Tidbits- Sept 18 -Readers Comments: Charlie Kirk Killing Excuse for Authoritarianism, Fascism; Real Reason for Attacks Against Us; Medicare To Require Prior Approval for Some Procedures; Attack on Environmental Protections a Cancer Pollution Risk

Readers Comments: Charlie Kirk Killing Excuse for Authoritarianism, Fascism; Real Reason for the Attacks Against Us; Medicare Will Require Prior Approval for Certain Procedures; Attack on Environmental Protections to Increase Cancer-Causing Pollution

Portside
Printer friendly  
Tidbits - Reader Comments, Resources, Announcements, AND cartoons - Sept 18, 2025,Portside

.

Resources:

 

.
Announcements:

...

.
 

Selective Outrage  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Nick Anderson

 


 

Charlie Kirk’s assassination was heinous. No one should celebrate it. But the Republican outrage machine that has now roared to life in his name? That’s a tragedy of another kind: a morality play so hollow you can hear the echo.

Nick Anderson
September 16, 2025
Pen Strokes

 

Re: Charlie Kirk’s Killing Was a Tragedy. But We Must Not Rewrite His Life
 

If you like this article, please sign up for Snapshot, Portside's daily summary.

(One summary e-mail a day, you can change anytime, and Portside is always free.)

I hate the whole "all sins are forgiven once their dead" crap.

Robert Laite
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

and why all the hype for this ONE man. The shooter just took out Charlie. Where is the outrage for all the slaughtered school children and the countless victims of mass shootings? Are their lives and families not valuable too? This hype is to further political agenda. Not out of grief or concern.

Amy Villarreal
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

It wasn't a tragedy. It was the logical outcome of his preaching and that of those like him.

Karen Lee Wald

      =====

Release the Epstein files!!

Roberto Rosario
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

      =====

Gregory Kestel
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Political Violence Is Unacceptable...Unless  ---  Cartoon by Garth German

 

Garth German
July 14, 2024
Reality of My Surroundings

 

Re: Did Trump Just Declare War on the American Left?
 

He hates Democrats . Nothing like having a president of the so called United States that hates half the people.

Nancy Cuffman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: The Far Right Is Already Blaming the Left for Charlie Kirk’s Shooting
 

This is the perfect scenario for Trump. It unites the right that was starting to splinter, takes the focus off the Epstein files and gives them a faceless boogieman that they can say is "all things leftist" to demonize. The best thing for MAGA is to never find the actual shooter so they can blame whoever fits the narrative they want.

Robert

 

Know The Real Reason for the Attacks Against Us
 

I'VE BEEN ON THE LEFT FOR 60 YEARS. I know the full range of socialist and communist groups. Since the demise of the Weather Underground 40 years ago, I don't know a single group that's into violence or terrorism of any sort, even against Charlie Kirk and others like him. If you think I missed someone, let me know.

And don't bring up 'Antifa,' which has never existed as a group. It's a tactic, not an organization. It has no leaders, no members, no headquarters. It happens when anyone posts on social media, 'Hey, the KKK is having a demo here. Let's give them a taste of their own medicine.' Or something close. People may or may not respond. A handful of 'lone rangers' on the left have used violence, but they are far outnumbered by attacks from the far right.

So, when Team Trump says they are going to bust us, who and what do they have in mind? They don't have anything that would stand up in an ordinary court. So when the attacks come, know the real reason. It is because we are gaining the means to defeat them in the upcoming elections. They know they might lose, so they are making up crap to block us illegally. Expand the fight against them, utilizing all 100 nonviolent tactics outlined in Gene Sharp's book on the subject.

Carl Davidson
September 16, 2025
Post on Facebook

 

 

Time for a Statute  --  Cartoon by Randy Bish

 

Randy Bish
September 15, 2025
Randy Bish, Editorial Cartoonist

 

Re: Medicare Will Require Prior Approval for Certain Procedures
 

It is no surprise that the federal government is starting a "pilot program" to set up a gatekeeper to deny care to Medicare recipients in six states. Not exactly sure why they need a pilot program though. Private insurance HMO's and others have had working people as subjects to their gatekeeping and out-of-pocket costs and financial penalties for decades - in various iterations. Some less bad than others. They all are meant to place bumps and roadblocks in the way to care. As someone who has negotiated dozens and dozens of union contracts where the battle lines were HMO's and their "gatekeepers" and private insurance disincentives to care, alongside co-pays, deductibles, co-insurance payments. 

