The outlandish conspiracy theorists

The New Neo Posted on by

Commenter “Niketas Choniates” writes:

Instapundit today links to a debunking of a conspiracy theory that Charlie Kirk was shot at close range with a gun disguised as a cell phone.

I have to say I have no idea what to do about people who would find such a thing plausible. I don’t know where they get their priors from: maybe the RAND corporation, under the supervision of the reverse vampires, are putting something in the water.

That last bit about the vampires putting something in the water is a joke, but it’s one that posits a conspiracy theory to which somebody somewhere probably ascribes, so numerous and strange are these theories.

I’ve written many times before about the propensity of so many humans to come up with such things, but if you read just one of those posts I suggest it be this one. I suggest you read the whole thing. But I want to add what I think is at the root of these belief systems.

One part of it is – as I already mentioned in the linked post – that some generalized distrust of government and official reports (or at least skepticism) is justified by certain lies that officials have told in the past. A good example of this is Russiagate, or their lies about the origins of the COVID virus.

But I want to emphasize something else here, which is that people like to feel that they are smarter than average, and much less gullible than average, and some people do this by rejecting the obvious explanations that are supported by the actual evidence and prefer to latch onto something more obscure and even contradicted by the evidence. Why would that make them feel superior? Because they see themselves as marching to a different drummer, as not being taken in by duplicitous authorities mouthing lies, as being better and more intelligent than the rest of you who are stupid enough and trusting enough to believe in the lying official narrative.

So yes, to believe someone with a gun resembling a cell phone killed Charlie Kirk by firing at close range is preposterous and flies in the face of everything we know about the assassination. But there are always going to be those who reject everything we know and say it’s all (or mostly) lies put out by officials who have some sort of evil agenda to cover up, and that the conspiracy theorists and those of like mind have sussed all of this out and have the inside info – unlike the rest of you naive dupes.

The problem, of course – at least, one problem – is that sometimes there really is a conspiracy and the official word is sometimes a lie. Russiagate was a conspiracy and a lie, for example, and the first COVID origin story – wet markets rather than a lab – was a coverup. It can be challenging to sort these things out. But Oswald killed Kennedy on his own; it’s really not in question any more (see my previous posts on the subject).

And Charlie Kirk was not killed with a gun disguised as a cell phone.

On coming across the obituary of a college acquaintance

The New Neo Posted on by

The other day I came across the obituary of someone I knew as a college freshman. I wasn’t looking for information about her, but I saw it nevertheless.

I almost wrote “I came across the obituary of a girl I knew as a college freshman.” But because the obituary was dated only a few years ago, of course by that time she was no girl. She was someone most people would describe as old.

But that’s not the way she exists in my mind’s eye, despite the article’s description of a long – and what sounds like a productive and happy – life. To me, she remains that seventeen- or eighteen-year-old girl, the one I met in the first days of my stay at the far-off university I attended freshman year.

I didn’t fit in. Perhaps I wouldn’t have fit in anywhere; at the time, I was shy with strangers although not when you got to know me. I looked different from most of the students there, though. They dressed differently, they wore their hair differently, they understand the ropes of the place and I didn’t, and I was constantly being asked a question I had never heard before: “What are you?” Meaning “what’s your ethnic background?”

The person whose obituary I just found – I’ll call her Nancy, although that’s not her name – lived right across the hall from me and my roommate. She was the essence of cool at the time – the right clothes, the right hair, and tremendously attractive. But it wasn’t just her looks. She had a lively personality, was a bit quirky but not too much, and seemed especially sure of herself and comfortable in her skin without being obnoxious or even off-putting.

I lost touch with her after freshman year, and we hadn’t been close even then. But I wasn’t surprised to read about her accomplishments, both public and private, or the heartfelt tributes from friends. Such things fit with what I remembered.

I felt a sorrowful loss. She died not young, but younger than average. She apparently had some physical suffering in her final years; some of the friends alluded to her courage in the face of it. I wish I had known her better; she sounds like she would have been a good person to know. But it was not to be.

And she represents so many people I’ve lost, many of them people I lost touch with over the years but some of them those to whom I was close. There’s nothing to be done about it.

As one ages one has to be strong, that’s for sure.

