The Morning Sixpack - September 15, 2025
Kirk fallout spins, free speech costs jobs, Trump raid backfires, FBI meth-burn gasses kittens, Miller denies playing with dolls. There's nothing wrong with that, but I'm sure it pisses him off!
Utah Governor Spins Shooter’s Motive While Ignoring the Obvious
The governor of Utah wants you to believe the man accused of assassinating Charlie Kirk was some kind of leftist radical. That narrative doesn’t exactly line up with the facts: Tyler Robinson grew up in a Mormon Republican household, surrounded by guns, and checks every box for the type of young white male who lurks in the Groyper/Nick Fuentes corner of the internet. But sure—let’s pretend he’s Antifa because he once dated a trans woman.
Gov. Spencer Cox told NBC’s Meet the Press that Robinson had “a leftist ideology” and was radicalized after dropping out of college. He described him as a “very normal young man” until he got sucked into the “deep, dark internet.” Yet the evidence Cox actually provided? None. Just some bullet casings etched with gaming memes and a message that read, “hey fascist! CATCH!”
Meanwhile, Robinson’s parents are registered Republicans, his family vacations involved shooting trips, and he was raised in one of the most conservative parts of Utah. Voter rolls show he wasn’t even affiliated with a political party. But when a high-profile conservative activist gets gunned down, the political incentives to blame “the radical left” are just too good to pass up.
Cox also went out of his way to highlight Robinson’s relationship with a transitioning partner, a detail LGBTQ advocates said was unnecessary and harmful. As Jacey Thornton of Project Rainbow Utah put it: “It sounds like we’re really stretching to find a way to tie this in to the trans community.” Translation: the governor is deflecting blame by dangling red meat for culture warriors.
We’ll learn more when charges are filed Tuesday, but the early spin tells you all you need to know. Instead of grappling with why a young white man from a pro-Trump Mormon family might be radicalized, the governor chose the lazy scapegoat: leftism and trans people.
Source: New York Times
Editor: When the official story sounds like it was drafted by Turning Point USA’s comms team, you know we’re not getting the truth—we’re getting damage control.
Utah Governor Spencer Cox’s Spin on the Kirk Shooter Doesn’t Match Reality
The official story about Charlie Kirk’s accused killer is already wobbling under the weight of its own contradictions. Utah’s governor insists the 22-year-old shooter, Tyler Robinson, had a “leftist ideology.” But the receipts—the family background, the upbringing, the community—tell a different story: Mormon, conservative parents, a house full of guns, and a hometown carved out of red-rock Utah Republicanism. That doesn’t scream “radical leftist.” It screams “raised on Turning Point USA talking points.”
Gov. Spencer Cox made the rounds on Sunday shows, pitching the idea that Robinson was “radicalized” after dropping out of college, spending too much time on “deep, dark internet” message boards, and dating a partner who was transitioning. Conveniently, Cox offered zero specifics to back up his claim about ideology. No manifesto, no clear party affiliation (voter rolls list him as unaffiliated), just a few bullet casings with gaming memes scratched onto them. That’s not exactly Das Kapital.
And yet, the governor still leaned on the narrative that Robinson was “very different” from his conservative family—despite the fact that both his parents are registered Republicans and Robinson was raised in a church-and-guns household. Even his childhood photos scream red-state Americana: family trips to shooting ranges, gawking at weapons displays, and the Mormon spires of St. George dotting the backdrop. Radicalized leftist? Or just another disaffected white kid whose radicalization didn’t come from Marxist study groups but from the toxic stew of internet extremism and culture-war paranoia?
What’s especially telling is the governor’s focus on Robinson’s romantic relationship. Cox made sure to mention Robinson’s trans partner—despite investigators saying the partner had no involvement and was “shocked” by the shooting. LGBTQ advocates were quick to point out the obvious: bringing up gender identity this early in an investigation isn’t about truth; it’s about signaling. As Jacey Thornton of Project Rainbow Utah put it, “It sounds like we’re really stretching to find a way to tie this in to the trans community.” Translation: Cox is tossing red meat to the culture warriors while the country simmers in political violence.
