Closing the tabs ...
DISGUSTING: ABC’s Matt Gutman says he’s not sure “if we have seen an alleged murder with such specific text messages” that were “very touching, in a way, that I think many of us didn’t expect — a very intimate portrait into this relationship between the suspect’s roommate and the… pic.twitter.com/ulPcxoOwM3
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 16, 2025
... between the suspect’s roommate and the suspect himself, with him repeatedly calling his roommate, who is transitioning, calling him ‘my love.’ And ‘I want to protect you, my love.’”
“So, it was this duality of someone who the attorney said not only jeopardized the life of Charlie Kirk and the crowd, but was doing it in front of children, which is one of the aggravating circumstances of this case. And then, on the other hand, he was, you know, speaking so lovingly about his partner. So a very interesting and, as Pierre said, riveting press conference.”
Ed: What the actual f ... is this? This is the same kind of romanticization that the media and the Left applied to Luigi Mangione to turn a gutless back-shooting coward into some sort of hero of the people. You know what was ACTUALLY 'touching'? The love that Charlie Kirk had for Erika and his children, which is what this 'touching' monster ended.
===
American Mind: The examples of the Left’s frequent recourse to terror, mayhem, and death abound. There is formally extralegal violence, which includes the murder of Kirk, the transgender killers of small children, the deliberate creation of insecure common spaces in which assaults and deaths occur, the murders of Jews in public, shooters targeting conservative organizations, and the various attempts to kill conservative presidents, Supreme Court justices, and congressmen. There is also regime-sanctioned mass violence—most significantly the Black Lives Matter insurrection during the summer of 2020. Additionally, there are varieties of formal and networked repression, from government-imposed pandemic restrictions and iniquitous racial/ethnic preferentialism to societally enforced cancel culture and speech codes.
It is worth noting that this is not especially incisive or contrarian analysis: everyone knows it. Everyone knows that the Left is the violent faction in American public life today. Everyone knows that shop windows were boarded up in November 2020 out of fear of the Left’s reaction to the election, not the Right’s. Everyone knows there is no threat to public order in response to the murder of Charlie Kirk as there was after the death of George Floyd. Everyone knows that a gathering of pro-Palestinians carries with it a high potential for violence, but a gathering of pro-Israel partisans does not. Everyone knows there is a national network of street fighters on the Left, not on the Right. Everyone knows that colleges have to worry about security for conservative events, not leftist ones.
Everyone knows.
Ed: Everyone knows, but the Protection Racket Media wants to keep gaslighting us into considering it "touching." They romanticize it on the Left, while demonizing the Right for their speech. And everyone knows that too, all while reporters moan about how people don't trust them anymore.
===
The "touching" messages in question: pic.twitter.com/yVafeI6PsS
— Mary Margaret Olohan (@MaryMargOlohan) September 16, 2025
Ed: So what exactly was "touching" about this, anyway? His regret that he left his grandfather's rifle behind in his chicken-bleep fleeing from the police? You simply cannot hate the media enough.
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Christopher Wilson: Charlie wasn’t trying to figure out what to believe; he already knew. He used the data to make sure his words landed. That’s what made him so dangerous to the left: he wasn’t loud — he was precise. He wasn’t just speaking — he was winning.
Charlie didn’t just react to the news cycle. He shaped it.
He was one of the rare leaders who understood that public sentiment isn’t static — it shifts fast, and you’d better be fast enough to meet it without compromising your message. That’s what we helped him do, and that’s what made the relationship meaningful.
But Charlie Kirk wasn’t just a media figure or activist or pundit. He was a man of conviction. And more importantly, he was a man of faith.
Ed: This is a very nice remembrance from one of Charlie's partners in his mission. Be sure to click through and read it all.
===
When the left cheers and justifies the murder of Charlie Kirk because he was an "extremist," what they're actually saying is this:
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) September 16, 2025
There is justification to commit violence against the MILLIONS of Americans who hold the same mainstream conservative views.
This is DANGEROUS. pic.twitter.com/gF2U8BgZvQ
Ed: As I note above, they're demonizing a man who only wanted to talk as an "extremist" while romanticizing his lily-livered assassin by swooning over his chat-room texts. Said texts consisting of hatred and admissions of stupidity, natch. If the Protection Racket Media actively planned for more Leftist violence, it's tough to see how it would differ from their coverage of this assassination. Utterly despicable.
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I’m waiting for people trying to make this shooter out to be a nice guy to post some essays about how Ted Bundy was actually kinda nice because he volunteered on a suicide hotline and Hitler wasn’t that bad because after all he was a vegetarian. Go big or go home.
— Liz Mair (@LizMair) September 16, 2025
Ed: Next ABC News headline -- 'John Wayne Gacy, misunderstood and lonely clown.'
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Daily Mail: Outspoken liberal actress Jamie Lee Curtis broke down in tears as she mourned Charlie Kirk as a 'man of faith' and compared him to Jesus Christ. ...
