From Charlie Chaplin to Jimmy Kimmel, Charlie Kirk to Elon Musk September 29, 2025 Al Franken on Charlie Chaplin in Rolling Stone: Trump Is Trying to Silence Political Satire Under President Trump, the First Amendment has become a dead letter. Instead, he’s spent the first eight months of his second term on a campaign of shock and awe designed to silence dissent and bring the independent media to heel. And it’s no surprise that he’s coming for the comedians now. Charlie Chaplin was willing to mock Hitler. Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel were willing to mock an American president with his own authoritarian designs. What will the rest of us be willing to do in order to stand up to fascism? It’s not a particularly funny question. But satirists have shown us what it means to have real courage in the face of tyranny. We owe it to them to follow their example. This, of course, was written before Jimmy Kimmel was reinstated. Don’t give up hope! When enough of us shout loud enough — and vote! — we win. Nekima Levy Armstrong in the Minnesota Star Tribune. It’s all worth reading, but this last bit sums it up: To remember Charlie Kirk honestly requires us to hold two truths at once. The first is that violence against political opponents corrodes democracy, no matter who they are. The second is that his life’s work was not noble. To honor his family’s grief does not mean lying about who he was. It means telling the truth without cruelty, resisting both the impulse to demonize and the pressure to sanitize. It means refusing to let his death become a blank check for historical revisionism. As a lawyer and advocate, I know how much words matter — how they shape juries and legislation, and how they affect lives. Kirk’s words wounded. They widened the chasm of distrust among races, genders, orientation and generations. His absence will not heal that wound. Pretending the wound never existed will only deepen it. The lesson of this moment is not about one man’s death but about the kind of democracy we want to live in. Do we want a country where political violence is normalized, or where words can be challenged with better words, stronger organizing, deeper truth? Kirk himself rejected empathy. We must not. Our task now is to build a culture where truth-telling and accountability coexist with compassion. We must say that he should not have been killed, and that neither should he be canonized. Both can be true, and both must be spoken aloud. Jim Stewartson on Elon Musk: “The violence is coming to you”. Two truths at once: Musk has done so much good. And is a deeply malevolent force. Scary. Oh — and how about them Epstein files?