Note: There’s a fiction that everyone who was fired was, as a writer below puts it, “dancing on his (Charlie Kirk’s) grave.” But that is untrue.

This is what Suzanne Swierc posted on her PRIVATE Facebook page:

“If you think Charlie Kirk was a wonderful person, we can’t be friends.”

She lost her job.

“She Was Fired for a Comment on Her Private Facebook Account – A look at how one state has turbocharged the crackdown on anyone who has criticized Charlie Kirk after his death.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/us/charlie-kirk-free-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.p08.0y9U.dW-QpdWTqqT0&smid=url-share

As for the people who lost their jobs:

“A Broad Wave of Firings Followed Charlie Kirk’s Assassination – More than 145 people in a wide range of occupations have been fired or disciplined after they made statements about the assassination of Charlie Kirk.”

Free link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/26/us/kirk-critics-fired-free-speech.html?unlocked_article_code=1.p08.z4n1.B8NUT8asjUUx&smid=url-share

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Freedom of speech isn’t going public with your glee at a father and husband’s horrific assassination.  I wouldn’t want these assholes in my workplace.  If you have these kind of negative thoughts, talk to yourself.  Feel free to have that inner voice, no matter how toxic.

We don’t have to hear it.

Jonathan Gross

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the best charlie kirk eulogy

Charlie Kirk’s Legacy Deserves No Mourning

The white Christian nationalist provocateur wasn’t a promoter of civil discourse. He preached hate, bigotry, and division.

Elizabeth Spiers:

https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/charlie-kirk-assassination-maga/

Jeff Weicher

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” No one should be assassinated.”

Respectfully, I think Vladimir Putin should be assassinated. Preferably by a Russian (in Russia). But i’d settle for a Ukrainian (in Russia) with a clean shot.

Anyway other than that quibble I’m with you.

Brian Reiser

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Could you publish a list of these employers. Maybe some companies we could decide not to use?

Cam Combs

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Some fair points here but you also I think need to take into consideration the fact that when you’ve got people like school teachers and public employees that go online “grave dancing“ then employers have a right to judge that behavior in the context with which it was shared. There are definitely work standards that employers have, and if you choose to go online and make ghoulish, celebratory remarks about somebody’s death, yes, you have a right to do it, but others have a right to respond as well. It goes both ways.

Chris Epting

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Your acting like this is something new, a hundred ish people, nothing,

Try in the 10’s of thousands just in California alone in 2016, just to say you support Trump. I saw it at my workplace,

145 people, ha nothing

Julien Jorgensen

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fear based leadership (authoritarian light)

cause they don’t have the ideas or majority of the people

Coley

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Bob, your post really spoke to me. Not just because of the political nature of these recent firings, but also because of the economic one. Over the last two years, I’ve spoken with more than 2,500 people who’ve either been impacted by layoffs or work for companies that have done layoffs…I think what we’re seeing right now is politically charged but especially economically motivated. Employers, especially big corporations, are willing to part with long-time employees for almost any reasons…in some cases, they’re inventing reasons to do it then saying they justified it under the guise of A.I. It’s really unfortunately so many working and middle class people are being caught up in this era of greed, hypocrisy and cognitive dissonance, but I am trying to do my part with the work I’m doing.

Joah Spearman

Founder, TenYour

P.S. Here’s one of our customers, post-layoff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=43zVXwwV6dg

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Sadly you hit the bullseye once again, Bob.
This an’t the country I grew up in! Yeah, I’m old,
but I still believe in America and not this Amerika.
Infected by the creeping orange menace.
Keep up the good work, although the majority
do not want to hear truth or logic.
Thanks for the words

Jimmy Wachtel

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“You just ruined this person’s life. Maybe their family’s life. FOR EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH!”

Right. It’s called cancel culture. Who do you think started it?

John Naglick

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Uh, this has been going on for quite some time under leftist ideology there, Bob….Is this a joke?

Zdunski v. Erie 2-BOCES (2d Cir. 2023) — Public-school employee fired after refusing mandatory LGBTQ anti-bias training; court rejected his religious-discrimination claim.
Littler Mendelson P.C.

Snyder v. Arconic (8th Cir. 2024) — Factory worker fired after posting that the Pride rainbow was an “abomination to God” on company intranet; appeals court said the firing did not violate civil-rights law.

Vlaming v. West Point School Board (Va.) — HS teacher terminated in 2018 for declining a student’s pronouns; after Va. Supreme Court revived his claims, the district settled for $575,000 in 2024 and cleared his record.
Justia Law

Kluge v. Brownsburg Community School Corp. (7th Cir. 2025) — Music teacher who used last-names-only accommodation for religious reasons; appeals court revived his Title VII claim, sending it to a jury (post-Groff standard).

Meriwether v. Hartop (Shawnee State Univ.) (6th Cir. 2021; settlement 2022) — Professor disciplined over pronouns won key First-Amendment ruling and later a $400,000 settlement.

“No to DEI training” case (2024) — Employee fired for refusing unconscious-bias training; lawsuit dismissed and dismissal affirmed on appeal.

