September 12, 2025

Edward Wong & Michael Crowley of the New York Times: “Secretary of State Marco Rubio ... has helped steer the Trump administration toward a much more aggressive — and deadly — tactic [across Latin America and the Caribbean]: use military force to destroy suspected drug boats and kill the people on board, without a legal process.... No senior Trump official has spoken more forcefully about the new campaign of violence against Latin American criminal groups and their allies. And no senior aide to Mr. Trump has as long a history working on Latin America policy.... The son of anti-Communist immigrants from pre-revolutionary Cuba, he was motivated by his loathing for the Castro government and its allies, notably Venezuela.... Mr. Rubio has long sought the ouster of leftist strongmen in the region, particularly leaders of Venezuela, Cuba and Nicaragua, whose governments he has called 'illegitimate.' He has also helped engineer the administration’s mass deportations of immigrants, including to a notorious prison in El Salvador.” 

Here are some entries from the NYT live updates on developments in the Charlie Kirk shooting:

• Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs: “Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily harm, and obstruction of justice, all felonies, according to an affidavit filed in court. A judge ordered that he be held without bail. Court records indicate that he had not been convicted of any crimes in the past.Tyler Robinson, 22, was arrested on suspicion of aggravated murder, felony discharge of a firearm causing serious bodily harm, and obstruction of justice, all felonies, according to an affidavit filed in court. A judge ordered that he be held without bail. Court records indicate that he had not been convicted of any crimes in the past.”  
• Glenn Thrush: “Kash Patel, the embattled F.B.I. director who has drawn criticism for his handling of this investigation, immediately thanks ... [Donald] Trump when stepping up to speak at a news conference — in keeping with his pattern of lavishing public praise [for Mr. Trump]....”
• Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs: “There were engravings on unfired ammunition left with the gun that officials believe was used in the shooting, Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah says in a news conference. One of them read, 'Hey fascist! Catch!' the governor said, adding that another read, 'If you read this, you are gay LMAO,' an abbreviation for 'laughing my ass off.'.... Gov. Spencer Cox says a family member of the suspect, Tyler Robinson, contacted a family friend after the shooting. That friend then contacted a sheriff’s office and told officers that Robinson had confessed, or suggested that he had committed the killing.”  

AND then there's this from David Sanger, writing on the NYT liveblog: Donald “Trump said on Friday that the 'radical left'was responsible for much of the political violence in the country, and walked to the edge of excusing violence on the right, saying that most on the extreme right of the political spectrum were driven there because 'they don’t want to see crime.' In an interview on 'Fox and Friends' that ran for nearly an hour, Mr. Trump built on the case he had made on Thursday evening to reporters that 'we have radical left lunatics out there and we just have to beat the hell out of them.'... Mr. Trump dismissed on Friday a suggestion from one of his interviewers that there were extremists on both the left and the right, saying his biggest concern was those on the left. 'The radicals on the right oftentimes are radical because they don’t want to see crime,' he said. 'The radicals on the left are the problem, and they’re vicious and they’re horrible and they’re politically savvy.' America has seen a wave of violence across the political spectrum, targeting Democrats and Republicans.” See Paul Krugman's commentary, linked below.

Patrick Svitek & Amy Wang of the Washington Post: “... Donald Trump announced Friday that Memphis will be the next target of a National Guard deployment, as his administration expands its use of the military to fight crime to its third Democratic-run city in recent months. 'We’re going to Memphis,' Trump said during a Fox News interview, calling it a 'deeply troubled' city. 'National Guard and anybody else we need. And by the way, we’ll bring in the military too, if we need it.'” The AP's story is here.