Curtis fought back tears as she spoke of Kirk's death during the podcast, saying she connected with the Trump ally's deep spirituality.
'I disagreed with him on almost every point,' she said.
'But I believe he was a man of faith, and I hope in that moment when he died that he felt connected to his faith.'
Ed: It's not difficult to extend humanity and grace to your opponents. I appreciate Ms. Curtis for setting that example. And let's not forget that Charlie Kirk lived that example on college campuses across the country, until he got cut down by a heartless troll.
===
headline of todays NY Times email - "Silencing Kirk's Critics."
— GregGutfeld (@greggutfeld) September 16, 2025
quote: "But in the days since a gunman assassinated Charlie Kirk, Republicans have sought a new target — not a discrete person or an odious policy idea, but what they call “leftist ideology.”
silencing, and seeking…
silencing, and seeking targets.
fantastic work there, guys.
Ed: It's as if they're cheering on violence ...
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Paul Mirengoff: I’m afraid we live in a society where repressing the thoughts produced by our “amoral neurons” — and even or immoral ones, if there are such things — is passé. It’s considered “inauthentic” by some.
Worse yet, expressing these thoughts publicly is also a way to get attention. Expressing them online is a way to get hits, likes, and followers.
Protecting free speech means tolerating expression of most of the hateful thoughts generated, in the first instance, by amoral neurons. But when these thoughts extend to lauding assassinations and celebrating death, there should be consequences.
Prosecution shouldn’t be one of those consequences. But discipline by an employer should be. That discipline can include discharge. In some cases, it certainly should.
Ed: As I wrote earlier, I don't have any problem with free-market responses to free-market expressions. Government shouldn't police this, except in cases where government is the employer. If someone is reckless enough to publicly declare his support for an assassination, then his employer and/or clients are free to choose whether to continue any economic or social arrangement with them. And bringing those public declarations to their notice is hardly a violation of anyone's speech rights. YMMV, of course. We may do a symposium among the Hot Air writers on this topic later this week or next. Stay tuned.
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Awhile back a small band of mutants set up on a corner near the entrance to a cemetery to heckle as a fallen Soldier was laid to rest. Patriot Guard motorcycle riders formed a U around them and, as the procession neared, revved their motors, drowning out the mutants. The family… https://t.co/pv7M3HaytU
— America, Amen. Tim Sumner 🇺🇸 (@SgtTim911) September 16, 2025
The family waived to the Guard, drove on, and the mutants went away. #1A needs answered with more of the same.
Ed: Agreed, and that's what the social-media response has been, to some degree. Banding together, and making sure we rev our rhetorical motors, only in this case to shine more light on the cockroaches.
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Matthew Continetti, The Free Press: That such sentiments come from the mouths of “educators” is revealing. Cancel culture silences and deplatforms men and women who dissent from progressive dogma—who espouse traditional views of marriage, the scientific basis of biological sex, the ambiguous data behind climate change and policies to mitigate it, and the illogic and prejudice of disparate impact theory, to name a few. It is an instrument of indoctrination, coercively incentivizing opinions contrary to evidence and reason.
Defaming Charlie Kirk as a “Nazi bitch” is not engaging in debate. It is dehumanization. It is a license to kill. And it normalizes the ultimate cancellation.
Nor is it “politically correct” to believe that a 31-year-old husband and father of two young children should not be executed in broad daylight, in front of thousands, because of his politics. It is common sense. And it is reasonable to expect that those who pervert such common sense—especially if they hold positions of trust, such as pilots, doctors, public officials, and teachers—should pay a price. That is a healthy culture asserting moral clarity, not canceling dissenters and freethinkers.
Ed: Again, I don't want the government to police such speech. I don't want tech platforms to do it either. I want to know who the crazies are, and I don't think it's a bad idea to make sure that their employers and clients know who they are either. They can decide whether to remain associated with the crazies themselves.
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You would have to have some serious cognitive and mental deficiencies in your brain to believe anyone who would assassinate Charlie Kirk is conservative or maga.
— Meghan McCain (@MeghanMcCain) September 16, 2025
I legitimately can’t believe any media outlet tried to gaslight the public into believing that.
Ed: I sympathize with the thought, but we just had the same media attempt to gaslight us for four years into believing Joe Biden didn't have any cognitive deficiencies, either. And now they want to paint Tyler Robinson as a star-crossed romantic. The gaslighting not only continues, it's getting turned up to 11. Case in point ...
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How can this woman dress herself unassisted? https://t.co/1ma1tNQfct
— Sandy 〽️ (@RightGlockMom) September 16, 2025
Ed: Res ipsa loquitur.
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He wasn't crazy. He was purposeful, deliberate, determined to kill a man for views he deemed hateful, and only afraid of getting in trouble with his dad for losing the rifle.
— John Podhoretz (@jpodhoretz) September 16, 2025
The word is evil. Simple. Any qualification is unnecessary.
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