Thomas Merton R.I.P.

State-sponsored assassinations are the new black, and they seem to have a few things in common, most obviously a jealous concern over the physical evidence, particularly the body itself. We know with Charlie Kirk there was a rush and the ol' "hidden body trick" played out, much as it did with Thomas Crooks who was instantly cremated at the behest of an anonymous "benefactor".  

With Kirk, of course, we don't know if or where he was buried or whether he was cremated. Even those who went to the Catholic funeral never saw him lowered into the ground.  

The monk Thomas Merton died under suspicious circumstance and his body was immediately taken in custody the same US military he criticized. I asked Grok AI for a review of his statements on the war during the last five years of his life before his death in 1968. 

1964

The CIA had intercepted some of his earlier mail (1958) and later compiled files on his peace-movement associations. 

In 1964, Merton began addressing Vietnam more explicitly as U.S. involvement grew. In a May 31 letter to President Lyndon B. Johnson: “A united Vietnam … would certainly do more for the interests of freedom … than a useless and stupid war. Quite apart from humanitarian and ethical considerations which, to me, are primary, it would seem that … realistic awareness of the situation ought to warn us that a prolonged war in Asia is not going to benefit … the interests of democracy. … I therefore respectfully recommend a prudent and rational course along the lines laid down in Pacem in Terris.” 

A second letter to Johnson (roughly eight months after the first) argued that “methods of sheer force are not only unavailing but … immoral and unjust” and that “our present policies in Vietnam … are probably doing more to help Communism than to hinder it. … I think the U.S. military would do more for democracy if they got out of Vietnam.” 

1965

February 17 letter: “The trouble is that the truth of the situation is consistently distorted, and it is to the interest of the Pentagon and the arms manufacturers to see that it is distorted because a bigger war is to their advantage.” 

A February 20 letter to Johnson (original now at the LBJ Library) again raised moral and practical objections to the war.

Correspondence with Kentucky Senator John Sherman Cooper expressing “distress over the Vietnam War.”

Journal comments on Johnson: he “is listening to the Pentagon crowd, and his stubbornness and vanity will harden him against criticism.” Merton later regretted having voted for him. 

1966

May: Merton hosted the Vietnamese Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh at Gethsemani Abbey. The meeting produced the essay “Nhat Hanh Is My Brother,” first published in Jubilee magazine that year and later collected in Faith and Violence. Merton wrote: “He is more my brother than many who are nearer to me by race and nationality, because he and I see things exactly the same way. He and I deplore the war that is ravaging his country. We deplore it for exactly the same reasons: human reasons, reasons of sanity, justice and love. We deplore the needless destruction, the fantastic and callous ravaging of human life, the rape of the culture and spirit of an exhausted people. … this carnage serves no purpose that can be discerned and indeed contradicts the very purpose of the mighty nation that has constituted itself the ‘defender’ of the people it is destroying.” He also warned that Nhat Hanh risked imprisonment or death upon return to Vietnam and urged public protection of him. 

A February letter to activist Jim Forest (responding to reports of civilian casualties): “Vietnam is the psychoanalysis of the US. I wonder if the nation can come out of it and survive.” He described the national identity as “going slowly down the drain in Vietnam.” 

1967

March 7 letter to Undersecretary of State Nicholas Katzenbach requesting permission to send medical aid to civilian victims: “immense military power is smashing down on a primitive Asian country with half a million tons of high explosives a year, resulting in an overwhelming majority of civilian casualties. … Millions of people all over the world think they have reason to question the good faith and even the basic integrity of the United States. … It is our duty to help these people, even though they may be in North Vietnam.” 

Essay “Taking Sides on Vietnam” (later in Faith and Violence): “I’m on the side of the people who are being burned, cut to pieces, tortured, held as hostages, gassed, ruined, destroyed. They are the victims on both sides. To take sides with massive power is to take sides against the innocent. … US aggression must stop.” He also noted the financial cost: “Each Vietcong killed costs a million dollars. … We really must be interested in killing people expensively.” 

1968

Faith and Violence (published July 1968) collected several Vietnam essays, including “Vietnam: An Overwhelming Atrocity.” Merton called the war “an overwhelming atrocity” whose “exorbitant US war effort … cannot be explained or justified by the reasons that are officially given.” He contrasted official justifications with the destruction of a Vietnamese Benedictine monastery by American bombs (not by communists) and rejected “My country right or wrong.” 

February 19 letter supporting conscientious objector Joseph T. Mulloy, published on the front page of the Louisville diocesan paper The Record. Merton affirmed the primacy of conscience against the draft. The letter provoked public controversy among Kentucky Catholics, some of whom burned his books. 

His estimated influence

Merton’s statements reached a relatively small but strategically important audience. Because of earlier censorship by his religious superiors, many pieces first circulated privately among peace activists, the Catholic Worker movement, the Fellowship of Reconciliation, and the newly formed Catholic Peace Fellowship. After restrictions eased in late 1963, essays appeared in Jubilee, The Catholic Worker, and Faith and Violence. He was one of the earliest prominent U.S. Catholic voices to condemn the war on explicitly moral and theological grounds rather than solely political ones.

His influence was strongest inside religious and activist networks: he shaped the thinking of figures such as Jim Forest, Daniel and Philip Berrigan, and Dorothy Day’s circle, and his 1966 encounter with Thich Nhat Hanh became a landmark of interfaith anti-war witness. Government agencies (FBI, State Department, and CIA files) monitored his peace activities and correspondence, indicating official notice even if he never became a mass-media figure. 

Alaska We Hardly Knew Ye

It was Mount Denali day!  We rose early in order to have our bags out by 7am, per instructions.  Headed to the lodge for breakfast. Then to the tour bus. 

Eventually we climb to 2,400 feet along Denali park highway, the highest point on it. 

We can't see the peak whatsoever despite driving towards it for a couple hours. Apparently the great height is both blessing and curse, the latter in that clouds more easily obscure it. It has its own weather system. Sometimes the bigger the object, the more you can't see it but let the theologians ponder that. 

Eventually we reach "the point",  a commanding view indeed, where an elderly Native American woman gave us a talk on her culture and led us in an Indian dance.

