Week of Kirk Murder Aftermath
Blame Game, Reversals, Re‑Reversals, Patel Bumbles, Kimmel Suspenders Surrender, Censors Abound, Trump Sinks Boats, Trump Sinks in Texas

James declines to blame one side of the political divide or the other, and decries attempts to blame anyone but the assassin.

Key appeal:
Rather than “wave the bloody shirt,” and claim the left is out to kill the political right, or vice-versa, Republicans might try, and Democrats might also try, to use civility to bring this nation back to where all sides can peacefully disagree while participating in the political process.

Okay, so James does engage in a bit of ill-considered both‑sides reflexiveness, but not before calling out the primary danger.

Key retribution:
Worse, many of Kirk’s allies are intent on using his death as a weapon against the president’s political opponents. Both Trump and his henchman Stephen Miller are promising to use the full force of the government, including RICO lawsuits, to go after political opponents.
 
Instead of taking a step back to recognize that both Republicans and Democrats have been the victims and the perpetrators of recent political violence, Republicans leapt to point at Democrats and claimed the left is embracing violence. Political amnesia suddenly strikes on the right when the assassination of Minnesota state Rep. Melissa Hortman (D) is mentioned, or the attempted murder of Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro (D), or the attempted kidnapping of Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer (D).

So maybe only a little overbalanced.
Not bad, James!

I did dig out a recent study by the CATO institute (not your typical left-wing group).
Pay attention to the 54% figure:

Key praise (Raymond Arroyo, among others):
And that for them, this is an RFK, an MLK moment. He is a generational leader taken down in his prime. But the message has been magnified in a way that these young men and women feel empowered, and they’re following his example.

Key retribution:
The message was clear – liberals, progressives and leftists are evil extremists who hate the country. If they don’t stop criticizing the right the Trump administration would hunt them down, destroy their lives and silence their voices.
 
Jesse Watters even said that Charlie Kirk’s murder needed to be avenged which was hardly a message of unity.

Key actuality (from Juliet):
Kirk built his career promoting Christianity while disparaging Black Americans and immigrants, Muslims and the LGBTQ+ community while telling women they’d be better off in the traditional roles of wife and mother. He seemed to especially criticize accomplished Black women.
 
The Turning Point USA co-founder was a divisive person who spread hatred and bigotry, but he didn’t deserve to die the way he did. One of the founding principles of the United States is the notion that anyone can freely express themselves even if their ideas are unpopular or hateful to many.

More details are available in podcast form as Juliet narrates.

Key immediate conservative reactions:
I saw vitriol thrown at the trans community for no reason and read reports in the WSJ outlining a trans suspect — without a suspect in custody.
 
I saw Congresswoman Nancy Mace say, “Let me say this as nice as I can: DEMOCRATS OWN THIS.” and then she went on to demand the death penalty.
 
Elon Musk tweeted: “If they won’t leave us in peace, then our choice is to fight or die.” and “The Left is the party of murder.”
 
An infamous and disgusting group, the Libs of TikTok tweeted: “ THIS IS WAR.”
 
Laura Loomer, a far-right advisor to Trump, tweeted: “It’s time for the Trump administration to shut down, defund, & prosecute every single Leftist organization. If Charlie Kirk dies from his injuries, his life cannot be in vain. We must shut these lunatic leftists down. Once and for all. The Left is a national security threat.”

Extreme to moderate to extreme:
All of the sudden, the rhetoric changed. Literally midsentence for some. Congresswoman Nancy Mace went from demanding the death penalty to asking for prayers.
 
They had to pull back the words they were speaking and change tone and direction. I can’t help but think I know why. The suspect is a young white man raised in a religious home in Utah with conservative parents, steeped in gun culture.
 
The suspect, Tyler Robinson, who confessed to his dad and a family friend, is not trans. He is not Black. He is not an immigrant.
 
Robinson’s grandmother said Robinson’s family is deeply MAGA.

Key both-sides
And now…now, I am seeing folks, politicians and everyday people, who were quick to judge and demand violence, asking for cooler heads “on both sides.”
 
I agree with cooling political tensions at the moment, but we have been cool.
 
They have been threatening. We have watched and read the news while they proposed civil war and executions and the death penalty. It doesn’t appear that the Left had much, if anything, to do with any of this at this point.
 
But we get the reprimand. Both sides, right?

Since Jesse wrote this, we do seem to witness an oscillating attitude from more extreme rightists.

