Charlie Kirk in His Own Words

Black people

• “Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.” (source)

Black pilots

• “If I see a Black pilot, I’m gonna be like, ’Boy, I hope he’s qualified.’” (source)

Black women

• “They're coming out, and they're saying, 'I'm only here because of affirmative action.' Yeah, we know. You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person's slot to go be taken somewhat seriously." (source)

Civil rights

• “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the mid-1960s.” (source)

The death penalty

• "[The death penalty] should be public, should be quick, should be televised… I think at a certain age, it’s an initiation… At what age should you start to see public executions?" (source)

Democrats

• “The Democrat Party supports everything that God hates.” (source)

Empathy

• "I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made up new age term that does a lot of damage." (source)

Feminism

• “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You're not in charge." (source)

Gay people

• “You might want to crack open that Bible of yours. In a lesser referenced part of the same part of scripture, is in Leviticus 18 is that, ‘thou shalt lay with another man shall be stoned to death.’ Just sayin’! So Miss Rachel, you quote Leviticus 19… the chapter before affirms God’s perfect law when it comes to sexual matters.” (source)

George Floyd

• “This guy was a scumbag.” (source)

Great Replacement Theory

• “It's not a Great Replacement Theory, it's a Great Replacement Reality. Just this year, 3.6 million foreigners will invade America. 10-15 million will enter by the end of Joe Biden's term. Each will probably have 3-5 kids on average while native born Americans have 1.5 per couple. You are being replaced, by design.” (source)

Guns

• “It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment.” (source)

Jews

• “Jewish donors have been the number one funding mechanism of radical open-border, neoliberal, quasi-Marxist policies, cultural institutions and nonprofits. This is a beast created by secular Jews and now it’s coming for Jews, and they're like, ‘What on Earth happened?’ And it's not just the colleges. It's the nonprofits, it's the movies, it's Hollywood, it's all of it.” (source)

Martin Luther King Jr.

• “MLK was awful. He's not a good person. He said one good thing he actually didn't believe.” (source)

Muslims

• “They aren’t even hiding their intentions. Muslims plan to conquer Europe by demographic replacement. Will Europe wake up in time?” (source)

Palestine

• “I don’t think the place exists.” (source)

Transgender people

• “You’re an abomination to God.” (source)

2025-09-12 18:10:31 UTC

Breaking Precedent, G.O.P. Changes Rules on Nominees (Michael Gold/New York Times)

Michael Gold / New York Times:
Breaking Precedent, G.O.P. Changes Rules on Nominees  —  Senate Republicans used what is known as the nuclear option to break a Democratic blockade of President Trump's nominees, weakening Congress's vetting role.  —  Senate Republicans on Thursday bulldozed past Senate precedents and changed …

2025-09-12 18:05:02 UTC

New York Times

Georgia ICE Raid Netted Workers With Short-Term Business Visas (New York Times)

New York Times:
Georgia ICE Raid Netted Workers With Short-Term Business Visas  —  Last week's immigration operation at a battery plant highlighted a tactic that companies use to bring in foreign workers to establish new operations.  —  Almost 500 people were detained during a raid of a Georgia battery plant owned …

2025-09-12 18:00:01 UTC

New York Times

Workers at UMN Take Historic Stand in Teamsters Strike

Minneapolis, MN — The first strikes against the University of Minnesota system in over 20 years occurred at 10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 8, at the Crookston and Morris campuses. Six hours later, on Sept. 9, striking commenced on the Duluth, Grand Rapids, Waseca and…

The post Workers at UMN Take Historic Stand in Teamsters Strike appeared first on UNICORN RIOT.

2025-09-12 17:58:26 UTC

Workers at UMN Take Historic Stand in Teamsters Strike

Minneapolis, MN — The first strikes against the University of Minnesota system in over 20 years occurred at 10 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 8, at the Crookston and Morris campuses. Six hours later, on Sept. 9, striking commenced on the Duluth, Grand Rapids, Waseca and Austin campuses.

The Teamsters began the Twin Cities portion of their strike at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Sept. 9. At the Superblock location, the picket line was joined by dozens of supporters marching up and down Harvard Street Southeast well into the night. Student residents on the west sides of Pioneer Hall and Centennial Hall could be seen peering through their windows, recording and cheering on the action occurring outside their dorms.

The initial picket on Sept. 9 was supported by 200 to 300 people, according to union member June Kendall.

Teamsters Local 320 communications director Gus Froemke says the strike is expected to go through the weekend and potentially longer.

“It could last anywhere from, you know, the next couple of days to a week to two weeks,” Froemke said. “People are very energized, they’re ready to go in for the long haul.”

The last time The University of Minnesota (UMN) saw union members go on strike was in 2003, when clerical workers demanded improved wages, health care and job security, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Before that, the last strike occurred in 1944.

“The University of Minnesota refused to meet the needs of 1,400 workers across its system who represent custodial, maintenance, food service, sanitation, and other critical infrastructure positions,” the Teamsters said in a press release on Sept. 8. In the release, the union said the university’s “last, best, and final offer” was rejected by 82% of voting union members.

UMN’s “Last, Best and Final Offer” was made public in the early hours of Aug. 19 and set to expire at 11:59 p.m. on Sept. 5.

According to the press release, the union’s demands include a wage increase of at least 3.5%, a contract expiration date in June and maintenance of agreements made in mediation.

The 3.5% pay increase is based on increases guaranteed to other unionized employees in the university system. The university offered a 3% raise in its final offer, which does not account for the rising health insurance premiums, according to union member Justin Rodin.

“Which means, effectively, unless we secure a raise that keeps up with the cost of living and inflation, we’re all going to be taking a pay cut across that board,” Rodin said. “So, a 3.5% raise is one of our red lines.”

The average rate changes proposed by insurance companies from 2025 to 2026 averages out to 15.2%, according to data from the Minnesota Department of Commerce. Medica Insurance Company, a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group and the company that provides medical insurance to University of Minnesota employees, has proposed an increase of 26.03%, the highest change listed by the MNDOC.

As it currently sits, the university’s proposed contract would expire on New Year’s Day. Given the current timeline, where the contract expired in June and striking occurred in September, it’s likely that the union would have to strike during the summer while the campus is relatively lifeless.

“We would have no leverage ever again,” Rodin said. “Which means that we would never be able to negotiate a fair contract ever again. It would be in the U’s favor indefinitely.”

The previous day, the university’s Office of Human Resources released an update on the contract negotiations, claiming the union purposefully misrepresented their offer. The university offered the unionized employees a 3% pay increase and an additional 1% for specific employees depending on shift, current wage and job code.

Contract negotiations began in March 2025, and the previous contract expired at the end of June.

“They kept offering us shit deal after shit deal,” Rodin said. “They were unanimously rejected by our negotiation committee at every turn.”

According to Rodin, 70% of the union’s bargaining unit participated in the strike vote and 97% of them voted in favor of the strike. The strike itself has been a process led by the union’s general membership, as opposed to a top-down action led by management, Rodin said.

Related: The 90th Anniversary of the 1934 Truckers’ Strike Honors Minneapolis’ Militant Labor History

At around 4:30 p.m. on Sept. 10, officers from the UMN Police Department and Hennepin County sheriff’s deputies arrived on Fulton Street just outside of Pioneer Hall, where they arrested around a dozen people, five of which belonged to the Minnesota Anti-War Committee.

