Oliver and Fawn, together at last

The New Neo Posted on by

This story seemed so odd when I saw it that I wondered whether it was for real. But apparently, it is:

Oliver North and his loyal former secretary Fawn Hall reportedly married in secret last month — 40 years after their leading roles in the infamous Iran-Contra affair.

A copy of the couple’s marriage license, obtained by journalist Michael Isikoff, shows North, 81, and Hall, 65, were married in Arlington County, Virginia, on Aug. 27. …

After the scandal, Hall worked as a model in Hollywood, Calif., where she married Danny Sugarman, the manager of rock band The Doors, in 1993.

Hall was married to Sugarman until his death in 2005. …

North reconnected with Hall last December, at the funeral for his wife of 56 years, according to Isikoff, writing for the “SpyTalk” Substack page.

“She rekindled the relationship at the funeral,” a friend of the couple said. “They started spending time together.”

And there you have it.

The ripples of the Kirk assassination

The New Neo Posted on by

When a stone is dropped into water, it creates ripples that go outward from that center.

The work of Charlie Kirk and the aftermath of his public killing, plus the celebration of much of the left, is something that will have many effects that we are only dimly aware of at present. But just quickly, at this early date, I sense that his death is especially shocking to young student-age people who not only knew him from social media but who admired him even if they disagreed with him. It might wake at least some of them up to the danger of leftist thought and the truly hateful rhetoric that tried to make Kirk into some sort of demonic figure.

The left and the MSM are busy trying to spin this in any way possible to blame the right or to blame both sides. But I don’t think they’ll succeed with most people. The situation is too stark, and too many people can see for their own eyes.

From what we know of Robinson he, if guilty (and I very strongly believe he is) bears full responsibility for his actions. Discussing influences on a criminal is neither absolving him of responsibility nor making excuses. However, those people who killed no one but have been engaged in spreading the poisonous lie that Kirk (and Trump, and Vance, etc….) are fascists or Nazis or that sort of evil also bear some responsibility. It is an “and” situation rather than an “or” situation.

That does not diminish the adult perpetrator’s responsibility nor does it dilute it. It creates a separate and additional-but-lesser, responsibility on the part of those spreading the propaganda. That latter responsibility is probably not a legal one – barring actions that amount to incitement. It is, however, a moral one.

By the way, I give you exhibit K:

Some people who actually celebrated Kirk’s murder on social media are being reported and fired. I think a school or a hospital or any business has a right to fire such people, just as those people have a right to express themselves on social media or elsewhere. It’s a risk, and they took it.

The poisonous atmosphere has been apparent for quite some time. As Mark Hemingway writes:

I do not want to live in a society where half the country simply uses whatever power is available to them to go after the other half. I do not believe the average Democrat voter believes that successfully engaging in good-faith debates on college campuses warrants death. But, and I am hardly alone here, I am increasingly concerned that there are forces on the left that cannot be debated, they must be made to feel pain until they stop.

Perhaps not the average Democrat voter – whatever that may be these days. But many young people do believe exactly that – or at least, that it warrants violence. This is the sort of thing they’re talking about, from a survey of college students:

College students are growing more tolerant of using force to stop viewpoints they dislike, and less tolerant of campus visitors with viewpoints at either end of the political spectrum, according to an annual survey of nearly 70,000 students by the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression and College Pulse.

More than a third of students would “at least rarely” accept the use of violence to stop a campus speech (34%), 10 percentage points higher than its 2021 survey, while majorities would block other students from attending such a speech (54% versus 41% in 2021) and shout down a speaker (71% from 66%), all “record highs.”

“For the first time ever” since it started the surveys, expanding from 55 campuses in 2020 to 257 in this report, most students say their schools should block speakers who hold any of six views associated with the left or right on hot-button cultural issues, FIRE said Tuesday.

The view they are most willing to tolerate is “Children should be able to transition [identify as the opposite sex, socially or medically] without parental consent,” the only one of the six to command a majority in last year’s report. This year it’s 49%.

