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Charlie Kirk, 1993-2025 By W. James Antle III

Posted By on September 14th, 2025

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/magazine-obituary/3802514/charlie-kirk-obituary/

Charlie Kirk loved to argue with liberals. That was apparent to all as he sought them out in national college tours. And if you attended any of his events or followed his viral social media posts, many liberals loved arguing with Kirk.

College students, in particular, would line up to challenge Kirk’s views. He often asked them probing questions in return: Why did they think President Donald Trump was a racist? When does life begin? What is a woman? While there is a tradition of that on the Right from Bill Buckley to Ben Shapiro, Kirk took it to another level for the internet age.

Kirk had an even greater appeal to conservatives on college campuses. With the exception of a select few Christian or overtly conservative schools in the country, academia is a lonely place for anyone a millimeter to the right of Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME). Conservative students can feel equally, if more temporarily, beleaguered and often compelled to say things they don’t believe to receive passing grades from their professors or social acceptance from their peers.

As the founder and CEO of Turning Point USA, Kirk helped build a network to connect these students and make them feel less alone. A college campus is also where Kirk was murdered, while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University as part of his American Comeback Tour. He was shot in the neck as he was speaking and slumped over in his seat. Leaving behind his wife, Erika, and two young children, Kirk was just 31 years old.

“I want to be very clear that this is a political assassination,” Gov. Spencer Cox (R-UT) told reporters at a press conference afterward. “When someone takes the life of someone because of their ideas or their ideals, then our constitutional foundation is threatened.”

Tragically, we live in an upside-down world where some view speech as violence and opinions as “erasure” of those who disagree. In their minds, this justifies violence in the form of a bullet to the carotid artery mid-speech and the literal erasure of a father from his children’s lives.

Kirk’s impact wasn’t limited to campus politics. During the nadir of then-President Joe Biden’s 2024 reelection campaign, the Democrats had one last hope, which some political operatives thought would be their ace in the hole: an experienced field operation that would get out the vote in the battleground states. Identifying and mobilizing voters is crucial for any campaign in a competitive race. Then-Vice President Kamala Harris inherited Biden’s machine when she replaced him at the top of the Democratic ticket.

Arrayed against this formidable turnout apparatus was the less orthodox Trump mobilization operation spearheaded by Kirk and Elon Musk. Never had they done something like this before, at least not on this scale. Their task was made even more difficult by the fact they were targeting low-propensity voters, younger people with less of a history of showing up at polling places on Election Day.

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Robert Henderson Rolling with the Punches As Ed Latimore’s new memoir demonstrates, the most important lessons are forged in the fires of personal experience, often at great pain and expense.

Posted By on September 14th, 2025

https://www.city-journal.org/article/ed-latimore-memoir-hard-lessons-boxing

Hard Lessons from the Hurt Business: Boxing and the Art of Life, by Ed Latimore (Portfolio, 304 pp., $30)

“The book is also an illustration of what art is for. True art transforms pain into something meaningful, even beautiful. Much of what makes it into a writer’s work arrives below the level of full consciousness, and that is as it should be. Latimore allows the material to speak, and the result is a story at once raw and redemptive. The book’s final chapters, in which Latimore, from the perspective of a mature and improbably successful man, reflects on the lessons he has learned, are among the most satisfying.”

Occasionally, an author who has learned deep and durable lessons emerges to share them with the rest of us. That’s what Ed Latimore has done with his remarkable new book, Hard Lessons From The Hurt Business: Boxing and the Art of Life.

I first encountered Latimore in 2019 through his posts on Twitter (now X), where he had carved out a niche as an astute observer of struggle, discipline, and self-mastery. His writing was unusually sharp, and when I learned about his background—an impoverished childhood in Pittsburgh’s public housing projects, battles with addiction, a professional boxing career, service in the Army National Guard, and eventual graduation from college—his insights clicked into place.

My own life bears some resemblance to his: I grew up in foster homes, joined the military at 17, struggled with alcohol, didn’t begin college until my mid-twenties, and also wrote a memoir at a relatively young age. Meeting Latimore and finding another person who had made it out gave me a kind of reassurance that is hard to articulate. This personal connection is one reason I find his book so compelling, though readers with different biographies will still find plenty to admire.