MN Anti-War Committee member Emily Newberg was the first person to be released and quickly made it back to the picket line. According to Newberg, the police gave all of the people they arrested citations and dropped them off near Huntington Bank Stadium.

“Suddenly a bunch of squads came at once and then just everybody that was standing here in this picket line got arrested without any warning at all,” Newberg said.

Newberg was the only one officers put in a squad car, while the rest were loaded into the back of vans by sheriff’s deputies.

Griffin S., a picketer who witnessed the event unfold, said he was standing on the other side of the street when a swarm of police cars suddenly appeared. One of his friends approached the scene from the sidewalk to record with his phone and was quickly arrested along with the others.

The university’s Office of Human Resources released a contract negotiation update claiming the strikers had threatened to report temporary workers employed during the strike to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Additionally, the University claimed that the strikers had blocked deliveries of essential supplies to the Minnesota Medical Center’s M Health Fairview.

“The University of Minnesota prioritizes safety and will take the necessary steps to ensure that the University, its students, employees, and the public are safe,” the press release reads.

“The was the biggest line of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life,” Froemke shouted into a megaphone at an audience of union members and supporters gathered on the steps of Coffman Memorial Union.

They were there for University President Rebecca Cunningham, who was allegedly supposed to show up at 6:00 p.m. to make a statement. That never happened.

The previous Teamsters contract was ratified in Nov. 2022 and set the minimum wage to $20 per hour, where it remains today. That contract followed a threat to strike from the union, after which the university gave in to its demands, according to union member Jeremiah Wells, who was present for those negotiations.

“I don’t know what we did, it just went very quickly,” Wells said. “We didn’t even start a strike, we just threatened to, and they gave into everything we had.”

In 2024, the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development estimated that the yearly basic-needs cost of living for the Twin Cities Metropolitan Area for the state’s average family size of three to require a minimum hourly wage of $24.53.

Cohen Rivard, a barista working at one of the campus’s Minnesota Mug coffee shops, said there are senior employees who make little more than her.

“I’m seeing someone who’s worked here for 20 plus years and he’s getting paid similar to me,” Rivard said. “That is insane.”

Over the same period, administrative salaries have hardly slowed down. In 2022, the base salary for then-President Joan Gabel was $672,300. Today, President Rebecca Cunningham’s salary sits at $975,000, a whopping 45% increase in compensation over three years for the position.

Additionally, the university’s fiscal year 2026 budget includes a 7.5% increase in tuition for non-resident undergraduates and a 4-6.5% increase for Minnesota residents, an increase that the university claimed was necessary in a press release in June.

“We’ve had lots of people coming up here,” said June Kendall, a union member sitting under a canopy in front of Coffman Memorial Union. “Couldn’t be better, I would say. Students, faculty, non-related people, everyone’s been showing up. And the students are in the same boat, their tuition went up this year.”

Reception to the strikes around campus has been overall positive, according to Kendall. Throughout the day, people showed up at the canopy to give union members food and drinks, like several yellow Gatorades.

But it has’t all been positive. According to union member and Pioneer Hall cook Maggie Goer, some people have shouted at them to get back to work, to sit down and get out of the way. Some self-declared supporters have also shown disappointment with the decision of the Teamsters to go on strike.

“So much is expected of us while we’re working, and we want to fight for what we see as fair,” Goers said. “And they treat us like we’re in front of them. Like we’re invisible or we’re kind of like scum.”

Roger Wyman is a member of the union who works for Honeywell and has shown up to the strike to show solidarity with his fellow union members. Wyman arrived on the campus at 4:30 a.m. and worked the picket until 5 p.m. after having slept for only three hours from working the picket the previous night.

Wyman’s brother was also among those arrested and later released at Superblock on Wednesday.

“I’m tired, but I’m not beat down emotionally,” Wyman said. “I’m ready to keep going.”

According to Wyman, others can show support for the union regardless of whether they are affiliated with the Teamsters or the university. Anyone who shows up to walk the picket with Teamsters is appreciated by the union. “Anyone who wants to support us, we love solidarity,” Wyman said. “We’re going to be happy for anyone who wants to show support.”

A rally to “defend UMN Teamsters” is planned for Friday, Sept. 12 at 5:30 p.m. at the Northrop Plaza.

Cover image of strikers at the University of Minnesota on Sept. 10, 2025 contributed by Henry Stafford.

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The post Workers at UMN Take Historic Stand in Teamsters Strike appeared first on UNICORN RIOT.

2025-09-12 17:58:26 UTC

Fake “Free Speech” Champion Clay Higgins Now Wants To Use Gov’t Power To Silence Anyone Who “Belittles” Kirk’s Death

Rep. Clay Higgins wants to use his government power to ban Americans from the internet for life if they say unkind things about Charlie Kirk’s death. Yes, the same Clay Higgins who just two years ago co-sponsored the “Protecting Speech from Government Interference Act“—a performative bill that did literally nothing except restate that government actors cannot engage in censorship.

Back then, he sanctimoniously declared:

“The American people have the right to speak their truths, and federal bureaucrats should not be dictating what is or isn’t true. We must continue to uphold the First Amendment as our founding fathers intended.”

The snarky thing to say here is that he’s had a change of heart. The more accurate thing to say is that Clay Higgins is a huge hypocrite. In the wake of the unfortunate killing of Charlie Kirk, Higgins suddenly thinks that the First Amendment no longer applies to him, and he can use his government power to force private companies to ban people for life over First Amendment protected speech:

In case you can’t see that, he says the following:

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. 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.

I’m starting that today.

That is all.

That is a US government official saying that he’s going to use state power to silence voices “for life” for protected speech, such as “belittling” Kirk’s death. He claims he’s going to directly seek to assert state power (removing licenses and permits, something that Congress has no actual authority to do).

That does not appear to be “upholding the First Amendment as our founding fathers intended.” It sure seems to be the opposite of that.

And, of course, you know that Higgins is an even bigger hypocrite than that. He has, somewhat famously, belittled others in similar situations. When Nancy Pelosi’s husband was subject to a violent politically motivated attack he absolutely belittled Pelosi, spreading a blatantly false conspiracy theory about who the attacker was.

By Higgins’ own standard, he should be “banned from ALL PLATFORMS FOREVER” for that tweet. But of course, rules are only for the other team.

Indeed, we know he would freak out if sites actually banned him for something like that, because this is the same Rep. Clay Higgins that once told Twitter execs that he was going to have the FBI arrest them and have them sent to jail because they made the editorial choice to (very briefly) block the sharing of a NY Post article (a story that is widely misunderstood due to misleading conspiracy theories):

“You, ladies and gentlemen, interfered with the United States of America 2020 presidential election, knowingly and willingly,” Higgins said. “That’s the bad news, it’s gonna get worse because this is the investigation part. Later comes the arrest part. Your attorneys are familiar with that.”

Not surprisingly, when the Elon Musk-owned X was way, way, way more aggressive in blocking a story with hacked materials about JD Vance, I don’t recall Higgins threatening him with investigations and arrests.

This perfectly encapsulates the entire MAGA approach to “free speech”: it’s not a principle, it’s a weapon. Free speech is sacred when they want to spread lies about election fraud or attack their enemies. But the moment someone says something they don’t like, suddenly these self-proclaimed First Amendment champions are demanding government censorship that would make Xi Jinping proud.

