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. 

God Plays "Hide and Seek" For Us

I love when there’s a synchronicity to what I read, such that disparate sources point to a single truth. 

Chemist Dave Collum said on a podcast that one time he was having a conversation with a high level government guy, former NSA, who mentioned a lot of “they did this” or “they wanted that”. And Collum said, “who is ‘they’?” He wanted names on things on some of the mysterious tyrannies of our time. And the NSA guy said, “as soon as I tell you a name, it’ll shut down thinking. You think, ‘oh Bill Gates did this’ and then thinking dies”. It’s no longer interesting or worthy of further exploration. Collum implied a lot of it is just groupthink that is un-orchestrated but runs in the elite circles. 

Collum said that has really stuck with him, that when you define something too well it shuts down thinking. What if the same is true with God? If he’s not mysterious, would we be as interested? 

I was reflecting also on an interesting piece by Steve Sailor in Taki magazine that talks about how the human mind craves 50/50 propositions. NFL betting is so popular, he says, because it’s such a razor close call with the point spreads, including all the micro bets that they’ve been able to determine are very close to 50/50. He quotes a physicist who wonders if God purposely made the universe so puzzling in order for us to be interested in it, to be fascinated by it, to wonder at it in all senses of the word.

I thought of that in connection with the Shroud of Turin and how it seems to show the moment of Resurrection. Is it a bit of a letdown to see this as proof? Does scientific proof take the trust and faith out and make things somehow less captivating? Does it make things too pat and shuts down thinking?

Faith in Jesus has seemed in some ways a 50/50 proposition (even if maybe only 20% of our population are strong believers). There is, on the one hand, plentiful evidence in favor of faith, beginning with the gospel testimony, the way the apostles willingly died to attest to its truth, and myriads of experiences nowadays, in terms of “Godincidents” to outright healing miracles. But there are also evidences against faith given how God cannot be touched and felt in a material way (except under the disguise of Communion), how much evil exists, and how death has not been overcome. 

A meditation I read today talks about how God plays “hide and seek”. There's the third chapter of Song of Songs. The parables in the gospels likewise illustrate this: some will get it, some will not, meaning it encouraging further thought. In John's gospel Jesus says, “you’ll see me awhile, then you won’t, and then you’ll see me again”. And there is Mary Magdalene and others who see the risen Christ but don’t recognize him until he prompts them to.  This strikes me as the best proof of all that “hiding and seeking” is advantageous to us.  Human psychology must have that need. 

**

Another human need is the need for stories - which the gospels provide in spades.

There's a new book out that's "an invitation to allow the oldest stories—and the Greatest Story—to reshape our own.” From a review: 

"There’s an old Irish belief that if you aren’t wrapped in a cloak of story you will be unprepared for what the world will hurl at you. You remain adolescent at just the moment a culture worth its salt requires you to become a real, grown, human being.

In Liturgies of the Wild, acclaimed mythographer, storyteller and Christian thinker Martin Shaw argues that we live in a myth-impoverished age and that such poverty has left us vulnerable to stories that may not wish us well.” 

Food Truck Triplog

They say it’s not the heat but the humidity but sometimes it’s both. Today was both and whoa even a heat-lover like me took an hour break. But after walking/jogging 5.3 miles it felt warranted. 

We had just gone to the Columbus Food Truck Festival at the Franklin County fairgrounds and stumbled around in the heat, picking food from the first truck we saw (practically). This is the closest thing to our city’s “Taste of Columbus” it would seem. Unfortunately there were almost no samples so it would’ve cost a fortune to try all 40+ shops. Not quite “Taste of Cincinnati” alas. 

I joked to my wife that you know you’re old when you’re excited about going to a food festival. When I was a kid I’d be like, “There’s McDonald’s and Pizza Hut, who needs anything else?” 

I went with “The Pressed Olive” which specializes in “Mediterranean wraps and comfort food” according to their website. I had a “French taco”, a wrap stuffed with three meats (chicken, pork and brisket) as well as gouda cheese & fries.  My wife picked a Cincy bbq joint a few yards away and chose ribs and collard greens. (I used to think as a kid it was “colored greens” because I thought only black people ate them.) 