Latimore’s memoir begins in the Pittsburgh projects, where he was raised by a single mother and had only sporadic contact with his father. The early chapters are raw and sometimes brutal. In one of the book’s most harrowing passages, he describes witnessing the aftermath of his mother’s boyfriend beating his two-and-a-half-year-old sister with a metal coat hanger. These scenes are not presented for shock value. They are meant to show the environment that shaped him.

The book also offers glimpses into the kinds of moments that rarely appear in mainstream accounts of life in the inner city. In one unforgettable episode from eighth grade, Latimore brings a bag of sugar to school and pretends to sell cocaine. This provokes a fight with a school bully, leads to the author’s arrest for simulating the sale of a controlled substance, and ends with an officer uncuffing him and warning, “If you pulled that shit on the street, someone woulda shot you.”

Latimore credits the officer for using the incident to teach him a lesson. It’s a reminder that police officers are not merely law enforcers but also, at their best, moral instructors. The discretion of a good cop can save a young person’s future—a lesson worth remembering in an era when policing is often portrayed in the most negative light. Instead of funneling him into the juvenile justice system, these officers chose to deliver a hard warning that might have changed the trajectory of his life. Latimore’s story is a counterweight to the prevailing narrative that police presence is inherently harmful. Sometimes, the intervention of an authority figure is precisely what a troubled kid needs.

Hard Lessons from the Hurt Business sometimes moves too quickly past moments where readers might want to linger. This briskness is part of Latimore’s style. He lands his punches and moves on, leaving readers to absorb the impact.

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The Authoritarian Quartet, China, Russia, North Korea, and Iran: A New World Order in the Making? by Majid Rafizadeh

Posted By on September 14th, 2025

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/21903/china-russia-north-korea-iran-authoritarian

This was not simply an anniversary parade; it was a declaration of intent by a coalition of states that reject the Western-led order and seek to replace it with an authoritarian alternative.

When seen together, the gathering represented the closest thing yet to the formation of a new bloc: one that might aim to construct an entirely new world order defined not by democracy, but by coercion, censorship, and force.

Dismissing these events as mere theater would be irresponsible. Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine is a direct challenge to the stability of Europe –a challenge that that Iran and North Korea materially support. China, meanwhile, has been expanding its military footprint throughout the South China Sea and accelerating preparations for the possibility of a future confrontation with Taiwan. Together, these powers are testing the limits of Western resolve. They are also watching closely to see whether the United States, Europe, and their allies respond with hesitation or with strength.

They appear fully aware of what they are doing and why they are doing it: to reshape the world to where their authority dictates the rules, freedom is suppressed, and sickly, hesitating democracies are dismantled as they deserve to be.

The world has entered the hour of choice: Will Western nations deter this authoritarian quartet with unity and strength, or will they fall back on illusions that “diplomacy” – talking long enough — can contain belligerent ambitions?

The spectacle that unfolded in Beijing recently was unlike any other military parade the world has seen. China, to mark the 80th anniversary of the end of World War II, staged its most elaborate display of military might, showcasing hypersonic missiles, advanced drones, cyberwarfare divisions, and an arsenal that left no doubt about its ambitions to be seen as a global military superpower.

What truly defined this moment, however, was not the weaponry rolling across Tiananmen Square, but the rare gathering of leaders who stood shoulder to shoulder. Xi Jinping hosted Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, with Iran regime’s President Masoud Pezeshkian also in attendance — all creating a tableau that symbolized far more than a military tradition. This was not simply an anniversary parade; it was a declaration of intent by a coalition of states that reject the Western-led order and seek to replace it with an authoritarian alternative.

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The Assassin’s Many Accomplices Jafar Jalili

Posted By on September 13th, 2025

https://quadrant.org.au/news-opinions/qed/the-assassins-many-accomplices/

Charlie Kirk is murdered in cold blood and now the Democrats come out with their polished statements, their carefully worded condemnations, their feigned shock. I don’t want it. I don’t want to hear Biden or Harris express “disapproval” over this. I don’t want the likes of Rachel Maddow or Joy Reid wringing their hands and pretending to mourn because I do not believe them for a single second.

Their words are ash. Their outrage is theater. Their sympathy is counterfeit.

Charlie was not killed in a vacuum—he was assassinated by a sociopolitical disease. A disease that rots the mind, corrupts the heart, and dissolves every sacred bond that holds a civilisation together. And that disease was not born yesterday. It has been sown deliberately, watered relentlessly, and cultivated day after day, decade after decade, by the very people now offering their condolences.