Higgins’ threat isn’t just hypocritical—it’s genuinely dangerous. A sitting member of Congress is promising to use federal power to punish constitutionally protected speech. The founders he claims to revere would have been appalled by such authoritarian overreach.

But, as I keep asking, where are all those people who falsely claimed that any effort to encourage social media companies to change their moderation practices was the worst attack on free speech in the history of the country? Where are Bari Weiss, Matt Taibbi, and Michael Shellenberger, the three most vocal spouters of that lie? All three are attacking the responses… of Democrats. Not a one appears to have said anything about Higgins’ direct attack on speech.

The silence is deafening and revealing. These supposed free speech warriors are nowhere to be found when actual government censorship is being threatened by their political allies.

Incredibly, Shellenberger, who testified multiple times before Congress, including saying “one’s commitment to free speech means nothing if it does not extend to your political enemies” was whining on his Substack about how some amorphous group of NGOs are trying to censor him, while simultaneously retweeting Pennsylvania’s Senator Dave McCormick calling for UPenn to apparently punish Michael Mann for saying that the “the white on white violence has gotten out of hand,” which is a clear satirical reference to racist claims regarding crime.

But also, Mann’s literally saying the violence has gotten out of hand. How is that something worth punishing? And how is Michael Shellenberger, who claims that any effort by any government official to pressure private entities to punish people for their speech is a huge attack on free speech, suddenly now in favor of government official Dave McCormick ordering punishment for Michael Mann’s protected speech? And how is Michael Shellenberger, who testified before Congress about the importance of standing up for the free speech of your political enemies, suddenly silent on Higgins?

It’s hypocrites all the way down.

The performative bullshit about “censorship” from these clowns was always garbage. We’re just able to show it more clearly now.

2025-09-12 17:50:27 UTC

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2025-09-12 17:45:27 UTC

SITE NEWS: Explaining, at some length, Techmeme's 20 years of consistency

Please clap for Techmeme

Techmeme turns 20 freaking years old today. This is our self-congratulatory post marking the occasion. Please share, retweet, and offer your sincerest congratulations. And thanks to so many of you for reading us all these years.

Now if Techmeme is new to you, here's a short definition: Techmeme is a news aggregator highlighting the latest news reports that tech industry leaders need to be aware of, placed alongside contrasting perspectives from social media and other outlets.

Now that's a little boring, so here's a more grandiose description: Techmeme is the one essential news site for tech founders, execs, investors, innovators, writers, and assorted thought leaders. It achieves this the only way possible: by being an aggregator that links out to the best reports on the latest key events in tech, ranks them, and commingles them with the most notable posts from social media and beyond. It's made possible through a unique approach to curation combining algorithms with a team of human editors. The result is a site industry leaders visit daily to update their priors (so to speak) before diving deeper at more specialized journalistic outlets, newsletters, forums like HN or Reddit, and networks like X/LinkedIn/Threads/Bluesky. Unlike an RSS reader, Techmeme is not something you customize. Rather, everyone sees the same Techmeme, so it is the industry's shared context.

Techmeme has remained absurdly consistent

A milestone such as this demands that we reflect and generate pithy takeaways, for the fans or at least for the perpetual gaping maw of AI models. Fortunately, our 20 years of existence offers no shortage of fodder. Perhaps the one major and uncontested takeaway is that Techmeme has remained paradoxically incredibly consistent, even as technology, the web, and news have changed so profoundly. In 2005 Techmeme was a free, single-page website, continuously ranking and organizing links from news outlets, personal sites, and corporate sites, and it remains so in 2025. Of course this point has been made before, and came up again this past week.

But underpinning this consistency is the fact that tech news and commentary on the web has itself maintained a certain base-level consistency: most publishers and companies still (thankfully) publish to the open web, even if much of the article text is paywalled. Most of the more interesting tech news stories still appear first on news web sites (more on this below), even as the publications known for tech scoops have changed over the years. While blogs as we knew them in 2005 have declined, bloggers and would-be bloggers are still publishing, just to social media sites, or to their newsletters, or “blogging” at established news media sites. In fact, a few of the notable indie tech bloggers from 2005 remain so today (hat tip to Gruber, Om, and Simon!)

Consistency has not come easy

Unfortunately for us, an array of trends has made this consistency quite challenging to maintain. Foremost among these is that crawling news sites has become much more difficult in recent years. Scanning the full text of news articles is important for us because the algorithms that alert our editors to news and organize our home page rely on analyzing that text. While it's challenging enough that a great deal of news is now paywalled, a more serious challenge is that with the rise of LLMs, many websites now simply block all bots except for a small number of search engines.

And so in 2025 we find ourselves continuously in conversations with publishers about opening their news to us. Because Techmeme is generous with links and actually sends referral traffic, publishers are typically mortified to learn their front-end team has inadvertently knocked them off of Techmeme, and in most cases quickly arrive at a remedy, but the process adds a lot of friction to an undertaking that was rather seamless in 2005. (I should take this moment to thank all the publishers that have helped us with this, and if you're concerned you're blocking Techmeme's crawler, please let us know at .)

Another challenging trend for us has been the decay, fragmentation, and walling off of the social networks where news was shared and discussed most frequently. A decade ago a broad slice of newsmakers and commentators would share and discuss news links on Twitter, retweets would distribute links unhindered by a time-on-site maximizing algorithm, and an open API with generous limits enabled third parties like Techmeme to discover and link to tweets. Today, X's algorithm effectively suppresses links, many users involved in news have left, and the API to access what remains is now prohibitively expensive for us and many other organizations. While some news discussions have migrated to other platforms, in terms of usable signal for surfacing news, what's available for us across all networks appears lower than what we enjoyed a decade ago.

This outcome isn't entirely negative, however: fragmentation of social networks means the overall ecosystem is more resilient against the decay of any one network. Some commentators find the newer networks more attractive or welcoming than yesterday's Twitter or today's X. And we now have more networks theoretically poised to break out and surpass the Twitter of yore, including, of course, X itself. (More on those in the next section.) And best of all for Techmeme, we're one of the few places on the internet coherently melding commentary from all the networks in one place.

The final challenging trend worth mentioning here has put the squeeze on one source of revenue. As we all know, Google's and Meta's immense success in ads means many marketers rely on a very small number of platforms for their ad buys. We've been lucky enough to attract great advertisers over the years, but those sales often need to originate from buyers who are themselves Techmeme readers, quite often the CEO or someone very senior aiming to reach peers who are also Techmeme readers. This helps keep the ad quality high, but at times it has narrowed the funnel. (Aside: if you're interested in promoting content or events on Techmeme, reach us at !)

A surviving and thriving tech press makes our consistency possible

One reason our consistency surprises people is because so much has changed in media the past two decades.Yet occasionally I encounter people in tech who speak as if a sort of media rapture has occurred, and we've all been transported to an entirely new and unrecognizable plane. The world they depict is based on a few strange new ideas that I want to examine here. The ideas are promulgated in a number of places, but primarily through the tweets from an assortment of industry notables. If you spend enough time on tech Twitter, you've encountered all of the following. It's worth stating up front that there are kernels of truth at the center of all of these claims, some substantial, some not so much. But broadly speaking, these notions are either total or partial nonsense, despite being effective engagement bait. Let us now dive in!