Needless to say there were a lot of trucks that “got away”, as in they got away without my money. I chose Frida’s Mexican for a chicken burrito but felt some regret for missing out on Big Pappy’s BBQ and the luscious-looking smoothies at another truck.  Smoothies, by the way, are one of the few good things that the young have now that we lacked. We had nothing but Icee’s. 

I used to have no money and all appetite. Now I have money but not enough appetite. Such is life!


Brave Old World

One of the purest joys of my childhood was also an unmitigated disaster. I never wanted anything more than that chemistry set when I was 7 years old, probably because I liked picturing myself in cerebral jobs like a writer, geologist, or absent-minded professor. Maybe the latter because of the influence of Jerry Lewis in his hit “The Nutty Professor”. Wikipedia reports that you can be so engrossed in your study that you can neglect things like, oh, maybe a paper route? Sounded good to me. It could also be an excuse to be subpar in other areas, like athletics:

"The absent-minded professor is a stock character of popular fiction, usually portrayed as a talented academic whose academic brilliance is accompanied by below-par functioning in other areas, leading to forgetfulness and mistakes.

One explanation of this is that highly talented individuals often have unevenly distributed capabilities, being brilliant in their field of choice but below average on other measures of ability. Alternatively, they are considered to be so engrossed in their field of study that they forget their surroundings."

Maybe I’m overthinking it. I was also intensely curious in what things looked like under a microscope. It was a way to see what is invisible and what could possibly be cooler than that? Who wouldn’t want to see God if they could?

I worked long into the morning of Christmas Day and came down with an allergic reaction necessitating a hospital visit. So the mini-disaster.  That was the first and last day I got to use my chemistry set. My potential career as a scientist ended abruptly. 

But what makes me think of this is how they would never market a chem set to kids nowadays for threat of lawsuit. In fact, if the statute of limitations wasn’t up I could probably sue now and afford that vacation home in Hilton Head...hmmm....

We lived in a braver time, a seatbelt-less world of courage and fortitude free from the iron grip of lawyers. When I think of Ohio during the '60s and ‘70s I think of the unofficial motto of Miami University: "To think that in such a place, I led such a life”.... And lived to tell about it. 

Chesterton & Lincoln's Favorite Biblical Book

I heard the other day that GK Chesterton’s favorite biblical book was Job. As it was Abraham Lincoln’s.  So I picked it up again and read the last ten or so chapters. 

One of the chapters was Job thinking back on the good old days, and his self-depiction was remarkably similar to that of Jesus’s, i.e. he “delivered the poor who cried”, “caused the widow’s heart to sing for joy”, “was eyes to the blind and feet to the lame”, “father to the poor”, “my word dropped upon them like rain”, “my glory ever with me, and my bow ever new in my hand”.. Later, he said, he was persecuted and “spat upon” with his “reputation in shreds” due to his reversal of fortune. Sounds like Jesus’s public ministry followed by his crucifixion. 

But Job’s reaction to his fate was completely different than Christ's so that’s where the story is very different. Jesus did not complain to the Father of the injustice nor demand from Him an accounting for why the cup could not pass him by.  Obviously Jesus knew the book and I wonder if he thought “this is for me”.  Perhaps the book was mostly only for Him? And his mother? Because only they could say with certainty that they were as righteous and sinless as Job and that they would suffer unjustly but that they now - with the example of Job - could chart a different reaction. 

Anyway I read the ending in light of some of the really “hard cases”, as in impossible to fathom, like that of the killing of Alice Hochausler by the Cincy strangler. This is what a commentary says about Job’s repentance after God speaks: 

“His encounter with God's limitless power and wisdom has silenced his tongue and stilled the storms of his mind. Job has come to see (1) that God has ordered all things in the universe according to a divine wisdom that surpasses human understanding (42:3), (2) that God is not accountable to men or required to give an answer to their every demand (42:4), and (3) that wisdom consists, not in solving the riddle of suffering, but in humbling oneself before the Lord (42:6). • Be assured that whatever God ordains, even if its reason lies beyond us, is always the work of One who is wise. We should accept it, no matter how difficult it may be to endure, for God knows and appoints what is best for each of us (St. Basil, Letters 5, 2).”

There is a relief in knowing that you don’t have to know how, in St Basil’s words, how something like Alice’s death was what is in the end the best for us.