Lena Sun, et al., of the Washington Post: “Trump health officials plan to link coronavirus vaccines to the deaths of 25 children as they consider limiting which Americans should get the shots.... The findings appear to be based on information submitted to the federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, which contains unverified reports of side effects or bad experiences with vaccines submitted by anyone.... The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention emphasizes that the database is not designed to assess whether a shot caused a death.... Trump health officials plan to include the pediatric deaths claim in a presentation next week to an influential panel of advisers to the CDC that is considering new coronavirus vaccine recommendations, which affect access to the shots and whether they’re free.” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: My cousin got the coronavirus shot and the very next day she won a million-dollar lottery scratch-off prize. Proof positive that vaccinations are harbingers of wicked good luck. The stupidity/mendacity/audacity of this HHS stunt boggles the mind.

Aaron Wiener of the Washington Post: “Polish leaders on Friday rejected ... Donald Trump’s suggestion that the Russian drones that invaded NATO airspace this week might have been a 'mistake.' 'We would also wish that the drone attack on Poland was a mistake,' Poland’s prime minister, Donald Tusk, posted on X. 'But it wasn’t. And we know it.'... NATO’s top political and military leaders said it was still not clear whether the Russian incursion was deliberate but said the U.S.-led alliance would implement a new initiative called Eastern Sentry, aimed at bolstering defenses along its entire eastern flank — a pointed warning to Moscow. Jabbing a lectern with his finger at a news conference late Friday afternoon, Secretary General Mark Rutte called the Russian breach 'dangerous and unacceptable' regardless of intent.”

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NBC News said on-air that the name of the suspect in custody was Tyler Robinson. ~~~

~~~ According to the Daily Mail -- and remember, it's the Daily Mail! so it has all the credibility of, say, the current FBI Director -- "Sources told the Daily Mail that the killer then confessed to his father, a 27-year veteran of the Washington County Sheriff's Department, public records showed. His father then contacted authorities and secured his son before he could be taken into custody.... The alleged shooter lived in a $600,000 six-bedroom home in Washington, Utah - around 260 miles south of where the carnage unfolded in Orem." ~~~

~~~ From the AP's liveblog on developments in the Charlie Kirk case: “... Donald Trump said Friday that the suspect in the Charlie Kirk killing has been captured. 'With a high degree of certainty, we have him,' Trump announced in a live interview on Fox News Chanel on Friday morning. Trump said a minister who is also involved with law enforcement turned in the suspect to authorities. 'Somebody that was very close to him said, “Hmm, that’s him,’” Trump said.” ~~~

     ~~~ Here's video of Trump on the "Fox & Friends" couch, announcing that a suspect was in custody. ~~~ 

~~~ Here is today's New York Times liveblog on developments in the Charlie Kirk case. ~~~

Glenn Thrush: “A man was taken into custody at about 11 p.m. local time by Utah state and local police, according to a law enforcement official who confirmed the details of ... [Donald] Trump’s remarks to Fox News. Federal authorities are not releasing his name because they are still in the process of pursuing leads and executing search warrants, according to the official....” 

From a New York Times liveblog, also linked yesterday: “The authorities on Thursday released two images of a person they are seeking as they investigate the fatal shooting of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, indicating that they had not been able to identify him through facial recognition or other technology and needed the public’s help.... The authorities have described him as a person of interest. State and federal officials also said they had found ... imprints of a forearm, a palm and a shoe.... The weapon used to kill Mr. Kirk ... was a 'high-powered bolt-action rifle' that investigators later found in a wooded area near the campus of Utah Valley University..., said Robert Bohls, the special agent in charge of the F.B.I.’s Salt Lake City office. Officials referred to the person they were hunting as a man throughout a news conference on Thursday morning. [Utah's public safety chief Beau] Mason said the person being sought 'blended in well' at the campus because he appeared 'to be of college age.'” ~~~

~~~ These are the images the FBI released yesterday morning: ~~~

     ~~~ If you scroll down the liveblog page, you'll find four additional, clearer images released late yesterday. None of them shows the person's face. ~~~

