RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/21/348053/

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is exercised that Charlie Kirk once said that the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was “a mistake.”

Rep. Bennie Thompson sees AOC’s charge and raises it: “The fact is,” he said in an official statement, “Charlie Kirk’s rhetoric was divisive, disparaging, and too often rooted in grievance. The beliefs he evangelized normalized fringe views on race, sex, and immigration. Unfortunately, his rhetoric resurrected dangerous prejudices of a dark past.”

Gosh. Here’s a question, Congressman. What sort of grievance would someone have to entertain in order to be moved to describe someone who simply sought to engage young people in conversation as “divisive” and “disparaging?” Follow-up question: Did Charlie Kirk try to “normalize” fringe ideas about “race, sex, and immigration?” Or were the ideas he espoused, in fact (you see that two people can deploy the “in fact” gambit), perfectly normal ideas that reflected the beliefs of millions of Americans, even if those ideas departed from the Washington consensus?

As for the Civil Rights Act, Charlie Kirk did say its expansion was “a huge mistake.” Here’s the context. A student asked Charlie whether he wanted to get rid of the Civil Rights Act. He replied that he thought we should have a one-page bill that outlawed racial discrimination and left it at that. Most Americans, he went on to note, don’t support forcing women’s sports teams to allow men pretending to be women to compete. But the Civil Rights Act has been interpreted to say just that.

He agreed with the original intention of the bill, he said, but argued that it was “too broadly written” and played into the hands of people who wanted to expand and weaponize the bill to enforce a radical progressive agenda that included so-called “affirmative action,” i.e., reverse racism in the form of discrimination against whites and Asians. Result? A 100-page bill that created “a permanent anti-racist bureaucracy within our federal government to go find racism where it doesn’t exist and create it in new places where it otherwise did not exist.”

Christopher Caldwell touched on an essential aspect of Kirk’s observation in his book The Age of Entitlement: America Since the Sixties. It is common in academia and the media, Caldwell notes, to regard the Civil Rights Act as a great victory for equality and social progress. After all, was it not a potent weapon in the battle against Jim Crow and other expressions of racism?

https://ericlevine3.substack.com/p/zohrans-morons

Lenin referred to them as “useful idiots” – the Western Europeans and Americans who supported Communism and the Soviets without fully understanding the consequences of their actions.

We are witnessing a similar phenomenon today in New York City. New Yorkers, including elected officials, Jews, members of the LGBTQ+ community, parents of school age children, crime victims, small business owners, and landlords who support Zohran Mamdani for Mayor, are all basking in the glow of their self-proclaimed enlightenment, self-importance, and virtue.

They should be dubbed Zohran’s Morons (ZMs).

Perhaps the most famous of ZMs is New York Governor Kathy Hochul. By issuing her recent full-throated endorsement of Mamdani, she has not only proven that she is intellectually limited, incompetent, and weak-willed, but she has also demonstrated that she is morally bankrupt.

She truly is America’s worst governor.

Her endorsement is vapid, incoherent, drivel. To explain why she is endorsing him she states:

“In the past few months, I’ve had frank conversations with him. We’ve had our disagreements. But in our conversations, I heard a leader who shares my commitment to a New York where children can grow up safe in their neighborhoods and where opportunity is within reach for every family. I heard a leader who is focused on making New York City affordable — a goal I enthusiastically support.”

Apparently, what they discussed remains a secret. We still do not know on what issues they disagree.

She mentions safe neighborhoods. Mamdani has made clear that he believes the NYPD is “wicked” and “evil” and that it must be defunded. Exactly how Mamdani will make New York’s neighborhoods safe remains a mystery. Of course, less affluent minority communities of color will be the most adversely impacted by the spike in crime that Mamdani’s war on cops will cause.

Hochul’s rejoinder to that is:

“I urged him to ensure that there is strong leadership at the helm of the N.Y.P.D. — and he agreed.”