Background to the hatred: the right as the new Jews

The New Neo Posted on by

In the wake of the Kirk assassination, I’ve been thinking about how the background has been to stir up hatred against the right and especially white people as a group. White people themselves are supposed to hear the message and to feel guilty about their supposed “privilege” and even their very existence, whereas people of other races are encouraged to blame all their woes on white people – not just historically, but now.

So much has happened since the year 2020 that it’s easy to forget the whole “anti-racist” movements which – as with so many projects on the left – had an Orwellian looking-glass sort of title, because it represented the furtherance of racist thought. It looked at people as almost nothing but their races, and all white people were judged harshly because of being white. At the time, I wrote a post titled “White privilege, white guilt: whites as the new Jews.” You might want to go back and read it, but here’s an excerpt:

I know the analogy of anti-white feeling to historical anti-Semitism is far from perfect. But it’s still relevant. Both have as a prominent feature the sweeping idea of inherent and collective guilt of an entire people and/or race. How can this guilt ever be erased? Perhaps never, although public self-humiliation is felt to be a small start. …

No need to prove that Trump is a white supremacist, despite all he’s done to help black people. The Harvard Gazette‘s readership knows it’s true, everyone says it, so the argument doesn’t even need to be made properly, just stated. The incomparable Thomas Sowell, who retired from writing in 2016 at the age of 86 (and who originally had not liked Trump and yet urged people to vote for him in 2016), had this to say in March of 2019 which I think is spot on:

“In March 2019, Sowell commented on the public’s response to mainstream media’s allegations that Trump was a “racist”: “What’s tragic is that there’s so many people out there who simply respond to words rather than ask themselves “Is what this person says true? How can I check it?” And so on.” One month later, Sowell again defended Trump against media charges of “racism”, stating: “I’ve seen no hard evidence. And, unfortunately, we’re living in a time where no one expects hard evidence. You just repeat some familiar words and people will react pretty much the way Pavlov’s dog was conditioned to react to certain sounds.”

As usual, Sowell describes it well. That was six years ago, and we’ve seen cries of “racist,” “transphobe,” “hater,” “Nazi,” and “Fascist” increasingly weaponized against the right in general and Kirk in particular, both before and after his killing. This is the way that groups are dehumanized in order to prepare a population for their destruction, and to cheer it on. That’s what we’ve been seeing now from the left towards the right. The problem for the left is that the right isn’t a minority, as the Jews were in Europe (most people aren’t aware, for example, that prior to the Nazi takeover the Jews of Germany numbered less than one percent of the German population). The right is half the population – and perhaps growing as a reaction to leftist extremism.

In the wake of Kirk’s assassination, a few more trolls have come to assert the killer was MAGA

The New Neo Posted on by

One example, which is now in the trash:

Is your name Neo as in Neo Nazi.
I wouldn’t be shocked anymore.

Anyhow, Tyler was a far right maga.

I await the next Nuremberg Trials. Trump and His admin will judged.

The word “be” is left out in that last line, but I think it’s just from haste rather than any unfamiliarity with the English language.

This message is very typical of trolls. First, the quick insult to me. Then, the simple statement of a popular leftist falsehood, with no need for supporting data. Next, the threat of a reckoning when the left gets into power.

This comment was actually rather mild, as trolls go. And as is also typical, it’s from someone who seems not to have been here before.

There’s a common perception that trolls are paid. I have little doubt that may be true for many. But I think at least as many just do it for the love of trolling.

The idea that Tyler Robinson was MAGA is a piece of leftist propaganda that could be characterized as a classic Big Lie – that is, there’s not a single shred of evidence for it. It’s preposterous, knowing what we know. Why is this the left’s approach? Let me count the ways:

(1) If it’s done in order to troll someone on the right – as with the above comment – it rubs salt into the wound of Kirk’s assassination and isn’t meant to convince. When the audience is the left, however, it is meant to convince, and that is its aim for the most part.

(2) It relies on the cognitive dissonance of many people on the left on learning that Robinson was the epitome of someone who’s been radicalized by the left. On the one hand, the person on the left hearing the news might be happily applauding Kirk’s murder. On the other hand, the fact that the murderer was a leftist goes against the leftist listener’s notion that it is the right that is violent, the right that uses hunting rifles to blow people away. So the perfect solution is to applaud Kirk’s murder while simultaneously believing it was done by a MAGA supporter – which is preposterous and also false, but it resolves the cognitive dissonance. People often eagerly embrace ideas that resolve the unpleasant emotions roused by cognitive dissonance, no matter how wrong or how preposterous those ideas are.