     ~~~ Update: From the most recent (as of 4:00 am ET) pinned on the NYT liveblog: “The authorities released on Thursday fresh video footage of a person sought in the investigation into the assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk, as officials pleaded with the public for help in the intense manhunt for the gunman that stretched on for more than 30 hours.... The new footage showed a person racing across a roof after the shooting and dropping down one floor to the ground. He then walked across a busy street and disappeared into a wooded area, where investigators later found a rifle.... Gov. Spencer Cox of Utah urged the public at a news conference in Orem to help the authorities capture “this evil human being.” Mr. Cox appeared alongside the F.B.I. director, Kash Patel, who arrived in Utah on Thursday evening to more directly oversee the hunt for the person who fatally shot Mr. Kirk. Mr. Patel did not speak at the news conference, and none of the officials took questions.” ~~~ 

     ~~~ Here's the AP's story. (Also linked yesterday.) Here's a newer Reuters story. ~~~ 

~~~ Ben Johansen of Politico: “... Donald Trump on Thursday told reporters that 'we just have to beat the hell' out of 'radical left lunatics,' following the killing of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. The president, speaking on the South Lawn of the White House as he was heading to New York City, was responding to a reporter who asked what the president’s message was to conservatives who feel targeted by  'radical groups.'... The president added in a separate answer that he would urge his supporters to follow a nonviolent path in response to the shooting. 'He [Kirk] was an advocate of nonviolence,' Trump said. 'That’s the way I’d like to see people respond.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Paul Krugman: “... no prominent Democrat has called for violence against Republicans, and no prominent Democrat has celebrated Kirk’s death. Whoever did this, there’s just no rational way you can blame this on 'the left.' Also, whatever motivated this murder, it’s simply a fact that over the past decade right-wing extremists have killed many more people than left-wing extremists[.]... Trump — who has repeatedly incited mob violence since his first campaign — clearly wants to use the Kirk killing as an excuse for more violence and intimidation.... An utterly malign appeal to mob violence from a sitting president, particularly outrageous since no one knows who killed Kirk and why. And let’s be clear: everyone — Republicans, business leaders, and more — who decided, in effect, to forget about Jan. 6 helped set the stage for this malignancy. So while we want to know what lay behind Kirk’s assassination, the important story right now is Trump’s intent to use the killing to incite violence against anyone who stands in his way.” ~~~

Marie: In case you are a young person hoping to move into a managerial position, here is a lesson in how not to treat subordinates (or anybody): ~~~  

~~~ Glenn Thrush, et al., of the New York Times: “On Thursday morning, a day after hastily suggesting the person who gunned down Charlie Kirk was in custody, Kash Patel, the F.B.I. director, convened an online meeting with 200 agents around the country to discuss the manhunt.... Mr. Patel and his deputy, Dan Bongino, made it clear they were under intense pressure to catch the killer of Mr. Kirk.... The director wasted no time before calling out subordinates that he said failed to give him timely information and was incensed that agents in Salt Lake City waited nearly 12 hours to show him a photo of the suspected killer.... Mr. Patel said he would not tolerate any more 'Mickey Mouse operations,' an official on the call recounted. It was one of his few utterances without profanity, the person added....

“The F.B.I. director’s actions have already invited scorn and scrutiny from the bureau’s work force, and some senior officials at the Justice Department....  Over the summer, Mr. Patel’s team forced the retirement of Mehtab Syed, a highly regarded former counterterrorism agent appointed in February to run the Salt Lake City field office, for reasons that remain unclear.... 'She had unparalleled expertise in exactly these kinds of investigations,' [one of her former supervisors said].... 'Losing her leadership at this critical moment is a serious blow to the community and the bureau.'” ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: The agents should have logged off the call, en masse. Even if they were screwing up (and Kash Patel has no ability whatsoever to assess their performances), no one should have to endure such abuse. ~~~

~~~ Alex Woodward of the Independent: “The FBI’s response to the fatal shooting of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk in Utah has underscored the dramatic changes to the nation’s premier law enforcement agency under Donald Trump, whose administration has purged agents and moved officers away from fighting crime to arresting immigrants.... Robert Bohls, the FBI special agent in charge for the field office in Utah, has been in office less than a month. He replaced a career official with a background in domestic terrorism who had been appointed to the role in February.”