Shall I go on?

Todd Fernandez

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How jews can support anything the democrats do is f*cking bewildering…

Harv Glazer

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Bob,

It appears you are off the medication. Get back on them, stat!

Jason Gomperz

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It’s become infuriating. Have you been on X lately? It’s just mean spirited people using pronoun word salad like thy/them to sow division. It used to be informative and now it’s regurgitating talking points then people commenting using f bombs and hitler to make their point. No one is principled and standing up for the constitution or what makes us America; it’s all gotcha screaming at one another and bucketing people into 2 camps. Last but not least, if people really wanted to honor Charlie Kirk, the one thing I agreed w him on was love civil discourse. Screaming at each other online w no desire to listen or learn is a waste of time. We can’t go on like this.

Mark Burrell

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It’s called white supremacy, Bob – a centuries-old project run by the ruling class to strip ancestral identity from poor (and now middle-class) European Americans, give us elevated socioeconomic status, and galvanize us as a unified front against the Black, Brown, and Indigenous human beings from whom they extract labor and resources.

CK was a mouthpiece for white supremacy. And now he’s a martyr for it.

That’s the kind of f*cked-up world we’re living in.

Shawn Madden

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amen, brother!

Doug Van Pelt

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It’s cancel culture x 10, with a dose of cruelty added in

Mike Renault

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Last year, while I was working at a corporate music company, one of the department heads walked into a meeting with a “Free Palestine” sticker prominently displayed on a company-issued MacBook—in a room with more than its share of colleagues of the Jewish faith. Exercising their right to free speech. No one said a word.

Then I thought: what if someone had walked in wearing a MAGA hat?

We both know that would’ve been a very different outcome. Freedom of speech in the workplace isn’t absolute—it’s filtered through company culture, peer dynamics, and public perception.

Timothy J. Smith

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This is the same society who tried to make a hero out of a 5 time felon.  Floyd didn’t deserve to die under police supervision and neither did Kirk, but neither were heroes.  Yet people lost their livelihoods in both cases just for stating an opinion.   Something is not right.

Tim W
in Calgary

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How many gov employees lost their job for not wanting to take a vaccine…

Marc Baxter

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Mr.Charlie Kirk preached hate for others who didn’t align with his thinking ~

Thats enough to make me turn away ~

R. Singer

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Freedom of speech doesn’t preclude consequences to that speech

Celebrating a murder is cause for banishment from polite society

Tim Endres

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Thank you for taking a stance here!

I grew up in West Germany and i start to get the distinct feeling that we are getting closer to the East german Days where you had to keep your mouth shut or else.

i am a green card holder and i am already self censoring in the land of the free…

yeah right

christian petke

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They are free to exercise their rights and employers are free to exercise their rights to employment people who represent them in a positive manner. Freedom of speech does not mean freedom from consequences. How about don’t pee on someone’s grave the day after they were publicly executed. You do that and you’re a bad person and you get what you deserve. It’s good that they are self identifying so the good people can stay away from them.

Chip Hines

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This is no different than when people were forced to be vaccinated during Covid. No proof of vaccination, no entrance. No vaccination, you are discharged from the military. Refuse to use someone’s pronouns, you’re labeled homophobic.

Shoes on the other foot now and it doesn’t feel good does it.

Dennis Paulik

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So glad to see this post in recognition of what people go through.

Free speech is today’s news. What about the 300,000 federal workers who have been laid off or fired in this administration supposedly in the name of efficiency. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/27/us/federal-workers-trump-layoffs.html

This president is a job killer.

Britt Benston

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You are correct Bob; what kind of f-upped world do we live in when mobs rule.

You rail against the mob on the right. You ignore the mob on the left. Remember, the mob on the left started “cancel culture.” In fact, I would posit that the far left progressives started the whole “mob culture” that we endure today.

But hey, I’m just a guy who tries to see the world in all its shades of grey.

Matt Grandi

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What is so outrageous, uncomprehensible, unprecedented, and shocking is how America could after 250 years as the apex global example of a government dependent on a majority of “we the people” laws and freedoms (especially of speech) be so easily hijacked and tyrannized by a convicted felon and sexual assaulter, pathological liar, and unapologetic egomaniac, and his supporters.

Alan Segal

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Your culpable.  You are so blindingly biased.   It is such a shame.

Kevin Patrick Connors

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Welcome to our world.  All those attacked for questioning the jab.  Jobs lost was just the tip of the iceberg.  So t forget Jimmy’s “joke”, “sorry Wheezie,  o medical care for you”.

I’d like to see your email box now.

Woke cancel culture coming home to roost.

Unfortunately what was once teachable moments are becoming crimes.  Bring on the digital ID.

Ed Kelly

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The snitch culture that Republicans have created has more in common with Pinochet’s Chile, the glory days of the Stasi or Saddam Hussein’s Baath party than the whole Spirit of America/small government/rugged individual ethos they are so fond of preaching about out of the other side of their mouths.

