Politico reports the chairman and vice chairman of Kansas Young Republicans participated in racist, antisemitic encrypted chats with GOP political peers. (Illustration by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)

TOPEKA — The chairman and vice chairman of the Kansas Young Republicans took part in encrypted chats with political peers laced with violent, racist and antisemitic rhetoric and blended with references to white supremacy and suppression of the Jeffrey Epstein files.

On Tuesday, the chairman of the Kansas Republican Party said the Politico article disclosing the commentary prompted immediate deactivation of the Kansas Young Republicans organization.

Politico, a digital news company specializing in coverage of U.S. politics, reported Kansas Young Republicans chair Alex Dwyer and vice chair William Hendrix took part in the Telegram group chat.

In 2,900 pages of chat text, Hendrix praised the Missouri Young Republicans because leaders in that state didn’t like LGBTQ+ people. He repeatedly used racial slurs to refer to Black people, including words such as “n–ga” and “n–guh.” In a July conversation in the thread about African-Americans, he said, “Bro is at a chicken restaurant ordering his food. Would he like some watermelon and Kool-Aid with that?”

He was fired from a communications job in the office of Attorney General Kris Kobach as Politico prepared its report on Hendrix’s role in the chat.

“The comments in the chat are inexcusable,” Kobach said. “As soon as the office learned of those messages, Will Hendrix’s employment was terminated.”

In the chat threads, Dwyer and others delved into discussions of how GOP operatives could tarnish a political candidate by linking the individual to white supremacists. The idea was dismissed, Politico said, because the plan could backfire in a place such as Kansas where “Young Republicans could end up becoming attracted to that opponent.” Subsequently, a person in the chat asked others to guess what room number they had a hotel.

Dwyer responded: “1488.” That figure is a form of shorthand among white supremacists when making reference to their beliefs. It refers to the 14 words of text in the slogan, “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The “88” stands for “Heil Hitler,” with the H marking the eighth letter of the alphabet.

At another juncture, Dwyer touched on controversy involving release of government files on Epstein, the convicted sex offender. Republicans and Democrats in Congress have sought public release of files to either exonerate or incriminate President Donald Trump or other prominent individuals.

“Trumps too busy burning the Epstein files,” Dwyer wrote on Telegram.

Before Politico’s disclosure of the Young Republicans’ commentary, Dwyer and Hendrix were photographed at a campaign event with Senate President Ty Masterson, the Andover Republican who is a 2026 candidate for governor. A social media post of the picture, taken at Masterson’s campaign announcement event, shows both of them holding signs touting Masterson’s campaign for governor.

The Masterson campaign released a statement after the Senate president landed in Washington, D.C., for meetings Wednesday with White House officials. In that statement, Masterson blamed political opponents for “shopping around a photo, with deceitful intentions, in efforts to disparage” him.

“I categorically deny any association with William Hendrix or Alex Dwyer, as neither is current, nor has ever been, on staff or volunteered for my campaign for governor,” Masterson said. “Anyone suggesting otherwise is either lying or misinformed.”

In addition, Masterson said, he was guided by deep Christian faith and possessed a record of condemning hateful and violent rhetoric.

“I am personally disgusted by the comments attributed to individuals in the article, as such behavior is utterly counter to Christ’s message that life is valuable and we are all equal in God’s eyes, and my unwavering commitment to these values has not changed,” the statement said.

A collection of Kansas Republicans and a Democratic candidate for governor denounced contents of this trove of Telegram messages logged under “RESTOREYR WAR ROOM,” or Restore Young Republicans.

The communications chronicled by Politico covered a period between January and August, and involved state Republican leaders in Kansas, Vermont, Arizona and New York. Included in the thousands of comments was this insight: “If we ever had a leak on this chat, we will be cooked.”

“The viewpoints expressed in this chat are not representative of Kansans. Period,” said former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer, who is seeking the GOP nomination for governor. “Our state was founded on the belief that all of us are created equal under God — and anyone who mocks those principles dishonors the very spirit of Kansas.”

Vicki Schmidt, the state’s insurance commissioner and a Republican candidate for governor, said Dwyer and Hendrix should formally resign from their Young Republicans positions because “their actions are disgusting and disgraceful and they tarnish the reputation of Kansas nationally.”