~~~⭐Jonathan Chait of the Atlantic: “Rather than condemning violence and calling for unity, the president of the United States accused his political opposition of being accessories to murder ... and threatening to use the full power of the government to attack it.... It is possible that, in the history of America’s radicalization spiral, the horrifying, cold-blooded assassination of the right-wing activist Charlie Kirk will be recorded as only the second-most-dangerous event of September 10, 2025. If so, the more significant development will instead have been the speech that evening by ... Donald Trump.” Thank you to akaWendy for this gift link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: I think Chait is right here. If I'm right -- and he's right -- then he's done a great service in calling out Trump in this way. If you don't have time to read his essay now -- it's not long -- figuratively dog-ear it, and read it later. ~~~ 

~~~ Paul Campos in L$&M: "The reaction to the murder of Charlie Kirk illustrates a number of things about the state of the nation, none of them good. First, the instantaneous transformation of a hatemongering propagandist for Donald Trump’s ongoing neo-fascist attempt to destroy liberal democracy in this country into a kind of innocent victim of overheated political rhetoric is all but clinically insane. I realize Ezra Klein is kind of a hate object for a lot of LGM commenters despite the fact that he often does excellent work, but this right here [--a NYT column titled 'Charlie Kirk Was Practicing Politics the Right Way" --] is a catastrophic failure of judgment and analysis." Thanks to RAS for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

      ~~~ Marie: Unlike Campos, I've never pegged Klein as a liberal; he has some ideas that jibe with liberal objectives, to be sure, but he seems to like to think of himself as "independent" or "open-minded" or "receptive to alternative ideas." I'm all for thinking outside of the box -- I'm an admirer of Steve M., for instance -- but there has always been something wrong with Klein's radar. His idea of open-minded seems to include, "But maybe those MAGA folks are right!" I used to blame it on his youth, but he's not a kid anymore (he's 41). Klein's "open-minded" inclinations' occasionally do prompt some seemingly original ideas worth exploring, but mostly they're gibberish dressed up in "reasonable"-sounding rhetoric but ignoring vital factors that would blow up his arguments. ~~~

~~~ Marie: In case you are convinced by Ezra Klein's argument that "Charlie Kirk was practicing politics the right way," do take a look at this Guardian article by Chris Stein & Dani Anguiano, who gathered together some of Kirk's remarks. I think it reasonable to posit two fundamental elements (you may think of more) that would demonstrate a person was "practicing politics the right way": (1) his views are rational and humane, and (2) he is open to considering other points-of-view. Stein & Anguiano demonstrate Kirk failed at (1); and since (a) his shtick was debating college students, and (b) he maintained his horrifying views until his death (as far as I know), he also must have failed at (2). ~~~ 

~~~ "Journalist and college professor Stacey Patton goes viral by penning a stunningly powerful statement about how she was on Charlie Kirk’s 'digital hit list' and recounting the horror that he inflicted on her. We cannot allow this tragic assassination to whitewash Kirk’s legacy…" Thanks to RAS for the link. ~~~

~~~ Paul Waldman: "Political violence is a complex problem, and a great many people can be blamed for contributing to it. But no one bears more responsibility than Donald Trump, and we should never forget it for a moment.... Trump is not calling for the violence to end and seeking to calm the nation, because he doesn’t want the violence to end and he doesn’t want the nation to be calm. Nor do his most important supporters, many of whom are right now calling for violent retribution for Kirk’s death." Thanks to Ken W. for the link. (Also linked yesterday.) 