The "pre-authorization" process and the "in and out of network" denial gavel is poised to strike - holding people's health in their small greedy hands. These practices discourage care. The insurance companies knows that well and better than ourselves. Now the ability of the industry to dictate prices, pass-on costs, and squeeze out "excess care" as dictated by an algorithm is complete. It has softened up the US population to accept even higher costs and stricter gatekeepers as the price to pay for private health insurance. They have us right where they want us.  "The American Medical Association wrote in a letter that doctors view prior authorization “as one of the most burdensome and disruptive administrative requirements they face in providing quality care to patients.” Most patients who appeal are successful, but a vast majority never appeal."  The system was built, and the industry relies, on that vast majority. It is more dollars in their coffers. Billions of them.

The only solution to private insurance greed over our health is single payer insurance and universal healthcare. We all deserve no less.

Peter Knowlton
Dartmouth MA

 

Re: Ex-IDF Chief Confirms Gaza Casualties Over 200,000
 

"Genocide by any other name"...

Garold Haynes
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: How JPMorgan Enabled the Crimes of Jeffrey Epstein
 

This article downplays Chase, the commercial division of the legal entity known as JPMorgan Chase.  Do the authors not want enraged Chase depositors   to move their money out of Chase because this is a way to punish the whole company??

because people will do that is they realize they are supporting sex traffickers.

Cathy Deppe

 

Re: New Poll: Democratic Socialism Is Now Mainstream
 

yes, yes yes

Nancy Cuffman
Posted on Portside's Facebook page

 

Re: Building a Conservative Labor Movement: American Compass and the Right’s Pro-Worker Policy Agenda

(posting on Portside Labor)
 

Really appreciate these in depth discussions of crucial issues. 

Lita Kurth

 

Re: Why Does The New York Times Keep Ignoring Polls Showing Mamdani Leading With Jewish Voters?
 

This is one of the most important pieces I have read in Portside all year. THANK YOU for including it! I know plenty of Jewish people who (quietly) support Mamdani even though they are not New Yorkers, so I have no doubt that Mamdani is under-estimated in the polls of NY voters. This explanation, in all its detail, gives us a reality check on the bias of NYTimes and how the splits in "the Jewish vote" are hidden. 

Eve Sutton

 

El Grito - Mexican Independence Celebrations  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Lalo Alcaraz

 

Every year on September 15th, the Mexican President and also various dignitaries in all the states of Mexico and many of the states in the USA host a Mexican Independence Day celebration. It usually includes a patriotic recitation and El Grito, a cry of Independence for Mexico. This year the grito continues on the 16th, and the 17th, and on and on until the attack on our community ceases.

Lalo Alcaraz
September 16, 2025
CALÓ News!

 

How To Desecrate An American Flag  --  Cartoon and Commentary by Clay Jones

 

If I'm not on the Charlie Kirk dox list yet, this should do it.

 

I went to McDonald’s this morning (which is something I rarely do), and noticed their flag was at half-staff to commemorate dead racist fascist Charlie Kirk. Why do I have to see this bullshit while trying to get my Egg McMuffin on? The president (sic) can only order federal buildings to fly their flags at half-staff. McDonald’s is choosing to honor this racist. There are municipalities in New York, New Jersey, and California ignoring Trump’s bullshit, but McDonald’s can’t?

Charlie Kirk was not anyone important. He wasn’t a civil rights hero. In fact, he said the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was a mistake. He said Martin Luther King Jr was “awful.”

Trump abused his authority by ordering the lowering of the flags for his racist buddy. He didn’t do this to unite the nation, but to appeal politically to his racist base. By the way, the order was to last until sunset on September 14, which was Sunday. So why does McDonald’s still have their flags at half-staff? Did someone drop a McFlurry? Damn. Now I want a McFlurry.

As I said, Kirk was not a hero or anyone of substance or importance. He initially had a fanbase of young white men. Racist frat fucks and everyone who likes to address other guys as “bro,” thus making it a douchey term, were his following. He’s only important now because they believe he was assassinated for his political views. But most people weren’t even aware of his existence. It’s been since last Wednesday that his following has increased. A lot of these MAGA wankers howling, “Why? He was so important to us and he spoke the truth,” had never heard of him until a bullet ripped through his neck.

One of the things they champion about Kirk, or so they claim, is his stand for free speech. But he was against free speech. Sure, he’d debate liberals in the safe zones of his hate rallies on college campuses, but a lot of professors at those universities were on his “watch list,” which was built to intimidate professors from speaking publicly, as Charlie had the freedom to do, and even scare them away from teaching courses he disagreed with, like science and biology.

