CHRISTOPHER RUFO: Radical Normie Terrorism.

In addition to their shared fixation with transgenderism, both Westman and Robinson immersed themselves in peculiar digital subcultures. These online spaces were not hubs of Marxism—or even transgenderism, strictly speaking—but of memes, attitudes, copycatting, in-jokes, and irony that, in certain cases, spilled over into violence. Both men allegedly acted out their fantasies not to advance a coherent ideology shaped by study or political organizing but to gratify an obscure personal urge.

In a note to his transgender boyfriend, Robinson wrote that he wanted to stop Charlie Kirk’s “hate.” While this may hint at a nascent ideology, the remark was perfunctory and incidental to the crime. Robinson did not seek to change policy or dismantle a system of government. He seems instead to have wanted to kill a man who spoke openly about transgenderism and embodied a vague notion of “hate.”

Another striking pattern in these crimes is that, at least from initial reporting, the alleged perpetrators came from ordinary, middle-class, Middle American families. Westman’s mother, for example, was active in her Catholic parish in Minneapolis. These were not visibly broken homes but functional households that nonetheless produced monsters—what we might call “radical normie terrorism.”

Radical normie terrorism poses a new challenge for law enforcement. As a veteran FBI agent told me, domestic law enforcement has no systematic program to identify, assess, and respond to this kind of online radicalization. The Bureau still relies on old-fashioned methods—processing tips, knocking on doors, interviewing witnesses—and, in most cases, cannot intervene against disturbed individuals until after they strike.

Maybe the FBI could try reading Reddit.

2025: A RADICAL CHIC ODYSSEY. Political violence and the boredom of barbarism.

“Mangione’s fanbase seem to be mostly young women from well-off backgrounds, and while his looks play in part, there is notably a late tsarist tendency among younger American leftists to revel in political violence. Perhaps they genuinely believe they’re fighting ‘fascism’, or… pic.twitter.com/S490xFjPBq

— Zarathustra (@zarathustra5150) September 24, 2025

BUT TRUMP IS SO STUPID, RIGHT? RIGHT?Trump’s Latest Move to Prevent a Shutdown Is Brilliant.

GOOD: LSU Announces Lecture Series Honoring Charlie Kirk to Promote Free Speech.

COUNT THE COST FIRST: Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa) sees the Democrats writing on the wall – They demand President Trump and Hill GOPers effectively abandon the agenda voters put them in office to carry out, or the Democrats will shut down the federal government come October 1. The Washington Stand reports that Ernst is telling CBO to “score” the actual costs of such a scenario before it comes to be.

STRIKE A POSE, THERE’S NOTHING TO IT: Hollywood Discovers the Virtue of Free Speech.

Consider a letter sent on Tuesday—also the day of Kimmel’s return—by lawyers for Alphabet (formerly Google) to Rep. Jim Jordan, the Republican chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

It says, “Senior Biden administration officials, including White House officials, conducted repeated and sustained outreach to Alphabet and pressed the company regarding certain user-generated content related to the Covid-19 pandemic that did not violate its policies. While the company continued to develop and enforce its policies independently, Biden administration officials continued to press the company to remove non-violative user-generated content.”

Translation: The Biden White House pressured Alphabet, just as the Trump administration jawboned ABC and Disney.

According to Alphabet’s lawyers, the Biden administration coerced YouTube, which is owned by Alphabet, to ban users for so-called medical misinformation during the pandemic. Even Florida governor Ron DeSantis, one of the most prominent politicians in the country, was censored by YouTube for having the temerity to host a conversation with medical experts who said forcing children to wear masks was a bad idea.

Unlike the brief confrontation over Kimmel, the victims of this campaign were mostly not high-profile celebrities, but normal people, including scientists, without deep pockets and big platforms.

Another difference is that Hollywood liberals were largely cheering this state-led campaign against misinformation. While the big platforms were banning users who questioned whether the Covid vaccines really stopped transmission of the virus, or experts like Jay Bhattacharya who questioned the efficacy of widespread lockdowns, late-night hosts like Stephen Colbert were running cringe-inducing skits urging viewers to take the shot.

Alphabet was not the only company pressured by the Biden administration. Twitter was also targeted. So was Facebook, as its CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg acknowledged in 2024 in testimony before Congress. Some of this was out in the open. Biden himself said on July 16, 2021, that social media companies that allowed medical misinformation on their platforms were “killing people.” Kate Bedingfield, who was the communications director for the Biden White House, said that social media companies should be “held accountable.”

In private, the White House went so far as to recommend individual accounts of users who should be deplatformed or whose reach should be limited. These included the current director of the National Institutes of Health, Jay Bhattacharya, who was blacklisted by Twitter after correctly pointing out that Covid-19 was more lethal for older people.