Vince Welsh

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I’m not afraid Bob-
I don’t say stupid things at the workplace or online. That’s the difference you are missing. I don’t dance on graves or wish Ill will. I can control my emotions and do not need to broadcast them to an echo chamber of hate online that will be yesterday’s news before yesterday is even yesterday.  You can make mistakes – we are human. You are correct on that. Why make your hateful opinion online for all to see then wonder why you lost your job? Why make that post? That is the difference – it’s undisciplined and selfish to broadcast that over the social media platform and bot expect a backlash. Have some self control! Maybe people will start thinking twice when something bad happens.

Tony DeStefano

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hey bob,up in canada we can still speak the truth.charlie kirk was a straight up racist,sexist,hate monger.i am a pacifist so obviously don’t condone murder but to memorialize this guy is just insane.sorry to see where the u.s. is heading.i’ve got a gig across the border in washington state but i’m gonna pass.don’t want to deal with u.s. border nazis.nik tee

Nick Tatroff

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Hmm,  it’s a little like leftist people writing off family members, ending friendships or kicking people out of restaurants and stores just because they’re a Trump fan.   Shoe hurts a little when it’s on the other foot, eh?

I didn’t like Obama, but no way would I ever be jumping for joy if he got assassinated.  And I would worry about the character of any person who would.

You write: “They’re coming for you if you’re not like them, if you say anything in contradiction of their agenda.”  Bob, that’s the EXACT playbook leftwingers were following when Biden was in office, and Obama before him, and many are still following it.  They figured they’d be in charge from now till eternity, so they could have anything they wanted.  But now the other side is in power and they’re suddenly frothing at the mouth, unable to deal with it.

We’re supposed to talk to each other, not fight with each other.  Social media is ruining this country.  That’s it.  We need to figure that puzzle out and just talk to each other without shooting.

Mike Blakesley

One would think it’s so unhinged and laughably hypocritical that a rational populace would see through the BS propaganda.  I can’t help but think that with over 50% of the country reading at or below a 6th grade level we are reaping what we’ve sown.

Kirby Hammel

Bob I think you have convenient amnesia, it was the Left who started this with “cancel culture”!! You had no problem when it was conservative comics and people losing their jobs and being censored on Twitter. But now it is the end of the world cause it’s liberals losing their jobs for saying very hateful things. I though you Bob and the Left were against hate, ah I guess it’s just when it affects your side that it is OK.  Not a good take at all Bob!!

Doug Gillis

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That was an excellent one. I have no idea where we go from here and it sounds like you don’t either.

Rik Shafer

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It’s hard to believe that all these snowflakes on the right don’t see their own hypocrisy. How can you whine for years about cancel culture and then want to see everyone fired who doesn’t glorify Charlie Kirk, a blatantly white supremacist, misogynist hater? Shame on every employer who’s gone down this route. It stinks of Nazi Germany. In its early years, if you didn’t salute when the brown shirts sang the Horst Wessel song (glorifying a fascist thug killed in a street battle with communists) they beat you up, or worse. Later it was concentration camps, torture, murder.

I’m proud of you for telling it like it is, Bob.

Thanks,

Ross Eisenbrey

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Bob – Lifelong democrat here, usually agree with you but what you said regarding those openly celebrating the assassination of a public figure is completely disingenuous. First, they got fired for openly celebrating his death online in really vile ways (made me ashamed to be a democrat honestly), and while that is protected under free speech, a private company may feel that this kind of abhorrent behavior doesn’t fit their corporate culture; which is entirely fair. I would definitely fire someone who did that regardless of who was assassinated because it makes me as an employer look bad!

As for the January 6’rs that’s an entirely separate debate and we can’t conflate the two, very different arguments and circumstances.

Kind regards,

Mikael Johnston
Mephisto Odyssey

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All i can say about this is you reap what you sow. The left set this as the standard a decade ago and are now being held to it. Welcome to the receiving end of cancel culture. I believe there are thousands of articles and books written by the left on why its a good thing.

Brendon Wood

I’d like to take this opportunity again to remind everyone that this is all a distraction from what’s happened to our country. The rich have gotten richer, the poor have gotten poorer and the middle class has evaporated. One side is actively trying to dismantle this end stage capitalism while the other thinks the enemy is a trans person who dyes their hair and has nose rings. That’s all.

Just Danny Jay

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Thank you Bob.

Yes, it’s hard to fathom what’s happened to our country since Trump was re-elected. And if we don’t vote like our democracy demands we do, we will lose it.

Trump’s not sending the National Guard and Marines into cities because of violence in these cities. And he’s sure not doing it because he thinks he’s “winning.” These are “trial balloons” that he’s using so when the GOP loses the upcoming midterms, he will say the election was rigged against him and therefore disallow the results. But by then, he’ll have more experience in sending troops into cities to quell any uprisings that will occur because people will be out and protesting.

Where’s the guardrails today? The GOP Congress and Senate are completely in the tank for Trump. Certainly not the Supreme Court, which seems to vote in favor of what ever Trump wants. Our Constitution will need to be seriously amended and/or rewritten as we can’t allow any future person to claim to have the authority Trump is abusing now.

