
@mvsiala
People will look you dead in the eye and tell you to “have respect” for a person who has spent their entire career making sure YOU don’t get to live an equal and happy life, or live at all.
2:21 PM · Sep 10, 2025
x.com/mvsiala/status/1965858287775289757
Elizabelle
@OGliberal: I am hoping that James O’Keefe is quaking in his boots right now.
Ishiyama
@tobie: They hold more than one cartridge, but they don’t automatically load the next round, so the expended cartridge isn’t ejected (and available for forensic analysis).
rikyrah
Nooooooo![]()
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I have loved Maru for years
Before the Dodo Channel..
or the Cat Distribution System on Tiktok..
there was Maru.
brometh (@bromethazine) posted at 7:57 AM on Mon, Sep 08, 2025:
RIP Maru, the greatest internet cat of all time. Thank you for bringing us joy t.co/sPOpp84T4L
(https://x.com/bromethazine/status/1965036714109669547?t=ExmUhWl7X5bkHtRHUHuBfA&s=03)
tobie
@Ishiyama: Thanks.
rikyrah
Dre![]()
(@undefeated_dre) posted at 3:16 PM on Wed, Sep 10, 2025:![]()
If Charlie Kirk was killed by a Black, it would’ve been all Black people are violent thugs, but since it’s a white person, it’s “the left”
(https://x.com/undefeated_dre/status/1965872084661530878?t=G8gT1jXwFp_7k__i0TP9LQ&s=03)
OGliberal
@Professor Bigfoot: This has been noted by many others in many forums but these are the people who will accept getting fucked over as long as they know – or feel (remember, they are all about “feelings” and “gut”) – that others they don’t like – usually brown people – are getting fucked over a bit more than they are. It’s sociopathic, because they are mostly sociopaths.
Harrison Wesley
@Bill Arnold: So if they find the suspect, that person won’t be taken alive.
Tony Jay
One of those headlines that deceives with technically accurate words. Sure, the comically inept Easter Island statue currently ‘leading’ the UK Government has said that he only just this minute found out that Peter Mandelson had a too-close relationship with Epstein because of the Bloomberg release, but that’s a load of aged shoe-hammerers.
Starmer made Peter Mandelson Ambassador to the US because:
1) Peter Mandelson was instrumental in the Labour Together/Blue Labour campaign to smear the previous leadership to death. His web of connections and favours brought all the conspirators together, and his reward was his pick of the post-election postings. For a slime all like Mandelson, who worships wealth so much he’s mutated to have nostrils on his head to accommodate all the fluffing his chosen role requires, the role of Ambassador to the US would be his dream job.
2) Peter Mandelson’s well-known friendship with Epstein made him eminently acceptable to Trump. They knew each other. They knew each other’s secrets. They spoke the same language of wealth and power and perversion. Trump would trust Mandelson because he knew exactly how corrupt the sleazy bastard was and wouldn’t feel he was being looked down on as he would if the Ambassador was a career diplomat or a person of good character.
It’s just another nail in Starmer’s coffin. Yet more evidence that the regime he leads is as corrupt and self-serving as it is incompetent and arrogant. I mean, Peter fucking Mandelson. Twice sacked for dodgy dealings involving very rich people. Who doesn’t know what a liability that gobshite is?
Sir Keir Starmer, that’s who. Dying the death of a thousand political cuts, a lot of them in his back, to clear the way for a real Blue Labour asset.
Gin & Tonic
@trollhattan: Hmm, “Christopher Landau”? Doesn’t sound very American, does it? IYKWIM.
mrmoshpotato
@dr. luba:
Hoocoodaknowed?
Answer: MVP Kamala Harris
Mr. Bemused Senior
@rikyrah: RIP Maru.
There are many Internet cats. There is only one Henri.
brendancalling
@trollhattan: I don’t believe that story for a minute, and even that’s giving it too much credence.
Old School
@Elizabelle:
From your WaPost excerpt:
Were there any who didn’t?
Bill Arnold
@Harrison Wesley:
Could be. But there would still be that persons history, of movements, purchases, social media, etc.
Also, given current public information, it could be a (right-wing) fascist assassin, with bullet inscriptions/gun drop to throw off the trail.
Insufficient public information, at the moment.
Nettoyeur
I have seen web posts saying that an accurate shot at 100-200 yard range is not that hard to do, even with iron sights, but I wonder. (My rifle experience is limited to 22 caliber short range). Wouldn’t sufficient accuracy to achieve a head shot on one try require substantial practice with a well sighted in rifle on a long shooting range? None of the experienced long gun shooters I have ever met are anything like left wing activists. They are typically serious hunters, gun collecting sport shooters, ex-military, or combinations thereof. And if a suspect is found and conveniently killed while “resisting arrest……” who’s to know what the real background is? Radical movements need martyrs…mm
gene108
@Hoodie:
Moved to Raleigh in 1984. Moved out after college in 1996. My mom lived in Cary until she retired in 2017 to be closer to me and other family.