The left does not get to cry over the corpse of the man whose murder was made possible by the poison they brewed. They do not get to condemn the harvest of the seeds they planted. Their hands are not clean. Their power, their careers, their prominence — all of it has been built on a politics of grievance, resentment, and destruction.

They stoked the envy. They legitimised the rage. They excused the violence. They told generations of young people that life is nothing but power and oppression, that truth is a lie, that responsibility is slavery, that freedom is domination. And then they act surprised when the mob, intoxicated with that creed, takes a knife or a bullet to the throat of those who dared resist it.

The only proper response to their “sympathy” is anger. The only proper reaction is rage. They do not deserve credit for lamenting the blood they themselves helped spill.

Charlie’s assassin was not alone. He had accomplices in every newsroom, in every faculty lounge, in every campaign office that mocked truth and exalted envy. He had accomplices in every pundit who sneered at responsibility and called it oppression. He had accomplices in every politician who excused chaos as “justice.”

This is the reality: Charlie was murdered by an ideology. And those now issuing statements of “condemnation” are the very apostles of that ideology.

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Charlie Kirk, Iryna Zarutska, and the Death of Society No strength, skill, or faith could have saved Charlie Kirk or Iryna Zarutska—when morality and law collapse, society itself teeters on the edge of chaos. By Stephen Soukup

Posted By on September 13th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/13/charlie-kirk-iryna-zarutska-and-the-death-of-society/

EXCERPT

For more than a decade now, I have been telling friends, readers, clients—anyone who’d listen, really—that it is now and will become increasingly important in the future to be strong and resilient: physically strong, emotionally resilient, spiritually active, financially tough and flexible, and able to handle oneself in a variety of potentially fraught situations. A big part of this is preparation, doing the planning, training, and homework to be “antifragile” (as Nassim Taleb puts it). Another part of it is attitude, having the confidence to handle what you can and the humility to ask for help when necessary. But even all of this is sometimes not enough.

As we have all learned over the past couple of weeks, and as Robert Burns warned us 240 years ago, sometimes even “the best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men / Gang aft agley.” There is nothing Charlie Kirk could have done to prevent Tyler Robinson from killing him. It didn’t matter how strong Kirk was or how prepared, or even that he was an extremely and openly religious man. Even if he were a cross between Hafthor Bjornsson and Imi Lichtenfeld himself, Kirk could not have stopped his assassin’s bullet.

The same is true of Iryna Zarutska. The horrifying picture of her that has been all over the internet this week tells her story. As she looks up at her murderer, shocked and horror-struck that someone is standing above her, her fate is already sealed. She was dead before she likely even understood what had happened, much less recognized that her attacker had a knife. There was nothing she—or anyone else—could have done to stop him. Even if she had been a cross between Hafthor Bjornsson and Imi Lichtenfeld, she still would have died.

As I said, if someone wants you dead badly enough….

Thus has it always been for man, dating back at least to the time of the man, the woman, the snake, and the apple. Indeed, that man and that woman had two sons, one of whom brutally murdered the other out of petty jealousy. This is man’s nature as a fallen creature. It is who he is—who we are.

ISRAEL, MEDIA Comments turned off

THE ABSURD CONDEMNATIONS AND DISTORTED MEDIA COVERAGE OF ISRAEL’S ATTACK ON HAMAS LEADERSHIP IN DOHA “News” and Reality Often Have Little In Common Eric Levine

Posted By on September 13th, 2025

https://ericlevine3.substack.com/p/the-absurd-condemnations-and-distorted

There has been no shortage of professed outrage at Prime Minister Netanyahu’s decision to attack Hamas leadership in Doha, Qatar. The more one parses through the criticism, the more one becomes convinced the decision to kill the 5-star-hotel-dwelling, jacuzzi-enthusiast terrorists was not just morally justified, but tactically brilliant.

Many critics on the radical progressive antisemitic left believe Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish State and therefore, has no right to defend itself. These voices are rightly ignored.

Equally irrelevant, however, are those, who like the Biden Administration, believe Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish State, but just as a matter of principal think it should never take an offensive posture in defending itself. For them, Israel has every right to protect its citizens but, unlike every other country in the world, should limit its defense to preventing ballistic missiles from falling on its cities. Of course, this strategy allows the terrorists to live and fight another day and ensures an October 7th like attack will occur again.