More than ever, voting is not just our right, it’s our duty. Let’s not waste it!

Robby Scharf
Beverly Hills, CA

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I’m with you 100%. This is how dictators and authoritarian governments work. They create a culture of fear. And wait until the king declares martial law….

Carl Nelson

Woodstock, MD

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Right on Bob.

At the same time he’s bestowing national honors on make-believe martyrs, and his followers are meting out his master’s punishments on ordinary people, Trump’s blaming and demonizing the “left” with gleeful hatred and whipping everyone up into a frenzy.

Meanwhile, he is building up his own troops so they’re ready to go the minute he says they have to fight a war in all our major cities (he’s already using language to get us used to the idea by saying there’s a war in Portland right now).

He will then declare a state of emergency and cancel the 2028 elections. He hinted he would do this over chuckles with Zelensky (who did so in Ukraine as Russian bombs we’re landing) as they sat together in the oval in front of Trump’s Russia-envying gold wall adornments. Only, he’s not kidding.

In the final act, every Republican governor will rubber stamp what Trump wants and boom, no more democracy. No more beautiful America. My wondrous and inspiring country that I love so much will be dead forever.

It’s over Johnny.

Paul Gigante

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Yep.

Once again you indulge yourself in this peculiar form of cultural and political amnesia.  Akin to an hallucination.  You have blue-pilled yourself into a fatal form of delirium.  Like a fever that never breaks.

EVERYTHING you just said — E V E R Y T H I N G — EXACTLY maps to the years 2020-2024.  Bingo my friend.

So, well, as my mother used to say,  Tough Nuggies.  Suck it up straw man.

andy lavalle

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Shoe’s on the other foot now. It’s beautiful to see!

John Frye

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you are joking, right?

the left invented cancel culture bob

Ira Transport

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“If you storm the capitol you get pardoned? Jesus Christ, you are dishonest.

600 of the J6 rioters had already been convicted or pled guilty to some charge. The pardons were not an effort to evade responsibility for whatever law was broken, but to end the persecution from the Biden admin. They paid a price. There were 14 commutations of sentences where people were in JAIL…they were let out.

The people who got fired were fired by private citizens. That’s what happens when you speak out…there’s always a price for it…you have to b e willing to pay. And if you think killing Charlie Kirk was ok, why did you want to work for or with someone who loved him?

Thanks,

Bob Sheehan

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Let me fix one of your sentences:

“It’s not only racism that’s going to make you lose your job, but opining on the death of a racist.”

With all the hero worship going on, isn’t it telling that we haven’t seen a Kirk tribute about the man and his words – you know, like those produced in honor of people like JFK or MLK?

Obviously, many on the right feel Kirk is deserving – and yet compiling and playing back Kirk’s own words would likely be viewed by those same people as disrespectful. About whom else deserving of such a tribute can one say that?

George Wood

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Dude, are you serious? Yes, you lose your JOB!!  If you had an employee openly and gleefully celebrating the assassination of a human being, and you just sit back and claim, “oh, it’s their right under the first amendment, yadda, yadda, yadda,” then you are part of the problem. None of these people were required to be on the “Charlie Kirk was a hero train”. These were disgusting evil people.  You don’t have to like the guy, but to throw an online party when a father and husband was brutally murdered is showing some pretty nasty colors. I’m wondering if you’d have the same attitude if you had an employee that exhibited their absolute excitement in the social media strastophere that the world was better off with 1200 less Jewish people after October 7, 2023. I’m guessing no. Thankfully, unlike you, organizations have morals, standards and guidelines that employees are expected to adhere to. I don’t want those types of people teaching our children. I don’t want those types of people anesthetizing me during surgery. You can have them all to yourself.

Alex Novielli

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You still don’t understand; this is a game of taking scalps. “You make me cry, I make you cry.” “You get me fired, I get you fired.” You don’t get to cry about about the other side being better at a game that you and your party invented. If you had any balls you would have yelled about “cancel culture” when your side invented it a few years back. Remember when everyone had to bow at the altar of “Me Too” or “BLM”? Two movements that have now been objectively shown as being nothing more than capricious cash grabs. No, you have to sit back and take this. The rules were thrown out on September 10th when an individual on your side of the political aisle shot a man in his neck and we witnessed scumbags dancing on his grave. And don’t twist this into some 1st Amendment issue. You have every right to say what you want to say without fear of reprisal from the government; however I’m free to completely disassociate with anyone who sadistically cheers when a Husband and Father gets viciously murdered. No tears shed and no quarter given to low lives who condone and celebrate murder. If you feel so badly about it Bob please feel free to hire them to work for you.

Frank Costanza

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Yep.  You must weep and wail and beat your breast and gnash your teeth, but it may not be enough to satisfy the buzzing wasp nest…
They put the flags at half mast so apparently he was some kind of hero, just like the soldiers who fired down on unarmed women and children at Wounded Knee.  The heroes must keep their medals, Hegaeth said.  There’s no rewriting history, they say.  Just cover your heart and recite the pledge and hope they don’t come take you away.