Still though, won’t someone consider the talk show host briefly given a timeout by ABC? Kimmel: ‘Hard To Tell The Difference’ Between Gulags and America.

That’s when [Ethan] Hawke made his analogy, “Well, I’m glad to have you back in the United States of America… I was told you were sent to a Russian gulag, but luckily, you’re back.”

An appreciative Kimmel concurred, “Thank you. I appreciate that. It’s hard to tell the difference now between the gulags and the United States.”

Hawke then had some final bits of praise, “But last night was amazing. And we’re all really proud of you.”

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn could not be reached for comment.

Related:

I note that almost every conservative news or commentary site that matters is now online and/or behind a subscription wall. It occurs to me that this now represents a dangerous single point of failure.

— George MF Washington (@GMFWashington) September 25, 2025

“APOLOGIZE FOR WHAT?” AS THE WISE MAN ONCE SAID: Cubs’ Matt Shaw Responds to Critics of His Attendance at Charlie Kirk’s Memorial Service.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: Qatar and Reverse Causation: A clear-cut case of GDP causing education, rather than the other way around.

I tend to agree with Nassim Taleb that higher ed is a luxury good that rich countries buy, rather than an investment that makes countries rich.

BY DESIGN: The Obamacare Sweeteners Poisoning Budget Negotiations.

Halloween could come early this year. The Democrats have named their price to avoid a government shutdown come October – an additional $350 billion for healthcare over the next decade. Critics say a big chunk of that money may go to ghosts.

At issue are the generous subsidies the Biden administration created for Affordable Care Act policies, sweeteners that are slated to expire in December. Making healthcare essentially free for millions of Americans, those policies have skyrocketed enrollment in Obamacare plans. But a recent study found they have also sparked a curious phenomenon: an estimated 12 million enrollees “without a single claim – no doctor visit, lab test, or prescription filled” in 2024.

The Paragon Health Institute study reports that this is triple the number of no-claim policyholders before the Biden sweeteners were put in place. “Among those now eligible for zero-premium plans with low or no deductible,” the study found, “that number increased nearly sevenfold. … A whopping 40 percent of enrollees in fully subsidized plans had no claims in 2024. In 2024 alone, taxpayers sent at least $35 billion to insurers for people who paid no premiums and never used their plan,” the report said.

The whole program needs to be killed.

DISPATCHES FROM THE TERF WARS:

In light of recent open letters from academia and the arts criticising the UK's Supreme Court ruling on sex-based rights, it's possibly worth remembering that nobody sane believes, or has ever believed, that humans can change sex, or that binary sex isn't a material fact. These…

— J.K. Rowling (@jk_rowling) May 3, 2025

Exit quote: “All I know for sure is that it’s a complete waste of time telling a gender activist that their favourite slogan is self-contradictory nonsense, because the lie is the whole point. They’re not repeating it because it’s true — they know full well it’s not true — but because they believe they can make it true, sort of, if they force everyone else to agree. The foundational lie functions as both catechism and crucifix: the set form of words that obviates the tedious necessity of coming up with your own explanation of why you’re one of the Godly, and an exorcist’s weapon which will defeat demonic facts and reason, and promote the advance of righteous pseudoscience and sophistry.”

Or to put it another way, “Anything could be true. The so-called laws of Nature were nonsense. The law of gravity was nonsense. ‘If I wished,’ O’Brien had said, ‘I could float off this floor like a soap bubble.’ Winston worked it out. ‘If he thinks he floats off the floor, and if I simultaneously think I see him do it, then the thing happens.’ Suddenly, like a lump of submerged wreckage breaking the surface of water, the thought burst into his mind: ‘It doesn’t really happen. We imagine it. It is hallucination.’ He pushed the thought under instantly. The fallacy was obvious. It presupposed that somewhere or other, outside oneself, there was a ‘real’ world where ‘real’ things happened. But how could there be such a world? What knowledge have we of anything, save through our own minds? All happenings are in the mind. Whatever happens in all minds, truly happens.”

GET IN SHAPE: New Balance Men’s 608 V5 Casual Comfort Cross Trainer. #CommissionEarned

FASTER, PLEASE: U.K. gene therapy trial effectively treats Huntington’s disease.

TRUMP IS RIGHT TO TAKE ON THE SMITHSONIAN:

Bursting such bubbles has become a favorite hobby of Republicans in recent years. In May 2023, for example, Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing parents in Florida to challenge the accessibility of books in school libraries on the grounds of sexual content. Critics cried fascism, but the move had a payoff. Highly sympathetic scenes emerged of parents being thrown out of school-board meetings for reading aloud obscenities from books available to their young children.

