RIP Charlie Kirk

[just-jim]

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Here is the guy ken and Verne are sticking up for. Nice, charming, fellow, right? Someone you’d like as a neighbor…..
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https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/202 ... es-beliefs
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“Charlie Kirk, the far-right commentator and ally of Donald Trump, was killed on Wednesday doing what he was known for throughout his career – making incendiary and often racist and sexist comments to large audiences.

If it was current and controversial in US politics, chances are that Kirk was talking about it. On his podcasts, and on the podcasts of friends and adversaries, and especially on college campuses, where he would go to debate students, Kirk spent much of his adult life defending and articulating a worldview aligned with Trump and the Maga movement. Accountable to no one but his audience, he did not shy away in his rhetoric from bigotry, intolerance, exclusion and stereotyping.

Here’s Kirk, in his own words. Many of his comments were documented by Media Matters for America, a progressive non-profit that tracks conservative media.

Trump blamed ‘radical left’ for Charlie Kirk’s death – even as shooter’s identity remains unknown.

On race:
If I see a Black pilot, I’m going to be like, boy, I hope he’s qualified.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 23 January 2024
If you’re a WNBA, pot-smoking, Black lesbian, do you get treated better than a United States marine?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 8 December 2022
Happening all the time in urban America, prowling Blacks go around for fun to go target white people, that’s a fact. It’s happening more and more.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 19 May 2023
If I’m dealing with somebody in customer service who’s a moronic Black woman, I wonder is she there because of her excellence, or is she there because affirmative action?
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 3 January 2024
If we would have said that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative action picks, we would have been called racists. Now they’re coming out and they’re saying it for us … You do not have the brain processing power to otherwise be taken really seriously. You had to go steal a white person’s slot to go be taken somewhat seriously.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 13 July 2023

On debate:
We record all of it so that we put [it] on the internet so people can see these ideas collide. When people stop talking, that’s when you get violence. That’s when civil war happens, because you start to think the other side is so evil, and they lose their humanity.
– Kirk discussing his work in an undated clip that circulated on X after his killing.

Prove me wrong:
– Kirk’s challenge to students to publicly debate him during the tour of colleges he was on when he was assassinated.

On gender, feminism and reproductive rights:
Reject feminism. Submit to your husband, Taylor. You’re not in charge.
– Discussing news of Taylor Swift and Travis Kelce’s engagement on The Charlie Kirk Show, 26 August 2025
The answer is yes, the baby would be delivered.
– Responding to a question about whether he would support his 10-year-old daughter aborting a pregnancy conceived because of rape on the debate show Surrounded, published on 8 September 2024
We need to have a Nuremberg-style trial for every gender-affirming clinic doctor. We need it immediately.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 April 2024

On gun violence:
I think it’s worth to have a cost of, unfortunately, some gun deaths every single year so that we can have the second amendment to protect our other God-given rights. That is a prudent deal. It is rational.
– Event organized by TPUSA Faith, the religious arm of Kirk’s conservative group Turning Point USA, on 5 April 2023

On immigration:
America was at its peak when we halted immigration for 40 years and we dropped our foreign-born percentage to its lowest level ever. We should be unafraid to do that.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 22 August 2025
The American Democrat party hates this country. They wanna see it collapse. They love it when America becomes less white.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 20 March 2024
The great replacement strategy, which is well under way every single day in our southern border, is a strategy to replace white rural America with something different.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 1 March 2024

On Islam:
America has freedom of religion, of course, but we should be frank: large dedicated Islamic areas are a threat to America.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 30 April 2025
We’ve been warning about the rise of Islam on the show, to great amount of backlash. We don’t care, that’s what we do here. And we said that Islam is not compatible with western civilization.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 24 June 2025
Islam is the sword the left is using to slit the throat of America.
– Charlie Kirk social media post, 8 September 2025

On religion:
There is no separation of church and state. It’s a fabrication, it’s a fiction, it’s not in the constitution. It’s made up by secular humanists.
– The Charlie Kirk Show, 6 July 2022”
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[Rideback]

CNN reporting that the guy was in full tactical gear yet the 2 pics released don't even show him carrying a gun (the gun that was conveniently found off campus in the trees).

[mister_coffee]

He might be a pro, but I'll doubt he is a pro if he gets caught. At this point he could be literally anywhere and if he keeps a low profile and hides out for six months or so it is unlikely he will be found.

And if he was a pro, there was a whole team behind this which means he should have been able to get away clean.

[PAL]

Maybe he put politcal slogans and the like on their firearms, to "blend" in. That emblem on his clothing sure helps him blend in.
The shooter was a pro. I don't think this guy would be casually walking around, although, it would be another way of just being one of the crowd.
The authorities have programs to enlarge and enhance the image on his top. Could be a dime a dozen, purchased at WalMart.

[mister_coffee]

Be nice when some internet sleuths identify that distinctive image on the guy's t-shirt.