Geronimo Son

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What kind of F’d up world does the POTUS preemptively pardons staff members, guilty of covid crimes, as he’s leaving office on his way to a dementia nursing home.

 

From the most recent video evidence, it doesn’t look like the patsy Tyler Robinson killed saint Charlie. It was an intelligence organization, either US or foreign. He was too effective not to off and stepped too far out of his lane in the eyes of the supreme leaders, talking about ending the Israeli war funding, Epstein files, questioning the avant-garde DEI ideology, among other contentious issues. No one is too sacred not to off when billions are involved.

 

Obama and Clinton deported way more non-citizens than Trump has even come close to. It was a corner stone of both their administrations. Trumps methods are too heavy handed, but it’s the same red line.

 

In general, leaders want citizens to be distracted with low priorities that inflame their ire, like immigration, while they run off with the bag.

 

We saw this with Cheney and Rumsfeld’s war in the middle east when they earned trillions through war profiteering.

 

We saw it during the subprime mortgage crisis when Banks and Financial institutions got bailed out to make trillions.

 

The Ukraine war profiteering.

 

Israeli’s Gaza war profiteering.

 

DOGE uncovered the corrupt NGOs funneling billions into nefarious programs and personal accounts.

 

Tack on Trump and Melania’s meme coins. All of crypto, depending on how one views that unregulated, nebulous world.

 

My advice is: Focus on improving your city and state, not on the charade of political distractions.

 

Writing about the Left or Right’s extreme ideology doesn’t encourage anyone to do anything but shake their head and dig their heels in.

 

I remain an Independent, because both sides have lost the script.  But in the final stages of empire, as Ray Dalio inculcates, this is inevitable.

 

I create and lead by example, that’s how I make a difference.  You’re just whining.

 

Best,

Alan Matkovic

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I’ve been a loyal follower of yours for years and always enjoy your commentary. Whether I agree or disagree, it’s always good to explore different opinions and you consistently make me think.

I see this differently. The First Amendment protects us from government limits on speech, but it does not stop a private employer from setting standards and taking action when an employee’s public comments hurt the company’s reputation. That is not government censorship.

It is also not the same as a Capitol rioter getting a pardon. Hundreds of people who stormed the Capitol have been prosecuted and sentenced. A few high-profile pardons do not erase that.

Public backlash online is not Soviet-style repression. People are using their own right to free expression when they call out something offensive. Employers can then decide whether that speech conflicts with their values.

Losing a job is serious, but there are legal protections such as unemployment benefits and, when appropriate, wrongful termination claims. People do rebuild careers after controversy.

Most of the high-profile firings have involved speech or actions that clearly broke a code of conduct, often things like racism or harassment. And many people who make a public mistake apologize and eventually move forward.

So I see a big difference between private accountability and government suppression of speech. We can and should debate how employers respond, but calling it creeping authoritarianism is a stretch.

Hope this helps add to the conversation. This kind of discourse is exactly what Charlie would have wanted.

Keep the hits coming, we can take it.

Concerned Citizen

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You are correct on all counts, Bob. It’s become a sh*t show and it’s going to get worse. If anyone gets shot and killed by a left-leaning zealot this is all this administration needs to activate the apparatus to declare martial law and go after anyone who protests. They’ve already done it and they’re doing it now. The man in the oval office is of questionable mental health, and so is the MAGA right. You have every reason to fear speaking out because that’s who they’ll go after. Who wants to place a target on their own back and for what? Speaking truth they don’t believe anyway?

Just like they did with the so called ‘Communists’ in the McCarthy era, and just like they villified Jews in Nazi Germany. Innocent people who only mean well and want what’s best for the greater good are the ones they will go after, if for no other reason that they threaten the status quo. This is how dictatorships work. Can it be stopped? I don’t know how, they elected this guy and he’s stacked the courts and government with his supporters and if anyone objects they get fired and another sycophant is hired. It’s complete insanity. Do you think Trump’s going to leave office in 2028? Hell no! They are already setting the stage for making sure he isn’t going anywhere. There are a lot of rich powerful people behind this. He who holds the gold makes the rules!

If people protest in large enough numbers I suppose it could make a difference but what happens when Trump and the MAGA machine use the National Guard and ICE to round up the protestors? It’s astonishing to me we’ve reached this point but we have and each day it appears to be getting worse.

When people like Charlie Kirk are made into national heroes for spewing the terrible things he said, well… I think that says it all.

There’s a documentary out there by Errol Morris called AMERICAN DHARMA. In it, Steve Bannon is interviewed where he talks about creating a civil war. It’s a scary watch because everything in it is coming true. God help us all.

Mark Curran – Los Angeles, CA

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I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I do watch and look carefully at things aware of minute details many miss. I felt something was strange and now believe the Kirk killing was a planned hit job. I know you will think I’m nuts, but there it is. Before reading anything or looking at any particular videos showing the things that are suspicious, I felt like there was something way off, that didn’t make sense. Looking at evidence, even with the additional admittance from the FBI, there are a lot of things off.