Meanwhile I was wondering how you hide a 20,000 ft mountain, the highest in North America?  Apparently clouds can. I asked the guide if we could see any part of the base so that later I can circle that part of the photo and say, "Trust me bro, Denali is here".  But alas she said no. Superior they say never gives up her dead nor does Mount McKinley show herself. As a famous sportswriter wrote of Ted Williams not acknowledging the crowd after his final home run: "the gods do not answer letters".

The long build-up was akin to The Wizard of Oz where we traveled down the long yellow brick road and at the end meet a guy behind a curtain of clouds.

Our tour guide tried to make the best of it  primarily by not mentioning it. Denial at Denali is a powerful drug.  We made our way semi-ignorantly thinking we'd see the majestic mountain.  The stops were "make work" types of things, like stopping by a restored cabin used by park rangers. 

Our guide saw caribou on two occasions and we stopped the bus and we all furiously glassed the but no dice. Of the bus of about 30, maybe 2-5 people saw it, despite sitting there maybe ten minutes each time. It's amazing how difficult it is for us "civilians" to find animals out in their natural habitat. 

I thought, "I'm going to have a T-shirt made with a cloud with caption 'Mount McKinley'. Or maybe "Mount Disappointment".  Our waitress says her parents coming to town next week and she's crossing her fingers they'll get to see the hidden one.  She says it feels like all summer it's been missing in action. Said maybe a normal summer you see it 30% of the time but this time like 7%. Who knew? I would've had I read the guidebook I bought. 

A nice surprise was the Denali Park Village lodge. Our stay here is brief but memorable: a charming little "village".  Because this campus is wooded, has no cars, and where buildings are made of wood logs, it felt sort of "Williamsburg-y". Indeed the dinner theatre had maids serving in bustiers from the gold rush era. But, as James Kunstler has said, any place without cars is intrinsically appealing.  

We had dinner at the lodge and the prices were spruce-tip high. I squandered $30 on a burger, albeit a mix of elk, wild boar, bison and Wagyu beef. Surprising (or not) it tasted  like a hamburger. 

Afterward we had that quintessential Alaska experience: simply a walk outside. The good-sized Nenana river was practically in our backyard and behind it forest-covered mountains.  It was like walking into a postcard or oil painting. The trail was gravel and led to a beach with soft gray sand and a few scattered rocks as if for effect. The water color was not like I've seen in Ohio - a light slate-ish color, presumably from pulverized rock, but a much finer coloring than the clay or topsoil of Ohio streams. 

Ironically, it was a much more beautiful and inspiring hike than that in Denali around the visitor center earlier today.  There it was fine by many standards, if not Alaska's. Lots of trees damaged by beetles. We saw animal scat that looked unfamiliar (later looked it up and it was moose poop).  We went off path to what looked like nothing much more than a game trail. It was mostly uphill but was interesting for the views down and the spruce with their straight and tall profiles grow on you. 

Earlier we'd watched an 18-minute film in the theatre at the Denali park visitor center and they said the highlight of Denali is Mount Denali. Obviously.  Ouch!

But wait! There's more...

We started the next day off with coffee outside our lodging, the Denali Park Village,  overlooking the river. A cool 49 degrees but no wind.  I was feeling a tad sluggish and was looking forward to being on the bus and watching the fog carve out holes in mountains. By 10am we were on the road. Our first stop was at a roadside boardwalk of maybe 20 businesses, all tourist-oriented. We headed straight to the Erin-recommended Black Bear Coffee joint (Erin was our tour guide) and had coffee and espresso. 

Back on the road we drove till about 1:15pm to an overlook stop at the southern tip of Denali.  Here, eyes wide with disbelief, we could finally see not just the base but the peak and much of Denali. Just some cloud cover in the midsection. We giddily jumped off the bus and walked up a path maybe a quarter-mile for a better view. Some climb mountains because they're there. We look at mountains for the same reason.

 

Later, in Talkeetna (some 80 miles away) we got a "full moon view" there of Denali, without a cloud or wisp to obscure. We walked on down the beach to a quiet spot and prayed a rosary with the mountain and river in front of us. Denali seems an apt symbol of God: inaccessible and "other", but paradoxically accessible by faith or sight.  

**

I think the exploding popularity of national parks and Alaska is due in part to how we, as a culture, no longer produce beautiful architecture. So we look to our need for beauty to God's architecture. Just look at Obama’s Presidential eyesore. 

I already miss the mountains, specifically walking early morning out of our Denali park village room and immediately seeing over the 3-story buildings a spruce-laden mountain. I think they serve to remind us that there’s something larger than ourselves. The sky alone should do that but the sky feels invisible to us most of the time. It’s like air.  But mountains are harder to ignore. Maybe that’s why there’s such “stickiness”  in terms of attachment people feel to mountains. Appalachians are famously reluctantly to leave their homes despite poverty and a lack of work opportunities. North Carolina is one of the fastest growing states and Alaskans and Alaska transients tend to stay there. John Denver lived in flat places all his childhood but later wrote a song about West Virginia and lived permanently in the mountains of Colorado. A guy we met on the plane who was dressed in buckskin and looked like an early 20th century trapper was born in Kansas and spent his childhood wanting to live in Alaska. He did so right after he served in the military and has been there 50 years. His name is Howard. Lives in a tiny town just outside of Nome and was traveling to the Mayo Clinic. 

We finished with a return to Talkeetna, two days after leaving. Just going back to again for a few hours before the trip struck a chord, like how they teach in music theory that music should start at one note and then move up or down but then return to the "home" note...

On Suffering

It's hard to take in the suffering of the teen daughter of Jennifer Fulwiler. Jennifer was a blogger around 2004, then Catholic convert and mother of I've-lost-count, followed by a comedy career. Her daughter has a particularly vicious form of brain cancer and doctors have been fighting it for almost a year now. Sometimes the tortures of hospitals and chemo seem to outweigh the potential benefit but if you're that young and you have a 30% chance of winning then why not. But on the other hand I'm not so fond of the medical industrial complex. A lot of it seems driven by profit with less attention to the suffering they cause, particularly chemo. 