No one that I have ever met moves to RTP area thinking it’s going have substitutes for attractions any big city would have.
People know it’s mostly a bunch of bedroom communities, with good public schools, and three R1 universities, with a half dozen smaller four year colleges and universities, including three of these being HBCU’s.
It’s developed a fairly cosmopolitan culture for North Carolina, where people are generally welcomed from wherever they come from.
I don’t think people are going in with the expectations they had of Austin.
Suzanne
One of the clips that’s going viral right now is of the moment a couple of weeks ago in which Charlie Kirk says that Taylor Swift should submit to her soon-to-be husband, and he says, “You’re not in charge”.
Now I’m smirking, imagining the assassin to be a grudge-holding Swiftie. LMAO.
WTFGhost
@Kelly: That is one thing good about “THIS MEANS WAR!!!” declarations.
Republicans have no flippin’ idea who to go after. When they start trying to bust skulls at random, people will see how evil they are.
And it would be one thing if they tried to bust skulls over someone whose name people recognize, like Trump or Vance, but if they bust skulls over Kirk, people are like “I thought he was Star Trek?”
(I kid – but only barely!)
The more people scream about poor, dear, kindly, Kirk, the more people will say “no, I’m sure the decent Kirk was James T, and this guy was the eternal dick….”
Gin & Tonic
@Nettoyeur: I have read the Kirk was wearing some kind of body armor, and that this was a “center mass” (i.e. torso) shot that then ricocheted off the body armor and struck his neck. I read it on the Internet, so you know it’s true.
CindyH
@Chief Oshkosh: my thoughts exactly
mrmoshpotato
@Geminid:
Looking forward to its collapse.
kwAwk
@Nettoyeur: In the Marines we qualified with the rifle at 100 yds, 300 yds and 500 yds. 100 yards to 300 yards is not a hard shot with iron sights, especially if you’re in a prone position and able to brace the weapon on a hard surface.
Suzanne
@Gin & Tonic: That’s why Elon wears his kid on his head so much.
Elizabelle
@Old School: You will notice that they really had to stretch, to include Pritzger’s very accurate comment.
And those fuckers may not remember the Minnesota assassination, because Trump, to my knowledge, never made much of a deal about it. I don’t even know that he said anything.
Nettoyeur
@Suzanne: with sniper training?
HinTN
@Betty Cracker:
I know the pressure is there from dump to cut rates but given the inflation I expect they’ll leave it alone.
Suzanne
@Nettoyeur: Don’t underestimate the Swifties. They’re not all nice-and-slightly-neurotic young women!
mrmoshpotato
@Hoodie:
And yet, this “legendary” restaurant no longer has a Miami Beach location. 🤔
Also, owned by the Lettuce Entertain You group.
Melancholy Jaques
@kwAwk:
Your first paragraph is well-reasoned and grounded in reality and anyone who said or wrote that in the media would be immediately fired.
brendancalling
@Nettoyeur: The Hard Times (basically The Onion but for old punk rockers like me) has been absolutely brutal about Kirk. They had an article calling the gunman a poor shot, referencing Kirk’s enormous melon. Looks like they took it down.
Nettoyeur
@kwAwk: I am sure that that Marine training is effective. But I have never met an ex military person who was a left wing activist. The exception of course could be Lee Harvey Oswald, about whom conspiracy theories still abound.
JaySinWa
Avery 5160 address labels are 1×2.58 inches for reference. about twice the “height” and a little more width than the bullet casing.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan:
Have some respect – his name is GUMS.
Colbert
Melancholy Jaques
@kwAwk:
As a person who knows nothing about guns, has never fired a gun, that is frightening.
Nettoyeur
@tobie: I believe that many bolt action rifles are single shot. Including special sniper rifles.
laura
I’ve already heard this morning that the unaliving of Charlie K was a false flag in response to his calling for the release of the Epstein files, and that it was from the right of the right wing which is in a power struggle over the base. Who knows? Nobody knows nothing as of yet.
For those who may be unaware, Charlie K is very actively recruiting for white power on college and high school campuses. His message is white male christian power and dissuading the young white males from seeking a college degree. I know because when I returned to school after I retired, CPUSA was on campus on day one of fall semester. I went to the bookstore, bought a big foam core and big old marker. I wrote these fuckers are nazi’s ➡️ and sat next to their table in the quad and kept my mouth shut while my knees were knocking. I kept my sign in the back of my car and pulled it out every time they returned. It’s in the hall closet right now because I expect I’ll need it again because So Many Nazi’s.
Melancholy Jaques
@HinTN:
I don’t have the credentials of a CNBC blowhard, but my prediction is that they will do the 0.25% cut in the hopes that it will deter that asshole & the entire Republican party from launching a full force attack on the Fed.
WTFGhost
@kwAwk: yes, and though hitting in the neck sounds impressive, it was probably aimed at the *chest* – and showed why “center of mass” is what they teach you to aim for.
Professor Bigfoot
@Chief Oshkosh: They’ve got us right where they want us— it’s much less that they want us to believe their lies than they want for us to not know what TF to believe— or NOT believe.