Melissa Ward

____________________________________

Bob,

Charlie may have been all those nasty things people say he was, but he was killed by fellas of NAFO who saw him as on obstacle to their campaign to unite the right behind Ukraine, because he was against our nation’s proxy war on 110 million Russian Orthodox Christians. And because both wars started with support from Democrats, he also didn’t stand for the rainbow values globalists were pushing East. F*cking bastards on Fox, CNN, MSNBC, NewsNation, NEWSMAX, or any major media network or government office or agency will  NEVER utter that fact. It’s what the narrative Kash Patel hand-delivered to the scene on the spot was trying to avoid. It’s what spooked Trump’s reversals. Netanyahu was just a decoy. There is too much money in THIS war to let it go, even if Black Rock wrote off its monstrous share last year. At present those forces are seeking to take Charlie’s movement over. Pray they fail. We need a peacemonger in his place, someone NOT subject to foreign policy whims or manipulations.  That’s where the social-engineering battle for the next era is right now.

Do the research Mr. Newsletter Man and get back to us!

I am in good health and not depressed or distressed. If anything happens to me, wake the dead and rattle the living.

Ken Shain

____________________________________

After a business partner lied to me and my employer for two years, I texted them, “you are dead to me.” While this was a popular figure of speech at the time, the partner claimed, without evidence, that I was “threatening them with violence.”

The phrase “dead to me” is obviously an idiom used to express extreme rejection and the end of a relationship, signifying that the person no longer exists to the speaker on an emotional level. For normal human interaction, it is not typically considered a literal threat. However, workplace policies often prohibit language that can be perceived as threatening or intimidating. Abusive language, especially when combined with aggressive or intimidating conduct, can be grounds for dismissal. That was not the case at all here. In fact, I was a great partner and an exemplary employee with numerous internal awards reflecting that fact. 

The company knew who I was and that this behavior was far out of character for me. Something terrible must have caused this reaction, no?

I admit it was a mistake to put my feelings in writing. However, the message was also a test of my company’s loyalty to me. They, too, had lost confidence in this partner due to their dishonesty. I had already planned to leave my job, but I was curious to see if my employer would support me. So, I sent the text knowing where this might lead, but also feeling this would just end my involvement with this particular partner and everyone would move on.

They did not. The company sided with the partner, and I was fired for what I considered “silly speech,” but any company would say is “for cause.” My frustration lies in the fact that my direct, albeit colloquial, communication was deemed unacceptable, while more subtle, “metaphorical” backstabbing is often tolerated in corporate America. This experience highlighted for me a disconnect in corporate culture, where loyalty is not always reciprocated, and the interpretation of communication can be weaponized.

The Orange Despot and his fascist regime wants the rest of America to act like a corporation with him as CEO. Any American can be “fired for cause.” Probably might lead to revoking citizenship, or certainly societal ostracizing.

Oh! Don’t worry about me! I re-invented myself and am 1000% happier for doing it. I was right and in this particular instance, it was good I lost that job. It set me on a better path, but also, I was prepared for the consequences, even if I didn’t think it would come to the eventual outcome. But it taught me a lesson about free speech in the professional class. It’s only free, if you pay for it.

Christian Swain
CEO Pantheon Media

What kind of crazy f*cked up world do we live in where if you storm the Capitol you get pardoned, but if you say you’re not on the Charlie Kirk was a hero train you’re a pariah and lose your job?

145 people have lost their jobs so far for posts that…are nowhere near as negative and outrageous as you might think. I’ll let you do the research.

You lose your JOB???

Mail carriers lose their gigs and they shoot up the office, ergo the term “going postal.”

Happens all the time, you fire someone and there are consequences in the workplace

That’s how valuable a job is. People identify with their job. Never mind earning a living!

So now you’re busted down to zero. On unemployment, if you’re lucky. And then welfare. And you’re radioactive, good luck getting another job in your field. That’s right, they’re not going after low level service workers, but someone working higher up in the corporation, in education, for a local or state government.

You just ruined this person’s life. Maybe their family’s life. FOR EXERCISING THEIR RIGHT OF FREE SPEECH!

And it’s not like the people firing them are big Trumpers, they’re just afraid of the mob. They don’t want to get caught in the crossfire, they don’t want to lose their job, they don’t want their company boycotted.

And it ain’t hard to get someone fired. It’s not like there were big debates, court hearings, no…you were gone, just like that.

As for the individual… Good luck. Like those people SOL after the tornado in St. Louis. It might be sunny and warm where you are, the buildings might still be standing, but if a natural disaster arrives…good luck getting FEMA to come, or having your state do the job FEMA used to do.

So let me get this straight… You make a comment, usually somewhere online, and then…

Someone reports you.

Yes, there are people out there looking for what they consider faux pas. And then they amplify them. Tell me how this is different from people turning in others in Soviet Russia. Huh?

