Free Republic

And today is 9/11. Imagine that. Better that I stay home from work than to spread my disgust that may be contagious. I wonder how many other people feel the same way.

Charlie Kirk was assassinated in Utah yesterday at just 31 years old. The conservative firebrand was gunned down during the kickoff of his “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University, struck in the neck by a sniper’s bullet while engaging young Americans in his signature Q&A sessions. As we’ve reported previously, the liberal media’s reaction to the shooting was deplorable, with commentators taking to the airwaves with disgusting observations, such as comments from MSNBC contributor Matthew Dowd, who effectively blamed Kirk for being shot. It was, of course, predictable that the mainstream media would trash him. Sadly, the print media...

Leaked Teams memo reveals rifle, ideological ammo in Charlie Kirk campus shooting Orem, UT – Conservative commentator Charlie Kirk was fatally shot Wednesday afternoon while speaking at Utah Valley University, and a leaked federal memo appears to shed light on the suspected weapon, ammunition, and potential motives behind the attack. At this time, the leaked FBI teams message has not been verified after being posted online. The memo states that the gunman fired a single shot from a rooftop near the university before fleeing on foot. Kirk, 31, had been on campus as part of his nationwide “American Comeback Tour.”...

Liberals recycle the same Red Scare myths, swapping Nixon for Trump and ignoring hard evidence that undercuts their tidy fairy-tale of heroes and villains. Fifty years ago, I had the misfortune to spend an entire semester as a college student with a fellow scholar who could only be described as an aggressive bore. Even though the seminar’s subject was literature, my pedantic classmate treated every topic that came up as a historical parallel to the McCarthy Era, the Vietnam War, and Watergate. (Nowadays, the trifecta has been updated to Charlottesville. January 6 and all things Russian.) I was reminded of...

Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Marks a New EraI first heard Charlie Kirk speak on a bitterly cold February night in 2018 at the University of Michigan. I went to the event out of curiosity, nudged by friends active in campus conservative life. At the time, I saw myself as a different kind of conservative—graduating early, serving as a campus ambassador for a proper, center-right Washington think tank that prized bipartisan respectability. Kirk, just a few years older than I, was the bomb-thrower who never went to college. I was skeptical of where the Right might be headed; Charlie was steering the...

A decade ago, archaeologists made a grisly discovery when they unearthed two Neolithic mass graves at the sites of Bergheim and Achenheim in northeastern France. The pits contained severed limbs and human skeletons, evidence of excessive violence and mutilation that did not match normal Neolithic patterns. Some deceased individuals buried in other nearby graves, however, showed no signs of brutality. A new study has recently analyzed the chilling remains to try and reconstruct the identities of the individuals and determine why some were treated so cruelly, according to a statement released by the University of Oxford. Researchers conducted multi-isotopic analysis...

Authorities have recovered what they believe to be the firearm used to assassinate conservative activist Charlie Kirk, the FBI announced Thursday. FBI Special Agent in Charge Robert Bohls made the announcement during a Thursday morning press conference at Utah Valley University. The weapon "is a high powered bolt action rifle. That rifle was recovered in a wooded area where the shooter had fled. So the FBI laboratory will be analyzing this weapon. Investigators have also collected footwear, the impression of a palm print and forearm imprints for analysis," Bohls said. "We are not sure how far he has gone," Bohls...

Law enforcement officials delivered an update on the manhunt underway for a gunman who killed conservative political activist Charlie Kirk on Wednesday. Kirk was assassinated during an appearance before several thousand attendees at Utah Valley University in Orem. The press briefing at the university comes after officials released two people of interest several who had been detained shortly after the shooting. “There are no current ties to the shooting with either of these individuals,” the Utah Department of Public Safety said in an update late Wednesday. “There is an ongoing investigation and manhunt for the shooter,” the agency said. The...

Do you remember this photograph? In the United States, people have taken pains to banish it from the record of September 11, 2001. The story behind it, though, and the search for the man pictured in it, are our most intimate connection to the horror of that day. In the picture, he departs from this earth like an arrow. Although he has not chosen his fate, he appears to have, in his last instants of life, embraced it. If he were not falling, he might very well be flying. He appears relaxed, hurtling through the air. He appears comfortable...

"WTF… A Private Jet left Provo Airport, which is a 12-minute drive from Utah Valley University, an hour after Charlie Kirk was shot. 30 minutes into the Flight, the Plane ILLEGALLY dropped off its ADS-B (which shows its Location, Altitude and Speed to Air Traffic Control), and reappeared 45 minutes later, heading back to Provo. Is this Plane connected to the Shooter??"

