"... in the most hateful and despicable way possible. For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world's worst mass murderers and criminals. This kind of rhetoric is directly responsible for the terrorism that we're seeing in our country today, and it must stop right now.... Radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives. Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died — the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.... Today, because of this heinous act, Charlie's voice has become bigger and grander than ever before, and it's not even close...."
My attention was called to that by this Maggie Haberman piece in the NYT: "At the White House, Trump’s Grief and Shock Turn to Rage Over Charlie Kirk/President Trump asked for updates and met with advisers in the Oval Office before recording a four-minute video in which he blamed rhetoric from the 'radical left' for the killing."
The headline prompts us to question Trump's basis for purporting to know what motivated the killer. Maybe we ought to wait until we learn more, and maybe the hateful rhetoric is coming from both sides, and maybe there are leftwing targets of violence. I'm imagining those on the left scurrying to prevent Trump and his allies from controlling the narrative.
I wrote that last paragraph based on the headline and drawing on my own expectations. Then I read the article and did not find what I'd thought I'd find. It is more of a straightforward description of the scene at the White House yesterday. We're told "the corridors... were quiet, as staff there absorbed news," and "Televisions affixed to walls in different rooms blared minute-to-minute coverage.... Some staff members appeared to have been crying."
The last sentence of the article makes me jerk my head to check the calendar icon in the sidebar of my computer: "The president was still on track for a visit to New York on the anniversary of the last significant event to unite nearly all Americans across parties: the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks."
It's a very somber day, not a day to strain to find a way to advantage your side. And yet, there is Trump in that video, forthrightly blaming the radical left. He didn't take a day or 2 off for reflection and what either is or looks like prayer. And that's a temptation to all on the left and all those pumping for Democrats to assert that the right is also responsible for the violence. Yield to that temptation and you might be the next Matthew Dowd.
See "Matthew Dowd Fired From MSNBC for Charlie Kirk Comments" (Variety). What Dowd said, probably feeling this was measured, accurate, and smart: "[Charlie Kirk] is constantly sort of pushing this sort of hate speech or sort of aimed at certain groups. And I always go back to, hateful thoughts lead to hateful words, which then lead to hateful actions. And I think that is the environment we are in. You can’t stop with these sort of awful thoughts you have and then saying these awful words and not expect awful actions to take place. And that’s the unfortunate environment we are in."
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২৩১টি মন্তব্য:
«সবচেয়ে পুরাতন ‹পুরাতন 231 এর 201 – থেকে 2319/11 was the date the of 1973 Chilean coup. It also marked the lifting of the 1683 siege of Vienna and another Ottoman defeat in 1697. I hadn't heard of the Christiana event, but if -- as it seems -- only one person died, I wouldn't call it a massacre.
I see comments suggesting that Kirk was assassinated by (checks notes)... Mossad. No, wait, it was ackshually a false flag operation by rabid Trump supporters who deviously planned to kill one of their own in order to prompt their followers to assassinate some democrat politician in order to get Trump to SHOW HIS HAND AS AN AUTHORITARIAN so everyone would turn against him and elect moar democrats! No, hang on, that's not it; it was a Christian Nationalist who cleverly scrawled Antifa and transgender shibboleths on the casings left in the chamber and magazine because reasons. No matter because, according to many on the left, it was a good thing and Kirk deserved it and Trump is still Hitler and so are his voters, so they're gonna get theirs eventually unless they SHUT UP.
Thanks Grok!
Based on ADL reports: From 2021-2024, all documented extremist murders (33 in 2021, 25 in 2022, 17 in 2023, 13 in 2024) were by right-wing extremists. No far-left murders reported. For 2025, the Sep 10 assassination of Charlie Kirk has an unknown perpetrator and motive as of now, per news sources like Newsweek—no confirmed ideology. Trends show far-right dominance in lethal extremism post-2020.
Based on data from sources like CSIS, ADL, and academic studies (e.g., START database), far-right extremists have committed more acts of lethal violence in the US since the 1990s, accounting for ~75% of extremist murders and most fatalities (e.g., 335 vs. 22 for far-left from 1994-2020). Far-left violence was higher in the 1960s-80s (e.g., Weather Underground bombings), but has declined sharply. Definitions and counts vary across reports.