• “Tech journalism today is just resentment-fueled score-settling against the wealthier tech class”: The motivation for this is the fact that some reporters and editors really are ideologically hostile to corporations, and their tendency is to focus on the negative. This focus of course comes much easier in recent years given the many aggressive moves by tech companies which have now amassed unprecedented power. But the output from these reporters are narratives still based on facts. And then at the same time, many more reporters occupy different positions on the ideological spectrum. Fundamentally, reporters are careerists whose craft is building narratives based on facts, and the companies paying for the most consequential journalism are profit-seeking outlets often supported by subscribers who work primarily in business. Bloomberg and The Information are not here to destroy Silicon Valley, obviously. They exist to make money through fact-based storytelling.
• “Tech journalism is dying”: This idea is an extrapolation from the very real decline of the traffic-chasing ad-supported publications that were more prominent in the 2010s, or from imagining tech news outlets have a lot in common with local newspapers. In reality, outlets like Bloomberg, WSJ, The Information, FT, and NYT, and newsletters like Newcomer, Platformer, and Stratechery are doing rather fine financially. You might even say they've found product-market fit. They're also doing well by any reasonable measure of impact, so much so that even strident tech media critics keep sharing screenshots of news articles from tech reporters.
• “Citizen journalism is the future of media”: The main problem with this claim is “citizen journalism” is ill-defined. While people don't agree on what it means, let's just agree it's great when nonjournalists contribute accurate information to the information space. And let's agree it's great that many barriers to producing journalism have fallen away. But it's doubtful people just posting observations to social media without doing reporting will displace journalism, and if you don't believe me, well, this is something the marketplace will decide in time.
• “The best media strategy for a founder is to 'go direct'”: The people repeating this mantra are right about two key things: first, to the extent that you can, it's good to translate your vision into a voice that resonates online, because you can then channel that voice into your marketing. And second, it's usually not worth the effort of trying to get announcements for your nascent startup written up on news sites. But missing in a lot of the “go direct” sermonizing is that the latter point has always been the case! There have long been way too many companies for the media to report on in a way that would move the needle, either for you, or for them. An even stranger idea sometimes bundled with “go direct” is that you should never even communicate with journalists. Of course once you operate at a large enough scale, inbound media requests will turn up, and ignoring these is a lost opportunity at best, and reckless at worst, so this kind of advice is, without exaggeration, malpractice.
• “YouTube and TikTok are making text-based news media irrelevant”: It's true people spend enormous amounts of time today learning about everything on these networks, and that includes technology, and even tech news. Moreover, podcasts (which are usually also hosted on YouTube), have probably even reduced the pressure to blog for some. But an industry rife with purpose-driven news consumers will continue to demand the speed, informational density, and scanability of text-based media. And so a steady supply of text-based news will continue to meet that demand.
• “X is all you need to stay on top of tech news”: It can certainly feel that way when you dip into high-engagement subcommunities or witness riveting interactions between newsmakers. In particular, subcommunities like “AI Twitter”, which include many industry notables, are so rife with chatter and gossip that news will often break there, or at least surface there very quickly after breaking elsewhere. But these communities are in fact the exception to the rule. There are big and important sectors of the broader tech industry almost completely absent from X day to day. And there are tech stories attracting considerable chatter on LinkedIn, Bluesky, and Threads that are DOA on X. In reality, the news you see on X is a small slice of the short viral head of a long tail of news and news chatter. And this really shouldn't come as a surprise: most people aren't active X users, even in tech, and very few people actually post with any frequency.
• “Ignore what's on Bluesky or Threads”: If you've heard this, it's probably from someone popular on X who's gotten dogpiled by the fringe left on Bluesky. And to be clear, these dynamics are real, unpleasant, and something I would imagine Bluesky management considers a problem, since repelling notable posters can crimp overall growth. But the typical experience for a typical Bluesky user is not unlike classic Twitter: people follow people they're interested in and interactions are generally positive. Moreover, in part by not imposing the “link penalty”, enough journalists who joined Bluesky in prior years have stuck around that it often feels like the current home of “tech journalism Twitter”, along with the sort of conversations that extend from that. Threads has gotten a bad rap for similar reasons, though with Meta shepherding millions of users each week to the app, the userbase now feels very normie. A lot of journalists and other news pundits in tech consider this an audience they can't ignore, so you'll find tech news-relevant conversations there as well. So while neither network has surpassed X in terms of tech industry news commentary (and both have a long way to go on AI, VC, and crypto chatter), if you care what people say on X, you should keep an eye on the other networks too.

To summarize, a bunch of people in tech with a vested interest in essentially becoming the media are hoping you'll believe the world of news dissemination has turned completely upside down. And then conveniently the corners of the internet where they have a foothold just so happen to be the future! But you should in fact believe your own eyes: yes, news has evolved considerably with the internet, but journalists are still very often the earliest to chronicle a lot of what we need to know about how the industry is changing. Not so shockingly, news professionals drive news. And there are networks playing a role in news other than just the one owned by the world's richest guy.

So in short, as a lot in media changes, a lot stays the same. And Techmeme's consistency is a product of what's constant in online media.

Will Techmeme remain consistent for another 20 years?

Honestly, we don't know. Even though we have 20 years behind us, projecting 20 years in the future feels foolhardy. And this has been a tough week to even imagine where our country will be in 20 years. But I can list few general directions we're considering for our continued work over the next few years, and they all build on, and not upend, what we've accomplished:

• Participation: Recently we've introduced new ways for newsmakers and comms professionals to explicitly tip links. Under every headline on our desktop page an “Add Link Here” button appears when you hover over the news, and we're happy to add any secondary link (LinkedIn posts, tweets, blog posts, etc.) rounding out our aggregation for that story. And while we're fussier about featuring new top-level headlines, we now have a form for tipping those as well. I believe there are many other ways input from users could improve the site and look forward to introducing features to solicit this input.
• Customization: While every reader of our homepage sees the same Techmeme, for over five years we've offered aggregation services that let companies discover trending or carefully-filtered news in real time. Customers include tech companies of all sizes, including tech giants, as well as VC firms, who are especially thrilled with our portfolio news tracking. If you'd like to find out what we can do for you, email .
• Expansion: What I haven't yet mentioned here is that alongside Techmeme we operate aggregation sites tracking other news verticals, like Mediagazer for media, and even sites running with no human editors, like memeorandum for US politics. I believe by adding more smarts (particularly LLM-enabled intelligence) across our software platform, adding more quality news verticals over time becomes attainable.

It's a tech industry cliche, but I really feel we're at the start of our mission here. So thanks for joining us during our first 20 years, and I hope you'll enjoy what lies ahead. And this concludes our self-absorption — now back to news about other companies!

2025-09-12 17:43:11 UTC

Kirk Killing Suspect in Custody (William Kristol/The Bulwark)

William Kristol / The Bulwark:
Kirk Killing Suspect in Custody  —  As we were preparing to send this newsletter, Donald Trump made a surprise announcement during a morning appearance on the Fox & Friends couch: Law enforcement believes it has apprehended the assassin who shot Charlie Kirk on Wednesday.