The least likely to be tolerated: “Black Lives Matter is a hate group,” at 24%. The others: “Transgender people have a mental disorder” (25%), “The Catholic Church is a pedophilic institution” and “The police are just as racist as the Ku Klux Klan” (both 38%), and “Abortion should be completely illegal” (40%). Each fell several points from last year.

It makes me think of a quote from Heinrich Heine: “Thought precedes action as lightning precedes thunder.”

NOTE: Here’s a post at Instapundit showing many beautiful ripples around the world. They may surprised you as they surprised me; I hadn’t realized Charlie Kirk’s reach was so international.

NOTE II: The Kirk assassination has been food for so much thought that I have drafts for many more posts on the subject. But they will take a while to finish.

Where was the rifle when Tyler Robinson jumped off the roof?

The New Neo Posted on by

That was my question after I saw multiple videos released of Robinson’s movements on the campus the day Kirk was shot.

After all, prior to the shooting Robinson is walking oddly, with a limping stiff-legged gait, and you can see that it’s very consistent with the rifle – a Mauser – having been stuffed in his pants leg. No mystery there.

But then there’s video of him sprinting across the roof after the shooting, and jumping down a very significant distance – 15 feet or so? – and again racing, this time across a grassy area to a wooded area. The latter is presumably where the rifle was found wrapped in a towel. Robinson slows down from the run when there’s a car; probably he doesn’t want to draw attention. But where oh where is the gun? Certainly no longer in his pants leg. And I didn’t see him carrying anything and didn’t think he could be, when he made that jump.

But on closer inspection, I see that he was almost certainly carrying the weapon. He must have really really really not wanted to leave it up there.

You can see it for yourself if you look at the following video full screen and slow motion; you can also make the images larger. I don’t think there’s much question that he’s got a long black (or dark) item with him the entire time, probably the gun wrapped in the towel. If you watch this video on YouTube you can also read a discussion in the comments about this very topic:

Of course, conspiracy theorists are already calling Robinson an innocent patsy and blaming the killing on Trump or the Mossad or whatever or whomever is the theorist’s favorite villain. Prepostrous.

Whether or not Robinson tried to enlist someone to retrieve the gun in the woods is another story. This is possibly the case.

More details that are emerging, relevant to the retrieving the gun question: I had initially read that Robinson was living with his parents, but he apparently was not. Here’s the story, which I cannot verify but I believe is probably true [hat tip: commenter “huxley”]:

Charlie Kirk’s alleged shooter Tyler Robinson was living with a transgender partner who was in the process of transitioning from a male to a female, a law enforcement source confirmed to The Post Saturday.

That individual, who has yet to be identified by the authorities, is now fully cooperating with the FBI on its investigation into the fatal shooting of the conservative activist, the source added. The relationship was first reported by Fox News’ Brooke Singman.

Text messages and other communications that the transgender individual traded with Robinson, 22, helped the feds nab the accused assassin.

The messages apparently had to do with a request to retrieve the weapon.

This crime and this criminal are turning out to be the left’s worst nightmare, despite the fact that many have been celebrating it.

And if the transgender love interest story is true, it gives more weight to a possibility I mentioned some time ago, which is that Robinson may have timed the shot for the question about trans shooters. Yes, it might be a coincidence, but a very strange one. If I am correct and there’s a connection, it would give new and horrific meaning to the word “triggered.”

ADDENDUM:

The roommate may or may not have been transgender, and may or may not have been a love interest. But here’s more information. Excerpt:

A 22-year-old wannabe professional gamer who lived with Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin gave cops incriminating text messages leading to his arrest.

Lance Twiggs turned over Tyler Robinson, who lived with him in a three-bedroom apartment in Saint George, Utah, Daily Mail can reveal.

Twiggs showed police texts from Robinson about stashing a gun linked to Wednesday’s shooting of the prominent conservative activist at Utah Valley University (UVU), a law enforcement affidavit said.

His identity was revealed as separate reports emerged from Fox and the New York Post which stated that Robinson was living with a ‘transgender partner’ who is co-operating with the investigation.