Sen. Cindy Holscher, a Johnson County Democrat also running for governor, said she was disgusted by messages shared by Kansas GOP political operatives that promoted overt racism, extremism, antisemitism and sexual violence. She said the extremist language was encouraged from the top down by politicians who seek to divide voters rather than bring them together.

“Let’s be clear: These aren’t kids joking around,” Holscher said. “These are 20- and 30-something adults with leadership roles in the Republican Party. The chair of the Kansas Young Republicans, who participated in these messages, is nearly 30 years old. Unfortunately, this type of rhetoric is not isolated. For too long in Kansas, the Republican Party has been dominated by extremists who see no room for moderation or bipartisanship, let alone unity or mutual respect.”

Danedri Herbert, chair of the Kansas Republican Party, said the organization’s leadership was disgusted by comments by young Kansas Republicans contained in the Politico story. In March, Herbert was elected state party chair. She is Black.

“Their comments do not reflect the beliefs of Republicans and certainly not of Kansas Republicans at large,” she said. “Republicans believe that all people are created in the image of God.”

She said the state party platform stated: “We welcome Kansans of every ethnicity into our party as we work together to preserve our heritage of political equality, religious freedom and strong moral values. We strive to eliminate racism and we condemn all racist acts and groups.”

Michael Austin, chief executive of the Kansas Black Republican Council, said the organization unequivocally rebuked the behavior and language revealed in Politico’s report.

“Such conduct is not merely offensive. It is a betrayal of the very principles upon which our party was founded: the defense of liberty, the abolition of slavery and the belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every human being,” Austin said. “Let there be no confusion. These few individuals do not represent Kansas, nor do they reflect the values of Kansas Republicans.”

He said all Republicans should in this moment “uphold the standard of integrity, moral courage and respect that has long defined our party’s proud history.”

After a brutal few months, Tesla sales are finally picking up thanks to expiring federal EV tax credits. But while customers are snatching up Model 3s and Ys, they are increasingly turning up their noses at the newest addition to Tesla’s lineup: the Cybertruck.

Tesla only sold 5,385 Cybertrucks in the third quarter, down 63 percent compared to the same period in 2024, when the automaker delivered over 14,000. The company has sold a little more than 16,000 Cybertrucks so far in 2025 — a far cry from the 250,000 that Elon Musk once predicted would be sold annually. Tesla is now expected to deliver around 20,000 Cybertrucks this year, a steep drop from the estimated 50,000 sold in 2024.

The new data was published by Kelley Blue Book, and reported by Business Insider. Tesla doesn’t break out Cybertruck numbers specifically, instead lumping them in with its two older vehicles, the Model S and Model X, as “other models.”

The third quarter was an otherwise banger for EV sales, with a total of 438,487 units sold. That’s up 40.7 percent from the previous quarter and higher by 29.6 percent year over year. Shoppers rushed to snatch up available EVs before the expiration of the $7,500 tax credit on September 30th. Sales are expected to drop dramatically in the fourth quarter — which could make the Cybertruck’s situation even worse.

Other electric trucks haven’t fared as poorly as the Cybertruck. The Rivian R1T is up 13 percent this quarter year over year, while the Ford F-150 Lightning is up 39.7 percent, and GMC’s Hummer EV has increased sales 21.9 percent and Sierra EV by over 771 percent.

And then there was the news that the families of two young people killed in a fiery Cybertruck crash are suing Tesla over faulty door handles they claim impeded their loved ones’ escape.

Things have gotten so dire for the Cybertruck that Elon Musk has resorted to selling them to himself. As Electrek reports, Tesla has been delivering unsold Cybertrucks to Musk’s private companies, SpaceX and xAI. The trucks that are going to SpaceX are intended to replace the company’s fleet of internal-combustion engine vehicles, according to the site.

This article was produced with support from WIRED.

A Meta executive in charge of building the company’s metaverse products told employees that they should be using AI to “go 5x faster” according to an internal message obtained by 404 Media . 

“Metaverse AI4P: Think 5X, not 5%,” the message, posted by Vishal Shah, Meta’s VP of Metaverse, said (AI4P is AI for Productivity). The idea is that programmers should be using AI to work five times more efficiently than they are currently working—not just using it to go 5 percent more efficiently.