[Rideback]

Our soldiers put messages on our bombs (thinking of the message to Hiroshima) and we've seen countries like Ukraine put messages on their bombs. But this guy, I almost think he's staring into the camera to BE identified. Kash Patel fired the most experienced FBI agent in Utah earlier this summer and from the way he's run things so far it's looking farcical that his FBI will run this guy down. The transgender bit on the rifle is just too cute by far.

[mister_coffee]

I take this with considerable grains of salt because this is the third suspect they have identifed:

And also because it has been 24 hours since the shooting that guy could be anywhere in a circle 2000 miles in diameter. Further if he had a flight. If this was a professional hit we'll never find the guy.

Also, who exactly puts political slogans and the like on their firearms?

[Rideback]

Interesting, I'd agree that since we don't know who the shooter was nor his rationale it's all the more important not to let the shooting stir the pot and lead to more violence. If Charlie did fear an assassination attempt by Israel it would be one well planned and executed.

[mister_coffee]

https://substack.com/home/post/p-173341922

[Rideback]

https://scontent-sea5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=68C8D90D

Laura Loomer wrote this about Charlie Kirk just days ago
https://scontent-sea5-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/ ... e=68C8B152

[PAL]

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1060061916115485

May not be able to open this one. This is how I remembered him being.

[mister_coffee]

Be kind of nice if people got their facts straight before posting stuff like this:

[mister_coffee]

[mister_coffee]

...
Lastly: At this point it's probably not helpful for them to actually find the shooter, since they've already decided all of us were the shooter.

Exactly this.

[Rideback]

An old friend wrote this:
Charlie Kirk is dead. Shot mid-speech while spewing his usual dogwhistle fascism to a gaggle of future January 6 cosplayers at Utah Valley University. Now, I’m not saying the world is better off without him, but the air sure as hell feels lighter.
Tell you what: Let’s not rewrite history just because this asshole caught a bullet. Charlie Kirk wasn’t just some “conservative commentator.” He was a pipeline of weaponized ignorance; anti-POC, anti-immigrant, anti-woman, anti-science, anti-decency, anti-everything-but-white-Christian-male-fragility.
He was an under educated, smirking, self-righteous sycophant whose greatest accomplishment was turning low-information rage into merchandise sales and tax write-offs.
And while I’m not here to throw a party over his assassination, because unlike him, I don’t celebrate or fetishize violence to win arguments, I’m also not joining the crocodile tear chorus.
I’m not lighting a candle, I’m lighting a match under every pedestal trying to martyr this poster boy for 8.5x11 grievance. Kirk wasn’t silenced for having “opinions” he spent his career making life harder for the marginalized, scapegoating the vulnerable, and wrapping fascism in a college brochure.
The only thing tragic here is that some idiot decided to make him a martyr. Now every grifter from Trump to Tucker Carlson gets to wail about “free speech” while they rewrite Kirk’s legacy from greasy opportunist to fallen patriot.
It’s nauseating. He wasn’t a hero. He wasn’t even a thinker. He was a human Twitter thread of bad faith and recycled talking points.
But here’s the kicker: nobody, nobody, deserves to be executed for being a dumba** with a microphone. That’s not justice. That’s societal collapse in real time. You don’t get to cosplay Rambo because you didn’t like what some snake oil peddler said about immigrants. That’s not how democracy works, that’s how civil wars start.
So no, I’m not mourning Charlie Kirk. And I’m not defending the shooter either. One was a coward with a gun, and the other was a coward with a platform, and the only thing they had in common is that neither had the moral spine to argue in good faith.
Rest in whatever, Charlie. You won’t be missed, but you should have been beaten in debate, not in a parking lot with a sniper rifle

Lastly: At this point it's probably not helpful for them to actually find the shooter, since they've already decided all of us were the shooter.

[Rideback]

I can't find this morning that a suspect has been arrested. So at this point we don't know either the who or the why. It's all speculation.

I find this analysis of the shooter's expertise interesting:
"The details emerging of the Charlie Kirk shooting are, forensically speaking, somewhat startling from the perspective of a layman shooter.
Chiefly, it’s the distance. Multiple high-quality outlet reports suggest that Kirk was shot from a considerable distance with the first shot fatally in the neck.
Popular misconceptions about “snipers” notwithstanding the vast majority of gun violence and assassinations are with handguns at relatively short range. The problem is rifle accuracy at the distances shown, with wind, density altitude, angle - the rifle must be adjusted for the cosine of the distance to the target because of elevation - and movement of the target. It is not easy to shoot accurately at such distances.
The shot that killed Kirk also appears to have been a “cold-bore” shot, one in which the rifle has not been shot before. That means that the lower temperature of the barrel, as well as the reduced lead and carbon lining the barrel’s rifling - this is why Tod Hodnet calls it a “clean-bore” shot - will affect the trajectory of the bullet relative to its behavior otherwise, when the bullet trajectory would be affected by a barrel that has been heated up and fouled with lead and carbon by shooting.
This sounds minor, and by most people’s standards it is; we are talking about external-ballistic factors that affect trajectory by less than one minute of angle or MOA, or 1.047” at 100 yards.
The thing is, at two hundred yards, stacking on other factors like getting the elevation wrong by not using a cosine readout (elevation is adjusted for distance traveled over the ground, not distance to the target) and maybe even slapping the trigger a little, it starts to get real real easy to miss; at 200 yards one MOA is a 2.093” error, at 300 it’s 3.141” - enough room to clean miss a headshot. The solution is to record two zeroes - one for cold-bore, one for the rest of the time - but this is a level of detail orientation that ost people simply don’t have.
Again, wait for facts, all that, but I strongly doubt anyone made this shot on a cold bore without a ballistic computer and wind meter - probably both together in a Kestrel - as well as a very accurate rifle with a high-quality magnified scope, and a lot of confidence in their rifle’s zero.
The rarity of that combination, and the presumable rarity of leftist or liberal politics in the types of people who know such things, makes me think that this should really not be a very long manhunt."