The inability to accept suffering is our modern condition. Pope Benedict in 2007 wrote, 

"the individual cannot accept another's suffering unless he personally is able to find meaning in suffering, a path of purification and growth in maturity, a journey of hope. Indeed, to accept the "other" who suffers, means that I take up his suffering in such a way that it becomes mine also. Because it has now become a shared suffering, though, in which another person is present, this suffering is penetrated by the light of love.

The Latin word con-solatio, "consolation", expresses this beautifully. It suggests being with the other in his solitude, so that it ceases to be solitude. Furthermore, the capacity to accept suffering for the sake of goodness, truth and justice is an essential criterion of humanity, because if my own well-being and safety are ultimately more important than truth and justice, then the power of the stronger prevails, then violence and untruth reign supreme. Truth and justice must stand above my comfort and physical well-being, or else my life itself becomes a lie."

These are familiar sentiments but I have to constantly remind myself that the point of earth is not to avoid suffering but to find meaning and growth in it. 

How Do You Solve a Problem Like a Tucker?

Like the famous Maria in "The Sound of Music", Tucker has had a lot of dramatic turns of late. A little timeline to help flesh out the dramatic changes:  

1/7/2021: Carlson criticizes Trump, texting a colleague that the then-president was "a demonic force, a destroyer."

3/5/2021: Dominion sues Fox.

2/16/2023: Heritage Foundation announces Tucker Carlson as speaker in April. 

3/?/2023: Demonic attack (sometime between late March or April). Still bears scars. Begins reading Bible. Rod Dreher: "Shortly after I made the introductions [for him to see a priest], Carlson texted to thank me, but to say that the priest's work seemed like 'witchcraft' to him and that he would be fine simply reading the Bible alone. After this polite rebuff, the Catholic priest of the exorcist team told me that Carlson was in 'grave danger' and that he had no idea of the power of what he was dealing with."

3/31/2023: Discusses Bible intensely with Rupert Murdoch's fiancée Ann Lesley Smith. Murdoch, much annoyed, dumps her two weeks after. 

4/21/2023: He talks at Heritage Foundation in which for first time he states we are in a “spiritual battle”. 

4/24/2023: Fired from Fox. 

10/7/2023: Israel stand down. 

11/1/2023: Starts his streaming service and around this time endorses Trump. 

12/1/2023: Says, "They're not aliens, they've always been here. I do think it's spiritual. If the US government has, in fact, had contact with these beings and has entered into some sort of agreement with them, it's a very, very heavy thing."

4/9/2024: Like Charlie Kirk, begins turning against Israel in months after 10/7... has friendly interview on this date with Palestinian pastor Munther Isaac. Carlson highlighted claims that Israel harms/targets Christians. 

9/15/2024: Carlson hosts Darryl Cooper, alternative WW2 history guru and Holocaust minimizer (by attributing the deaths largely to improvisation and logistical failure instead of intentional policy). 

9/10/2025: Charlie Kirk murdered. 

10/25/2025: Carlson interviewed Fuentes.

2/28/2026: Iran War begins. 

3/2026: Expresses great regret for supporting Trump. 

4/2026: Tucker claimed the biblical Book of Esther describes a "genocide of Persians" committed by Jewish people. The text itself contradicts this as the 75,000 casualties were not random Persian citizens; they were an armed mob following an active royal decree to slaughter the Jewish population. 

6/2026: Retracts his prior anti-Muslim stance.

At first blush, it's interesting the devil thought the bold and brave Carlson would be scared off by the demonic vexation. But it seems to have potentially "worked", in some sense, given that Carlson rebuffed help from Orthodox or Catholic priests and risks going to the other extreme. 

Reading between the lines he seems to have been red-pilled on Israel, like Charlie Kirk, by the 10/7 fiasco.  He presumably began reading alternative histories in the wake of that and I suspect Charlie's death was part of the reason for the middle finger given via the Fuentes interview. 

Keen observation from podcaster and philantrophist Jason Jones: "It’s easy and natural to go from Zionism to antisemitism because in both cases you are 'othering' the Jews." 

Scoring the Influencers

So now that we know that the Losee rooftop story was fan fiction, let's do an awards ceremony for the winners and Losee-rs. 

Grand Champion: Candace Owens.  This is proof that God has a sense of humor, giving the role of chief investigator to someone who in the eyes of the world lacks all credibility. But God gives wisdom to the simple. And the grieving. 

Champion Class: Gen Michael Flynn, Joe Oltmann, Buckley Carlson, Cornell Prof David Collum. 

Cautious but Skeptical of Official Narrative Class: Emerald Robinson, David Clements, Tucker, Patrick Byrne, Lara Logan, Julie Kelly, Roger Stone, Bannon. 

Flunkers: Mike Cernovich (he's gotta protect his fam!), Kyle Seraphim, Larry Taunton, Benny Johnson, Don Jr, Sean Davis, Walter Kirn, Eric Sammons, Jack Cashill. 

While it's impossible to sort through motivations, be they monetary or fear, I'll speculate. 

Mike Cernovich: Fears 2028 election, wants to stay allied with Trump to avoid trouble. 

Emerald Robinson: Focused on election security. Perhaps sees it not as her lane (ie let Owens take the heat). 

Julie Kelly: Totally aligned with Kash & Trump and refuses to see. 

Larry Taunton: Completely in thrall to Christian Zionists. 

Benny Johnson: Obviously blackmailed. He was neutered post-Butler. 

Walter Kirn: Westerner, Mormon, close to TPUSA'rs, so non-starter. 

Eric Sammons: Loathes Candace Owens so predisposed to question the narrative. Influenced heavily by "Data Republican". 

Jack Cashill: An older boomer dominated by white/black hat thinking (GOP can do no wrong, Dems no right).  Also loves Israel; did documentary on Holocaust 40 years ago.  

 Overall I'd say the most surprising in terms of honesty is Gen Flynn, but I suppose he feels he lacks anything to lose. The most surprising in terms of dishonesty is Cernovich, Kirn, and Cashill. Roger Stone is one of those who I would categorize as mildly dishonest: he immediately knew it was a professional hit and said so but then clammed up when he found out more. Presumably doesn't want to alienate Trump or the Christian Zionists. 

The Iran War Timeline

As soon as Trump was sworn in, Bibi & Lindsey Graham began an Iran pressure program. I didn't realize it had been a surprisingly intense focus of the administration since day one. 