People are afraid. Of  ICE, of the online police.

I’m not even going to delve into the right’s cry of free speech when Biden was in office… All I’m going to say is you’d better shut the f*ck up and toe the line. You’d better not say the wrong thing.

And if we’re creating heroes, people to emulate…

It’s not only the rank and file, even the damn “New York Times” has bent over backward in adulation of Charlie Kirk. It was a tragedy he was shot. No one should be assassinated. As for fomenting conversation on campuses, different points of view, have you delved into the actual conversations when he was at schools? You could ask your question, that didn’t mean that Kirk took you seriously and addressed it. As for Kirk’s opinions… Better not be a minority, better be a Stepford wife.

But the left has been somnambulant here. THANK GOD IT WASN’T ME! That’s the America we now live in, you got caught in the maelstrom? The vagaries of life got you down? TOUGH NOOGIES!

Let’s cut back the welfare state… God, you’d think everybody on welfare was driving around in a BMW, eating at sushi bars and living the life of Riley. No, take away that damn money and GET A JOB!

As for health costs… Why in the hell did you get sick to begin with? You’re ignorant, you didn’t eat the right stuff, it’s your fault.

That’s the country we now live in, strict liability for all of your actions. If you’re waiting for society to give you a hand, GOOD LUCK!

And who are these people so upset about those who don’t share their feelings about Charlie Kirk that they find you and cause you to lose your job? I mean what kind of “Christian” person does this?

Creeping authoritarianism… People stood up for Kimmel, because they had a way to vote with their wallets. But not everything is monetary, not everything can be addressed so easily.

They’re coming for you if you’re not like them, if you say anything in contradiction of their agenda. And it’s not like they’re hiding it, they’re saying it, the mob wants you to to comply.

But you’re supposed to believe in the system. Let’s say you’re fired… Do you have the money and time to challenge said loss of job in the courts? In a nation where so many live from paycheck to paycheck?

So some woman named Amy lost her sh*t in Central Park and called the police on a Black birdwatcher and lost her job.

That seemed rational to many. Racial remarks are the third rail.

Then again, is that the world we now live in? One strike and you’re out? No chance of rehabilitation?

I mean if you don’t make mistakes, you’re not human.

And one can learn from one’s mistakes. That’s growth.

But it’s now a slippery slope. It’s not only racism that’s going to make you lose your job, but opining on the death of someone. Not an elected official, not the husband of an elected official, not schoolchildren, but a self-styled politico who has been deemed a hero of the right.

Yes, for all the peace…

Hell, now I’m worried about my words. I’m worried about the mob. I don’t even want to say anything that is not aligned with the national credo that Charlie Kirk was an icon, a hero, a man to be held up and emulated for all time.

Do I agree with that… Do you agree with that…

If someone worships a different God from you… Hell, that’s okay with me.

If someone likes the Mets instead of the Yankees…

But when it comes to political views…some of the people uttering them are sacrosanct. Is this the country we now live in? Is this the country we want to live in? One in which most people didn’t even know who Charlie Kirk was before he was unjustly assassinated by a delusional lone gunman?

You made Tyler Robinson shoot saint Charlie. It’s your fault. All of you people on the left. And if you don’t bow your head and utter a mea culpa.

You’re culpable.

That’s the nation we now live in. 

He didn’t want to repeat himself.

I know people my age who are doing the exact same thing in the music business they were doing forty years ago, the only thing that’s changed is the names. The acts come and go, they remain. Paid well, but isn’t it soul-crushing?

Speaking of soul-crushing… What is it like to be a grown man and have to hit the stage year after year and sing songs you wrote forty years ago? That’s what the audience might want, but it’s got to be depressing. Ultimately you’re doing it for the money and the adulation. Those aren’t nothing, bur are they enough?

Not for Robert Crumb.

This book got phenomenal reviews. But it took a long time to hook me. I ultimately figured out why, it was the art analysis. The writer is from the world of art, and just writing Crumb’s story was not enough, he had to analyze the comics and…it takes a very special person to be able to make this interesting, even live. That’s actually why I became an art history major, because of the professors. They were ENTERTAINING! I went to college because I was supposed to, I wasn’t interested in ANYTHING they were teaching, not a single thing. As for English…they didn’t want to hear my opinion, they wanted us to analyze historical takes…WHO CARES! But in the art history lectures the professor would talk about a great ice cream place around the corner from the museum and I found my mind never drifted, which it did in seemingly every other class.

Not that I’m a visual person, which is kind of funny. I can read an entire newspaper and not remember a single ad…I’m a word person. But the artistic sensibility? That’s what I learned in college.

And it’s different from a commercial sensibility.

Everybody in music wants to make it, become a brand.

That was never Crumb’s goal. He didn’t enforce his rights on merchandise and he’d rather own his work than cave to a publisher. It has to be pure, and honest, and when it isn’t…

So I never read Crumb’s comics. NEVER! I’m not a comics person. Never read the superhero work… Sure, I read some “Archie,” but once I grew up, no way. I respected what Crumb did, of course I read a strip here or there, but it’s just not my thing.