Meanwhile, Kirk himself had spent years making enemies by design—attacking transgender rights, abortion, gun control, and racial justice at college campuses through Turning Point USA. On the day he was killed, he was literally answering a question about transgender people and mass shootings. That context matters. The lines between ideological rhetoric and real-world consequences don’t just blur—they bleed.
The investigation is ongoing, with prosecutors expected to file charges soon, and Cox teasing the existence of a possible note left by Robinson. But so far, nothing points to some coherent “leftist” worldview. Instead, it looks like a messy mix of online edgelord culture, grievance politics, and the kind of radicalization that festers in the same right-wing circles politicians would rather not admit exist in their own backyard.
Editor: The fastest way to spot political spin? When the explanation doesn’t match the evidence but still makes for a handy scapegoat. Cox isn’t unpacking the truth—he’s just trying to keep the mirror from pointing back at his own base. We don’t know why the shooter targeted Kirk. Until we do, we should all just STFU, especially Utah’s governor.
Speaking of STFU, here’s your U.S. Constitution lesson for the day:
Charlie Kirk Fallout Proves Free Speech Won’t Save Your Job
The First Amendment protects you from the government, not your boss. That distinction just cost people their careers after Charlie Kirk’s assassination.
MSNBC analyst Matthew Dowd was among the first casualties, terminated after comments he made online about Kirk’s death. Conservative activists, led by Laura Loomer, are actively hunting down social media users they deem to have “celebrated” the killing, forwarding posts to employers and demanding accountability. The result? Teachers, journalists, and everyday workers are suddenly jobless for tweets they thought were just opinions.
Here’s the hard truth: The First Amendment doesn’t guarantee you workplace immunity. Reminder, 1A says:
“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”
It says “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech.” That means the State can’t silence you. But your employer isn’t the State—and in America’s “at-will” employment system, they can fire you if your words are seen as damaging, disruptive, or bad for business. “The First Amendment does not apply in private workplaces to protect employees’ speech,” noted attorney Andrew Kragie. In fact, it protects employers’ right to act on it.
The Pentagon itself went further, laying down a new “zero tolerance” policy. “It is unacceptable for military personnel and Department of War civilians to celebrate or mock the assassination of a fellow American,” spokesman Sean Parnell declared. When even the government—where free speech technically applies—finds legal lanes to clamp down, you can bet your civilian boss will too.
This is the collision point between principle and paycheck. Free speech doesn’t vanish, but the marketplace for your labor does have rules—and companies see employees as brand representatives. If your comments make headlines or spark complaints, HR isn’t protecting the Bill of Rights, they’re protecting the bottom line. And that means the internet “town square” is also a trapdoor under your desk chair.
Source: Associated Press
Editor: Funny how people who scream “the Constitution protects me” forget that the boss signing their paycheck isn’t Congress. Turns out, you can be both right about free speech—and unemployed by Friday.
Read this, it’s important (another journalist has been fired, this time from the Washington Post):
The Washington Post Fired Me — But My Voice Will Not Be Silenced.
Trump Backtracks After South Korea Fury Over Georgia Worker Raid
President Trump now says foreign experts are welcome to train Americans—days after ICE hauled off hundreds of South Korean workers from a Hyundai-linked plant in Georgia.
The September raid left one of America’s closest allies fuming, with protesters in Seoul holding “Trump, apologize!” signs. The optics were terrible: South Korean engineers in shackles while Washington tried to sell the world on “America First” economic expansion. Trump’s sudden shift looks like an attempt to calm the waters without admitting a mistake.
Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick defended the raid, blaming Hyundai for paperwork problems. He argued the company should have gone through his office to get the proper visas in the first place. “The company should have asked for help getting the right ones,” he said, insisting the arrests were a legal necessity, not a diplomatic blunder.