(3) It relies on some people not following the facts at all closely, and plenty of people don’t. Slogans and lies flourish with ignorance.

(4) It relies on some people’s distrust of authorities such as the FBI and local police, and plenty of people feel that way.

I’ve said the idea that Tyler Robinson was MAGA is preposterous. We have way too much evidence to the contrary: the writing on the bullets, the reports of friends and family, the text messages to the roommate/lover, and of course the victim himself – who was a person on the right. But in the absence of the first three of those things it wouldn’t be so utterly preposterous to believe the assassination might be a right-on-right crime. Stranger things have happened – although they happen more often on the left with left-on-left crimes, with the victims seen as insufficiently extremist and/or as rivals for leftist power. As one example, there is the murder of Trotsky on Stalin’s orders. To take another, there’s Malcolm X (whose murder at the hands of the Nation of Islam has – of course – spawned a number of alternate conspiracy theories).

So in general the left doesn’t find it all that odd to think that the murder of Kirk represented a power struggle on the right – at least, they could entertain that notion for a short while. But after the first day, it would be impossible to support the idea unless one was either woefully ignorant of the facts that had emerged or willfully lying (perhaps including lying to oneself), or both.

Speech as incitement

The New Neo Posted on by

Ace covers a few examples on the left here.

I suggest you go to the link and read it. It’s impossible to summarize.

But here’s one instance [emphasis mine]:

Meanwhile: the left has been promoting Cenk Uygur’s nephew …

… [H]e’s been celebrated by all the organs of leftist propaganda: Politico, CNN, the New York Times. He’s the Bro Whisperer for the left, and they want to make him famous.

What they don’t tell their readers, of course, is that he has been calling for the murder of Republicans (including Tom Cotton) and celebrating terrorist violence for years.

This is no fringe nobody. He is the biggest political streamer in the world, making millions of dollars, feted by the Democrat Party as the guy who is going to deliver them the young male vote again.

He urges his listeners to “gut” Republians and “shank” them: “You have to shank these motherf***ers so that their intestines writhe upon the stage! Slice ’em up! Slice ’em and f***in’ dice ’em!”

He also urges his followers to murder property owners, shouting “Kill them! Kill those motherf***ers! Murder those motherf***ers in the street! Let the streets soak in their red capitalist blood, dude!”

Bloodcurdling.

Kimmel, TV, and government coercion

The New Neo Posted on by

The Jimmy Kimmel brouhaha has many elements to it. For example, the left sees the opportunity to frame it as the Trump administration unfairly pressuring the network to drop Kimmel because it didn’t like his remarks, and succeeding in getting their way.

But it’s perfectly okay for networks to drop shows if they don’t like the content and/or if they’re losing money. Kimmel’s show was already in big financial trouble, and was probably not going to be renewed. What’s more, by the time FCC head Carr made his statements (and I wish he hadn’t made them, because they were unnecessary under the circumstances and also gave the left ammunition for their accusations), the affiliates were already objecting to what Kimmel had said and saying they’d drop him, which put even more financial pressure on ABC to get rid of him even before his contract was up.

Plus, the FCC is actually charged with regulating networks – and there’s a law (unenforced for decades) about equal time for political speech. Some information on that:

Mollie and Mark Hemingway made this point: The federal government really does have a statutory regulatory power over broadcast networks. The airwaves are regulated by the government because we can’t just have six stations all attempting to broadcast on the same frequency in the same area, or else they’d all interfere with each other. So the federal government assigns these valuable spectrum rights to companies, but with restrictions and requirements. One is equal time, and Brenden Carr says he’s going to enforce that requirement.

More here [emphasis mine]:

… Carr makes a very important distinction about jurisdiction. The FCC issues licenses for broadcasters only pursuant to the Communications Act of 1934 and other legislation, ie, those whose signal goes out over the public airwaves. As Carr notes (and as I noted briefly last night), the FCC does not have jurisdiction over cable channels such as Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, or others. The FCC has absolutely nothing to do with online outlets either, nor newspapers. …

Most of the offensive material they would normally police has moved to cable or the Internet. The irony of this is that the FCC has largely stood down while the Biden administration essentially created its own OfCom [censorship operation] at the State Department and HHS, funding “misinformation” policing that targeted mainly the online and cable-channel markets. The federal government created censorship regimes on platforms where they had no jurisdiction, while allowing broadcasters to exploit government-provided monopolies with carte blanche on blatantly false content with clear partisan and malicious intent.