From The Borowitz Report a surprise announcement: the incompetent FBI Director Kash Patel has been replaced by a startled deer. (Photo comparison included)

Key block:
And that’s the heart of it. The radical right is frustrated because a majority continues to oppose them.

Key remedy:
Unable to control the country through the machinery of democracy when it operates fairly and afraid voters will turn them out in 2026, Republicans are working to make the system even more rigged than it already is…

The same analysis is now available in audio format, as Richardson narrates in podcast.

Key circle:
The guy who created a list of left-wing college professors he wanted fired for their views would want us to fire anyone who pointed out who he created a to be fired list.

Key denunciation (quoting State Rep. Adam Niemerg):
This is about political gain for radical Democrats and pushing a woke narrative. They can’t amount to anything to get that done, including assassinating conservatives at college campuses.

Beginning with this:

Including this
Right-wingers, of course, were all over the stupid, proposing a statue of Kirk at the Capitol, and totally rewriting his biography with a 6-inch coat of whitewash. And they were quite dishonest and malicious in trying to pin the blame for the shooting on The Left, and falsely claiming that liberals were celebrating Charlie’s death.

Ending with this:
And the Michigan courts just decided not to prosecute the state’s fraudulent “electors”, on the grounds that they believed their own lies; and since they are convinced of their innocence then by golly they must be innocent. Quick, fling open all the prison gates; all the folks inside are also saying they’re innocent.

Key proposition:
Words are not violence, nor are they powerless.

Key blind spot:
And what of the writers, the thinkers, and the pundits who cannot separate the great crime of Kirk’s death from the malignancy of his public life?

Key parallel:
Burying the truth of the Confederacy, rewriting its aims and ideas, and ignoring its animating words allowed for the terrorization of the Black population, the imposition of apartheid, and the destruction of democracy. The rewriting and the ignoring were done not just by Confederates, but also by putative allies for whom the reduction of Black people to serfdom was the unfortunate price of white unity.

I sort of guessed, but this turned out to be more direct than I expected.

So Carr suggests that Kimmel is guilty of misleading the public about the killing. He threatens to suspend broadcasting licenses of ABC affiliates in retaliation. After all, we can’t have late night comedians mislead the public.

So, of course, ABC suspends Kimmel indefinitely.

Brian Beutler properly defines the issue and offers the best solution for Democrats.

Trump complaint:
When you have a network and you have evening shows and all they do is hit Trump, that’s all they do — if you go back, I guess they haven’t had a conservative one in years, or something — when you go back and take a look, all they do is hit Trump. They’re licensed. They’re not allowed to do that.

News Corpse reality:
You have to wonder under what set of rules he is playing by if disagreement, criticism, and mockery, are not allowed. Certainly not those spelled out in the Constitution.

I did enjoy the Hannity rebuttal.

Sean Hannity on Jimmy Kimmel suspension:
I can’t find a single prominent conservative voice in the country that even remotely wanted, or hoped, or was pushing to get Jimmy Kimmel taken off the air.

Well… diligent research by News Corpse did find one exception.

Sean Hannity, July:
Jimmy Kimmel is NEXT to go…It’s really good to see them go, and I hope I played a major part in it!

• The 1^st Amendment right to protest does not apply if a President finds it disturbing while he dines. The protest is a crime.
• If the protest involves more than one person, it becomes a group, and a group acting together is organized. So it is organized crime and covered by RICO statutes.

My thought: If folks like these had bruised our president’s delicate sensibilities in the US, Mr. Blanche would have had them prosecuted as members of organized crime.

Key non-Climate remark:
Today we’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.

But what’s stunning is the difference in intensity.

Those who like him are split between those who really, really like him and those who kinda think he’s sort of okay.

Those who don’t like him overwhelmingly loathe him to the absolute.

And that is in Texas.

Key model:
Much like the Soviets, this Russia based administration is making it up as they go along. Disagree with us, you’re evil, or mentally ill, or just annoying enough to be arrested.

Key objective:

Casey Harper:
But when it turns out you can just bomb terrorist ships that are called Venezuelan in the ocean uh and then you’re labeling people terrorist groups, it raises that same question about precedent for the future.

Tony Perkins:
I mean, a lot to pray about.

Key beatitude:
Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.

Key conflict:
But you will never find this peacemaking Jesus in the Gospel according to MAGA.
 
That’s because MAGA Christians despise him.
 
He is an inconvenience, an annoyance, a dissenting opinion they seek to silence.

Key miracle:
At the same time, we’ve learned to rely more on our own understanding, rather that of Gods or ancient books. The more we as a society have turned away from prophets and scripture the better our world seems to be.