Charlie was trying to shape how universities taught courses, while he was a community college dropout who was rejected from West Point. Charlie wasn’t qualified to round up carts in Walmart parking lots.

The day of Kirk’s death, I drew Sorry, Charlie, which used one of his quotes. His supporters hated that. The share of it on Facebook on September 10 currently has 864 comments, most of them angry, with many saying, “Share the full quote.”

The quote in the cartoon is, “Some gun deaths are worth it to have the Second Amendment.”
The full quote is, “I think it’s worth it. It’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the Second Amendment to protect our other God given rights. That’s a prudent deal. It is rational.”

The difference is that I shortened it so it would work in a cartoon. Also, do NOT email me telling me there are typos in quotes. I do not fix quotes, and I let MAGAt grammar fly, like those flags at half-mast.

The reel for Sorry, Charlie, which shows a time-lapse of the cartoon drawn in 30 seconds, has over 500 comments. They, too, are mostly howling racist monkeys.

On September 13, I drew Empathy, which used Charlie’s quote about how he didn’t like the word. The Facebook share of it has 182 comments, which is a lot, but nothing compared to the reel I shared. The reel, of the 30-second timelapse drawing has over 3,000 comments, and climbing. Most are howling for me to share the full quote. They’re also using the word “retard” a lot. A LOT!

The quote I used was, “I hate empathy.”
Kirk’s quote was, “I can't stand the word empathy, actually. I think empathy is a made-up, new age term that — it does a lot of damage. But, it is very effective when it comes to politics. Sympathy, I prefer more than empathy.”

On the same day, he talked about empathy, he also said, “The same people who lecture you about 'empathy' have none for the soldiers discharged for the jab, the children mutilated by Big Medicine, or the lives devastated by fentanyl pouring over the border.
Spare me your fake outrage, your fake science, and your fake moral superiority.”

If anything, his full statements are worse than the simple part I took.

The howlers on my posts are crying that I don’t reply to them all. Hell, when there are over 3,000, I can’t read them all. It’s typical of a MAGAt to believe they’re so entitled that I must give a response to their one comment out of 3,000, and their comment is saying the same stupid shit as all the 2,999 comments. You guessed it. Calling me a “retard.”

Since his fans demand that I share Kirk’s full quotes, I’ll oblige with a few others.

On August 26, reacting to the news of Taylor Swift’s engagement to Travis Kelce, he said, “Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.” Actually, Charlie…Travis Kelce might have to sign a prenup, so yeah. She is in charge.

On August 8, Charlie responded to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape. He said, “The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.” Probably because the baby would be his. Ooh! Did I just say that? Yes. Yes, I did.

On April 1, 2024, he said, “We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.” If Charlie were around in the mid-1940s, he probably would have been a defendant at the Nuremberg trial.

On April 30, he said, “America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.” He was Islamophobic.

On June 25, he said, “We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care; that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with Western civilization.”

On September 8, he said, “Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.”

Now for the racism.

On August 22, he said, “America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years, and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.” So, why are they against legal immigration? Hmmm?

On March 20, 2024, he said, “The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.” It’s the DEMOCRATIC Party. See? Community college dropout.

On March 1, 2024, he said, “The great replacement strategy, which is well underway every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.” This is one of the most racist conspiracy theories out there. Of course, Charlie Kirk would glom onto it.

On May 19, 2023, he said, “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.” That is NOT a fact.

On December 8, 2022, he said, “If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States Marine?” The Marine probably gets paid better than a Black Lesbian WNBA player.

On January 3, 2024, he said, “If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because of affirmative action?” I would LOVE to get more Black women on the phone when I call customer service. The last customer service person I got was for Apple, and she was brilliant at helping me with my MacBook issue. What I’m more concerned about are moronic White racist podcasters.

On July 13, 2023, he said, “If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … 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.” You have to wonder how the position of First Lady is a “white person’s slot,” but you have to remember that Charlie was a one-semester community college dropout.

On January 23, 2024, he said, “If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.” But the thing is, he was telling White America to be bigots, and he wasn’t qualified.

The one thing I’ve discovered over the past week about Charlie Kirk fans is that they hate it when you quote Charlie Kirk.

P.S. I walked to McDonald’s to get a McFlurry. Yeah, the flag was still at half-staff. McFuckers.

Clay Jones
September 16, 2025
Claytoonz

 

The Trump Administration’s Attack on Environmental Protections Will Increase Cancer-Causing Pollution  (Center for American Progress)
 

The Trump administration’s plan to torpedo air pollution limits and cancer prevention programs while ripping away health care and cancer treatment and canceling clean energy investments will increase preventable cancer cases among Americans—all to enhance polluters’ profits and cut taxes for the superrich.