It is unclear if Twiggs is the same person referenced in the reports and he has not been named in the affidavit. His grandfather, Jerry Twiggs, told Daily Mail that he was unable to comment on rumors that he is trans and that there was a transgender motive to Kirk’s murder.

Both Twiggs and Robinson appear to have been fellow gamers, however. That’s consistent with the messages on the casings.

Charlie Kirk’s widow speaks of martyrdom

The New Neo Posted on by

Kirk’s killer didn’t think ahead very much. He was an effective assassin. But his getaway plan left a lot to be desired; his disguise wasn’t all that great, and he probably was unaware of the fact that his every move was being recorded and could be analyzed.

And where did he go after his bloody deed? Why, to his family’s home, where he could be identified and fingered by his horrified parents as the killer.

Then again, perhaps he wanted to be caught and thought he’d become a hero to some, a la Mangione.

One thing he probably didn’t think through, though, was the possibility that by killing Kirk he’d be elevating him to martyrdom. Charlie Kirk was a man of deep Christian faith which informed everything he did. And so was his wife Erika, who spoke publicly this evening. Some excerpts:

“My husband laid down his life for me, for our nation, for our children,” Erika said as she stood behind a podium bearing a sign of her late husband’s face with the text: “May Charlie be received into the merciful arms of Jesus, our loving Savior.”

“Now and for all eternity, he will stand at his savior’s side wearing the glorious crown of a martyr.”

“The evildoers responsible for my husband’s assassination have no idea what they have done,” she said. …

“They killed Charlie because he preached a message of patriotism, faith and of God’s merciful love. They should all know this: if you thought my husband’s mission was powerful before, you have no idea, you have no idea what you have unleashed across this entire country and this world,” she said passionately.

“You have no idea the fire you have ignited within his wife, the cries of this widow will echo around the world like a battle cry. To everyone listening tonight across America, the movement my husband built will not die. It won’t, I refuse to let that happen.”

To make a speech like that at a time like this shows phenomenal strength.

I can’t predict the future. But it would not surprise me at all if she is correct.

Full speed ahead with Trump’s Senate confirmations

The New Neo Posted on by

Good idea at this point:

Republicans voted on Thursday to change the rules of the Senate in a rare move that will allow them to expedite the confirmation process for President Donald Trump’s executive branch nominees.

The party-line vote using the so-called “nuclear option” will enable the Senate to confirm some presidential nominees as groups, rather than individually, with only a simple majority vote.

Democrats had refused to perform the usual courtesy of confirming a president’s nominees, for no reason other than Trump Bad and Our Democracy.

Hard to believe that Trump has only been in office since late January, so much has happened since then.

Details emerge on Tyler Robinson, the Kirk assassination suspect

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: I already have put up this post about the suspect’s capture.]

The story is worthy of literature, although there’s no Dostoevsky or Truman Capote around to write it:

Robinson was turned in after his father recognized him in photos released by the FBI on Thursday, law enforcement sources told The Post.

His father.

The father called Washington County Sheriff’s Department and confronted his son when he returned home, at which point Robinson admitted he was the gunman, the sources said.

Robinson’s father asked him to turn himself in, but his son replied that he would rather kill himself.

The father then convinced his son to speak with their youth minister, who also serves as a task force officer with the US Marshals Service.

The minister called the FBI and agents later took Robinson into custody.

We try to protect our children, but at some point we send them into the world and although most people try their best we cannot control how they choose to take that world in. Today’s young people are met with poisonous brainwashing. The brainwashing that’s entrenched in academia and so much of the MSM comes from the left and amounts to an almost constant and unavoidable barrage of systematic indoctrination. Some comes from the right, too (I’m thinking of people like Candace Owens), although it’s far more of a fringe movement and much easier to dodge or reject.

Officials say that, as far as they can tell at this point, Robinson acted alone. I think that’s likely although of course myriad online conspiracy theorists will have a field day with it.

You can find explanations of the writings on the casings here. Suffice to say that they are loaded with references that come from online memes of the Antifa variety – which is no surprise whatsoever.