“Our goal is simple yet audacious: make Al a habit, not a novelty. This means prioritizing training and adoption for everyone, so that using Al becomes second nature—just like any other tool we rely on,” the message read. “It also means integrating Al into every major codebase and workflow.” Shah added that this doesn’t just apply to engineers. “I want to see PMs, designers, and [cross functional] partners rolling up their sleeves and building prototypes, fixing bugs, and pushing the boundaries of what's possible,” he wrote. “I want to see us go 5X faster by eliminating the frictions that slow us down. And 5X faster to get to how our products feel much more quickly. Imagine a world where anyone can rapidly prototype an idea, and feedback loops are measured in hours—not weeks. That's the future we're building.”

Meta’s metaverse products, which CEO Mark Zuckerberg renamed the company to highlight, have been a colossal timesink and money pit, with the company spending tens of billions of dollars developing a product that relatively few people use. 

You can support my shenanigans for a mere $2/mo.

This week’s question comes to us from Milly Schmidt:

Some people have friends with very different politics and they keep them very separate to avoid conflict. Obviously there are benefits of having diverse friends, even politically. Do you think all your friends should be able to be invited to a party or have a meal together?

I love everybody that loves everybody.

I also think that hanging out with people who agree on everything is boring. It’s also close to impossible, thankfully, because you’ll ultimately find something you disagree about. And that tends to become when hanging out gets interesting. For example, this weekend friends will get together and someone will say they’re enjoying the new Taylor Swift. Someone else will say it’s an album for cop wives. And suddenly, that becomes an interesting hangout.

Spending my childhood summers in Portugal, I spent a lot of time in cafés where people would argue about anything and everything. Finding the minor disagreement that would spark the argument was the goal of being at that café. Someone unfamiliar with that kind of environment would walk in and assume a fight was gonna break out. But this was just people communicating. This was people enjoying their evening by having spirited conversations with their friends. Which, counter-intuitively, ends up bringing people together. Because if I enjoy a lively discussion—and I do—the person willing to go toe-to-toe with me is going to be someone I end up treasuring as a friend. As long as everyone understands the rules of discussion. We are arguing about minor things. We’re making argumentative mountains out of molehills. This isn’t conflict, it’s sport.

I also remember one particular evening in one particular café when someone loudly commented about how the previous regime did a lot of good for the country. Mind you, this was fairly soon after the revolution that knocked the fascists out of power. The café got stone cold silent. Every argument stopped. Every conversation came to a close. I have a vivid memory of hearing a spoon slowly stirring an espresso. And I watched as everyone’s head turned towards the man that had just said something positive about fascism. The silence held. And held. Until he quickly downed his coffee and politely excused himself as he walked out the door. Within seconds the café went back to its usual argumentative din.

There are welcome arguments between friends, and there are arguments that end friendships. It’s important to know where that line is for you. While I appreciate having friends with different points-of-view, or even different politics (as you phrased it) I will not be friends with people who want my daughter dead. I will not be friends with people who want, or even tolerate, my neighbors being kidnapped. I will not be friends with people who believe some of us are somehow entitled to more rights than others. And I will not be friends with people who believe if we keep our heads down, as others around us suffer, we’ll save ourselves.

We can argue about sports teams, we can argue about zoning, we can argue about the cost of goods, but we cannot argue about the civil rights of other human beings. We cannot argue about the right for people to live in peace. We cannot argue about the right for other people to love who they love. This is the line where argument turns from sport to a relationship-ending event.

Personally, if I’m having a gathering in my home I want my friends to feel welcome. Not just by me, but by everyone else there. And I need my friends to know that me, my guests, and my house are a safe place. Not just for this particular event, but always.

Think of it this way: if you invite someone from a marginalized community into your home and they ask if there’s going to be someone there that wants them dead, or doesn’t feel like they’re entitled to full personhood, and you tell them that you’re having a separate party for those folks the next night, how do you think that person would feel? You can’t claim to care about someone while also caring for the people who would bring them harm. You really don’t care about your friend in that situation. You’ve made a decision that speaks more to your standing in the social order than their safety. And that’s fucked up.

If you had dinner with a trans friend on Tuesday, and dinner with fascists on Thursday, your trans friend had dinner with a fascist on Tuesday.

