Welcome to the resistance, Tucker Carlson?<\/p>\n
Forgive me; I\u2019m sorry; mea culpa! Having spent considerable time analyzing the events of the past week, I\u2019ve realized I should probably issue a public apology for some of my statements over the years. Here we go: I\u2019m sorry for expressing radical and dangerous opinions like \u201cwomen deserve equal rights and shouldn\u2019t be treated like walking wombs\u201d. I\u2019m sorry for suggesting Palestinians shouldn\u2019t be systematically exterminated while Donald Trump posts about building a resort in Gaza<\/a>. Going forward I will do better and ensure that I double-check all my opinions with the government. There isn\u2019t an official Department of Thought Control yet, but no doubt we\u2019ll get there soon.<\/p>\n I wish I was joking about all this but, as you will have noticed, we are in a critical moment for free speech in the US. The killing of Charlie Kirk was a tragedy for his family, but the Trump administration<\/a> has been ruthlessly using Kirk\u2019s death to further a crackdown on dissent and erode first amendment protections.<\/p>\n The day after Kirk was fatally shot, for example, the deputy secretary of state, Christopher Landau, urged people to report<\/a> any \u201cforeigners\u201d to the state department who post on social media \u201cpraising, rationalizing, or making light of the event.\u201d The US secretary of state, Marco Rubio, later said<\/a> that the state department has \u201cmost certainly been denying visas\u201d to people celebrating Kirk\u2019s death<\/a>. It\u2019s obviously not in good taste to celebrate anyone\u2019s murder, but the fact that calling out Kirk\u2019s divisive and bigoted views<\/a> could possibly be considered \u201crationalizing\u201d his death and get you deported is chilling.<\/p>\n It\u2019s not just foreigners who are being told they should be wary about what they say. On Monday Vice-President JD Vance, who was guest-hosting an episode of the Charlie Kirk Show, encouraged people to report anyone celebrating the influencer\u2019s death to that person\u2019s employer<\/a>. Presumably so said employer can fire them.<\/p>\n There have, of course, already been numerous Kirk-related firings and suspensions. An employee at the Federal Emergency Management Agency was reportedly placed<\/a> on administrative leave over an Instagram post describing Kirk as \u201cthe literal racist homophobe misogynist.\u201d MSNBC fired political analyst Matthew Dowd<\/a> after he suggested Kirk\u2019s \u201cawful words\u201d fueled \u201cawful actions\u201d. Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late-night show was suspended \u201cindefinitely\u201d<\/a> after he noted \u201cmany in Maga Land are working very hard to capitalize on the murder of Charlie Kirk\u201d. Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah<\/a> has also said she was fired over social media posts after Kirk\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n The weaponization of Kirk\u2019s death is so alarming that even one of Trump\u2019s former allies is rattled. Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host who was once one of the loudest voices<\/a> in the Magasphere, recently issued a stark warning about the way that the Trump administration appears to be leveraging Kirk\u2019s murder to trample civil liberties.<\/p>\n \u201cYou hope that a year from now, the turmoil we\u2019re seeing in the aftermath of [Kirk\u2019s] murder won\u2019t be leveraged to bring hate speech laws to this country,\u201d Carlson said<\/a> on Wednesday during an episode of his podcast. This was in reference to Attorney General Pam Bondi\u2019s comments (which she has now walked back<\/a>) that the Trump Department of Justice would \u201ctarget\u201d people disseminating \u201chate speech\u201d following Kirk\u2019s killing.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd trust me, if it is, if that does happen, there is never a more justified moment for civil disobedience than that, ever,\u201d Carlson added. \u201cBecause if they can tell you what to say, they\u2019re telling you what to think \u2026 There is nothing they can\u2019t do to you because they don\u2019t consider you human.