Robinson’s father seems to have been more on the right:

Matt Robinson is a 27-year veteran of the Washington County Sheriff’s Department, the Daily Mail reported. He is a registered Republican. …

A family member of Tyler was interviewed by investigators, Cox said. The family member said Tyler had become more political in recent years …

One might think that Robinson’s leftist indoctrination occurred at college, but I’m not so sure because of this report:

Tyler is photographed at Utah State University and was offered an academic scholarship to attend the Logan, Utah-based university according to a letter he read aloud in a video posted to [his mother’s] social media.

Utah State University said the suspected shooter “briefly attended Utah State University for one semester in 2021.”

He lived at home with his parents, according to neighbors who spoke with USA TODAY.

So it might be that, for whatever reason, he was a dropout and almost certainly spent a lot of time online. The family is Mormon.

In today’s previous post on Robinson I made reference to Crime and Punishment’s Raskolnikov. But now with these new details, Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons enters the picture – not to mention Dostoevsky’s Demons (which was called The Possessed in the translation I read). I had read all three works by the time I was twenty years old, the first in high school and the second two in college. Those works helped me enormously to understand the political carnage of the 1960s and early 1970s, and they remain relevant today. It is impressive how 19th Century giants of Russian literature were able to describe the seeds of what the left was sowing at the time and continues to sow today.

The suspect in the Kirk assassination is in custody

The New Neo Posted on by

Note that I wrote “the suspect,” not “a suspect.” His name is Tyler Robinson, 22, and he is a Utah resident.

Cracking this case demonstrates the tremendous usefulness of the ubiquitous surveillance cameras in public places, plus the technology to enhance them. Then of course television and the internet can spread the information around the world, with the result that someone somewhere recognizes that person. And if the person hasn’t successfully fled the county or killed himself (or herself, although with the exception of Charlotte Corday political assassins are virtually always young males), it’s just a matter of time. Sometimes a short amount of time.

That’s what happened with Mangione, and that’s what has happened with Robinson. Reports are that, in a twist reminiscent of the turning in of the Unibomber and yet even more poignant, it was the subject’s father who got him to surrender.

It will take some time for me to digest the information out there, but I wanted to put up this first post quickly. A great deal of information can be found here, including this mugshot:

No doubt the young women of the left will swoon, although he’s not really in Mangione territory in terms of looks. But I strongly suspect that becoming a leftist hero was one of his motives, although hardly the only one.

I am extremely glad this person has been apprehended.

All the people in the MSM, politics, and punditry who’ve been calling those on the right Nazis and are now wondering what on earth could have caused this killing need to look at their own heavy responsibility, although I doubt any of them will. Words are not violence; they are words. But they can beget violence when they affect impressionable minds. That in no way absolves the assassin of criminal responsibility. Let justice be served.

I plan to write another post dealing with the details as they emerge, but for now I’ll just mention this, which I think is very telling:

Charlie Kirk’s alleged assassin Tyler Robinson was “full of hate” in the days before the shooting, according to a family friend, as authorities revealed the 22-year-old had confessed to the assassination and had been turned in by a relative, after the suspect first said he would rather kill himself than go into custody.

Bullets found in the chamber of the rifle reportedly used by Robinson included apparent left-wing slogans such as “Hey fascist! Catch!” and another referencing “Oh, Bella Ciao!” a popular Italian anti-fascist song, Utah Gov. Spencer Cox said.

Ah, but he had already had plenty of opportunity to kill himself and didn’t. Perhaps he had thought they wouldn’t be able to trace him. Perhaps he thought, like Raskolnikov, that he had committed the perfect crime.

But “Hey fascist! Catch!” is especially telling. It combines the common accusation “fascist” – although a less fascistic person than Charlie Kirk you could hardly find – with the comic-book type of snark we’ve come to expect from social media postings. An assassin for our times.

On Charlie Kirk: all he did to the left was debate – and win

The New Neo Posted on by

I keep hearing in the MSM that Charlie Kirk was “divisive” and “polarizing,” two of their favorite words for any figure on the right. What do these pundits really mean when they call Kirk that? They mean that he said things with which they disagree. That’s the “divisive” part. The “polarizing” part means he succeeded in convincing some young people that the leftist point of view might not make as much sense as they’d previously thought.