Now, one can argue that the FCC really should use a more laissez-faire approach to enforcing the “public interest” clause. However, one can’t argue that the authority doesn’t exist and hasn’t been enforced in the past.

The Biden administration pressured social media to censor the right and statements questioning the administration’s COVID policies, as Mark Zuckerberg has testified.

As the headline to this article says:

So Now the Left Is Against Government Extortion to Suppress Speech?
Congratulations, Democrats. You’re now living in the world you created.

The equal time requirement was never repealed, just ignored.

Also, we have this:

The Commission’s [FCC’s] prohibition against the broadcast of hoaxes is set forth at Section 73.1217 of the Commission’s rules, 47 C.F.R. § 73.1217. This rule prohibits broadcast licensees or permittees from broadcasting false information concerning a crime or a catastrophe if:
— the licensee knows this information is false;
— it is foreseeable that broadcast of the information will cause substantial public harm; and
— broadcast of the information does in fact directly cause substantial public harm.

Kimmel was giving out false information about a crime, and that information could cause public harm (although it doesn’t seem to have actually caused harm in any provable way). You’d also have to prove that Kimmel knew it was false, which could be difficult. So I don’t think this rule would apply.

More here:

First, a summary of what happened. Kimmel during his show’s opening monologue on September 15, 2025 blatantly lied, claiming that Kirk’s murderer was a conservative and part of Trump’s MAGA movement. Not only was this statement fundamentally untrue, based all the available evidence, it was an evil slander against the millions of people who voted for Donald Trump.

The uproar against Kimmel was immediate and gigantic. Within hours local affiliates told ABC they would not air Jimmy Kimmel Live!. FCC chairman Brendan Carr said that if ABC did not take action to publicly correct the record its FCC license could be revoked.

It is important to point out that Kimmel did not lose his job because of government action — though that action was threatened. He got fired because numerous ABC affiliate stations told the network that they would no longer air his show. These local stations decided they had had enough of this slander culture. It had to stop.

ABC was thus forced to take action. It knew that if it didn’t address the concerns of its local affiliates, its entire network could collapse.

Nor is Kimmel’s removal an unjustified action similar to the hundreds of blacklisting cases I have documented since 2020. Kimmel wasn’t fired because he stated an opinion based on reasonable facts — the typical situation when conservatives were blacklisted for the past decade. He was fired for spreading a lie about current events that could be easily verified to be false in only a few seconds of research on line. And the lie was expressly designed to defame Kimmel’s political opponents in the most vile manner.

However, Kimmel didn’t actually say point blank that the killer was MAGA. He said this: “The MAGA Gang (is) desperately trying to characterize this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them and doing everything they can to score political points from it.”

Kimmel was strongly implying the killer is MAGA and that saying the killer is anything other than MAGA is false. The implicit assumption – no other interpretation makes sense – is that of course the killer is MAGA. That is something for which there is zero evidence and goes against everything police and FBI had said at that point and thereafter. But he may have phrased it that way in an attempt to avoid exactly what happened.

They come to bury Kirk, not to praise him

The New Neo Posted on by

More fallout from the Kirk assassination:

The House of Representatives passed a resolution on Friday condemning political violence and honoring Charlie Kirk, but nearly a hundred Democrats refused to support it. The final tally was 310-58, with every Republican voting in favor and 96 Democrats either voting against it or refusing to take a stand at all by voting present. That raw number is impossible to ignore: Close to 100 Democrats balked at denouncing political violence when the resolution also praised Kirk’s legacy.

What sort of praise was deemed unconscionable by so many Democrats? This sort of thing:

The resolution, which House Speaker Mike Johnson sponsored, honored Kirk as a “courageous American patriot” who modeled civil discussion and promoted unity without abandoning conviction. It described his dedication to free speech and debate as being done with “honor, courage, and respect.”