Which of course brings us to Thanksgiving. My parents, being immigrants, didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving. But in time, my brothers and I wore them down. We wanted to celebrate the same holiday that our friends were celebrating, which makes sense. We were kids. We wanted to belong. We also wanted pie, which was understandable. Pie is great! And, while I’m not overlooking the atrocious origins of the holiday, the idea that sitting down with the people you love and giving thanks is a genuinely nice idea. One that should actually be extended to all our meals. We sit down with the people we love and we share a meal together. The problem with Thanksgiving is that we’re not sitting down with the people we love, a lot of us are sitting down with the people we feel obligated to be sharing a meal with, even when some of those people want your friends dead.

After my brothers and I had grown apart and eventually moved out of my parents’ house and into our own apartments, we still made an effort to come together for Thanksgiving. Mostly because it seemed to make our mother happy, and despite our disagreement on mostly everything else, we understood that this was important. Still, these were not what I would call enjoyable events. The tone was tense. The possibility of my father’s mood going sideways was always in the air. And we were guaranteed to speedrun from a conversation to an argument to a fight fairly quickly, which my father used as justification for getting up, grabbing his keys, and bolting out the door. Which was how Thanksgiving dinners ended.

After a few of these, my mother started pulling me aside before my brothers got there and asking me “not to rile them up.” Which a few people reading this will understand translates to “don’t tell them there’s racism coming out of their mouths.” My brothers were free to use the N-word during Thanksgiving, the problem was that I wasn’t ok hearing it. The problem wasn’t that my brothers were racist, it was that I was pointing it out. At one point I asked her if she’d ever had one of these asides with either of them. Had she ever asked my brothers not to spew racist bile at the table? It was a needless question, because I knew she hadn’t. Growing up in their house racism was the default. That was the last time I spent Thanksgiving at their house.

Let me say this plainly, for folks wrestling with whether they should spend Thanksgiving with relatives that want their friends dead: Don’t.

In the end, we are defined not just by our actions, but by the actions we tolerate.

If you insist on spending Thanksgiving with your racist relatives, go to fight. Call Uncle Bob on his Jim Crow bullshit. Make sure that the first person who brings up “men playing women’s sports” is met with a face full of mashed potatoes. When Aunt Mary starts reciting FOX News talking points on eugenics start screaming at the top of your lungs. When your brother-in-law starts yapping about the “criminal element” in the city, slap him with a ham. When your dad brings up what a terrible idea it is to have Bad Bunny do the SuperBowl halftime show, pick up the turkey and slam it across the wall. Become ungovernable. Bring airhorns. Bring whistles. Bring the chaos. Making a meal enjoyable for racists is never the goal. There are no medals to be won for sitting silently while a table that is meant for giving thanks is taken over by hatred. There are no medals to be won for being tolerant of people who want your friends dead. If you’re not willing to fight, then you’re just having a meal with racists.

Telling someone they need to be on their “best” behavior is only an issue when their real behavior is intolerable.

A better idea may be to spend the day with people who love and support you. People you actually give thanks for. The friends who have your back. The friends who love you at your fullest, loudest and truest. People only complain about the turkey being dry when the company is terrible. There is never enough gravy to make regret feel like anything but your soul leaving your body. When we are surrounded by people who deserve and cherish our company the meal is always amazing.

Family is a choice. And those whose blood you share had first dibs at making a choice, and trust that they did. I will be honest with you, when my friends tell me that they’re off to spend Thanksgiving with family it fills me with sadness. Not because I’m not happy for them—I am! But because a part of me will always wonder what that is like. We are born ready to love those closest to us. Our parents and siblings had first dibs on our love! I was always ready to love my parents, and there is a part of me that always will, but there is a bigger part of me that refuses to become the person I need to become for them to love me back. They made a choice, and in return I made one too.

I love everybody who loves everybody.

When I invite my friends into my house it’s with the understanding that there is both love and nourishment there for them. There will also be music, which we may argue about. And we might argue about the best way to make brussels sprouts. Or whether pie goes best with ice cream or cheese. (The answer is two slices of pie, one with each.) We might argue about something happening in local politics. We will definitely argue about the new Taylor Swift. But we will never argue about whether one of us belongs there or not. We will never argue about whether anyone there should feel welcome or not. We will never argue about whether someone should’ve brought their significant other, or others. (A heads-up is nice, if only to make sure we have enough pie.) We will never argue about whether someone should have autonomy over their own body. We will never argue about whether Palestine deserves to be free. We will never argue about whether we should look out for our neighbors.