Türkiye Today reports that a sprawling eighth-century b.c. palace was unearthed at the site of Sardis in western Turkey, which has prompted archaeologists to reevaluate the site's origins and long history. The city served as the capital of Lydia, an Anatolian kingdom whose people flourished in the seventh and sixth century b.c. They are often credited with minting the world's first standardized coinage. Buried 25 feet below ground, the complex was discovered beneath layers belonging to the Persian, Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine periods. The structure's stone walls, which measure between five and eight feet thick, still stand 20 feet high...

Whoopi Goldberg used her platform on The View to plead for a stop to the 'politicization' of the murder of Ukrainian immigrant Iryna Zarutska on a train in Charlotte last month. 'Look, a young woman is dead. Let's take that into consideration,' Goldberg, 69, said of the brutal August 22 stabbing of Zarutska, 23, by career criminal Decarlos Brown Jr., 34. 'And yes, a man who should have been behind bars was loose and out. His mother begged them to take him and put him away.

They say they have video of the perp.

The shooting of Charlie Kirk in Utah had the hallmarks of a professional assassination, according to several security experts. The prominent conservative activist, who was 31, was struck in the neck by a single gunshot as he delivered a speech to a large crowd on campus at Utah Valley University in Orem on Wednesday. He collapsed and was rushed to a local hospital where he was pronounced dead. Analysts point to the firing of a single shot and a preestablished escape route as evidence that the shooting had been carefully planned. Kirk was the founder of the right-leaning youth organization...

Minutes before we went on air, Charlie Kirk, the founder of Turning Point USA, was shot on stage in Utah. A quarter-hour after the show ended, President Trump announced on Truth Social that Charlie was dead. As I write, a second suspect has been taken into custody.UPDATE: Like the first suspect, he has been released. So, as of now, the killer remains at large.There are disturbing Internet posts from the hours before his death.......The left's bloodlust is everywhere. Ari Fleischer appears to be an agreeable cove - I don't know him - but this is insufficient to the moment:Laura Ingraham...

luesky has issued a warning to users after some accounts celebrated the assassination of conservative commentator Charlie Kirk. "Glorifying violence or harm violates Bluesky's Community Guidelines. We review reports and take action on content that celebrates harm against anyone. Violence has no place in healthy public discourse, and we're committed to fostering healthy, open conversations," the social media platform wrote in a post. Kirk, 31, was the founder of the right-leaning youth organization Turning Point USA and a longtime ally of President Donald Trump. On Wednesday, as Kirk delivered a speech under a tent to a large crowd at Utah...

Europe faces four self-inflicted crises—radical green mandates, collapsing families, unchecked immigration, and rising tribalism—that now threaten Western civilization itself. Europe is plagued by a number of existential crises. Yet they are all self-inflicted—and by a dominant, therapeutic culture that embraced utopian but lethal bromides. These suicidal wounds are now nearing the end-stage. Indeed, they are destroying the very civilization that was soon envisioned to be heaven on earth. The global warming hysterics could not just entertain gradual transformations away from dependencies on traditional fuels and power generation. Instead, elites have demanded catastrophic and near-instant “net zero” mandates. That radicalism entailed...

𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐒 𝐈𝐒 𝐖𝐇𝐎 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐋𝐄𝐅𝐓 𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐀𝐑𝐄 Remember how the Left freaked out when Elon Musk bought Twitter? They swore it would become a “haven for hate” if free speech wasn’t tightly censored. So they ran off to Blue Sky — their “safe space” of purity and virtue. And what do we see there after Charlie Kirk’s death? Post after post cheering for the next conservative to be targeted. 𝘔𝘢𝘵𝘵 𝘞𝘢𝘭𝘴𝘩 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. 𝘋𝘰 𝘛𝘳𝘶𝘮𝘱 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. 𝘉𝘦𝘯 𝘚𝘩𝘢𝘱𝘪𝘳𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. 𝘑.𝘒. 𝘙𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. 𝘌𝘭𝘰𝘯 𝘔𝘶𝘴𝘬 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. 𝘈𝘯𝘥𝘺 𝘕𝘨𝘰 𝘯𝘦𝘹𝘵. These are not fringe accounts — this is the culture of that platform....

Fool's Ball, Week Two Your home for all things Fool's Ball! In Memoriam Danny Lee (BENDER2)

I met Charlie at the start of his career and came away impressed. He mattered. And now he is dead, as the leftist fever swamps celebrate. As you all know, Charlie Kirk was killed today, leaving behind a wife, two young children, and a movement. I had the pleasure of meeting Charlie nine years ago, at the start of his amazing rise as a voice of young conservatism, and I came away deeply impressed, a perception that never left me. But to understand both Charlie and his death, you need to understand the madness of the left. (And no, we...