I have no doubt he will appoint a strong police commissioner for the NYPD. But where will that strong commissioner lead New York’s Finest other than to early retirement? The commissioner will undoubtedly share Mamdani’s view that the NYPD is wicked and evil and needs to be restrained and defunded. Mamdani’s commissioner will undoubtedly share his pro-criminal agenda. With Mayor Mamdani, the best New York can hope for is weak incompetent leadership at the NYPD.

https://pjmedia.com/maureen-steele/2025/09/19/obama-built-the-censorship-machine-and-now-its-backfiring-n4943910

It would almost be funny if it weren’t so destructive. Barack Obama — even now, after what many believe was his continued influence in the former Biden White House — has decided to posture himself as a defender of free speech. He recently warned that “the current administration has taken cancel culture to a new and dangerous level by routinely threatening regulatory action against media companies unless they muzzle or fire reporters and commentators it doesn’t like.” Spare us the lecture.

We’ve seen the emails from Hillary Clinton’s office where editors were told to toe the line. We’ve watched Mark Zuckerberg testify in Senate hearings, admitting that government officials “told him” what he could and couldn’t allow on Facebook. We’ve lived through the banning, the suspensions, the “fact-check” censorship of anyone daring to challenge the regime’s version of the truth. And every time, we were told it was for our safety — because “misinformation kills.” Funny thing: those so-called conspiracy theories have turned out true again and again, while the establishment’s “facts” collapse under the weight of evidence.

Obama and his surrogates have no moral authority here. They censored to tilt elections, silenced political opponents, and strangled debate. They built an entire censorship-industrial complex that they’re now desperate to deny exists. Section 230 wasn’t meant to create government-run truth ministries, but that’s what the left turned it into. They can’t unring that bell.

And then there’s Jimmy Kimmel, the court jester of the liberal elite, who just discovered what happens when the corporate mob turns on its own. Kimmel’s comments were nasty, cruel, and not remotely funny — but he had a right to say them. 

The point isn’t whether we agree with him, or whether his brand of snide “comedy” is stale. The point is that ABC didn’t fire Kimmel because of principle. It fired him because of money. The lawsuits are stacking up, the backlash is real, and “go woke, go broke” has gone from warning to reality. Corporations don’t care about free speech or decency — they care about liability and the bottom line.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/20/jimmy-kimmel-as-tom-paine-absolutely/

he other day, after Disney/ABC decided to suspend late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel, rather than allow him to do his show and further attack President Trump and his supporters, Maryland Congressman Jamie Raskin appeared on MSNBC and compared Kimmel and other talk show hosts to one of this nation’s best-known revolutionary figures. “They’re like modern Tom Paines,” the congressman intoned.

While some on the Right were upset by the comment, believing that Raskin had plied Kimmel and his ilk with undue praise, the comparison is, in many ways, quite apt. While it is true that none of the late-night hosts is smart enough or brave enough to inspire a nation to war with his writing—as Paine is said to have done with “Common Sense”—they are very much like him in other ways. You see, in addition to being an inspiring pamphlet writer, Thomas Paine was…how do I put this in a family-friendly publication? …an enormous jackass.

It’s important to note that Paine emigrated to the British American colonies in 1774, which is to say after the Boston Tea Party and after the proverbial die had already been cast and a conflict of some sort seemed inevitable. In other words, unlike most of the Founders, Paine came to America to be a part of the revolution. He didn’t live here and experience colonial rule, eventually concluding that his rights as an Englishman were being violated. He came specifically to agitate, to be revolutionary. His fundamental loyalty was not to the new American polity but to himself and his belief in the need to sweep away the old and start the world anew.