The alleged more nuanced criticism of the attack in Qatar is that it will make diplomacy with the Gulf Arab States and the expansion of the Abraham Accords more difficult, if not impossible. If this is the best argument critics can muster, Netanyahu clearly made the right call.

A “news article” in the September 12 edition of Wall Street Journal, written by Jared Malsin, Summer Said and Benoit Faucon, reported:

“The attack in a quiet embassy district of Doha, which killed several Hamas officials and a member of the Qatari security forces, punctuated an already growing realization that Israel has made a strategic decision to secure itself through force of arms even at the expense of its diplomatic ties…”

This purported piece of “news” is absurd on its face.

ISRAEL, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Should the World be Shocked Over Israel’s Attack on Qatari Soil? Israel on the front lines – confronting the global jihad. by Christine Williams

Posted By on September 13th, 2025

https://www.frontpagemag.com/should-the-world-be-shocked-over-israels-attack-on-qatari-soil/

Israel’s attack on Qatari soil was indeed a shock to the world, but should it have been? Let’s first look at some reaction to Israel’s strike against senior Hamas leaders on Qatar’s soil, which is said to have killed five Hamas members but not its top leaders. The New York Times has wasted no time in an article that struck at the heart of America’s relationship with Israel, suggesting that America risks alienating Gulf “powers” over Israel’s actions. Once again, the leftist NYT prioritizes Islamic interests over American and Israel’s. “Israel’s Attack on Qatari Soil Leads Gulf Powers to Question U.S. Protection,” by Vivian Nereim, New York Times, September 10, 2025:

Qatar hosts the largest American military base in the Middle East, has bought billions of dollars worth of defense systems from the United States and recently gifted a luxury Boeing jet to President Trump.

Yet on Tuesday, none of that stopped Israel, a key U.S. ally, from launching a brazen military attack on Qatari soil. It was an attempt to assassinate senior Hamas officials who had gathered to discuss a cease-fire proposal to pause the war in Gaza — a deal that was backed by Mr. Trump.

“Qatar being unable to protect its own citizens with literally the U.S. Central Command on its territory has prompted locals to question the value of the American partnership,” said Kristin Diwan, a senior resident scholar at the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, a research group. “It’s a real problem for Gulf leaders. And it should worry the United States as well.”…..

It is high time that Muslim countries be more worried about their relations with America than the other way around.

Trump posted on his Truth Social account:

Donald Trump comments on Israel’s bombing of Qatar. pic.twitter.com/j6tTmnDovU

— Defence Index (@Defence_Index) September 9, 2025

Qatar is not a genuine ally and friend to the US. It is, along with Turkey, a leading supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood (MB). In fact, it is a financial backer of MB infiltration of America at the highest levels, as well as on campuses.

ANTI-SEMITISM, WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Jews are now being persecuted all over Britain by Danny Cohen

Posted By on September 12th, 2025

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/jews-are-now-being-persecuted-all-over-britain/ar-AA1Mqa8z?ocid=winp2fptaskbarhover&cvid=9809012558ec41b69160fac8398d0013&ei=6

Last week a survey showed that more than one in five Britons now hold or agree with anti-Semitic views. This number has doubled in less than five years.

When it comes to Jew-hate in Britain much of the focus has been on London. You can understand why. It was in London that groups of men gathered to celebrate on 7 October even whilst the Hamas massacre of Jews was taking place. It was in London where mass marches have included those openly waving antisemitic signs and showing support for murderous terrorist organisations. It was in the capital too where Jewish children were advised to hide the insignia on their school uniforms.

Yet more focus is needed on Britain’s smaller Jewish communities dotted around the country. These communities are even more vulnerable and isolated when it comes to the rise of antisemitism.

In Bournemouth last month a Jewish child was shot in the head with an air-gun. Before firing the weapon the suspect is alleged to have shouted obscenities at the child as he walked to a synagogue wearing a skullcap.

Let that sink in for a moment. A child allegedly shot in the head for being Jewish. One might expect a violent incident like this to lead to serious national soul-searching, but it seems that antisemitism is becoming so embedded in British society that an attack of this nature causes little outcry and limited national reporting.

Just down the coast in Brighton, the Jewish community has been experiencing a persistent wave of antisemitic abuse. Local Jewish residents tell me of a poisonous litany of hate crimes and destruction, with a local memorial to victims of the 7 October pogrom under consistent attack.