The fallout is already hitting the bottom line. Hyundai CEO José Muñoz confirmed the raid will delay construction of the $26 billion battery facility by months, undermining what had been a marquee win for Trump’s “build it here” push. The tension between immigration crackdowns and economic growth is no longer hypothetical—it’s happening in real time.
Trump’s Sunday statement welcoming foreign experts is less a policy change than political damage control. The administration can’t have it both ways: choking off visas while demanding factories be built in the U.S. Eventually, something breaks. In this case, it was both international goodwill and Hyundai’s project timeline.
Source: Axios
Editor: Hard to run on “jobs, jobs, jobs” when your immigration raids literally stop the factory from being built. And then to call them back after you led them away to an ICE detention facility (you know, a gulag) in shackles…God damn, Trump is feckless.
FBI Burns Meth in Montana Shelter, Workers Hospitalized After Toxic Smoke Fills Building
Fourteen animal shelter employees were sent to the hospital after an FBI drug burn went sideways, filling the building with meth smoke.
The FBI and Billings city officials admitted that two pounds of methamphetamine were incinerated inside an animal shelter’s furnace, but negative air pressure pulled the smoke back into the building. Workers at the Yellowstone Valley Animal Shelter thought it was just another day burning animal carcasses—until headaches, sore throats, dizziness, and coughing sent them rushing to the ER.
Shelter director Triniti Halverson described the experience bluntly: “Not a party.” She and others only learned it was meth smoke after a city official called them at the hospital. Many spent hours in an oxygen chamber, and symptoms have lingered for some staffers. Four litters of kittens had to be closely monitored after heavy exposure.
The facility’s incinerator is mainly used for animal remains, but every few months, law enforcement drops in to torch narcotics. This time, a fan meant to reverse airflow wasn’t available, so the toxic fumes spread through the building. “We had never known about the drug burns,” Halverson said, adding that animals and staff were blindsided.
Public frustration is mounting. “Why the hell are they destroying drugs inside the city limits?” asked Billings resident Jay Ettlemen, who showed up with a dog food donation only to learn the shelter was closed for contamination testing. Officials now face questions about safety protocols—and whether burning meth in town was ever a good idea.
Source: Associated Press
Editor: Nothing says “public safety” like hotboxing a building full of kittens with meth smoke. Great job, team.
White House Rushes to Assure America: Stephen Miller Does Not Play With Dolls
The West Wing is apparently so worried about rumors of Stephen Miller’s porcelain doll hobby that it issued an official denial. Yes, really.
Miller, Trump’s longtime hardline adviser now serving as deputy chief of staff for policy, was the subject of a brutal Rolling Stone profile that dug up a Capitol Hill rumor dating back to his Jeff Sessions days—that Miller “liked to play with porcelain dolls.” Instead of ignoring it, the White House went into full crisis PR mode. “Any such characterization of his time on the Hill is inaccurate and baseless gossip,” an official huffed.
The article paints Miller as a paranoid presence in Trumpworld, where even allies whisper behind his back. He’s collected a portfolio of nicknames—“Shadow Sec Def,” “Prime Minister Miller,” “The REAL Attorney General”—all highlighting his iron grip on policy, not his supposed doll collection. Still, Rolling Stone noted that even Trump has mocked him, with Michael Wolff once claiming the president calls him “Weird Stephen.”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt dutifully played defense, calling Miller “a loyal colleague and friend” while dismissing the gossip as lies spread by people who “don’t actually know him.” That’s PR-speak for “yes, we know this sounds ridiculous, but please stop asking.”
Yet the doll story, true or not, is almost too perfect a metaphor. The man who helped design family-separating immigration policies, military deployments, and endless “law and order” panic is still dogged by whispers that he once played tea party with porcelain figurines. Funny how reputations work.
Source: The Daily Beast
Editor: If you’re running the country’s deportation machine but still have to clarify you’re not in a doll club, maybe it’s time for some new branding.