After the American Revolution, Paine eschewed the duties of a statesman to build the new nation and craft its new government, instead moving on, almost immediately, to his next adventure. In the subsequent years, Paine became an ardent supporter of the French Revolution, managed to win election as a representative to the French Revolutionary National Convention, was imprisoned for two years by Maximillien Robespierre, refused to learn that ironic lesson, plotted with Napoleon to invade Britain, returned to the United States only to be denied citizenship and the franchise by Gouverneur Morris (who actually wrote the Preamble to the Constitution), was refused burial by the local Quaker cemetery, and had his bones dug up by a fan who died with them in his house, from whence they were lost to posterity. Paine lived ignominiously and deservedly died ignominiously. Of all the American revolutionaries, he is the least deserving of the title “Founding Father” and the most deserving of being compared to a hack like Jimmy Kimmel.

Unfortunately, this is not what Congressman Raskin meant to do when he made the comparison. He meant to lionize Kimmel and convince people that the former host of “The Man Show” is a noble creature and a venerable patriot. In so doing, Raskin inadvertently revealed something annoying and potentially troubling about himself and those in his social circle (including his wife, Sarah Bloom Raskin, a highly respected law professor at Duke University and a former member of the Federal Reserve’s Board of Governors): they don’t know a damn thing about this nation, its founding, or the purpose of the government its Founders established. If your go-to compliment for someone you respect and admire is to compare them to Thomas Paine, then that’s only because you don’t know anything about Thomas Paine. And that, in turn, suggests that you don’t know much at all about the founding of this great nation.

https://www.city-journal.org/article/luigi-mangione-murder-terror-charges

Luigi Mangione appeared to get off easy on Tuesday. The judge overseeing his New York State prosecution tossed first-degree murder charges against Mangione, who stands accused of shooting health-care executive Brian Thompson in Manhattan. Outside, scores of adoring onlookers cheered for the apparent murderer.

Enthusiasm for Mangione—not because anyone thinks he is not guilty, but because his fans revel in Thompson’s death—does not seem to have diminished. Meantime, many who rightly want Mangione punished for his heinous crime are perplexed by the judge’s conclusion that Mangione should not be considered a terrorist because he merely wished “to draw attention to what he perceived as the greed of the insurance industry.”

That may seem like splitting hairs. And it’s not clear why the judge should decide the question of Mangione’s motives rather than put the question to a jury. Nonetheless, the law will take care of Mangione. It’s his fans glee, not the court’s decision, that should concern us.

Why the change of charge? In New York, first-degree murder requires proof that the defendant intentionally killed someone else plus an additional factor, such as the victim being a cop or first responder; the homicide occurring in furtherance of other heinous crimes like kidnapping; the killing committed as an act of terrorism; and other possible aggravated circumstances.

Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg tried to get Mangione charged for terrorism, defined in statute as an attempt to “intimidate or coerce a civilian population or influence the policy of a unit of government by intimidation.” It’s not obvious that Mangione’s crime fits that bill, though it is arguable.

If Mangione had been convicted of first-degree murder, he would receive life imprisonment. He now instead faces a second-degree murder charge. That crime carries the same penalty, except that life imprisonment is now merely a maximum sentence rather than a mandatory one. D.A. Bragg will surely push for that maximum if and when the time comes.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/reflections-on-the-coming-days-of-rage/

Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk was already positively impacting the world with his indefatigable, peaceful, joyful, godly work to change hearts and minds, but in mere days, his assassination by a cowardly sniper’s bullet has already launched a tsunami of change he likely could not have imagined. The world is entering a different epoch now, and as with all shifts into a new age, there will be birthing pains.

I can’t recall whose insight this was, but someone online observed that Charlie’s murder was an “Archduke Ferdinand moment” – referring to the assassination that triggered World War I. I think that captures the sobering magnitude of Charlie’s martyrdom (yes, literal martyrdom; as others have pointed out, Charlie was killed not for his politics but for his Christian faith, which shaped his political positions). But his brutal murder drives home the point that we are already in a hot civil war in this country – not just a culture war, not a figurative civil war, but a hot civil war.