2/1/25:  Sen Graham & Bibi continue pressure WH. Graham calls for air strikes if diplomacy fails. Back channel talks with Iran fail. 

4/1/25: Baron Coleman estimates Mar/Apr start of planning kill CK. Odd search engine searches start. Baron: "on 4/1 defense order came for 'extra small anti-personnel device' with a hard target date of 8/25." Sees that description and quick turnaround date as very unusual. 

4/3/25: CK publicly posts a warning about “war drums” beating in D.C. for regime change in Iran, calling a new Middle East war a “catastrophic mistake.” Presumably he was lobbying in private before. 

4/7/25 - Tim Pool & social media influencers meet w Netanyahu who was lobbying for support of war.

4/30/25: CK tweets: "The Foundation for Defense of Democracies is leading the anti-Witkoff operation.The anti-Witkoff forces are anti-MAGA." Israeli E. Fischberger warns CK off saying, "you are dead wrong about this Charlie" Grok says this is first time pro-Israeli side publicly criticized Kirk. 

6/12/25: Israel attacks Iran.

6/13/25: CK argues against US involvement in Iran. Also last CK/EK public appearance together. 

6/18/25: Charlie to WH to argue Trump out of war & against Bibi.

6/19/25: Erika wipes 127 Instagram posts. 

6/22/25: US bombs Iran. 

7/11/25: CK tells Tucker Carlson to 'GO MAX' against Israel at AmFest; CO thinks this is when CK death plans made.

7/12/25: Potus scolds CK for providing forum for anti-Epstein folks. First known criticism of CK by Trump. Victor Marx goes on Shawn Ryan and opposes CK, saying the Epstein list should not be disclosed, but rather used as currency for political leverage.

7/13/25: CK hosts debate of pro-Israeli v. anti-Israeli. 

7/18/25: UVU requests to have Charlie Kirk speak (as best we can tell).   

7/19/25: Bibi is on six week US publicity tour; engages on very small podcasts. 

7/26/25: Bongino cryptically posts to X: "What I’ve learned has shocked me to my core… I’ll never be the same." 

8/5/25: Hampton intervention weekend.  Jewish pressure on CK.

8/??/25: Kash Patel fires Utah FBI leader Mehtab Syed appointed in Feb. Mixed reviews on her performance. Robert Bohls replaces.

8/13/25: Harrison Smith posts on X that CK was worried Israel would kill him (2nd hand info). 

8/16/25: Victor Marx says: "I happened to be on a call. I cannot even give you the detail, but it is regarding a national situation that I can’t tell you. A lot of agencies are involved, including the White House… and asking for my help in certain things."

9/2/25: CK promoted Justin Streiff as new (COO) and announced a DOGE-style audit.

9/10/25: CK killed. 

9/15/25: CK and EK due to sign end of life docs and will revision (per Baron Coleman). 

9/15/25: Initial increases in U.S. naval assets in the Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea, and eastern Mediterranean. This included additional carrier strike groups, destroyers, and submarines. 

10/28/25: Joe Kent reports his agency was shut out of Charlie Kirk investigation. 

12/25: Major surge in buildup of US warships, widely seen as preparation for potential strikes on Iran.

1/26: US/Israeli war green-light decisions made. 

2/28/26:  US launches war on Iran. Grok says: “U.S./Israeli strikes on Iran would typically take 3–9 months of planning” and green-light decisions made in January. 

7/20/26: The U.S. conducts its 10th consecutive night of strikes on Iranian targets. 

Walsh and the President

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh is an interesting character in this whole Tyler Robinson fiasco. He says he likes truth, feels beholden to it. But he was in the unfortunate position of working for Ben Shapiro. So what would he do? 

Well, out of the gate, he knew a fraud when he saw it and called it out. Grok:


Mid-September 2025 (shortly after the September 10 assassination): Walsh addressed the killing on The Matt Walsh Show. Key examples include: •  Ep. 1658 (“We Aren’t Getting The Full Story About Charlie Kirk’s Assassination,” around September 17, 2025) — He questioned aspects of the official story, shooter’s messages, and whether there was a cover-up. 

Good for him, he wasn’t going to sell out easily. But he probably had “the talk” in response to new info that came the next day: no exit wound with the 30.06. He would now have more, not less, reason to suspect the narrative. But, likely restrained from “going there”, he simply went nowhere, said nothing. Silence for almost three months. 

But the pressure was likely too great so on Dec 12 he signed on to the whole narrative and debunked “conspiracy theories”.  Grok actually uses the word “finally” to describe him finally addressing the conspiracies. 

The context is important: on 12/9, Candace brings up Ft Huachuca and all hell breaks loose.  On 12/11, the day before Matt’s broken silence, we have Erika calling TPUSA her “family” and tells Owens to stop. Interview with Bari Weiss airs a couple days later. 

So Walsh had done his part and he went back into silence mode. Grok says he’s not commented on the pretrial and the “overwhelming evidence”. 

**

Also interesting is our president.  While he has no issues or compunction striking back very hard against his enemies, he has a soft spot for when he feels compelled to initiate hostilities. I don't think he's intrinsically a violent person and I think his anti-war sentiment, despite the Iran war, is legit.  

I thought it odd that he was asked by a reporter about Charlie Kirk after the assassination and he immediately changed the subject to his ball room. I also thought it strange that he didn't seem to talk about Charlie much except when asked directly or during the memorial or freedom medal ceremony. He seemed almost reluctant. I asked Grok to compare the frequency he's mentioned Ashli Babbitt compared to Charlie and Ashli is the more frequent subject. 

It's also interesting to see what Trump has said about the state of his soul over time.

In 2016 he was hopeful, saying the presidency would give him the "opportunity to do good in order to go to heaven".  In August of ’24, not long after the assassination attempt, he was neutral but still leaving the question open, saying “I do [believe in heaven]. If I’m good, I’m going to heaven. And if I’m bad, I’m going someplace else.” In August of ’25 he stated that he wanted “to try to get to heaven if possible.”


But then something changed between Aug 19 of ’25 and Oct 12 of ’25. On that October date he said flatly, “I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to get me in heaven. Okay? I think I’m not maybe heaven-bound. I may be in heaven right now as I fly on Air Force One.” 