All of that is true, but the left can’t afford to admit it. There’s no list of the 100, but among them were most of the Black Caucus members, who signed on to a statement that included:

“The resolution introduced in the House to honor Charlie Kirk’s legacy is not about healing, lowering the temperature of our political discourse, or even ensuring the safety of members of Congress, staff, and Capitol personnel,” they wrote. “It is, unfortunately, an attempt to legitimize Kirk’s worldview — a worldview that includes ideas many Americans find racist, harmful, and fundamentally un-American.”

The caucus outlined some of Kirk’s past comments that they said they “strongly” disagreed with, listing “his belief that the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which ended racial segregation, was a mistake; his denial that systemic racism exists; his promotion of the Great Replacement theory; and his offensive claims about Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Michelle Obama, and Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee lacking adequate cognitive ability.”

So the misrepresentation by lack of context continues. Kirk was against the 1964 act for the following reasons, which are not racist and obviously he was not at all in favor of continuing segregation, which is the implication of what the caucus wrote:

“I have a very, very radical view on this, but I can defend it, and I’ve thought about it,” Kirk told the crowd at his annual conservative political conference, AmericaFest, in 2023. “We made a huge mistake when we passed the Civil Rights Act in the 1960s.”

It was a refrain Kirk would return to often in public remarks and on his social media talk show. He argued the bill “created a beast” focused on equality of outcomes rather than equality of opportunity, and that it “led to more crime.”

Denial that systemic racism exists is a completely mainstream belief, and his claims about these particular black women had to do with their being, in his opinion, DEI hires. Here’s the actual quote, which occurred two weeks after SCOTUS ruled against affirmative action in university admissions:

If we would have said three weeks ago […] that Joy Reid and Michelle Obama and Sheila Jackson Lee and Ketanji Brown Jackson were affirmative-action picks, we would have been called racist. But now they’re comin’ out and they’re saying it for us! They’re comin’ out and they’re saying, “I’m only here because of affirmative action.”

Yeah, we know. 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 article goes on to add that Kirk showed clips to back up his assertion that the women themselves were admitting they were DEI and/or affirmative action hires. What he said about the women was certainly one of his less tactful remarks, but it rested on their own words.

Now that Kirk’s been murdered by a leftist one would think the Democrats would be able to join in the sort of generalized praise that the bill contained, but they refused. However, they did push an alternate bill that condemned all political violence:

Rep. Marc Veasey (D-Texas) introduced an alternative measure this week condemning political violence in general, citing Kirk’s murder and last year’s assassination attempts against President Donald Trump, as well as attacks targeting Democrats and the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot. The measure garnered 118 cosponsors, all Democrats, as of Friday.

Of course, the only person murdered on J6 was Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt.

[NOTE: The title of this speech comes from Marc Antony’s oration at Caesar’s funeral.]

The “it’s the Jews who did it!” folks didn’t waste any time

The New Neo Posted on by

As expected.

I didn’t know exactly what form it would take, but after I heard that Charlie Kirk had been assassinated, I considered it inevitable that the Jew-haters would blame the Jews, and quickly. This of course includes the Jew-haters on the right, one of whom (Candace Owens) I wrote about recently in this post.

I didn’t know exactly what form it would take, because Charlie Kirk was such a strong supporter of Israel. But where there’s a Jew-hating will, there’s a Jew-hating way that the narrative can be shaped.

And so we have this:

One of the most popular unfounded narratives promoted a “false flag” conspiracy theory, suggesting Israel or Jewish organizations colluded to have Kirk killed because he had supposedly become more critical of Israel, or that Israel suspected he would eventually “turn on them.” An initial analysis on September 11 found that there were over 10,000 posts on X that included the phrase, ‘Israel killed Charlie Kirk.’ As of September 16, five days later, that figure has increased to over 72,000.