But so far only one side has been waging that war. From the assassination of healthcare CEO Brian Thompson at the hands of a terrorist-turned-Left-wing-folk-hero, to the slaughter of Catholic schoolchildren at the hands of a demonic trans terrorist, to Charlie Kirk at the hands (allegedly) of a Left-radicalized young man (with a trans partner) who declared that “some hate can’t be negotiated out,” the Left has already declared war on the political opponents they deem to be fascist threats to democracy who must be exterminated like vermin (hence their dehumanizing rhetoric over the years since the reign of Barack Obama, intensified under Joe Biden).

I am old enough to remember another time when the Left normalized political violence in America. As Bryan Burroughs notes in his book Days of Rage: America’s Radical Underground, the FBI, and the Forgotten Age of Revolutionary Violence, “radical violence was so deeply woven into the fabric of 1970s America that many citizens, especially in New York and other hard-hit cities, accepted it as part of daily life.” Burroughs quotes a retired FBI agent who noted, “People have completely forgotten but in 1972 we had over nineteen hundred domestic bombings in the United States. It was every day. Buildings getting bombed, policemen getting killed. It was commonplace.”

My record at predictions is mixed at best, so I hope I’m wrong about this one, but I believe we are about to enter a new Days of Rage. Political violence is about to become even more “commonplace.” The Left’s repugnant response to Charlie’s murder has already demonstrated that they are not going to be shocked into policing themselves and de-escalating the violence, much less their demonizing, vicious rhetoric. Some Democrat leaders, like Barack Obama, have issued obligatory, tepid statements denouncing political violence, but do not expect that any “moderate” elements on the Left will prevail. The Democrat Party is controlled by the radical Left, and has been since well before the calculated, meteoric rise of Barack Obama.

https://amgreatness.com/2025/09/18/the-murder-of-charlie-kirk-was-not-a-george-floyd-moment/

Just days after the assassination of Charlie Kirk, the left is working overtime to hide the truth and create fantasies about his death.

Specifically, leftists alleged that conservatives were going to “pounce” on the death to wage protests and boost radical agendas in the manner of what followed George Floyd’s death.

Here are some of the lies that such a ridiculous narrative entails.

One, Charlie Kirk is not conservatives’ George Floyd. There were no mass riots after his death of the sort that followed Floyd’s demise.

Floyd’s death was used by the left to justify five months of rioting, arson, murder, looting, and attacking police officers.

The postmortem respect for Kirk’s singular life was not characterized by $2 billion in property damage, the torching of a police precinct, a federal courthouse, and an iconic church, 35 deaths, and 1,500 injured law-enforcement officers.

Instead, thousands of people peacefully joined his Turning Point USA organization and promised to redirect their lives toward peaceful political engagement.

Two, after Kirk’s death, no prominent Republican or conservative is encouraging ongoing mass (and often violent) protests in the manner of high-profile leftists like Kamala Harris.

She blurted out on national television in June 2020, “But they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop, and this is a movement, I’m telling you. They’re not gonna stop, and everyone beware, because they’re not gonna stop. They’re not gonna stop before Election Day in November, and they’re not gonna stop after Election Day. Everyone should take note of that, on both levels, that they’re not going to let up—and they should not. And we should not.”

No conservatives—like the spouse of Governor Tim Walz—declared of the 2020 arsons, “I could smell the burning tires, and that was a very real thing. I kept the windows open as long as I could because I felt like that was such a touchstone of what was happening.”

Instead, Kirk’s supporters are calling on everyone to express their anger peacefully at the ballot box by registering to vote and showing up for the 2026 midterms.

Three, Charles Kirk was not George Floyd. He was a law-abiding, religiously devout, political organizer, happily married with two children. Kirk was a media figure and head of a huge 501(c)(3) nonprofit whose brand was calmly debating students who disagreed with him.

Floyd should not have died while in police custody. But Floyd’s comorbidities were many. When arrested, he was under the influence of fentanyl and methamphetamine, with a heart condition and recent Covid infection.

He was a career felon, with eight previous criminal convictions, who had in the past staged a violent home-invasion robbery and pointed a knife at the abdomen of one of the female occupants.