[mister_coffee]

I feel bad for Mr. Kirk's two kids. They certainly didn't deserve this crap.

And any Rs who laughed when Paul Pelosi was attacked by a crazy dude with a hammer in his own home can stop clutching their pearls.

[pasayten]

Ken, I am a Republican and have every right to dislike trump/maga and the sh**show that is covered under it's umbrella of lies, hate, and misinformation. Take your "Dem light" and stuff it where the light doesn't shine.

[dorankj]

Why always the pejorative and always the prejudiced evil intent? M(ake) A(merica) G(reat) A(gain) is in no way inherently evil or dangerous, it's only incessantly demonized and castigated by those with political motives and as you pointed out yesterday a desperate desire for POWER. 'Progressivism' has far more nefarious history and evil actions to demonize it but we are all forced to accept that if individuals have good intent we can't hold everyone to the worst actions of some. I argue the overarching path is where Progressivism must be stopped to not repeat it's horrible history but there never seems any limiting principle from those who hate Trump, any Republicans (who don't adhere to Ray's defeated Dem light) and this strange unhinged hatred for "MAGA" (which you guys can't even define and certainly don't understand) Isn't this why Charlie was assassinated today? If you scream Nazi, Hitler, dictator on and on wouldn't it be considered virtuous to remove those obvious things? The hideous response and rhetoric from a certain political/ideological/'News' sources and even here (where one can be accused of most evil by only association) furthers my point.

[PAL]

Oh, everywhere but there.
Charlie was not conservative as the media and all portray him. He was MAGA, far right. He could really say some weirdo things.

[just-jim]

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It will be interesting to see if Guilty, FELON donnie will ‘surge’ US Military Troops into Utah? I mean - he should!!!

OBVIOUSLY…..Utah is one of those scum ridden, LAWLESS, sh+t-hole States…, right??!!
One that the Governor, Legislature, and civilian Law Enforcement authorities are CLEARLY incapable of governing and keeping safe!!!!!!

And…YES, Vern…I will stand up and call out FASCISTS - all day and EVERY day!
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[PAL]

When living in authoritarian rule, one must accept, even the beliefs of Charlie Kirk. He did say that the "cities should be occupied until all crime desists."
The Jan. 6th. insurrection and subsequent pardons are a prime example of approving of criminal acts. So, we go by example, it's ok to be like that. We can be criminals, as long as we are the right kind of criminal and get away with it.
Obviously the person that shot Charlie was not the right kind of criminal.

[mister_coffee]

Kristallnacht (1938): The Nazi government used the assassination of German diplomat Ernst vom Rath by a Jewish teenager, Herschel Grynszpan, as a pretext for the "Night of Broken Glass". This was a series of orchestrated pogroms throughout Germany that saw widespread violence against Jewish people and the destruction of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues.

[Jingles]

Jim your post shows your true colors and is one that is totally discusting in all aspects of human decency. And is more likely to cause hate and retribution against folks with your opinion.
Yes Charlie believed in keeping the 2nd Amendment because he, unlike the majority of the left, understood the 2nd Amendment is in place so citizens could protect themselves against evil (both individuals and governments).

[Rideback]

"Wow. No words. Well, OK, some words.
Let me show you two differences between me and a MAGA influencer right now.
One, as with the United Healthcare CEO shooting, I don't care how much I agree with you ideologically, you break a lot of important social contracts when you start shooting at people, and those breaches put you on the opposite side of a very hard-and-fast line with me as a gun violence survivor and a (former, at this point) competitive shooter.
This is a tragedy and completely not the way that things should be done in this country. Charlie Kirk should have been defeated in argument and in the public square, not martyred; but more importantly, when we cross the line into shooting at fellow Americans merely because we disagree with them, no matter how much or how bad that disagreement is, that's how social disintegration happens.
I don't care how funny it was to make fun of Charlie Kirk and right now neither should you. Cheering the death of an ideological opponent is the sort of emotion that the worst of MAGA appeals to, and as with someone "on our side" dying - if not more so - if you're cheering this death, that's going to send off a lot of red flag signals to people (like me, at least).
Don't do that. That's trashy MAGA behavior. Grown-ups should know to self-edit your public presentation better than that.
Second, until we know more about this, now that I've said all that, I'm going to shut up and wait for facts instead of spreading misinformation."
I agree with Joohn Choe who wrote this