Elizabelle
@gene108: Oh, good catch.
Straight down the memory hole. And vic was a rightwinger, whose widow would not take a condolence call from Biden in the aftermath. Trump had not even tried to call at that point.
Corey Comperatore and his classy wife, Helen.
NY Post at the time:
Stay classy, Republicans.
July 2025 follow up story by the NY Post:
mrmoshpotato
@Elizabelle:
Can someone explain how a bolt action rifle can be top-fed?
kwAwk
@Nettoyeur: I agree with you. This doesn’t sound like the modus operandi of a liberal. It does sound like someone on the right but hard to be sure at this point.
Elizabelle
@laura: Good for you, laura, with your foam finger. I think a lot of us are filing that idea for when these “debate lovers” come to town.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Senator Professor Warren better never tell this clown who Donald Trump is.
Soprano2
@New Deal democrat: I wish you could have been at the presentation I was at yesterday, because you probably would have had better questions. The Commerce Bank investment manager who gave the talk, Scott Colbert, is usually a straight shooter, but I feel like he’s whistling past the graveyard and is way too optimistic. He thinks there will be a 1% rate cut in the next year, .25% each time, because inflation is cooling and the job market is staying steady. He thinks the tariffs aren’t a big deal because goods are only 12% of GDP (he mistakenly said we only import 12% of what we buy here, I should have asked him to correct that!). He’s got a sad that we might have to give the tariff money back because what Trump did “wasn’t exactly the best way to do it” (couldn’t say the word illegal, I guess).
I asked him about the gold standard jobs report that came out a couple of days ago, and he said it showed that we have even fewer jobs than we thought, but that was it. I asked him if he thought not being able to depend on government economic data because FFOTUS will fire anyone who puts out numbers he doesn’t like was a bad situation, and he said he doesn’t think any businesses depend on any of that data anyway, so no big deal. I asked him what would happen if FFOTUS got his way with the Fed; that question he didn’t really answer! All in all it was a disappointing presentation, way too optimistic IMHO.
brendancalling
@gene108: I’m one of those people who believe Butler was a deadly stunt, and that the man who died was a necessary casualty for effect. The people around Trump are not known for valuing human life, but they are well-known for manipulating people and the media.
Trump’s ear shows no damage to this day, yet he supposedly sustained a 2cm wide wound. That’s the kind of thing that leaves a mark. The medical report has never been released (that I know of). So I have very little doubt that an administration that has no qualms about disappearing immigrants to certain death in Sudan and El Salvador would have any qualms about killing someone for political gain. And, as some have pointed out, Kirk had become troublesome.
I suspect that when the books are opened — much later, so no one can be prosecuted, kind of like the CIA’s admission about George Ionades — I will have been right.
I’m not a conspiracy theory guy, so it is a sad commentary on our absurd times that someone like me cannot swallow the official story.
kwAwk
@mrmoshpotato: I’m not 100% sure, but I think a top load magazine is one that is built into the rifle such that when a spent round is ejected another falls in it’s place from the top.
Soprano2
@trollhattan: So if he ran away do we really believe he left the rifle in the forest wrapped in a towel? That sounds improbable to me.
Betty
@Nettoyeur: Apparently Trump has belatedly realized the raid was a bad idea so has ordered the Koreans not be deported. It would be good if this meant Noem and Homan post their jobs for the screw-up.
Betty
@trollhattan: Inside the rifle?
AMagicianNamedGob
@Betty Cracker: Haystack Rock in Astoria? If so, I was there last year and they were incredible!
Elizabelle
@Soprano2:
And the towel.
Came from Nancy Pelosi’s office! Hair and fiber evidence.
I watch too many Forensic Files reruns.
AMagicianNamedGob
@tobie: They can be magazine fed, but the bolt has to be manually cycled; pulled back to eject the spent casing and pushed foward to pull another cartridge off of the magazine. Whereas a semiautomatic (or fully auto) will use the gas explosion in the chamber to cycle the bolt and load the next cartridge.
Nettoyeur
@Betty: Too late. That is the likely end of S Korean or other Asian factory investment in at least the red states. Their people are readily identifiable and easy to scoop up.
The odds of the Trump admin doing anything to make the visa process smooth are nil. Why would an engineer sent to train Americans risk being sent in chains to Sudan or El Salvador because of an admin visa screw up? There are other friendlier countries to invest in.
European companies might do better, but then again, there are long time green card holders married to Americans who are now in detention centers because of minor offenses dating back decades.
When a president tells you he wants to go back to McKinley era isolationist policies, believe him.
cain
@gene108: I think Raleigh is a really nice place having been there many times.
cain
@laura: you are a hero.
cain
@Nettoyeur:
Yep they have fucked the red states.
evodevo
@WTFGhost:
Mr. evodevo has owned and shot guns for years, and that’s what he said…
Kayla Rudbek
@New Deal democrat: even Yahoo and CNN had articles today on how the US economy is going into stagflation.