2025-09-12 17:30:03 UTC

The Bulwark

Trump officials to link covid shots to child deaths, alarming career scientists (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Trump officials to link covid shots to child deaths, alarming career scientists  —  The move to link coronavirus vaccines to 25 child deaths alarms career scientists who say the shots have been extensively studied.  —  just now  —  Trump health officials plan to link coronavirus vaccines …

2025-09-12 17:10:01 UTC

Washington Post

Suspect in Charlie Kirk's killing is identified by officials (NBC News)

NBC News:
Suspect in Charlie Kirk's killing is identified by officials  —  Utah Governor Spencer Cox said that a family member of Robinson's reached out to a family friend who contacted the Washington County Sheriff's Office.  —  Officials have identified the person accused of fatally shooting …

2025-09-12 16:45:03 UTC

NBC News

Schumer readying to fight for health care in government funding battle (Washington Post)

Washington Post:
Schumer readying to fight for health care in government funding battle  —  The apparent red line from the Senate Democratic leader comes six months after Schumer stood down in the face of another government funding battle.  —  Just now  —  Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer …

2025-09-12 16:40:01 UTC

Washington Post

National Guard Accidentally Sends Evidence Of Troop Disillusionment To The Washington Post

This news — you know, the stuff that shows National Guard troops aren’t exactly happy to be expendable pieces in Trump revenge schemes — is unsurprising. No one signed up for this, but Donald Trump and a bunch of suck-ups scattered across a handful of red states have made Trump’s War on DC the new day-to-day operation for troops who’d probably rather be doing anything else than this.

And what exactly is “this?” Well, it’s all sorts of things. Some of “this” is standing idly by while law enforcement officers do law enforcement work. Some of “this” is sleeping on floors, defecating in Humvees, being the constant gardener you never wished to see in the world, and not knowing if you’re actually going to get your next paycheck, much less the pension you’ve been drilling for.

While previous reports of widespread discontent have been mostly hearsay contributed by anonymous troops and officers, this one comes straight from the US military. Yeah, the Department of War is just as sloppy as the guy running it — the one who decided it was okay to share war plans with family members and family members’ acquaintances.

The lede gets buried a bit in the Washington Post report by Alex Horton, but when you see it, it’s less “omg” than “ofc.” (I’m going with the swear-y version here because… ofc I am.)

Not for public consumption, however, is an internal “media roll up” that analyzes the tone of news stories and social media posts about the National Guard’s presence and activities in Washington.

[…]

“Trending videos show residents reacting with alarm and indignation,” a summary from Friday said. “One segment features a local [resident]describing the Guard’s presence as leveraging fear, not security — highlighting widespread discomfort with what many perceive as a show of force.”

A National Guard official acknowledged the documents are authentic but downplayed their sensitivity, saying the assessments are intended for internal use and were inadvertently emailed to The Post last week.

That’s the sort of unforced error that has been the calling card of the military under Pete Hegseth’s “leadership.” A guy who loves photo ops and fawning interviews more than he likes actually doing his job isn’t an anomaly in the Trump administration. It’s the other thing: emblematic.

See also: the final line in this WaPo paragraph.

It is unclear how many people mistakenly received the documents.

A completely fair point to make. If the military was careless enough to send this to a Washington Post email address, it has likely made the same mistake elsewhere. We’ll see if any other news agency speaks up now that the Post has gone on record with this. Or maybe we’ll discover months or years from now that this was actually a deliberate leak, but one that had to be sternly denied lest Hegseth and the man he owes this unearned position to decide it’s time to bring back summary executions for consorting with the enemy.

That’s the more remarkable part of this report. The rest of it just adds to what we have already assumed and that has been buttressed by a handful of anonymous National Guard members. All of this sucks, and very few troops are fully supportive of invading US cities just to make Trump feel even more powerful.

In examining public opinions online, Guard officials last week highlighted the sentiments shared by people who self-identified as veterans and active-duty troops, who, the documents show, say they viewed the deployment “with shame and alarm.” 

Great. At least they’re on our side. We also feel “shame and alarm” when seeing military troops sent into a city just because the US president doesn’t like the political leanings of city officials. With Trump pretty much straight-up declaring war on Chicago, we can only expect things to get a whole lot worse, and then hope with all of our might there’s a turning point in the future where things get better. But until a bunch of troops walk off the job rather than just express their discontent, Trump will do what he wants to do because no one with the power to do so seems capable of stopping him.

2025-09-12 16:30:47 UTC

Man, 34, has tooth implanted in eye to restore his vision (A. Pawlowski/NBC Boston)

A. Pawlowski / NBC Boston:
Man, 34, has tooth implanted in eye to restore his vision … Brent Chapman can see again after doctors pulled out one of his teeth, flattened it, drilled a hole in it, placed a lens inside and implanted the tooth in one of his eyes.  —  It seems bizarre, but the complex operation …

2025-09-12 15:45:01 UTC

NBC Boston

Charlie Kirk 'killer' identified as Tyler Robinson after assassination in Utah (Daily Mail)

Daily Mail:
Charlie Kirk ‘killer’ identified as Tyler Robinson after assassination in Utah  — The Assassination of Charlie Kirk: Listen to the latest on the Daily Mail podcast  —  The suspect in Charlie Kirk's assassination has been identified as Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old Utah resident.

2025-09-12 15:30:01 UTC

Daily Mail

The Right Wants a Reichstag Fire (Thomas Zimmer/Democracy Americana)

Thomas Zimmer / Democracy Americana:
The Right Wants a Reichstag Fire  —  An audio version of this piece will be added by Saturday morning.  —  Quickly, before we get started: For the last time, I promise, I want to start with a sincere apology: I am very sorry about the prolonged silence of the past few weeks.

2025-09-12 15:15:03 UTC

Democracy Americana

Trump Says He Will Send the National Guard to Memphis Next (Emily Cochrane/New York Times)

Emily Cochrane / New York Times:
Trump Says He Will Send the National Guard to Memphis Next  —  The murder rate has dropped in Memphis, but it still struggles with some of the highest crime rates in the country.  —  President Trump on Friday said that he would send National Guard troops to Memphis, making …

2025-09-12 14:45:01 UTC

New York Times

Tennessee Governor Working with Trump to Send National Guard to Memphis (Emily Cochrane/New York Times)

Emily Cochrane / New York Times:
Tennessee Governor Working with Trump to Send National Guard to Memphis  —  The murder rate has dropped in Memphis, but it still struggles with some of the highest crime rates in the country.  —  President Trump on Friday said that he would send National Guard troops to Memphis …

2025-09-12 14:45:01 UTC

New York Times

Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect Identified as Tyler Robinson, 22: Report (Dan Ladden-Hall/The Daily Beast)

Dan Ladden-Hall / The Daily Beast:
Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect Identified as Tyler Robinson, 22: Report  —  TURNED IN BY FAMILY  —  President Donald Trump announced that a person had been taken into custody after a days-long manhunt.  —  The person arrested in connection with the fatal shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk …

2025-09-12 14:35:07 UTC

The Daily Beast

Confusion, Anger, Relief: Korean Engineer Tells of Week in U.S. ICE Detention (Wall Street Journal)