Please read the whole thing if you want to get an idea of how widespread it’s been. It doesn’t list the politics of all the people spreading this sort of word, but they seem to be people who liked Charlie and they seemed therefore to be on the right. Some, of course, are unequivocally on the right; this guy follows the typical “I’m just asking questions” modus operandi of Tucker Carlson and Candace Owens:

I’ve got questions about Charlie Kirk’s assassination:

> He used to be an Israel loyalist
> He feared ‘Israel would kill him’
> He started *mildly* criticizing Israel
> He said Epstein was Mossad
> He said no Iran war on behalf of Israel
> He let anti-Zionists speak at his events
> Zionist media started attacking him
> Netanyahu calls Charlie about Israel visit
> FBI fires chief of Utah FBI field station
> Tells Ben Shapiro “question Israel”
> Loomer says Kirk backstabbed Trump
> Charlie shot in jugular from 200yd away
> Police arrest patsy claiming to be shooter
> Patsy tells “shoot me!” during arrest
> Actual shooter flees without a trace
> Netanyahu tweets within minutes
> Israeli media 1st to confirm Charlie’s death
> Assassin escapes without a trace
> Private jet takes off 12 minutes away
> Private jet disables location monitoring
> Jet is owned by Chabad Lubavitch donor
> Netanyahu posts about Charlie’s Israel trip
> Police arrest 2nd suspect with pellet gun
> 2nd suspect is not the shooter
> FBI claims they have photos of shooter
> Rifle found in nearby wooded area
> Scope was likely planted on shooter’s gun
> FBI says shooter was wearing tactical gear
> FBI releases photos of suspected shooter
> Alleged shooter wearing no tactical gear
> Alleged shooter not carrying gun in photos
> Zionists go on social media blitz about Kirk
> Netanyahu goes on media blitz about Kirk
> Netanyahu says Islamist behind shooting
> Netanyahu says Israel didn’t kill Kirk
> FBI says foreign intel assisting manhunt

But I’m sure it was just some random liberal kid…

That was written prior to Robinson’s arrest and all the revelations that followed.

But Hinkle is small potatoes compared to Candace Owens and Tucker Carlson. As Roger L. Simon (who used to be quite friendly with Carlson) writes:

… [N]ow we are learning that, according to Tucker, Charlie Kirk had secret concerns with Israel despite all Charlie’s public praise for the Jewish state we have seen and can see now on YouTube. We have to take Tucker’s word as evidence. It’s hard to do. Meanwhile, he seems to be positioning himself as the posthumous spokesperson for Kirk who most agree is already well-represented by his wife Erika.

The whole thing is at once creepy and ineffably sad. The best we can say for the new Tucker is that he is not as whacked-out as Candace Owens. Candace has become the poster woman for something we might call ICI or “Internet-Caused Insanity,” the lust for more and more online notoriety until your brains explode. Every day it’s something new. Brigitte Macron is a man. Stalin is Jewish. Now it’s the Jews who killed or coerced Charlie (hard to tell with Candace who appears to be dodging another defamation suit in her phrasing—one’s enough). Hedge fund manager Bill Ackman is in some kind of lead position in manipulating Kirk, she claims to have been told. Charlie’s own producer, Andrew Kolvet, has debunked the whole thing, but it’s nonsense on its face.

These people have enormous followings on the right, and although most people on the right don’t subscribe to this sort of hateful message, it does pull in way too many. The goal is not just to stir up the right against Israel and Jews – although that indeed is a big goal – but also to split the right and gain power (and clicks, of course).

Jew-hating is an ancient sport and its manifestations and motives are legion. It has taken root on the left (and among its adherents number some ethnic Jews, which is not new either). It has a long history on the right, too, although in recent years that segment of the right had shrunk way way down. But it’s growing again, fanned by online “influencers” with massive followings. Yes, some of those followers are bots. But way too many are real.

If they can twist the assassination of Kirk into a supposed Jewish plot, they can do the same for just about anything. But that’s the protean nature of Jew-hatred.

[ADDENDUM: See also this for a report of recent coolness between Kirk and Owens. Hat tip: commenter “Jon baker.”]

Roundup, roundup, roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

Some days the news just calls out for a roundup. So here it is.

(1) This was overdue. But better late than never:

“I am pleased to inform our many U.S.A. Patriots that I am designating ANTIFA, A SICK, DANGEROUS, RADICAL LEFT DISASTER, AS A MAJOR TERRORIST ORGANIZATION,” Trump wrote. “I will also be strongly recommending that those funding ANTIFA be thoroughly investigated in accordance with the highest legal standards and practices. Thank you for your attention to this matter!”

A White House official told CNN, “This is just one of many actions the president will take to address left wing organizations that fuel political violence.”

It’s been obvious for a long time that Antifa is funded by groups with deep pockets. The name, of course, signifies “anti-Fascist,” but in the best leftist/anarchist tradition the name is the opposite of what the group actually is.