Oh, and he was up-front about being a Christian. And pro-Israel. And a proponent of what not long ago was so basic as to be universally accepted, but is now considered by the left to be “hate speech” – that there are only two sexes and that, when born as either one or the other, a person cannot switch.

The left has long been about stifling free speech once their own numbers reach a certain critical mass. Because of many decades of the leftist Gramscian march though our cultural and educational institutions, that mass was reached some time ago and the left is determined to silence voices on the other side. For quite a while, cancel culture was the method. But that segued into murder, and the killing of people who are dangerous to the left because of their voices or because of their stances or jobs is now not only accepted and excused by a broad segment of the left, but applauded and celebrated.

Many people have pointed out that there’s quite a bit of that going on at various social media sites such as Reddit, which comes as no surprise.

Kirk was especially dangerous to the left because he was so effective on campus, with young people. His work there may even have been responsible (at least in part) for putting Donald Trump over the top in 2024:

Kirk also was unfailingly polite, respectful, and good-natured when he argued. I don’t know how he did it, but he did it with earnestness and a smile and never seemed to get angry. And yet it hasn’t kept the left from characterizing him as hateful. Fortunately, his videos remain to tell a different tale.

This death is less like an assassination of an officeholder and more like a terrorist attack, because it seems meant to frighten and silence rather than to stop someone in a governmental position. Was the killer Antifa, pro-Hamas, anti-Christian, trans – who and what and exactly why? While it’s theoretically possible that Kirk wasn’t killed by a leftist, I think it’s extremely likely that he was. But at any rate, many leftists are celebrating his death.

This pro-assassination culture on the left has been going on for many years, but Trump’s tenure seems to have caused the left to escalate it exponentially. I noticed it from the beginning of Trump’s first term, when suddenly I was hearing many references by some Democrats I know (not even leftists, by the way) expressing their wish for Trump to die or be killed. They said it without apology or any seeming sense that what they said was wrong. The desire had already been normed, or even seen as a sign of virtue.

A few months ago, someone I’ve known since childhood (although we’re not especially close) told me that if she had a terminal disease she’d get a gun and try to kill Trump. Fortunately, she seems healthy enough. But it didn’t sound like a joke; not that she would do it even if ill, but she was expressing a very strong wish. And I can attest to the fact that, until Trump was elected, she was politically moderate.

It will take quite some time for the effects of Kirk’s death to become apparent. But I think the author of this piece, that appeared in The Federalist, has a good point when she writes, “Kirk wasn’t just assassinated. He was also martyred.” I wouldn’t be at all surprised if opposition to Kirk’s strong Christian beliefs, which formed a core part of his identity, was a significant part of the assassin’s motive for killing him.

And yes, the assassin did evil and many on the left advocate evil – including my old friend. It’s shocking, but true, and – as often happens with evil – one of the most shocking things is that they think they’re advocating good.

Many of you are old enough to remember the assassinations of the 1960s. I certainly am. There was a feeling of things spiraling out of control. But this seems worse, and I’ll tell you why: the left has grown stronger and more numerous rather than weaker. And social media is a very potent factor in its spread. Charlie Kirk was instrumental as a counterforce, and he will be very sorely missed.

More evidence emerges in the Charlie Kirk assassination

The New Neo Posted on by

The modus operandi in the Kirk assassination seems somewhat similar to that of the Trump assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania. One difference is that, when an ex-president and presidential candidate speaks at a large open-air venue, the roofs are supposed to be secured. That’s not been the case – till now – for people like Kirk, who are political speakers and commentators (“activist” is the term much of the MSM is using for Kirk) but are not high officeholders. The targeting of someone like Kirk is new; although plenty of people in the political public eye get death threats, I can’t offhand think of one that’s been carried out successfully before.

And no, Breitbart was not murdered.

The big difference is, of course, that the Kirk assassin was successful and Trump’s fortunately was not. Trump’s would-be killer was himself killed at the venue before he had time to leave the roof, while Kirk’s killer escaped.