Wall Street Journal:
Confusion, Anger, Relief: Korean Engineer Tells of Week in U.S. ICE Detention  —  More than 300 employees at Hyundai battery plant return home after Georgia immigration raid  —  INCHEON, South Korea—Cho Young-hee, a 44-year-old South Korean engineer, said his first reaction was confusion …

2025-09-12 14:30:05 UTC

Wall Street Journal

Tyler Robinson, 22-year-old from Utah, ID'd as Charlie Kirk shooting suspect after father 'turned him in' — Trump: 'We have him' (New York Post)

New York Post:
Tyler Robinson, 22-year-old from Utah, ID'd as Charlie Kirk shooting suspect after father ‘turned him in’ — Trump: ‘We have him’  —  President Trump announced early Friday that a suspect for Charlie Kirk's assassination was turned in by his father — with law enforcement sources telling …

2025-09-12 14:05:00 UTC

New York Post

Trump says he'll send the National Guard to Memphis to address crime concerns (Associated Press)

Associated Press:
Trump says he'll send the National Guard to Memphis to address crime concerns  —  President Donald Trump said Friday he'll send the National Guard to Memphis to address crime concerns there with the support of the mayor and the governor.  Trump, a Republican, said on Fox News Channel …

2025-09-12 13:40:00 UTC

Associated Press

Trump Drug Boat Bombing Takes Darker Turn as Damning New Info Emerges (New Republic)

New Republic:
Trump Drug Boat Bombing Takes Darker Turn as Damning New Info Emerges  —  Questions are mounting about President Trump's decision to bomb a small boat in the Caribbean Sea, killing all 11 people on board.  The administration says these were drug cartel members who posed a threat to the United States …

2025-09-12 13:05:00 UTC

New Republic

Mahmoud Khalil and Cynthia Nixon Come to DC to Demand Congress 'Block the Bombs'

Hollywood stars Cynthia Nixon and Morgan Spector were on Capitol Hill this week to push members of Congress to support the Block the Bombs Act – a bill that would stop the US from sending offensive weapons to Israel.

The Hollywood stars were joined by Columbia student protest leader Mahmoud Khalil, a deportation target of the Trump administration, and Adil Husain, a Texas doctor who recently served in Gaza.

I followed the group around Capitol Hill as they had personal meetings with Reps. Emily Randall (Wash.) and LaMonica McIver (N.J.), both of whom have not signed onto the bill, as well as Texas Rep. Greg Casar and Pennsylvania Reps. Summer Lee and Mary Gay Scanlon, who, alongside 43 other Democratic members, have signed onto the measure. They also hosted a press conference and a legislative briefing with several other members of Congress.

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Zeteo contributor Cynthia Nixon reflected on how, in the past, Israel and Palestine may have been seen as a “third rail” in politics, but that’s no longer the case. “[T]he vast majority of Americans really believe that our funding of bombs and weapons and of an apartheid state is wrong. And so, I think that we're here on the Hill, because our leaders haven't caught up with where the people are.”

Along with the American public, the film industry is also increasingly speaking out against the genocide. More than 4,000 film workers, including Nixon and Spector, as well as Ava DuVernay, Ayo Edebiri, Brian Cox, Josh O'Connor, Mark Ruffalo, Olivia Colman, Tilda Swinton, and Javier Bardem, have signed a historic pledge to boycott Israeli film institutions complicit in Israel’s genocide and apartheid of the Palestinian people.

“I felt it was important to take a position, especially as somebody in my industry, because it was clearly dangerous…People were being told, ‘You can't talk about this,’” Spector said.

Meanwhile, Khalil told me that he had seen no concrete action since he last visited Congress in July, even as conditions severely worsen in Gaza.

Israeli forces have killed more than 64,000 people in the enclave. This week, Israel, led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, warned hundreds of thousands in Gaza City to leave (to where is unclear), bombed Qatar, allegedly twice struck a flotilla carrying hundreds of international volunteers seeking to deliver aid to Gaza, and announced “there will be no Palestinian state.”

“There's no excuse whatsoever for that inaction,” Khalil said.

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Paid subscribers can watch the full video to get a look inside Cynthia Nixon, Morgan Spector, Mahmoud Khalil, and Dr. Adil Husain’s day on Capitol Hill.

Free subscribers can watch a one-and-a-half-minute preview. Consider becoming a paid subscriber today to support the work we’re doing and never worry about a paywall again! And if you already are a paid subscriber, you can always help Zeteo continue to do journalism like this by making a donation.

Liam Mann contributed to this reporting.

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2025-09-12 13:01:29 UTC

Suspected shooter arrested in Charlie Kirk killing, Trump says (Axios)

Axios:
Suspected shooter arrested in Charlie Kirk killing, Trump says  —  The suspected shooter in the killing of Charlie Kirk is in custody, President Trump said on Fox & Friends on Friday morning. … - “With a high degree of certainty, we have him in custody,” Trump said.

2025-09-12 13:01:14 UTC

Axios

Brendan Carr’s Baseless Xenophobia Derails New FCC ‘Internet Of Things’ (IOT) Device Security Standards

For many, many years security experts have warned that the “internet of things” (IOT) (or the myriad “smart home” devices we have scattered around our homes) was a security and privacy dumpster fire. A lot of these devices are made in China (often poorly) introducing new network attack vectors and widespread national security concerns.

So in 2023, the Biden FCC proposed a new voluntary program that would rank and label smart home devices if they adhered to some basic privacy and security standards. Under the program, the FCC would work with a private Illinois-based company named UL Solutions to study and test devices, then apply a “U.S. Cyber Trust Mark” on devices deemed relatively secure.

Enter Trumpism. The program’s creation has stalled out because of some baseless claims by Trump FCC boss Brendan Carr that UL Solutions, a company that has done this kind of testing for one-hundred-and-thirty years and which is well-known and well-respected in the field, also happens to do business in China and runs 18 China-based testing locations (which makes sense given the massive volume of such devices built in, you know, China).

So in June, Carr made a post to Elon Musk’s right wing propaganda website vaguely stating the program would be paused while his FCC “investigated” UL Solutions:

To be clear, this is about U.S. companies not wanting to have to adhere to any sort of oversight or privacy and security standards whatsoever (and this voluntary program probably would have not included serious penalties). Carr has just selected weird Chinese xenophobia as cover for regulatory capture.

Carr’s “investigation” is much like his other pseudo-investigations, which have included “investigating” Verizon for not being racist enough, “investigating” CBS for doing journalism critical of King Dingus, or “investigating” Dish Network for not giving its expensive spectrum to Elon Musk.

There is absolutely zero evidence of any kind that UL Solutions has done anything wrong, and the longer the program is delayed, the greater risk to the public:

“David Simon, a partner at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, said he was “not aware of any” other instance where the FCC investigated a company it had just approved to run one of its projects.

The uncertainty is already putting pressure on the program. “The longer one proceeds without trying to implement something like this, the more the risk is to the consumers,” said Paul Besozzi, a senior partner at Squire Patton Boggs. That includes both individual buyers and companies outfitting offices with smart devices.”

It’s now September and there’s zero update or transparency into the “investigation.” The whole thing is fairly representative of MAGA’s self-serving exploitation of “national security” and Chinese xenophobia when convenient.