So what happened between August of ’25 and Oct of ’25 that would make him more pessimistic about his chances?

Ace Investigator Ken Silva Speculates...

Ken Silva, author of a new book on the Trump assassination attempts, reluctantly speculates on why Trump shut down Crooks' investigation into his near assassination: 1. They stumbled onto the MK Ultra pgm. 2. Or, they are threatening Trump's family.  

These seem to be the only options that make sense given in a normal world Trump would want to find out why he was nearly killed. And would talk about it incessantly, his near death experience, given his general show-boatism. Not exactly fair to the fireman's widow though, to not seek justice for whomever was really behind her husband's death. 

I feel like the key that unlocks the Crooks story would also unlock Charlie Kirk's death. And vice-versa. 

In fairness to the believers in the Fed narrative, the biggest tell that Tyler Robinson did it is he and his parents. They let the state pick his attorney and thus the jury, and they never even publicly stated his innocence. Hard to prove someone else did it if the accused is willing to take the fall.

**

The tell on JD Vance will be his VP choice (selected for him?). Seems the Dep't of War is pushing Erika ("the emotional asset" they called her). That would neuter Vance and make him vulnerable to assassination since Erika is completely controlled. So he may not run. 

I think the following is why I'm continually shocked by our government, from Mike Cernovich:

"The western brain was raised on formal logic and the third act story model. With each story having a tidy ending after struggle. The eastern mind recognizes this is Satan's world, for now, we are stuck here and the fight never ends until the End. It's what we signed up for."

It's probably as simple as that.

Politics as Sitcom

We live in such interesting times in part because our politics are like a sitcom. It’s truly an endless form of entertainment, perhaps like David Foster Wallace wrote of in "Infinite Jest". For example, Rep. Massie had the audacity to stand up against Trump on Epstein files and the Iran war and for his troubles he is now facing a “warm body”  (as Trump called him) primary opponent, backed by Trump, who made the tiny mistake recently of posting a photo caption that talked about how nice it was to meet the people of this patriotic and family-centered town. The only problem was he cut and pasted the response from an AI engine. He had asked the artificial intelligence, “Create for me a polished social media post for this photo” but he included that question in the caption. Uh-oh! It’s just another indication of how fake our politicians are. 

But the real news today was that the night of the White House Correspondence Dinner. The shooting occurred at 8:23pm and at 9:23pm a CNN person posted a video showing Erika Kirk crying and saying, “I want to go home”.  At 9:49pm the Dep’t of Defense sent out an email to a group of people, larger than intended, that said this video was gaining traction and that we should prioritize this on all social media platforms. In other words, an hour after the shooting the military - instead of being concerned with the shooter and his motivations or possible foreign influence - was concerned with promoting a video of Erika Kirk crying. What!? Why? 

Not long after that, the military apparently panicked and tried to rescind the email but it was too late, it had already been opened. So they sent a follow-up email saying that it had been mistakenly sent to a larger group than expected and so everyone needed to delete it immediately. Instead it got leaked, which is how we know about it now. 

No wonder I find it so hard to read books anymore. We’re being run by our military who wants to use “influence operations” to shape public opinion and it’s compulsively entertaining.  It feels like the military wants Erika Kirk to be the VP candidate with JD Vance or Rubio in ’28. It also leads one to wonder if this shooting itself was real or Memorex, that it was just planned as a distraction. 

The larger framing I suspect is that two wings of our intelligence services have been at war with each other for at least a dozen years. Military intelligence was greatly annoyed that Obama, during his second term, was prioritizing the CIA and leaving them powerless. So they started meeting with Trump to promote him and it worked in 2016. Then the CIA was able to put their puppet, Biden, in place with the help of vote fraud. Military intel got the upper hand in 2024 with Trump. Both the CIA and military intel have operations to fool the American public for their own purposes. 

What to Expect When You're Expecting the Apocalypse

  But you have rejected us and disgraced us 

         and have not gone out with our armies. 

  You have made us turn back from the foe, 

         and those who hate us have gotten spoil. 

  You have made us like sheep for slaughter 

         and have scattered us among the nations. 

   You have sold your people for a trifle, 

         demanding no high price for them. - Ps 44:9–12

There's that famous book about what woman should expect when they're expecting. We need a book out on what Americans should expect when their expectations of how the world worked have been decimated. The need is real! 

We’ve learned some hard lessons in reality the past two decades. In the first Trump term we learned the Schoolhouse Rock song “I’m Just a Bill” actually has an even harder row to hoe: the poor bill has to get past the intel community, our fourth brand of government.  

The deep state somehow failed to secure Hillary’s win in ’16 so Trump became the accidental president and accidentally revealed the deep state corruption. The “great revealer” did his work from 2016 all the way through 2024, throughout the rogue lawsuits, efforts to bankrupt him, to keep him off the ballot, raids on his house, assassination attempts, etc. But like God’s appointed, he seemed to get nine lives and two terms. 

This time things got off to a strong start with stalwarts like Kash and Dan and Elon, deep state squashers all. But then God had other plans. Instead of Trump as the great revealer of the deep state, the deep state started revealing him. Graft in the WH via nicely timed stock options and rug-pulling crypto deals, his staff moved well on the way to the health and wealth gospel. Ol’ Kash began living his best life in his dream job, and you can bet having written about government gangsters he knew how to play one on TV. Trump himself turned on his base, calling them losers for falling for the “Democrat hoax”, meaning the Epstein files. Then, the unkindest cut of all, Charlie Kirk, for national security reasons, apparently had to be dispatched. No hard feelings though. 

The new case for supporting Trump and the RINOs running in the midterms goes like this: “Sure, we spiked the Epstein story. Sure we had to fire your conservative hero. Sure we went to war in Iran for reasons we’d rather not say. But frankly, we’re not imprisoning rando American citizens like the Dems. It's better that one man should die than all the people be imprisoned. So just accept the world is darker than you’d like and that you want the very dim light versus the no light option."

**

The case against Tyler Robinson has more holes than a Vegas whorehouse. If he gets a mediocre defense and a decent judge he might get off with a written reprimand for hanging out with a bad crowd (the feds). But it's hard to imagine he'll get a decent defense or judge though. It's another test of our judicial system, the same system that failed the J6 political prisoners in truly spectacular fashion. 

