Sep 22
2025
Buffalo Bills among NFL teams honoring Charlie Kirk
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Terry Pegula waved his right-wing flag Thursday by asking Bills fans to observe a moment of silence honoring Charlie Kirk prior to the game vs. the Miami Dolphins. The team also flashed Kirk’s image on the stadium scoreboard in the third quarter.
I’m told fan reaction was mixed, more confused than anything.
No word on how the players felt about it, especially Black players, given Kirk’s proclamations that Martin Luther King was “awful,” the Civil Rights Act a “huge mistake” and accomplished Black women including former First Lady Michelle Obama and Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson “do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously.”
Kirk was honored before six other NFL games prior to Thursday. So much for the league’s “End Racism” campaign.
The New York Yankees were the first major league sports team to honor Kirk, observing a moment of silence the evening he was shot and killed. The next day, September 11, the Yankees hosted Donald Trump, inviting him to meet players in the clubhouse, sign autographs and pose for photos. Players greeted him with warm applause and all but a couple shook his hand. Team captain Aaron Judge told Trump: “It’s good to meet you.”
After a 9-3 victory in which he hit two home runs, Judge quipped: “I guess we’ve got to have him around more often if we’re going to go out there and score that many runs.”
Elsewhere on the MAGA front:
- Studies show that right-wingers are responsible for most acts of political violence. Trump has set the tone, inciting or praising acts of violence 40 times — and that was before he was re-elected to a second term. Consider this comment directed at Liz Cheney: “Let’s put her with a rifle standing there with nine barrels shooting at her.”
- What motivated the Nexstar to pull Jimmy Kimmel from its broadcasts? It has business transactions that require FCC approval. Much like Paramount’s cancellation of Stephen Colbert while seeking FCC approval of its sale to Skydance Media, Nexstar (owner of Channel 4 here in Buffalo) is currying favor with Trump to advance its business interests. Its actions contributed to ABC’s decision to suspend Kimmel’s show.
- The billionaire behind the takeover of CBS reportedly has his eye on CNN, too.
- Margaret Sullivan expounds on the “free speech for me, but not for thee” ethos of the right. Even Ted Cruz thinks the attempts at suppressing free speech have gone too far, warning that what goes around comes around.
- Will Bunch of the Philadelphia Inquirer, one of the best national columnists in the business, notes MAGA’s double standard when it comes to free speech on college campuses. John Oliver adds his two cents.
- Charlie Specht, investigative reporter for WGRZ, penned a thoughtful and plain-spoken post on Substack about what’s happending in the media world. He writes: “I’ve lost almost all my faith in major, publicly traded media companies to do the right thing.” So have I, Charlie.
- The Trump administration wants to require reporters who cover the Pentagon to only publish information approved for release by the Department of War.
We’re witnessing the collapse of First Amendment rights in real time. MAGA could not be succeeding without the capitulation of a growing swath of corporate media, which has little respect for the rights and obligations of journalism organizations. It’s all about their bottom line.
The New York Times, in this gift article, documents Trump’s war on the war on cancer.
China’s Big Brother government has nothing on New York City police. The degree of digital surveillance downstate is breathtaking and alarming.
Electric bills are climbing across New York State. New York Focus explains why.
RIP Robert Redford. An actor with a social conscience and no love for Hollywood. Bob Woodward, who Redford played in All The President’s Men, remembered his friend as “a noble and principled force for good.”
I covered a speech Woodward gave in Jamestown in 2019. At one point he mentioned Redford played him in the movie. He went on to recall his dating life shortly after the film came out, specifically blind dates. Women, he said, would answer the door and quickly realize he didn’t look like Redford.
“People, I know the face of disappointment,” he deadpanned.
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