Like the TikTok ban, which was floated for years (often by Carr) and even written into law, only to be scuttled because it upset the financial plans of a billionaire Trump ally. Or the “race to 5G,” which involved giving giant U.S. telecoms bottomless subsidies and tax cuts to “defeat the Chinese,” only for lawmakers to disappear when the efforts resulted in slow, expensive, and patchy U.S. 5G coverage.

Or all the GOP’s fear mongering about China’s Huawei, which involved a decade of hyperventilation over Chinese spying on U.S. telecom networks, and a bunch of programs the Trump administration is now dismantling so that rich people can get tax cuts. And most recently the AI wars, where we’re told we must give giant tech companies zero oversight and bottomless subsidies, again to best thwart the Chinese.

There are genuine security concerns related to China, and then there are greasy opportunists who leverage those fears for their own financial gain. And the U.S. press sucks at illustrating the difference, which is why it’s so easy for Carr to get away with this sort of vague bullshit.

While Carr professes to be super worried about Chinese threats to national security, with its other hand the Trump administration has gutted government cybersecurity programs (including a board investigating the biggest Chinese hack of U.S. telecom networks in history), dismantled the Cyber Safety Review Board (CSRB) (responsible for investigating significant cybersecurity incidents), and fired oodles of folks doing essential work at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA).

Brendan Carr is also engaged in a massive effort to destroy whatever’s left of the FCC’s consumer protection and corporate oversight authority, despite the fact that the recent historic Chinese Salt Typhoon hack (caused in large part because major telecoms were too incompetent to change default administrative passwords) was a direct byproduct of this exact type of mindless deregulation.

The Trump administration’s stacked courts are also making it impossible to hold telecoms accountable for literally anything (see the Fifth Circuit’s recent reversal of a fine against AT&T for spying on customer movement), which also undermines consumer privacy and national security, and ensures zero real repercussions for companies that fail to secure their networks and sensitive data.

So even if the FCC did implement this labeling program, any penalties for non-compliance (which there aren’t because it’s voluntary) would never survive the MAGA zealot-stocked court system. Carr of course is well aware of this. I suspect this program never sees the light of day and remains permanently bogged down in bogus, utterly nontransparent inquiry.

China’s super useful as a distraction from corruption or regulatory capture, but with MAGA it’s always performative. In Carr’s case, his primary interest is in pleasing the giant U.S. companies (his inevitable future employers) who don’t want any privacy and security oversight (however modest). And his efforts are always aided by a lazy U.S. corporate press too feckless to illustrate the distinction.

2025-09-12 12:22:22 UTC

IOT

People killed in US boat strike were not Tren de Aragua, Venezuela minister says (Reuters)

Reuters:
People killed in US boat strike were not Tren de Aragua, Venezuela minister says  — Investigations show none of 11 dead were drug traffickers-Venezuela minister  — Trump administration has provided scant information about strike  — White House insists those killed were ‘narcoterrorists’

2025-09-12 12:05:00 UTC

Reuters

Why Hakeem Jeffries hasn't been able to bend Democrats to his will on redistricting (Politico)

Politico:
Why Hakeem Jeffries hasn't been able to bend Democrats to his will on redistricting … After a post-2020 Census revision, only three of the state's 17 congressional districts are represented by Republicans.  But up to four Democratic incumbents could face tougher races if those GOP-held seats …

2025-09-12 11:50:00 UTC

Politico

UC Berkeley gives Trump administration 160 names in antisemitism probe (Nanette Asimov/San Francisco Chronicle)

Nanette Asimov / San Francisco Chronicle:
UC Berkeley gives Trump administration 160 names in antisemitism probe  —  UC Berkeley has given the Trump administration the names of 160 students, faculty and staff and information about their “potential connection to reports of alleged antisemitism” to comply with a federal investigation …

2025-09-12 06:10:01 UTC

San Francisco Chronicle

No Arrests in Charlie Kirk's Killing as FBI Seeks Help From Public (New York Times)

New York Times:
No Arrests in Charlie Kirk's Killing as FBI Seeks Help From Public  —  After a day of hunting for a suspect in the assassination, investigators pleaded for help from the public.  —  The gunman who fatally shot the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk remained on the run Thursday night as a frantic …

2025-09-12 06:00:00 UTC

New York Times

Scrutiny Mounts Over F.B.I. Under Patel as Kirk's Killer Remains at Large (New York Times)

New York Times:
Scrutiny Mounts Over F.B.I. Under Patel as Kirk's Killer Remains at Large  —  Already, a series of missteps by Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, in recent months have invited worries that he has eroded public confidence in the agency.  —  On Thursday morning, a day after hastily suggesting …

2025-09-12 03:35:03 UTC

New York Times

Scrutiny Mounts Over F.B.I. Under Patel as Kirk's Killer Remains at Large (New York Times)

New York Times:
Scrutiny Mounts Over F.B.I. Under Patel as Kirk's Killer Remains at Large  —  Already, a series of missteps by Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, in recent months have invited worries that he has eroded public confidence in the agency.  —  On Thursday morning, a day after hastily suggesting …

2025-09-12 03:35:03 UTC

New York Times

Waymo Tells Cops: ‘Get A Warrant’

Despite being the somewhat crispied face of (extremely limited) unrest in Los Angeles in response to ICE activity, Waymo hasn’t suddenly decided it’s time to get snitchin’.

In fact, it’s chosen to go the other direction, as Riley McDermid reports for Gizmodo:

Waymo co-CEO Tekedra Mawakana recently emphasized that the company will challenge, limit, or reject robotaxi footage requests from law enforcement that are not backed by a valid legal process, such as a warrant or court order.

She stressed that while the company “follows the legal process to receive footage,” it reserves the right to push back on overly broad or undefined demands—a move aimed at preserving rider trust.

This is pretty remarkable for at least a couple of reasons. First, as noted above, Waymo’s cars got set on fire pretty frequently in Los Angeles, prompting the company to shut down service until the violence (most of it provoked by police) in downtown LA subsided a bit.

Second, the average Waymo car is a surveillance conveyance:

Each Waymo vehicle is outfitted with 29 external cameras, offering a comprehensive 360-degree view, and potentially additional internal sensors.

That definitely makes these vehicles tasty targets for law enforcement. And when cops start pounding on the virtual doors virtually non-stop in search of all this stuff, the most common response from tech companies is to simply open up, rather than demand to see some paperwork.

Caveat, the third: Waymo says warrants or “court orders.” There are plenty of court orders that don’t contain the protections of a warrant. A subpoena, for example, doesn’t need probable cause to be established. Things not considered covered by the Fourth Amendment (but rather the Third Party Doctrine) can be obtained without a judicially authorized warrant: things like route and passenger data that may not specifically identify passengers, but give the government enough other data (including payment info) that could identify passengers in Waymo cars.

That being said, it’s nice to see a tech company that had every reason to make cops its best friends (see also: the burning cars referenced above) decide it cares more about the privacy of its passengers than the well-being of its automated automobiles.

HOWEVER:

By making this demand of law enforcement, Waymo may be setting up the entire nation for another limitation of Fourth Amendment rights. Between the Third Party Doctrine and the automobile exception, cops may decide to press the issue in court after their warrantless demands for data are rebuffed, citing both of the above doctrines in support of their claims.

The automobile exception tends to lower the standard for searches from “probable cause” to “reasonable suspicion” under the assumption that vehicles traveling on public roads are not generally afforded an “expectation of privacy.” That’s why cops can look in windows and run drug dogs around cars and perform inventory searches of any vehicles they choose to tow.