And who can forget the 2023 scenes of Ivy League presidents called before the House refusing to condemn anti-Semitism? Their use of academic creole alienated viewers and forced the resignation of multiple university presidents.

Trump’s feud with the Smithsonian is not impulsive. It is a well-planned offensive, designed to undermine an institution that he sees as disloyal to America – or to the administration – and beholden to the political and academic left. Democrats make a mistake by focusing on the rhetoric of the attack instead of addressing the real question: who curates the curators?

And:

The last time Republicans were this mad at the Smithsonian Institution was in 1991. Then as now, America’s national museum system was gearing up to celebrate a major date: in that case, the quincentenary of the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus. Senators threatened spending cuts, accusing Smithsonian officials of having a “political agenda” with their representations of race and immigration in exhibitions. Thirty-four years later, on the eve of the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence, Republicans are saying the same things.

I’m not sure if 1991 was “the last time Republicans were this mad at the Smithsonian.” Ever since the debacle of their uber-PC Enola Gay exhibition in 1994, their airbrushing of Clarence Thomas out of black history in 2016, and their 2020 chart on “Aspects & Assumptions of Whiteness & White Culture in the United States,” it’s been clear that somebody needs to save the Smithsonian from their worst impulses.

SCOTT PINSKER: The FAFO Consequences of Trump Derangement Syndrome: Lawfare, Cancel Culture, and Murder.

NEWS YOU CAN USE: You Practice How You Play: How Over Relying on AI in Law School Can Lead to Diminished Critical Thinking Skills. I like the Neil Postman reference. Was he prophetic, or what?

THIS SEEMS LIKE A NO-BRAINER: Hegseth Asks Trump to Approve Execution of Fort Hood Mass Murderer Nidal Hasan.

GREAT MOMENTS IN INTERSECTIONALITY: Greta’s flotilla has exposed the suicidal stupidity of Islamo-leftism.

[I]f I was Israel, I’d relax. You don’t need to ‘defeat’ this flotilla – they’ll defeat themselves with the hilarious contradictions of their Islamo-leftism. This week it was reported that the flotilla has ‘descended into chaos’, following the outbreak of a ‘woke on woke’ civil war. A Tunisian coordinator of the flotilla has reportedly resigned after discovering that the boats are carrying – brace yourselves – LGBT people. Sinful homosexuals? That just won’t do. It’s not Israel that’s being humiliated on the high seas. It’s Queers for Palestine. It’s Gays for Gaza. It’s the whole fragile and lethal alliance between blue-haired Westerners and red-faced Islamic hotheads who might agree that Israel is a demonic entity but who disagree on just about everything else. They said they’d ‘smash’ Israel’s blockade but the only blow they’ve landed so far is an entirely self-inflicted one, exposing to the world the suicidal idiocy of genderfluid Westerners cosying up with Allah-fearing Koran-bashers in an orgy of hatred for the Jewish nation.

That’s the funny thing: when the IDF takes this Dad’s Army of wokeness into custody and then flies them home again, it will be doing them a massive, progressive favour. It will be saving them from the racists, misogynists and homophobes of Hamas and its mad allies. And will Greta and friends say thanks? Will they hell. ‘War criminals!’, they’ll wail as Israel delivers them from the hell of medieval Islamism. I can’t wait.

To be fair, this time, they may have a case for calling Israel war criminals: Greta Thunberg’s freedom flotilla tortured by endless noise as hijacked radios blast Abba on repeat.

WELL, THEY ARE: Ex-Antifa Activist Praises Trump’s Decision to Name the Group ‘Domestic Terrorists.’

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, SURPRISE: So Much for the ‘Trump Recession’ Democrats Really, Really Wanted.

ED MORRISSEY: White House: Nice Swamp Ya Got There, Chuck. Shame If Something Happened to It.

Of course, even with the spin, that still leaves Trump in charge of any shutdown. As I explained on Tuesday, that would give any aspiring swamp-draining president plenty of opportunity to hammer Democrats’ constituencies, but even I may have underestimated Trump’s ambition. The Wall Street Journal reports today that they will use any shutdown as an opportunity for permanent mass firings, not just furloughs:

The White House’s budget office directed federal agencies to draw up plans to permanently reduce their workforces if there is a government shutdown next week, raising the specter of mass firings on top of the customary furloughs during a lapse in funding.

The new memo sent by Office of Management and Budget Director Russ Vought sharply raises the stakes for funding talks and increases the pressure on Senate Democrats, who are demanding that Republicans restore hundreds of billions of dollars in healthcare spending as a condition of their support for keeping the government funded.