Tesfaye Negussie, et al., of ABC News: "Multiple historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) are on lockdown after receiving potential threats on Thursday, including Alabama State University, Virginia State University, Hampton University in Virginia, Southern University in Louisiana, and Clark Atlanta University in Georgia. Spelman College, located near Clark Atlanta University, has also implemented shelter-in-place protocols as a precautionary measure due to its proximity. The FBI released a statement regarding the threats on Thursday, saying federal investigators are 'aware of hoax threat calls' to a number of historically Black institutions.... Officials have not linked any of the threats to the HBCU campuses to the shooting at Utah Valley University."

Reuters: "None of the 11 people killed in a U.S. military strike on a boat in the Caribbean last week were members of Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, Venezuela's interior minister said on Thursday, as the South American nation deployed troops amid heightened tensions with the U.S. The administration of ... Donald Trump has said the boat was transporting illegal narcotics, but has provided scant further information about the incident, even amid demands from members of the U.S. Congress for a justification for the action."

Every damned thing Trump & the Trumpettes do is wrong, sometimes strikingly so:  

Stephanie Nolen, et al., of the New York Times: “Millions of dollars’ worth of birth control pills and other contraceptives destined for people in low-income countries have been destroyed at the direction of the Trump administration, the United States Agency for International Development said on Thursday. The pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants, valued at about $9.7 million, had been purchased by the agency before it was largely dismantled earlier this year. They had been stuck in a warehouse in Belgium for months, since the State Department said that contraception was not 'lifesaving' and that the United States would no longer fund the purchase of birth control products for low-income nations.... Several international organizations, including the Gates Foundation and the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation, had offered to buy or accept a donation of the contraceptives. The government would have incurred no costs or might have even been able to recoup taxpayer funds under those scenarios. Instead the administration decided to proceed with destroying the products, an operation that was estimated to cost $167,000.”

RFKJ Is a Phony. Benjamin Mueller & Dani Blum of the New York Times: “Since taking office in February, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ... has effectively restricted access to Covid shots, installed skeptics to influential posts and ousted the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention after she defied his orders on inoculations. But Mr. Kennedy has applied a far lighter touch to what he and his Make America Healthy Again movement have described as the other major scourge plaguing American children: pesticides and unhealthy foods. Far from cracking down on food and farming practices, Mr. Kennedy’s MAHA commission report on Tuesday defended existing pesticide review procedures and, in some cases, called for loosening food regulations, even as the report promised future steps to clean up what children eat. To many scientists — and some of Mr. Kennedy’s own followers — the gap between the health secretary’s use of his authority over food quality and his pummeling of vaccines has created a jarring split screen.” (Also linked yesterday.)

Michael Gold of the New York Times: “Senate Republicans on Thursday bulldozed past Senate precedents and changed the rules to break a Democratic blockade of ... [Donald] Trump’s nominees, in an extraordinary move that is likely to undercut Congress’s future role in vetting executive branch officials. The change, pushed through along party lines, lowered the existing 60-vote threshold for considering a group of presidential nominees to a simple majority, weakening the ability of individual senators to block nominees they find objectionable. It was the latest step in a yearslong back-and-forth between the two parties that has eroded the filibuster, a once-potent Senate tool to protect the rights of the minority and force consensus. In this case, Republicans resorted to the move in an effort to steer around Democratic obstruction of Mr. Trump’s nominees, which has created a backlog of more than 100 [nominees].” The NBC News report is here.