The memorial has been vandalised over fifty times. Jews visiting the memorial have faced chants of “die die”, with gun gestures pointed at the back of their heads. Faeces has been left on the ‘book of the dead’. Swastikas and Holocaust denial graffiti have been plastered nearby. It is only due to the dedication of the local Jewish community that each time the memorial is destroyed it is re-built with love and care.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Schools Are in Hooky Hell American children are skipping school in staggering numbers. By Larry Sand

Posted By on September 12th, 2025

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/12/schools-are-in-hooky-hell/

It’s early September, and children should be back at school, right?

Well, many aren’t. With data from 44 states and Washington, DC, the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) director of education policy, Nat Malkus, discloses that the chronic absenteeism rate—students missing more than 10% of school days each year—was an alarming 23.5% in 2024.

Malkus notes that the surge in absenteeism affects districts of all sizes, racial backgrounds, and income levels, but the data does reveal significant differences by race and ethnicity, with 39% of Black students, 36% of Hispanic students, 24% of white students, and 15% of Asian students chronically absent.

Additionally, while students from both low- and high-income families often miss school, the highest rates occur in low-income districts, where 30% of students are chronically absent. Still, the rate has gone up even in low-poverty areas, increasing from about 10% to over 15%.

High-achieving districts have also been affected by the new normal. Over 15% of students in the top third at those schools are chronically absent, compared to 10% before the pandemic.

States vary significantly in the number of student absences. While Alabama, New Jersey, and Virginia have a 15% rate, Alaska’s is 43%, Oregon’s is 34%, and Michigan’s is 30%.

The problem is particularly egregious in our big cities. According to a recent report, in Los Angeles, where over 32% of students were chronically absent in the 2023-2024 school year, 34 elementary schools have fewer than 200 students, and 29 use less than half of the building.

Even worse, in Chicago, the chronic absentee rate is 41%. The city’s dwindling enrollment has left about 150 schools half-empty, while 47 operate at less than one-third capacity. One Chicago high school had just 33 students last year.

No matter. The district’s spending of taxpayer dollars appears to be unaffected. On August 28, Chicago Public Schools approved a $10.2 billion budget, and at the same time, it is facing a $743 million deficit. Before the budget was approved, three major credit rating agencies each rated CPS General Obligation Bonds as “non-investment grade speculative,” also known as “junk bonds.”

What are education leaders doing to stem the tide of student flight?

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

PROVE ME WRONG: CHARLIE KIRK’S FINAL CHALLENGE JONATHAN TURLEY

Posted By on September 12th, 2025

https://jonathanturley.org/2025/09/11/prove-me-wrong-charlie-kirks-final-challenge-on-free-speech/

Yesterday, the United States entered a new and chilling stage of what I have called the “age of rage.” After two attempted assassinations of President Donald Trump, leading conservative leader Charlie Kirk, father of two, was gunned down at a campus event at Utah Valley University. I learned the news while I was in Prague to speak on my book,“The Indispensable Right: Free Speech in an Age of Rage” and the growing attacks on free speech around the world. I never imagined that I would be speaking about Charlie’s murder and what it represents for free speech.

I cannot claim to have been a close friend of Charlie Kirk, but I knew him and respected him. In his relatively short life, Charlie energized a generation of conservative college students at a time of intense liberal orthodoxy and intolerance.

Kirk came up with the brilliant idea of challenging liberals to simply debate issues from abortion to immigration.  His group would go to campuses and invite debate with signs reading “prove me wrong” and encourage liberals to engage in dialogue rather than violence.

The left had particular reason to hate Kirk.  Campuses have long been the bastions of the left, reinforced by faculties which now have few, if any, conservatives or Republicans. Higher education has long been an incubator for intolerance; shaping a generation of speech phobics who shout down or attack those with opposing views.

Kirk struck at the heart of that power base. Polls show that most students do not feel comfortable speaking about their values in our universities and many conservatives hide their views to avoid retaliation from faculty and students.

Kirk was changing that but showing students that they could be open and bold about their views. He told them that they did not have to yield to orthodoxy and the groupthink. Now he’s dead.

What is most chilling about the murder of Charlie Kirk is that it was not in the least surprising. Not anymore.

The response to TPUSA was all too often rage and violence. Liberals and anti-free speech groups like Antifa would trash their tables and threaten the students. Recently, at UC Davis, police simply watched as a TPUSA tent was torn apart and the tent carried off.