“Sharply raises the stakes”? You better believe it, Chuck. Vought makes clear, too, that the cuts will get targeted in accordance with Trump’s priorities:

The OMB memo instructs agencies to design reduction-in-force plans for employees who work for programs that have no current funding and have no outside funding source, and that are “not consistent with the President’s priorities.” This would be in addition to any temporary furloughs that happen during a government shutdown.

The memo from Vought says that any cuts made after the funding deadline would be permanent.

John Nolte adds, “Trump can’t lose here. Democrats will be blamed for the shutdown. Bureaucrats will be fired (tee hee). On the other hand, if Democrats cave and vote for the continuing resolution, their base will be furious. Additionally, these insane demands from Democrats have already been made public, which will haunt them going into the midterms.”

Or as Ed Morrissey writes, “Nice box canyon ahead of you, Chuck.”

Jim Geraghty concurs: Democrats Prepare to March into a Box Canyon by Shutting Down the Government. “Do you envision Trump making significant concessions to ease the pain and suffering of federal government workers? No, I don’t, either. Schumer and the Democrats will have gotten themselves into a high-stakes fight with Trump where one of the party’s key constituencies — government workers — feel the most pain, and it gets worse the longer it drags on.”

THEY ACTUALLY TRAINED FOR THIS POSSIBILITY: F-15Es Tried To Shoot Down Iranian Kamikaze Drones With Laser Guided Bombs.

“I’ve dropped a lot of JDAMs in my career. … I have dropped a JDAM on a moving vehicle in the past,” he said. “So now I’m thinking, okay, if I’m out of missiles, what am I going to do? Like, this thing, this drone, it’s near the ground, it’s low altitude, but it’s not on the ground. It’s moving a little bit faster than the vehicles we usually train against, but it’s not moving that much faster. And so, thinking through what changes do I need to make to my current procedures to do this?”

“We had shot all of our missiles. We’d gone all the way to the east. We turned around. We’d come back to the west. We’ve shot some more missiles. We find another drone,” he continued. “We just set it up, just like we would in attacking a car, and we made a few key changes to the actual procedure. And so we drop the bomb. Bomb comes off normal, normal [sic].”

“So, like the drones going this way. So we’ve swooped in, we’ve dropped a bomb, and then now we’re lazing it,” he added. “The bomb, it looks like it hits, big explosion. And I was like, hit. And then just out of this massive cloud, like in Star Wars, just here comes the drone, just right out of the cloud. And I was like, oh, miss.”

The decision was made to not attempt a second bombing run on the drone. Two other separate unsuccessful attempts were made to down Iranian drones using laser-guided bombs.

“They missed further than I did. Mine was the closest, just to be very clear,” Causey said.

Nice try, but lobbing laser-guided bombs at drones goes to show how unprepared we are for the threat.

WOW: Elon Musk’s DOGE Uncovered the Biggest Health Care Heist in American History.

NICE WORK: Twenty Years After Katrina Gun Confiscations, Gun Rights Orgs Still Fighting to Protect Americans’ Gun Rights.

Twenty years ago, as the residents of New Orleans were reeling in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin and Police Superintendent P. Edwin Compass III ordered law enforcement officers to seize lawfully owned firearms from civilians stating at the time “Only law enforcement will be allowed to have guns.”

The Second Amendment Foundation, along with the National Rifle Association, filed suit against the city and, 20 years ago today, were granted a consent order forcing law enforcement to immediately stop confiscating firearms. Thanks to the continued work of SAF and the NRA after Katrina, President George W. Bush signed the Department of Homeland Security Appropriations Act, which included provisions prohibiting the seizure of legally owned firearms during emergencies.

“In the aftermath of one of the worse natural disasters this country has ever seen, the mayor and law enforcement in New Orleans unthinkably decided to go door-to-door confiscating firearms when citizens needed them most,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This case serves as a great reminder of why SAF must continue its critical work. The Second Amendment rights of American citizens cannot be wiped away just because a handful of people want to disarm a population.”

In the 20 years since the unthinkable Second Amendment violation in New Orleans, SAF continues to fight those who wish to trample our right to keep and bear arms.

Katrina was a real wakeup call for how far Democrats would go to violate civil rights, and how low the media (but I repeat myself) would stoop to smear a Republican president.

ACCOUNTABILITY: Judge sentences ‘scholar-activist’ to 20 years in prison for firebombing UC Berkeley cop car.

CAVING ON ILLEGALS IS NOT WHAT WE VOTED FOR:

So the Dems really plan on shutting down the government unless we agree to give free healthcare to illegals. Let me offer some advice to the GOP: if you cave on this, you do not deserve to exist as a party.

— Physics Geek (@physicsgeek) September 25, 2025