The awful logic is that this has to be a lone gunmen case or else the FBI's inexplicable quashing of Joe Kent's investigation makes no sense. This is a case of either Tyler acted alone slam-dunk, or it indicates a state-sponsored hit. (Note they didn't even bother to arrest or interview a few Trantifa types who supposedly knew about the hit beforehand.) Only a professional hit using the resources of the feds could accomplish the sort of shenanigans necessary. 

The context is important as well: this is the same FBI made frantic calls to The Blaze to try to stop Steve Baker's reporting the identity of the J6 pipe bomber before they could line up an autistic patsy. It's not like this FBI is above playing the hardest of hardball. 

Disclaimer: for entertainment purposes only. I have no idea who killed Charlie Kirk. 

**

For the MAGA movement, losing Charlie was like the Civil War South losing Stonewall Jackson. Demoralizing. The beginning of the end or the end of the beginning.  Everything after Jackson's death was a letdown for the South and everything after 9/10/2025 has been a letdown for MAGA. Coincidence? God's displeasure? Who knows. 


Interesting X posts found: 

"Hamlet makes me think of Charlie Kirk. In a corrupt system, remaining uncorrupted is a death sentence. But it is also the only act that restores legitimacy. Hamlet doesn’t win; he makes winning possible again."

** 

"Shakespeare wrote about this. Hamlet (Candace Owens) spirals into madness trying to uncover the King of Denmark's (Charlie Kirk's) murderer while the widow (Erika Kirk) is in bed with the killer. If we don't find out from Owens, I'd suspect whoever Kirk remarries."

** 

I'm fascinated by the silence from many an influencer unwilling to touch "the third rail" of the Charlie Kirk murder. Danger Will Robinson! From Mike Cernovich to James Kunstler to Sharyl Attinkinson to Lara Logan, this is not something they want to think much about -and who can blame them? The cognitive dissonance is off the charts. It's impossible to think that TPUSA security had anything to do with it, or the Kash-led FBI. You would need some key individuals for something like this, a compliant hospital with, say, a new CEO (check), a new medical examiner (check), no autopsy published (check), a university president who resigns suddenly (check), the would-be judge in the Robinson case retired a month before Charlie shot (check), a quick make-over of the crime scene (check) and a sheriff who gives a bad timeline to the media and then resigns. 

The previous judge who would've gotten the case retired six years before mandatory retirement and thus was on the young side of average age of retirement for Utah judges. Grok portrays him as "a straightforward, experienced judge who followed the law strictly — even when it produced unpopular outcomes. Among the broader public and especially losing parties in emotionally charged civil cases, his reputation was more negative, with accusations of being too procedural, pro-defendant..." 

From X:

"The judge selected to preside over the Charlie Kirk assassination trial—and the judge he replaced—were both the subject of unique Google searches from israeli IP addresses BEFORE the assassination (July 26 & May 15, respectively). Neither was the subject of any searches in Utah until AFTER the assassination.

The previous retired on August 1, and new one assumed his duties on August 4th—on or about the same day the Special Agent In Charge of the SLC FBI field office, was removed.

Just a bunch of coincidences?"

Utah Governor Cox, who has drawn a lot of suspicion by us conspiracy theorists, was ultimately responsible for both the hire of the medical examiner via his cabinet in the middle of 2024 as well as the judge (middle of 2025). 

The turnover of all the key positions is rather impressive: 

List of Retirements/New Hires: 

1. Utah judge in charge of Robinson case: New one appointed August of 2025 after previous judge retires. Immediately gets Robinson case. 

2. Head of Utah investigation took office on July 17, 2025 (replacing the retiring Commissioner).

3.The sheriff who played a key part in Tyler Robinson’s surrender, resigned after public and media attention increased on timeline discrepancies in Robinson’s surrender, such as when Robinson actually arrived at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office. 

4. Medical Examiner comes in mid-2024 via Gov Cox appointment. 

5. UVU President resigns January 2026.  

6. The former Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Salt Lake City field office was forced out of her role in August 2, 2025 and new FBI agent placed in charge ahead of Kirk death. 

7. Hospital that Charlie was brought to was under a new CEO after resignation of previous CEO, effective August 25, 2025.

Grok opines:

"If these were independent events with average annual turnover rates of ~10–20% for most of these leadership roles, the raw mathematical probability of all seven shifting in roughly the same 12–18 month window (mid-2024 through early 2026) around one specific case would be low — perhaps on the order of 1 in several hundred to 1 in a few thousand, depending on how tightly you define the time window and geographic scope."

Grok estimates that the former DPS commissioner took nearly a 50% pay cut along with a prestige cut (in terms of job title) by moving on. 

So much of this is bad optics, especially TPUSA's lackluster post-Charlie performance. Optics not proof but wow they sure have a lot of them clustered. 

**

It's all.... too much right? How come we can't have white hats and black hats? Are we not entitled? 

Speaking of, I've always felt completely entitled to a democratic republic and not one run on blackmail. It's been a sobering process of enlightenment, or de-lightenment. But truth is, I can find absolutely no biblical warrant for the entitlement to a just ruling class or to a republic. In fact, we are promised trouble in this world. A small example from the world of Catholicism: what possibly could be more unjust than St Padre Pio having been shut down and banned by the Vatican for part of his life? And yet he meekly obeyed the injustice even while if not having suicidal ideations did wish the Lord might take him early. 

St Augustine:  

"The Lord is the God of vengeance; do you think that He does not punish?...Thou murmurest surely because the bad are not punished: yet do not murmur, lest you be among those who are punished. That man has committed a theft, and lives: you murmur against God, because he who committed a theft on you dies not....Therefore, if you would have another correct his hand, you must first correct your tongue: you would have him correct his heart towards man, correct your heart towards God; lest perchance, when you desire the vengeance of God, if it come, it find you first. For He will come: He will come, and will judge those who continue in their wickedness, ungrateful for the prolongation of His mercy, for His long-suffering, treasuring up unto themselves wrath against the day of wrath, and revelation of the righteous judgment of God, who will render to every man according to his deeds...He who in His humility feared no man, will He fear any man in His glory? From His dealing thus confidently in time past, imagine how He will deal at the end of time. Murmur not then against God, who seems to spare the wicked; but be thou good, and perhaps for a season He may not spare you the rod, that He may in the end spare you in judgment...."