Leftwing corksoakers!!!
I'm pretty sure that no spy agencies of any country were involved in this. Charlie Kirk may have been a good man, but he wasn't important enough for the CIA or a foreign spy outfit to run the risk or take the trouble. We may find out -- no, we will find out -- that the shooter was "on [some domestic law enforcement agency's] radar."
“This was a pro”
No. It was a dipshit with a rifle.
Like everyone else, the ADL has an agenda in compiling and categorizing its statistics. Call your criminal gang Nazis or Aryans and your murders will contribute to right-wing extremist killings, while the murders by other criminal gangs won't show up as political acts.
Latest "person of interest " photos
https://x.com/FBISaltLakeCity/status/1966169520403525760?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1966169520403525760%7Ctwgr%5E01ec1bb9a1257a387d94dc89520d0593fc0b1739%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2025%2F09%2Fphotos-released-new-person-interest-charlie-kirk-assassination%2F
@Big Mike: "Best guess is that he aimed for a head shot (already a sign of an amateur) and missed low because he didn’t know that a rifle zeroed at 100 yards will drop 4” at 150 meters (= 500 feet). The drop would be less since he was shooting downhill, but if he flinched a little"
No, that doesn't make sense. Zerohedge reports that the distance was 140 yards and has an overhead photo. Per the trajectory tables at ammo dot com, .30-06 loads zeroed at 100 yards drop 3" to 4" at 200 yards.
At 140 yards downhill, they'd land maybe 2" down. I'm betting on either a mis-zeroed rifle, chest plate deflection, or the luck of a shooter with uncertain skills.
Howard said...
"See, I was right. Ronald is playing the false flag card. It's how he is coping with the possibility that this was ordered by the powers behind the DNC DAVOS cabal"
For all we know he's part of the "DNC DAVOS" cabal.
You will notice that as angry as the Right is about this, nobody is boarding up their windows or deploying police for riots, burning and looting. That's because everybody knows the truth: the two sides are not the same. They are in fact nearly opposite people in political values and behavior. How are you going to make that peaceful? It can be peaceful only if the left stopped being violent. That's the only way. Violence from the right is so rare it basically equals background noise in a free society.
It’s worth noting that Kash Patel recently dismissed the highly regarded head of the FBI’s Salt Lake City field office for reasons that remain unclear.
@Enigma, your “or the luck of a shooter with uncertain skills” lines up with my own conclusion. A .30-06 does not have the recoil of a .300 Win Mag, but if you’re a newbie it can induce flinching, which (I am told) makes one tend to miss low.
I doubt Charlie was wearing hard armor, and a jacketed .30-06 will go through soft armor about like tissue paper.
@Big Mike: If this shot was from a prone hunting-style rest that made use of a bag or backpack, I'm guessing there was random vertical stringing. Inexperienced people who don't use a rear bag tend to generate groups an inch wide by a foot tall. First-shot flinching isn't much of an issue off a rest, but trigger and support uncertainty makes vertical placement effectively random.
Still, this was one-shot one-kill and not a nearly as amateur as the first Trump assassin. That guy used a red dot sight with spray-and-pray.
What Dowd actually said: "We don’t know if this was a supporter shooting their gun off in celebration".
Actual "reatards" refuse to be associated with that asshole.
There was a female FBI agent blaming Americans for our weird present and future. The government of SLC is also braying a DEIst cacophony of handmade tales inspiring a queer narrative of hate entertaining abortive ideation. To relieve a 'burden" perchance to progress with human rites performed for light and liberal causes.
It was only twenty hecklers.
To quote JD Vance on Tren de Aragua- "Do you hear yourself? Only a handfull?". What is the proper number of hecklers before it's despicable? My guess is zero.
The fact is that leftists are celebrating, the MSM is obfuscating, and hecklers are trying to disrupt a memorial service, puts many on the left on the same level as the Westboro Baptist Church.
The calls from democrat elected officials for Trump to turn down the rhetoric echo hollow after the repeated labeling the right as Nazis, the "Trump is the Hitler of our times" chant by code pink, and the "dark Brandon" speech. The left has to start toning down the rhetoric first. Otherwise all that can remain is tit for tat.
STOP.