(2) Jimmy Kimmel, buh-bye:

“Jimmy Kimmel Live will be preempted indefinitely,” a Disney spokesperson said.

Nexstar Media Group, which owns hundreds of television stations, announced earlier it would preempt Kimmel’s show on its ABC affiliates starting Wednesday night “for the foreseeable future” and would replace it with other programming over his comments about alleged Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson.

“Mr. Kimmel’s comments about the death of Mr. Kirk are offensive and insensitive at a critical time in our national political discourse, and we do not believe they reflect the spectrum of opinions, views or values of the local communities in which we are located,” Nexstar’s broadcasting chief, Andrew Alford, said in a press release.

“Continuing to give Mr. Kimmel a broadcast platform in the communities we serve is simply not in the public interest at the current time, and we have made the difficult decision to preempt his show in an effort to let cooler heads prevail as we move toward the resumption of respectful, constructive dialogue.”

Kimmel was singularly unentertaining prior to this, and his ratings weren’t good. I think that Nexstar was probably not planning to renew him even prior to this, and so this represents something that would have already happened in a little while.

As so many have pointed out, free speech doesn’t mean everyone has to give you a job and a platform. And those who shrieked against “misinformation” (much of which, like the origins of COVID, turned out to be true after all) seem to be massive purveyors of misinformation when it suits their political purposes; Kimmel was pushing the idea the Kirk’s killer was MAGA.

(3) Here’s a nefarious group that wasn’t previously on my radar screen. It’s called the 764 network:

Leonidas Varagiannis, also known as “War,” 21, a citizen of the United States residing in Thessaloniki, Greece, and Prasan Nepal, also known as “Trippy,” 20, of North Carolina, were arrested and charged for operating an international child exploitation enterprise known as “764,” a nihilistic violent extremist (NVE) network. Varagiannis was arrested yesterday in Greece; Nepal was arrested on April 22, 2025, in North Carolina and had a court appearance. Court hearings in Washington, D.C. are pending for both defendants. …

According to the affidavit in the District of Columbia, 764 is a network of nihilistic violent extremists who engage in criminal conduct in the United States and abroad, seeking to destroy civilized society through the corruption and exploitation of vulnerable populations, which often include minors. The 764 network’s accelerationist goals include social unrest and the downfall of the current world order, including the United States Government.

What a lovely bunch of people.

This seems relevant, considering recent events:

Using online and gaming platforms like X, Roblox, and Discord, members of the group befriend teenagers and coerce them to commit and document sexually-charged and violent behavior: graphic pornography, harming family pets, cutting themselves with sharp objects, and even committing suicide.

The internet broadens the reach of such groups – unfortunately.

(4) From Jim Treacher – I was wrong about Kirk:

I never paid that much attention to Charlie Kirk when he was alive. I knew who he was, what a prodigy he seemed to be, and that more and more people on the right were listening to him. But I’m not his target audience: young. So I just said, “Okay, good luck,” and went on with my day.

But years ago, Kirk figured out something that most media figures on the right hadn’t grasped yet: Young people aren’t reading National Review. They aren’t reading Substacks by obscure, marginally employable shut-ins with nothing better to do. (Ahem.) They aren’t reading much of anything.1

No, they’re listening to podcasts. They’re scrolling TikTok.2 They’re going to big crowded conferences full of other young people they might get a chance to spend some private time with. So that’s how he reached out to them.

And, as I’m learning, he was a terrific messenger: young, articulate, knowledgable, rational, calm, focused. Every debate video I’ve watched so far has been very impressive. He was masterful at what he did. …

But I regret not paying more attention to him when he was alive. I’m not MAGA, and a lot of MAGA people hate me for criticizing Trump when I think he’s wrong. So, I figured Kirk was akin to those clowns: “You’re owned, cry about it, cuck,” etc. Anger, resentment, spite. A thirst for humiliation. Some call it “Trumpism.” I put him in that category, if not the worst offender. Alex Jones Lite.

Now I know it wasn’t Kirk’s approach at all, and I wish it hadn’t taken his assassination for me to learn that.

Maybe you’re not listening to MAGA very well, either.

(5) The Brits are champs at pomp and circumstance, and they’ve pulled out all the stops for Trump’s state visit.