<![CDATA[Charlie Kirk]]><![CDATA[Domestic Terrorism]]><![CDATA[Gun Violence]]><![CDATA[Terrorism]]>Featured

Thursday’s Final Word – HotAir

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September 11, 2025
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Here's What We Know About the Shooter Who Killed Charlie Kirk – PJ Media

Closing the tabs …





Ed: Guy expresses what was wrenching my gut yesterday and today, too. This is an evil act that deprived two small children of a father and a loving wife of her husband. 

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Tom Knighton: Yet what happened to him is one of my greatest fears. I’ve always had a fear that something like this could happen to me. It’s not a paralyzing fear or anything, just a vague threat I feel in the back of my mind.

But then again, I was always trying to be reasonable. I’ve likely lost out professionally because of it, because being a firebrand yields so much more attention.

I did it because I thought it was right, that it was how we would ultimately make positive changes in this country.

Being reasonable, however, only works with reasonable people.

Ed: Same here. I’ve been pretty blessed in this career and don’t think I’ve missed out on much, but I do know that I could have cashed in on outrage. Charlie Kirk didn’t do that, either. He engaged people, tried to connect on a human level with his political opponents, and succeeded at it … which is why someone assassinated him. Charlie didn’t get killed because he was a firebrand (and he wasn’t); he got killed because he spoke his mind and encouraged others to do the same. 

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Ed: We are getting a very good look at the actual fascists among us — those who justify violence to shut down those who disagree with their views and policies. 

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Ashley McCulley at PJ Media: For as horrifying as 9/11 was in real-time, one of the most traumatizing and haunting events came the next day when the New York Times printed a photo of a man falling head-first, the iconic stripes of the World Trade Center towers behind him. Photographers know a photo of a single subject is more powerful than one of a crowd because it’s easier for a viewer to relate to one person. In the image now called “Falling Man,” we see one man who went to work one morning in his suit and tie, was probably sitting at his desk or maybe chatting up a coworker at the coffee pot over the Giants loss to the Broncos and, moments later, determined it was better for him to take his life because he was not going to be saved.

Falling Man was one of the countless others who intentionally fell to their death on September 11, 2001. We did not know that we would be confronted with their decision when we turned to page seven of the newspaper, but we were. We did not have a choice, and neither did the young people scrolling social media yesterday when they came face-to-screen with the close-up of Charlie Kirk’s assassination.

Ed: That didn’t occur to me at all, but Ashley is exactly correct. Falling Man connected us to the individual human tragedy taking place in a mass-terror attack. The scene when Charlie gets hit — which I have seen and would not recommend to others — does the same thing in a different way. It communicates the real horror of terrorism, just in a different context. 





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Ed: Still a great reminder of the lessons we should have learned. 

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Niall Ferguson at The Free Press: Over the past 24 years, I have valiantly tried to see 9/11 differently—not as a civilizational clash between Islam and “the West” but as something that fit better into my own secular frame of reference. Raised an atheist, trained as an economic historian, I felt obliged to look behind what I took to be the facade of religious zealotry.

A decade after the attacks, in a piece I wrote for The New York Times Magazine, I portrayed them as the product of four underlying historical trends. First, the spread of terrorism from the Middle East and Europe to the United States. Second, the post-2000 economic downturn, combined with widening inequality between nations and a coming oil shock, possibly compounded by a Saudi revolution akin to the one that overthrew the Shah in 1979. (I completely failed to foresee the shale oil revolution and bought into the “peak oil” myth). Third, the transition of American global power from informal to formal imperialism. And last, the fragmentation of the multicultural polity. (“Rather than anticipating a clash between monolithic civilizations, we should expect a continued process of political disintegration as religious and ethnic conflicts challenge the integrity of existing multicultural nation-states.”)





Missing in this—and in much of my work that followed—was Islam.

Ed: I did not know that Ferguson was married to Ayaan Hirsi Ali. His essay speaks to her wisdom and insight into the clash of civilizations between Islam and Christendom. I would only add that we see hopeful signs as well in more recent developments in the Abraham Accords, and in the diminishment of the Iranian theocracy. However, he’s spot on about the nature of this conflict and why “war on terrorism” is not an adequate label for it. 

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Tim Sumner at Townhall: Today marks 24 years since 9/11. A small cabal, led by Robert Mueller, of officials at the State Department, DOJ, and FBI of prior administrations kept the whole truth from the American people. 

The nation – Saudi Arabia – that aided and abetted the murder of 3,000 men, women, and children has not been held accountable. 

President Trump can now right that egregious wrong. 

Ed: Please be sure to read the whole essay. Tim did a lot of work in piecing this together, and has communicated some of the backstory to me as well. Also be sure to follow him on Twitter/X. It’s long past time for a full accounting for 9/11. 





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Ed: Maybe he was on CNN to discuss “cultural messages.” Good Lord. 

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WSJ: Peter Mandelson, the U.K. ambassador to Washington, was removed from his post Thursday after a trove of emails showed he continued to offer support to Jeffrey Epstein long after the disgraced financier was jailed for sex offenses.

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer asked Mandelson to step down in light of the emails, published this week by the Sun, a British newspaper, showing the ambassador’s relations with Epstein were “materially different from that known at the time of his appointment,” the U.K. Foreign Office said in a statement.

Pressure built after one report quoted an email Mandelson allegedly sent to Epstein in June 2008, the same month that Epstein pleaded guilty to one charge of soliciting prostitution from someone under the age of 18. According to the Sun, Mandelson wrote to Epstein, “I think the world of you and feel hopeless and furious about what has happened” and concluded, “Your friends stay with you and love you.”





Ed: Oopsie. I guess there are some hidden nuggets left in the Epstein files, although they seem more sourced from progressives than Trump and other conservatives. 

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Fox News: “Our condolences go out to his family and all of his loved ones. I am old enough to personally remember the political violence of the 1960s, and I hope it is obvious to everyone in America that political violence does not solve any of our political differences,” Colbert said.

“Political violence only leads to more political violence. And I pray with all my heart that this is the aberrant action of a madman and not a sign of things to come,” Colbert continued. …

“Instead of the angry finger-pointing, can we just for one day agree that it is horrible and monstrous to shoot another human?” Kimmel wrote on Instagram. “On behalf of my family, we send love to the Kirks and to all the children, parents and innocents who fall victim to senseless gun violence.”

Ed: Good for Colbert. One kudo to Kimmel too, but this was not “senseless gun violence.” It was a very intentional assassination for political motives, which Colbert recognizes even if Kimmel doesn’t — or refuses to admit. 





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Ed: Finally … a lighter and more normal moment in politics. This is what qualifies as a palate-cleanser this week. 

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