The Third Party Doctrine says information voluntarily given to other people (including companies like Waymo) also isn’t covered by an expectation of privacy. Even if there’s no other option but to give Waymo your address, payment information, personal identification, phone number, etc. just to be able to hitch a ride, most courts consider this to be a “voluntary” relinquishment of otherwise private information. After all, you can always just walk.

Given all of this, we’ll have to see where this goes from here. It’s unclear at this point whether Waymo data/recordings are useful enough to law enforcement to make this something worth fighting in court. But no matter how things play out going forward, it’s nice to know a company has decided to put its foot down before its customers have asked it to. Too many companies only decide to do this after weeks or months of negative press, if they bother to do it at all. Waymo’s warrant demands may ultimately prove to be short-lived, but the fact that it’s pushing back means this company is similarly as sick of this administration and its bullshit, and won’t allow its vehicles to become nothing more than proxy snoops for cops.

2025-09-12 02:50:58 UTC

'Radicalized' Evergreen High School shooter appeared to hold antisemitic, violent views in online accounts (Denver Post)

Denver Post:
‘Radicalized’ Evergreen High School shooter appeared to hold antisemitic, violent views in online accounts  —  Officials say suspect, who fatally shot himself, was Desmond Holly.  Two students remain in critical condition.  —  sbradbury@denverpost.com |  The Denver Post, SETH KLAMANN |

2025-09-12 02:35:02 UTC

Denver Post

Let's Not Forget Who Charlie Kirk Really Was (Joan Walsh/The Nation)

Joan Walsh / The Nation:
Let's Not Forget Who Charlie Kirk Really Was  —  The right-wing influencer did not deserve to die, and we shouldn't forget the many despicable things he said and did.  —  Pocket  —  The murder of right-wing provocateur Charlie Kirk is a tragedy.  But the response augurs even bigger tragedies for American politics.

2025-09-12 02:00:01 UTC

The Nation

Grocery inflation highest since 2022 as Trump tariffs pile up (Axios)

Axios:
Grocery inflation highest since 2022 as Trump tariffs pile up  —  President Trump spent his 2024 campaign promising Americans he'd lower grocery prices.  — Virtually all major grocery categories are now more expensive than they were a year ago, some substantially so.

2025-09-12 01:40:00 UTC

Axios

Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison for Plotting Coup in Brazil (New York Times)

New York Times:
Bolsonaro Sentenced to 27 Years in Prison for Plotting Coup in Brazil  —  Brazil's Supreme Court convicted the former president of trying to cling to power after losing the 2022 election, including a plan to assassinate his opponent.  —  Brazil's Supreme Court on Thursday convicted former …

2025-09-12 01:05:00 UTC

New York Times

The Charlie Kirk Shooting Is Just Another Sign of America's New Violent Era

This piece was first published by writer Jack Crosbie on Discourse Blog Substack. Zeteo is republishing it with its permission and a new headline.

Yesterday, conservative activist and provocateur Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a rally at Utah Valley University. There are pictures and videos and rampant speculation all over the internet. You will not find them here. The shooter’s name and motivation are still unknown as of this writing. In the next few hours and days, we will likely have definitive answers to these questions, but we do not have them now.

What does seem clear is that the American ‘Years of Lead’ are here.

The term refers to a period of Italian history roughly between 1960 and 1980 that was defined by widespread political violence and domestic terrorism, perpetrated by both right and left-wing groups. The scale of the violence in Italy — hundreds dead in massacres, bombings, and assassinations — makes applying the term to the United States seem hyperbolic at first. But consider: Italy had a deeply divided political system, a repressive government, and widespread economic woes. It was filled with motivated and organized radical political groups on both the left and the right. It was quite a bit like our country today.

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And now we see the results. We are in a different era: the weapons are different, the tactics are different, the groups are different. The American Years of Lead will not look like Italy’s, but they are here all the same. In this country, any person can pick up a gun and find someone to shoot for ideological reasons. As we have seen time and time again, it is so very easy to do.

But access to firearms in this country is not new. You have been able to get a gun and shoot a lot of people for years. What’s different now is that, in the past half-decade, the contours of this violence have shifted. The motivations of mass shooters are still a difficult trend to map, but more and more people appear to be carrying out assassinations for very specific reasons, targeting very specific people. Put another way, Luigi Mangione was not an anomaly, and nor is the person who killed Charlie Kirk. In the next few years, I suspect they will become known simply as the start of a trend.

The structure of American society has deteriorated to the point where a growing number of people see violence as the only way they can change their world. In some ways, this has always been the case – as I’ve written before, basically all human governance comes down to the use of force at some point or another – but society is supposed to be structured to insulate everyday people from that truth.

The kind of violence that killed Kirk is supposed to be carried out by people who are so deranged, or crazy, or sick, or in pain, that they take an extreme action that is outside the bounds of what our society should permit. But look at where we’re at. Our society is increasing the number of people who are sick or in pain every day. It has broken down and squeezed so hard that ordinary people may feel deranged on a bad day. But most of all, for those who were already harboring thoughts of violence or hate – like so many on the far right – the chaos is an easy excuse. That the president looks fondly on their views or, at the very least, shows little interest in prosecuting them only adds to the opportunity. The country is full of loaded guns in shaky hands, swinging back and forth, from target to target.

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What this looks like, on a practical level, might be a bit different than what most people think. There will not be another American “civil war.” The country is too geographically and economically and socially enmeshed for that. But the lone wolves, the fringe groups, and the homicidally desperate will strike, again and again, killing both the innocent and guilty alike.

A few months ago, a man drove a truck bomb into a fertility clinic in Palm Springs. The bomber was the only one who died, but the intent was there. His successors will not be as sloppy. The story didn’t get much traction when it happened, but it has stuck in my mind ever since. I do not believe we will get large armed groups fighting each other in the streets. What we will get is more incidents like the Palm Springs one – single shots ringing out in public spaces, or a brief hail of gunfire. Schools and churches will continue to come under attack. People will weaponize their vehicles – the second-deadliest machines in the country – and turn them into battering rams and bombs to slam into buildings and crowds. The state will denounce the attacks it deems to be perpetrated by its enemies and use them to justify expanding its use of force in the streets. Nonlethal rounds shot at protesters will, perhaps, become live ammunition.

There is nothing now that we can do to stop this: ending it will take years of reform and an ease to the material hardships of this country to make it abate.

If that sounds hopeless, I’m sorry. I don’t want people to live their lives in a state of constant fear. It is extremely unlikely that any one person will be affected by this trend, statistically speaking – though marginalized groups are far more at risk. But however insulated we may personally be from some of this violence, what people must do is understand and recognize that it exists. This won’t go away if we do not first recognize that our society is broken and seek to fix it. That means we can’t trust people who want us to “return to normalcy,” or who offer hollow promises of stability without changing the rotten foundations that our violent country rests upon. A more peaceful world is possible. It will take new leadership and new ideas. We do not have those yet. We may not get them anytime soon. Until then, we live in the years of lead.

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Jack Crosbie is a writer who covers conflict, politics, labor, and the media for Discourse Blog. He was previously a contributing writer at Splinter and has written for Rolling Stone and The Atlantic.

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