The FBI has now released the following information surrounding yesterday’s event:

“We are asking for the public’s help identifying this person of interest in connection with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University,” the FBI’s Salt Lake City office said on X on Thursday while sharing two images of the individual, who is wearing a baseball cap and sunglasses and was captured in a stairwell in one of them.

The FBI said it is offering a reward of up to $100,000 for information leading to the identification and arrest of the person responsible for Kirk’s murder.

Here are the images:

More:

The FBI also said Thursday it has recovered what is believed to be the weapon used in the deadly shooting. A “high-powered bolt action rifle,” which officials believe was the weapon used in the shooting, was recovered in a wooded area near where the shooting took place, according to Salt Lake City FBI Special Agent Robert Bohls.

The rifle is an older model imported Mauser .30-06 caliber bolt action rifle wrapped in a towel, multiple law enforcement sources told ABC News. The location of the firearm appears to match the suspect’s route of travel, the sources said.

The spent cartridge was still chambered and three unspent cartridges contained wording on them expressing what some law enforcement officials described as “transgender and anti-fascist” writing, according to preliminary information shared with agencies. It’s unclear what that means and authorities are still working to determine the meaning or whether the markings were intended as misdirection for investigators.

This writing of messages on cartridges is similar to the act of leftist heartthrob Luigi Mangione; you may recall this:

Three 9 mm shell casings from the crime scene had the words “delay,” “deny” and “depose” written across them, one word per bullet, NYPD’s Chief Detective Joseph Kenny has said. Police have been looking into whether the words, which title a 2010 book critiquing the insurance industry, may point to a motive in CEO Brian Thompson’s killing.

The photos of the suspect in Kirk’s killing are indistinct, but nevertheless they might help someone make an identification. I haven’t seen any explanation of how this person originally came under suspicion, but they say that they’ve been able to track this suspect’s movements quite well through surveillance footage.

Also:

After the shooting, the suspect traveled to the other side of building, jumped off and fled off-campus into a neighborhood, Mason said. Officials are working through nearby neighborhoods, contacting people with doorbell cameras and speaking to witnesses to identify any leads, Mason said.

Along with recovering the weapon, Bohls said investigators have also collected a footwear impression, palm print and forearm imprints for analysis.

Some of my thoughts (hunches only): this was not a professional hit; this was a leftist and the cartridge messages are not misdirection; yesterday I’d come to believe they would never find the killer, but now I think they have a decent chance although $100K seems a very low reward.

If you’re curious about the T-shirt, as I was, it seems to be this disabled vets shirt.

On the 24th anniversary of 9/11

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s been almost a quarter of a century. When put that way, it seems hard to believe, doesn’t it?

And yet in some ways a lifetime ago. As the British poet Philip Larkin wrote in a poem looking back on the days prior to a different historical event: “Never such innocence again.”

September 10, 2001, felt like an idyll compared to September 11, 2001, and all the years since then. 9/11 opened our eyes to the vulnerabilities most of us hadn’t seen before or had ignored and denied until then. It gave us a brief illusion of unity – marred by a few sour notes – that quickly dissipated even as an illusion.

And now there are adults who were born after 9/11. Now there are middle-aged people who were young children then.

We remember, although we’ve ultimately assimilated that day into our view of the world and it no longer seems so strange. The pain is still there and the heroism is still there. For the many families who lost loved ones, the scars and the memories remain.

Many years ago I wrote my own reminiscences about that day and how it affected me: here’s that post. The events of 9/11 were the beginning of a learning process for me that took several years and ended up changing my politics and led me to start this blog. All of that was unforeseen at the time.

There are so many videos about 9/11 it’s hard to select one or even a few. There are documentaries that trace the day through cable news coverage, through talks by survivors, or through re-enactments. There are videos that concentrate on air traffic control, or the military response, or the phone calls from people who would die that day. They are uniformly fascinating, compelling, chilling, haunting – even now.

So I’ll just choose one to highlight here.

RIP to all the victims and the many heroes of that day and beyond.