 

Smokestacks at the Hugh L. Spurlock Generating Station are seen in Maysville, Kentucky, June 12, 2025.  (Center for American Progress)

Introduction and summary

In 2022, more than 18 million Americans were living with cancer.1 The National Cancer Institute estimates that roughly 39 percent of adults in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer at some stage in their lifetime.2 More than 2 million new cancer cases, including almost 10,000 among children, will be diagnosed in the United States this year alone, with 618,120 people expected to die from the disease, according to estimates by the National Cancer Institute.3 Cancer is one of the top two leading causes of death in the country and is responsible for almost 1 in 5 deaths.4

Air pollution includes a mix of toxic substances that make it a leading environmental cause of cancer.5 Fossil fuel production and use—including from fossil fuel-fired power plants, fertilizer and petrochemical facilities, heavy-duty diesel engine trucks, gas-powered cars, the oil and gas industry, and ports—are significant sources of pollution tied to cancer.6 Air pollution also threatens public health by causing neurological and psychological conditions as well as asthma and lung and heart disease.7

Since 1970, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed science-based pollution limits—which have had substantial public health and economic benefits—to cut pollution from fossil fuel production and use, protect Americans’ health, and avoid preventable cancer cases.8 Notably, for a variety of reasons, cancer deaths declined by 34 percent from 1991 to 2022.9 Yet in just the first six months of his second administration, President Donald Trump has pursued policies that will worsen cancer risks, threatening to reverse decades of progress.10 These actions include attacking pollution limits and environmental protections; gutting public health programs that support lifesaving cancer research, prevention, and care; and proposing pharmaceutical tariffs, which could limit access to and increase the price of cancer medications.11 In addition, congressional Republicans’ One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA) will slash pollution reduction programs, end clean energy incentives, and gut the Medicaid program—which covers critical health services for more than 71 million Americans, including 1 in 10 adults and 1 in 3 children with a history of cancer. The consequences of these actions will compound the harm to Americans at risk of cancer or in need of cancer treatments, including kids, and undermine the administration’s goal to reduce chronic disease as part of its “Make America Healthy Again” agenda.12

Read full report here

This report is the fifth in a series of products from the Center for American Progress that focuses on how eliminating environmental and public health protections harms Americans’ health.

 

How Workers Died Last Week

33 workers appear in today's Weekly Toll -- killed while doing their jobs: Confined space suffocation, electrocution, oil field explosion, firefighting, falls, drowning, helicopter crash, farming, tree trimming, construction, vehicle incidents and shootings. 

Most left spouses and children behind.

But only one of these workers received flags at half staff and a memorial service at the Kennedy Center. Guess which one?

Confined Space: https://jordanbarab.com/confinedspace 
Bluesky: jbarab.bsky.social
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jbarab/

--
National COSH and the COSH network are the home of the occupational health & safety movement in the U.S. National COSH convenes the Protecting Workers Alliance and its PWA listserv as an advocacy alliance and information clearinghouse for trainers, organizers, and researchers supporting workers in their fight for safety and justice. Thank you for joining us and supporting working people.

 

Film Screening - "Singing for Justice"  --  New York City  -- September 30  (The New School's Gender and Sexualities Studies Institute and the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music)

 

"Singing for Justice" Film Screening

Tuesday, September 30, 2025, 6:30-8:30PM

The New School
Kellen Auditorium
66 5th Avenue
New York City

Register here  

Singing for Justice is a one-hour that film explores the life of Faith Petric (1915-2013), the San Francisco-based political radical, musical organizer, and charismatic performer who united folk music and progressive causes from the 1930s through the early 2000s. Over her long and purposeful life, Petric inspired all to take responsibility for social change, women and elders to defy stereotypes, and everyone she met to sing along. Narrated largely by Petric, the film weaves her personal, musical, and political journeys into the history of social movements and song in modern America. 

Please join the co-directors Estelle Freedman and Christie Herring for the first NY screening of Singing for Justice, followed by a discussion moderated Natalia Mehlman-Petrzela and a closing singalong. 

The event is free and open to the public, but to insure a seat please register in advance at https://event.newschool.edu/singingforjusticefilmscreening.

Presented by The New School's Gender and Sexualities Studies Institute and the School of Jazz and Contemporary Music. Co-sponsored by Historical Studies at The New School for Social Research.