Mr. Ward hears hoof beats and speculates how many zebras are in the herd.
Obviously, there has been violence and calls for violence on both sides of the political spectrum. That being said, it's been obvious during recent years that the vast majority of violence and calls for violence are coming from people on the left, not people on the right.
And when you see people, like Governor Pritzker, try to pin the violence on Republican rhetoric, it's classic projection. He knows that his side does most of the violence and calls for violence, so he trys to deflect that by saying the other side is the one doing it.
Violence against Trump supporters began in 2016 campaign. An execution long with beatings that included women.
There's also been an active meme going around with Trump toe tags on body under sheet with "Is he dead yet?" text.
The left is always attacking Hitler and punching Nazis, because that is what the last sensible leftists did. I note that was several generations ago, and they only attacked the Nazis to remove Hitler as an existential threat to their own hold on power in the Soviet Union.
You give them too much credit. While the Molotov-von Ribbentrop Pact was still in force, and Stalin and Hitler were best buddies, American leftists were quite as mice about fascism. When Hitler attacked the Soviet Union, they turned on a dime and became rabid antifascists. It was one of the most craven and wicked examples of opportunistic hypocrisy in American political history.
@Hassayamper: The left always 'forgets' that Nazi means National Socialist German Workers' Party. By name alone they were clear ideological cousins to the USSR until Hitler attacked.
Maybe Antifa can be rebranded as the National Socialist USA Worker's Party. Call 'em the Nags or Naggies.
I'd like to say that Trump didn't (entirely) make the rules--he's responsible for some of them. But the TDS folks and progressives in general also contributed to the "rules". So Trump plays the game. And he's certainly survived a lot of gameplaying by the other side.
"(And good on you that you can take down a deer with a .223.)"
Nah, it mostly means he's doing this somewhere down south where the deer are smaller. Here in Washington State It is entirely illegal to hunt deer with .223 and so it is in quite a few other northerly places.
"Tonight, I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived and died — the values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law, and the patriotic devotion and love of God.."
Roughly half the people living in the US don't believe any of those things.
Wikipedia sez "A nation is a type of social organization where a collective identity, a national identity, has emerged from a combination of shared features across a given population, such as language, history, ethnicity, culture, territory, or society."
Whatever we have here, it isn't that.
It's a very somber day, not a day to strain to find a way to advantage your side.
The Left celebrated the murder of our side yesterday. What it was NOT was a day to let them enjoy themselves.
To quote something I saw on X: We may not yet know that the assassin was on the Left, but we clearly know that the Left loves the assassin.
And THAT justifies going after the Left hammer and tongs
And that's a temptation to all on the left and all those pumping for Democrats to assert that the right is also responsible for the violence.
They're going to tell that lie no matter what. in fact, they were telling that lie long before Trump said anything.
No, Charlie kirk's "dress wasn't too short".
It doesn't matter what the fuck you say: no, you have no right to censor, you have not right to physically attack.
And until the Left accepts that, they are the enemies of all decent human beings
Dowd was being an ass, not thoughtful. Because if he was being thoughtful, he'd realize everyone on the Left calling the Right "Nazis" is EXACTLY engaging in the kind of behavior that Dowd claims leads to being killed
Kakistocracy said...
Based on ADL reports:
You're an ass and a moron. because no one else believes anything from the ADL.
The ADL scores all white prison violence as "right wing terrorism". It does not score black prison violence ce as anything, and did not score the Luigi assassination as "Left wing"
Essentially ALL political violence in America is either Left wing, or lunatic. And the lunatics are only out on the streets and able to kill because the Left refuses to let us lock them up.
If yo compare teh violence of J6 to the violence of the Floyd riots / the disruption of gov't by Code Pink et al, J6 doesn't even make it to the level of "noise". No buildings were burned down, the only person killed was killed by a rogue cop.
Political violence in teh US has been a Left wing pathology.
but if that now changes, if people just start sniping Antifa, or Leftist speakers, or Dem politicians, understand that we will laugh at you when you come to us for sympathy.
Violence is not a rheostat, it's a switch. And you left wing imbeciles insist on playing with that switch
Trump is right about what motivated the killer, and you Ann Althouse know that he is right. If this were just a mentally unstable person, it would not have been this well planned.
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