\u201d<\/p>\n Like Marjorie Taylor Greene<\/a>, the far-right congresswoman who has recently started speaking a limited amount of sense on certain topics, Carlson is no ally to progressives. Indeed Carlson\u2019s hate-mongering, and his former public cheerleading for Trump, are a large part of why we are in such a mess. But the fact that even a far-right voice like Carlson is worried about the authoritarian direction in which the US is heading<\/a> should chill you to the bones. Carlson appears to have realized that no one is safe in the dictatorship that Trump appears intent on building. Not even him.<\/p>\n Nuns on the run in Austria<\/p>\n Sister Regina, 86, Sister Rita, 81, and Sister Bernadette, 88, are doing it for themselves. And by \u201cit\u201d I mean defying their diocese<\/a> by running away from their nursing home and returning to their former convent. The convent has no electricity or running water so the nuns have started an Instagram<\/a> account and are crowdfunding for supplies.<\/p>\n French first lady will present court with \u2018evidence\u2019 she is a woman<\/p>\n Rightwing influencer, crackpot and conspiracy theorist Candace Owens has repeatedly insisted that Brigitte Macron is actually a man. Owens even said she would<\/a> \u201cstake [her] entire professional reputation\u201d on it. Now the Macrons, who are suing<\/a> Owns for defamation, are submitting \u201cscientific evidence<\/a>\u201d to a US court to prove Brigitte was not born male. RIP Owens\u2019s \u201cprofessional reputation\u201d.<\/p>\n Girls and women in Colombia are being held as sex slaves<\/p>\n The country\u2019s Catatumbo region, near the border with Venezuela, has seen increased violence in recent years. The Guardian reports<\/a> on more than 150 girls and women aged from 11 to 50 who have escaped what they describe as \u201csexual slavery\u201d by armed groups in the region. Escapees have warned there are many more women and girls in captivity.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotion<\/a><\/p>\n Sign up to The Week in Patriarchy<\/p>\n Get\u00a0Arwa Mahdawi\u2019s\u00a0weekly recap of the most important stories on feminism and sexism and those fighting for equality<\/p>\n Privacy Notice: <\/strong>Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com<\/a> to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy<\/a>. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy<\/a> and Terms of Service<\/a> apply.<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n The Trump administration compares birth control to abortion<\/p>\n Trump officials recently ordered that millions of dollars\u2019 worth of contraceptives intended for low-income countries be destroyed. \u201cPresident Trump is committed to protecting the lives of unborn children all around the world,\u201d a spokeswoman from USAID told the New York Times<\/a>. \u201cThe administration will no longer supply abortifacient birth control under the guise of foreign aid.\u201d By falsely claiming that pills, intrauterine devices and hormonal implants induce abortions, the Trump administration may be paving the way to ban birth control<\/a>, experts warn.<\/p>\n Israeli minister salivates over \u2018real estate bonanza\u2019 in Gaza<\/p>\n \u201cA business plan is on President Trump\u2019s table,\u201d Israel\u2019s far-right finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, said<\/a> at a property development conference in Tel Aviv this week. \u201cThe demolition, the first stage in the city\u2019s renewal, we have already done. Now we just need to build.\u201d Mainstream media outlets keep referring to what is happening in Gaza as a \u201cwar\u201d. But as the likes of Smotrich make clear, this is a genocidal land grab.<\/p>\n Pete Buttigieg criticizes Kamala Harris for passing him over because he\u2019s gay<\/p>\n In her new memoir,<\/a> Harris said Buttigieg was her \u201cfirst choice\u201d for running mate; \u201che would have been an ideal partner \u2013 if I were a straight white man\u201d. Forget Buttigieg\u2019s sexuality, the fact that Harris thinks a former McKinsey consultant<\/a>, the epitome of an out-of-touch elite, who polled at 0%<\/a> with Black voters would have been a good running mate is mind-boggling.<\/p>\n The week in pawtriarchy<\/p>\n A new study has found chimpanzees may consume the equivalent of about one beer a day<\/a> because of all the fermented fruit they eat. Some researchers believe this supports the \u201cdrunken monkey\u201d hypothesis: the idea that humans got a taste for booze because our primate ancestors were constantly on the jungle juice. It seems the ape-oclayptical state of the world is enough to drive anyone to drink.<\/p>\n