Et tu Erika!?

I submit we get most of our truth these days through leaked emails, undercover YouTubers, Wikileaks, etc... Lord knows we don’t  get it from media, politicians, or the court system. 

If we didn’t have conspiracy theories we’d have no news at all. As Mike Lindell says, “the media is like a weatherman who won’t tell you about hurricanes or tornados.” 

I started out as a naive skeptic of things conspiratorial. I refused to believe there was a conspiracy to make Trump a Russian agent until after the final Mueller report. I revered Fauci and Francis Collins early in the covid epidemic. I trusted Amazon and bought an Alexa, I trusted 23 and Me and donated my DNA. I thought the Iraq War must be just because the Bush administration would never risk so much political and moral capital on it otherwise. In all of these situations - Mueller, Fauci, Bush - I thought they know more than I do. They deserve the benefit of the doubt. 

Of course now we know a lot more of the truth. The initial turning point for me might've been a leaked video posted by Project Veritas that showed ABC news anchor Amy Robach caught on a live mic saying her ABC bosses killed her story on Epstein years ago. This really got my attention especially when I learned he'd been given a sweetheart deal due to Acosta saying he was told to back off since Epstein was in intelligence. A huge wake-up call but perhaps not yet the red-pill I needed. 

Maybe the biggest turning point was covid. It likely made conspiracists of us all. The most shocking thing for me is they were able to censor social media. And they lied about the covid origins, they covered up vax injuries, they went back and forth about masks, they delayed the vaccine till after Trump was out of office, they didn’t have any interest in ameliorative remedies but only on the vaccine (on which they overpromised), they allowed rioters/protestors to gather socially in June of 2020...etc...

Yep 2020 was likely the year. And to cap it all off they stole an election! Truly a year that will live in infamy. 

A National Review writer mentioned after that election that he simply couldn’t believe it was rigged because he didn’t want to believe that our country was capable of that. 

I feel that way about Erika Kirk. 

But some circumstantial evidence is accruing. Charlie was too big not to have to be controlled. To paraphrase Austen: “It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a political empire, must be in want of a wife.” Or a minder. 

She took the reins 5-6 days after Charlie’s death and said "things have changed" and to "drop what you were working on", “don’t finish that email you were going to send”. Hmmm... She accepted money from Ben Shapiro in order for him to appear at AmFest, something Charlie would not have done. She interviewed a black rapper whom Charlie was not fond of. Definitely Al Haig vibes here, “I am in charge!” She fired employees saying the org was going “in a different direction”. 

Well, that was a quick direction change! 

It was also surprising to me that TPUSA as an org, and Erika as well, showed scant interest in “investigating the investigation” or at least feigning interest in some of the holes in the official narrative. It didn’t help that Erika and TPUSA did lie about things, usually white lies but still... And her mother and father are as deep state as it gets which wasn't comforting. Something rotteth in Denmark. 

I was surprised that Dave Collum, the chem professor from Cornell who has an open mind about things, early on saw Erika as an MKUltra product or a honeypot. 

And looming over everything, as usual, is Israel. Are Jews, like alcohol, the cause and solution of all the world's problems? 

I go down rabbit holes that produce nothing. I noted a small X accounts like Jordan_S90 (1900 followers) who never posted between ’18 and ’25 and suddenly is 99% anti-Candace content starting this year and finds himself with a viral tweet that seems rather banal. He also picked up a subscription from a TV personality former actress named Beisner who has over a hundred thousand followers. 

Grok says of Jordan: 

The account exhibits a highly unusual posting pattern characterized by long-term dormancy followed by a sudden, intense burst of activity in early February 2026. The bio and verified status have remained consistent, but no public posts were detected from the account's creation in 2018 through the end of 2025...Generally low engagement (0-5 likes, minimal reposts/replies/views per post), except for one standout post on February 4, 2026, which garnered 2,152 likes, 230 reposts, and nearly 60,000 views. This viral post appears to have sparked the subsequent reply burst.

The viral post on 2/4/26 criticized Megyn Kelly for not bashing Candace over the Kirk assassination story. 

I'm not sure what to make of it. I guess Jordan just felt really passionate about something for the first time. 

**

Coincidence or not, the evidence doesn't scream out Tyler Robinson, per this: 

Charlie Kirk’s last 48 hours alive. Let me get this straight:

(1) He sent a group message saying he was leaving the pro-Israel cause (Sep 8),

(2) he has a long zoom call with Josh Hammer and a prominent rabbi (Sep 9),

(3) later that night he messages “they're going to kill me” to multiple people (Sep 9).

The next day (Sep 10) he is brutally murdered in broad daylight 15 minutes into his first public appearance since becoming an explicit threat. 

Are all of these things true? Happy to be corrected if not. 

Lots of people on X obsessing over how Kirk died. 

Which is really the only question that matters.

Bring on the Mockery

We’ve reached the point where mockery is appropriate. 

How could any self-respecting Trump supporter possibly expect any normie to the left of Pat Buchanan think that J6 was an inside job when Kashless Patel and Dan “Mum's the word” Bongino won’t admit it, even after the Blaze inconveniently did their work for them? Danny we hardly knew ye. Somebody do a welfare check on Bongino. 

Maybe FBI should start subcontracting their tougher investigations to The Blaze? Maybe get ol' Steve Baker to teach at Quantico? Whatever it takes. 

Blaming Tucker Carlson for fracturing MAGA is laughable. He’s a lagging indicator.  The MAGA split occurred at the precise moment when Trump said, "Epstein who? It's a Dem hoax!"  The sound ensuing was a million jaws dropping and a million antisemites confirmed in their opinions. 

Candace’s popularity is inversely proportional to the black hole of the FBI/CIA. Nothing would take the heat off “the Jews” more than an honest FBI/CIA and Candace has exploited that lacuna. It creates perfect conditions for scapegoating. Of course, the groypers would say the Jews are preventing an honest FBI/CIA and we can’t prove they’re wrong. Trump’s always had a soft spot for Israel and the connections of Epstein and the Mossad give off a bad vibe. 