We might argue about the best ways to do these things, and those arguments will get lively. They’ll get loud. Even within our core agreements, there is enough to argue about. There is love in those arguments, and in the end, they tend to bring us closer together.

I love everybody who loves everybody. I hope that includes you.

🙋 Got a question? Ask it here! I might just give you the rambling answer you weren’t looking for.

💀 You like zines? Me too. You hate AI? Me too. I’ve turned an old essay, How to not build the Torment Nexus, into a fun zine that can be yours for $5 cheap! Buy it here!

📣 If you get nervous/anxious/etc when you have to talk about your work, please consider taking my Presenting w/Confidence workshop. It really helps! There’s one next week. Get a ticket!

🍉 Please donate to the Palestinian Children’s Relief Fund. Shit is worse than ever.

🏳️‍⚧️ Please donate to Trans Lifeline. Reward the bravery it takes to live your realest life.

This is a comic about AI art.

From left, Judges Stephen Hill, Sarah Warner and Karen Arnold-Burger hear arguments during a Jan. 27, 2025, hearing on the application of Senate Bill 180. (Thad Allton for Kansas Reflector)

OVERLAND PARK — Wednesday marked the first day in two years that transgender Kansans were able to change the gender markers on their drivers licenses after the Kansas Supreme Court denied Attorney General Kris Kobach’s appeal in a long legal battle.

For Jessie Lawson, her driver’s license was the last document to change. She updated her birth certificate before a federal judge halted modifications, and her Social Security card and passport before President Donald Trump’s executive order stated the federal government only recognizes two genders.

“Everything has been updated with the correct gender marker except for my driver’s license, which this guy won’t let us do,” Lawson said. “Republicans in Kansas are very intolerant of anything that’s not like them.”

Lawson didn’t have the proper paperwork to change her driver’s license before Kobach sued the Kansas Department of Revenue for allowing transgender Kansans to change their gender markers. He argued they weren’t complying with Senate Bill 180, which defined women by reproductive ability.

In 2023, Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson issued a temporary injunction blocking such changes. KDOR and the American Civil Liberties Union appealed, and the Kansas Court of Appeals overturned Watson’s injunction in June.

Kobach appealed the ruling, but the Kansas Supreme Court declined to hear the case last week.

“We look forward to KDOR resuming gender marker changes on driver’s licenses at the earliest possible time,” said Monica Bennett, legal director of the ACLU of Kansas, in a news release.

Lawson had an appointment at the Andover Department of Motor Vehicles for Monday, but was told the DMVs hadn’t been given the go-ahead. A KDOR spokesperson on Monday told Kansas Reflector the agency was waiting for signed paperwork from the court.

“This is so heart-wrenching,” Lawson said on Tuesday when there was no clear timeline. “These people have no idea what this means to us.”

That wasn’t the first time Lawson was told to wait — in June, she spent the morning at the DMV before being informed of Kobach’s plan to appeal.

“Every little victory is a breath of fresh air, and the fact that this is happening in Kansas is mind-boggling,” Lawson said. “I need to get on this right now because they’re going to pull that special session in November and they’re going to modify SB 180 to include blocking licenses for the rest of time.”

Statehouse Republicans are pushing for a special session in early November.

Senate President Ty Masterson and House Speaker Dan Hawkins originally pushed the special session to gerrymander U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids — the only Democratic, female, and Native American representative from Kansas — out of office.

But after the Kansas Supreme Court’s ruling, they’ve added a goal to amend SB 180 to bar transgender people from changing the gender markers on their drivers licenses.

“Attorney General Kobach has urgently requested that the Legislature call a special session to address an issue that he considers even more important than redistricting,” Masterson wrote in a letter.

In a statement, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly called Masterson’s letter “political theater.”

Brittany Jones, the president of Kansas Family Voice — a conservative Christian organization — supported Masterson and Hawkins’ quest for a special session.

“The highest court in our state should not allow the confusion of the age to cloud the clarity of our most basic public documents — like driver’s licenses,” Jones said in a news release.

Lawson is tentatively happy about the change. She’s worried that the special session will lead to KDOR adopting a policy similar to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment’s regulation in which birth certificates that have already been changed remain valid but any new copies “must reflect the sex assigned at birth.”

She’s also worried that a change to SB 180 would embolden anti-trans people.

“I take every win where I can get it,” Lawson said. “Everything you read in the news is always like they’re hammering on trans rights, they’re taking our rights away.”