Josh Gerstein & Kyle Cheney of Politico: “Frustrated federal appeals court judges publicly wrestled Thursday with how to follow vague 'signals' from the Supreme Court contained in tersely worded — and often unexplained — orders handed down on the justices’ emergency docket.... During the remarkable, 80-minute venting session Thursday at the Richmond-based [4th Circuit] court, judges openly debated how to follow the justices’ sparse guidance while fulfilling their own constitutional duty to issue detailed rulings in complex cases.... Despite recent umbrage expressed by Justices Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh — suggesting lower court judges had flippantly defied high court emergency-docket rulings — the public debate among the 4th Circuit judges underscored continuing confusion on the lower courts about precisely how to follow those decisions in practice, especially when they lack any detailed reasoning.”

~~~ Tracey Tully, et al., of the New York Times: “Nadine Menendez, the wife of New Jersey’s former senator, was sentenced on Thursday to four and a half years in prison for her role in a scheme to trade her husband’s political clout for cash, gold and a Mercedes-Benz. In an emotional address before the judge imposed the sentence, Ms. Menendez, 58, laid blame for much of her conduct on her husband, Robert Menendez, once one of the country’s most powerful Democrats. 'I put my life in his hands and he strung me like a puppet,' she said through tears.... The judge, Sidney H. Stein of Federal District Court, largely dismissed her effort to distance herself from the crimes, calling her a 'central participant.'” (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marie: Gosh, that's funny, Nadine, because Bob blamed you for all that criming. 

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California. Lindsey Holden of Politico: “California lawmakers on Thursday sent Gov. Gavin Newsom legislation that would ban federal immigration agents from wearing masks while conducting raids throughout the state. The legislation, passed by Democrats over Republican objections in this deep blue state, would prohibit ski masks, balaclavas and other face coverings for local and federal law enforcement, as well as officials from other states operating in California. Another bill that would require law enforcement to wear badges or name tags identifying themselves was also on track to advance from the Capitol on Thursday. Newsom now has about a month to decide whether to sign or veto the mask bill. The Democratic governor has publicly questioned whether the state has the authority to regulate federal law enforcement....”

Massachusetts. Jenna Russell of the New York Times: “Josh Kraft, a political newcomer and a son of the New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, ended his run for mayor of Boston on Thursday, two days after Mayor Michelle Wu trounced him in the preliminary election.... Boston holds a nonpartisan preliminary election instead of party primaries, with the goal of winnowing the field of candidates to two; a total of four names were on Tuesday’s mayoral ballot. It was not immediately clear on Thursday whether Mr. Kraft’s name would still appear on the November ballot or would be replaced by that of the third-place finisher, Domingos DaRosa, who received 2.6 percent of the vote.” 

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As the U.S. retreats into the 19th century, Brazil joins the 21st: ~~~ 

Brazil. Ana Ionova & Jack Nicas of the New York Times: “Brazil’s Supreme Court on Thursday convicted former President Jair Bolsonaro of overseeing a failed conspiracy to overturn the 2022 Brazilian election in a coup plot that included disbanding courts, empowering the military and assassinating the president-elect. Four of the five justices weighing the case voted to convict Mr. Bolsonaro and seven co-conspirators, including his running mate, defense minister and Navy commander, in a forceful rebuke by one of the very institutions the men sought to overthrow. Mr. Bolsonaro, 70, was sentenced to 27 years and three months in prison, though his lawyers are likely to request house arrest because of his health problems. The conviction is a landmark ruling for Latin America’s largest nation. In at least 15 coups and coup attempts with links to the military since Brazil overthrew its monarchy in 1889, Thursday marked the first time the leaders of one of those plots have been convicted.” Thanks to Ken W. for the lead. (Also linked yesterday.) ~~~

     ~~~ Marco Sides with Failed Dictator. Jasper Ward & Andrea Shalal of Reuters: "U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Thursday said the United States would respond, without specifying how, after former Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was convicted of plotting a coup to remain in power after losing the 2022 election. 'The political persecutions by sanctioned human rights abuser Alexandre de Moraes continue, as he and others on Brazil's supreme court have unjustly ruled to imprison former President Jair Bolsonaro,' Rubio wrote on X. 'The United States will respond accordingly to this witch hunt,' he said. Brazil's Foreign Ministry called Rubio's comment a threat that 'attacks Brazilian authority and ignores the facts and the compelling evidence in the records.' The ministry said Brazilian democracy would not be intimidated by the United States."