So I appreciate Candace’s investigations. We know state-sponsored crimes can only be solved by amateurs and hacks like her -- but we don’t know which crimes are state-sponsored. So of course we'll listen to her until we get an honest FBI. Simply as a single outlet to receive tips (tips that the FBI is probably file 13'ing) is useful. 

Trump could've and should be the uniting figure in MAGA, not Tucker or Vance or anybody else. But he quite intentionally decided to be anti-transparent around April/May and that’s fueling the division. My fear is that Trump 1.0 was over when he let go of Flynn and Trump 2.0 was over when he let go of Gaetz. 

Or maybe we all have our expectations too high. The Dems want to kill us, Trump wants to ignore us. We’ll take the latter! But Trump surely knows that as well.  

Meanwhile the Blaze’s alleged pipe bomb planter is perfectly to type. Lesbian, DEI hire, soccer jock, joined some Obama task force, got rewarded after J6 with a job in the CIA.  The only thing that doesn’t fit is she was born in a red county in a red state: Hamilton! Oh. 

**

The other day I thought Trump’s Truth Social account got hacked. How else would there appear a meme boasting about his creation of “50 Year Mortgages”? This seems a tissue-thin difference from renting. It also, conveniently, allows the banks to profit from gobs more interest. 

**

My theory of the three causes of unaffordable housing: 1) Fed Reserve easy money policy for most of the years 2008-2022 allowed Blackrock and second home buyers to pick up housing at 0% interest 2) decoupling from the gold standard in the 1970s (houses actually are not that expensive priced in gold). 3) immigrant labor holds wages artificially down.

Charles Murray and the Science of Love

I’m reading Charles Murray’s book about his conversion to Christianity from agnosticism. So far a lot of it is his recognition of the “perfectly tuned” universe and earth. The odds are a trillion to one that life formed, he says, and he’s not tempted by the silly multi-universe hack. 

Humility is famously said to be not about thinking too little of yourself but thinking rightly of yourself. That applies to humanity in general. If there has been temptations to think little of ourselves due to the vastness of the universe or the loneliness of being the only planet that we know of that has life on it, it doesn’t have to be that way. You could look at the vastness of the universe not so much as a way of thinking little of humanity in comparison but rather seeing it as showing man the beauty and wonder and impressiveness of God.

If man feels too little, too insignificant, then note God’s response: to become one of us. And then, as if to reinforce the message even more strongly, he became an insignificant Communion wafer.  The more we learn of science, the more he responds in reassurance. 

In the end we’re not only allowed to think very highly of ourselves but it is demanded by God of us. That was the point of the Incarnation. Our value is not in our eyes or the universe’s, but in God’s.  As Reid Buckley, William F’s brother, wrote: the paradox is to see yourself at the same time as nothing, a speck - but also everything to God.

Rod Dreher Post

Read a rich Dreher post on the sad story of Steve Skopec and how you have to get out of your head, that you can’t argue and understand apologetics in order to get close to God. It takes long, meditative prayer. It’s hard. 

Interesting that the Orthodox don’t think God is primarily known through reading the Scripture or reading commentaries on it. It’s through prayer, and not the petitionary kind. 

He says: 

Hesychastic prayer isn’t magic or anything. It is premised on the fundamental Orthodox idea that God is primarily to be known through participation in His life. And the most ordinary way to do that is through prayer. Notice that hesychastic prayer is not petitionary, except in asking Jesus for mercy. You don’t make a list of the things you want or need from God. The point is simply to place yourself in His presence, and stay there. This is a participatory form of knowing Him — and, for Orthodox Christians, the only way to know Him. Orthodoxy distinguishes knowing about God from knowing God. It is good to know about God, through reading, study, etc. — but the point of life is to know God in one’s heart, and to create in one’s heart a dwelling place for the Holy Spirit.

More Steve Skopec via Dreher: 

“This friend of mine [Steve’s] explained to me that he believed that if he approached things the way I do, if he tried to make sense out of the suffering he sees in the lives of people he loves who have tried to live their lives the right way, it would drive him crazy. He told me that when his kids come home from college and sit around the table debating theology, he enjoys it, but feels no need to join in. To him, what matters is to believe, to prioritize the things that are most important — his responsibilities as a provider and his family — and to leave the rest up to God.

I found myself wondering why I have to question everything. Why I so desperately need things to make some damn kind of sense. I found his explanation to be a nearly-perfect encapsulation of the childlike faith Christ commended his followers to adopt…and yet, and yet, I knew even as I tried to cement this concept in my own mind as a better way that it was something I could never do. Or at least, something I could not do anytime soon. My search for meaning amidst the suffering is far from its conclusion. And yet it still felt like an important piece of the puzzle I’m trying to assemble along this pilgrimage towards whatever comes next.”

More Dreher: 

“As an Orthodox, I learned how to turn off my analytical mind. I would have thought in the past that was about making myself stupid for the sake of pietism. But I learned that no, my over-analytical mind was making me sick, spiritually and physically (when it turned to trying to make sense of the fact that my Louisiana family rejected me). Orthodoxy doesn’t tell you to stop thinking about things. It rather orders the thinking, and teaches you how not to let obsessive analysis ruin your life.

How I regret those years I spent as a Catholic, talking for hours with other conservative Catholic friends, usually bitching about the failures of the Church. We weren’t wrong in our criticism, but rarely if ever did we talk about the Lord, or the good things He gave us in the Church. We analyzed and critiqued everything, and imagined ourselves to be loyal sons of the Church. Don’t misread me: I’m not at all saying that one shouldn’t analyze and critique. Pietism is no virtue when it is used as an escape from the responsibility of criticizing and critiquing (though one should do so constructively, from a place of love). I’m just saying that intellection is no substitute for deep prayer. And in my own case, I learned the hard way that the habit of overanalyzing everything (not just the things of religion) is a serious spiritual pitfall for me, as I believe it is for Steve.

People take up this admittedly difficult spiritual path when they become convinced that it is worth it. They become convinced that being able to abide steadily in God’s presence will not only transform their own life, but also enable them to pray with increased clarity and effectiveness for those they love.”

And Now For Something Completely Different...

I randomly scoped out Google Earth and randomly screenshot photos from Johannesburg, two parts of Ireland, two parts of Japan, and a smidgeon of of Germany.