But my sister went to college with Justin Green’s brother and we were in San Francisco and he took us over to Crumb’s apartment and…what do you say to a famous artist?

At that point, 1973, Crumb was into music. Old time music. Which I knew from the music press. I didn’t know the tunes. But in the silence I picked up a spare guitar and started playing early sixties hits like “Boys” and Robert played right along. My sister’s buddy Keith couldn’t believe it, he wanted me to shut up and fade into the woodwork, but Crumb and I got along famously, even played “Gloria”…G-L-O-R-I-A!

Would Crumb remember?

I doubt it.

Have I ever seen him again? I don’t even reach out to rock stars who give me their contact info…what am I going to say? I’m too nervous.

But as a result of this experience, I’ve followed Crumb’s career and I went to see the movie thirty years ago which I could never forget, nobody could. Crumb had moved to France by that time and…let’s put it this way, underground comics had a moment and it’s never returned.

Speaking of that moment…

After it was over, after Crumb got divorced, he had NOTHING! He was broke, not even a car.

And he was not living in the Bay Area anymore, nowhere near the coast, but closer to Sacramento. He never stopped working, but he also didn’t feel like a has-been.

Now if you’re a musician and reach the peak and then fall to the bottom you’re anything but bright and sunny. You’re depressed. Everywhere you go people ask you what happened. You ultimately stay home, until you face the facts and get a day job where you’re hassled for who you used to be.

But Crumb is making music, which he quits when the band wants to take it too seriously.

Crumb wasn’t afraid of riches and fame, they’re just not what he needed. They weren’t the goal.

And Crumb knew who he was. A nerd. And when he became famous and women came on to him…

He took advantage.

But then he started to make comics about his sexual predilections. Was he sexist? Yes, he had to be hipped to the fact. But also, as years went by, he continued to reveal all his fantasies, he was honest in a way only artists can be…

And he never fit in.

And he was always alienated. AND KNEW IT!

Even when he was famous he’d take the bus hours to San Francisco. He had none of the trappings, despite being so revered.

And the work had to be pure. He turned down so many options, especially after Ralph Bakshi made the film of “Fritz the Cat.” If you weren’t going to get it right, he didn’t want to be involved.

And he’d had enough of fame. He turned down an invitation to appear with his band on SNL. Turned down Letterman too, even though his compatriot, Harvey Pekar, who he drew for, was a staple on the show and built a whole career around his appearances.

Now Crumb did not live a normal life.

He did not have a normal family.

Then again, who does?

Man, we were hit, abused by today’s standards, back in the fifties and sixties.

His father was from the military, his mother was overwhelmed. Robert got out, he escaped the family drama, he was lucky, not everybody was.

And he didn’t get into comics to make a buck, he was into it from a very young age, it was his passion. And no one had to teach him how to do it. College was unnecessary. His talent was innate, but he worked on it.

And he didn’t do what was expedient. He didn’t want to paint and be a member of the fine art world…he thought both the artists and buyers were phony.

Sounds a little like Holden Caulfield, but Crumb was always up for a good time. And he was led by women. He’d jump from one to another, had multiple women at the same time, they took the edge off, they took care of him.

And he made those with less confidence feel beautiful.

Now I’m not going to recommend you read this book. Because it’s long and at times dry and I thought about quitting once or twice myself.

But then I started to see myself in it.

There are all these questions…

Do you do what is expected of you?

Do you do what’s expedient?

Do you do it for the money?

And everybody else can’t understand your choices. Because they’re part of the flow and you’re sitting on the riverbank, outside. There are threads between you, but always a distance, always a distance.

So when I finished the book earlier today I was in a stupor. I stared off into the distance. I tried to evaluate my mood.

I felt a stronger connection reading this book than hanging with most people. So is that what I should do, just sit home and read books?

And Crumb got a ton of negative feedback, and was not always commercially successful in his enterprises, but he kept marching forward, for himself!

It’s hard when everybody tells you to go back to doing what you always did, the famous stuff, but that’s death inside, you can’t do that.

And then Crumb saying he was dying to work but was out of ideas.

Happens to me, I’m eager to write, but I don’t have anything I’m dying to say.

It’s a lonely journey, then again, Crumb always needed his alone time. Me too, I can’t party every day, even be with people every day, I’ve got to retreat and reorganize, metabolize and evaluate.

We’re all looking to be known, and I felt known reading this book.

A little.

https://www.skirball.org/programs/dinner-party-animal-recipes-make-every-day-celebration

This is why I live in L.A.

People ask me if I’m moving to Colorado. NEVER! I love to ski, but year-round? Not for me. I’ve lived in small communities…everybody knows your name and has a preconception of your identity and…I’d rather be anonymous at the supermarket.

Now in the old days, before cable TV and FedEx, never mind the internet and Amazon, if you lived in the hinterlands…you might not be completely off the grid, but you could be a day or two or three behind, might even miss things completely. But today? The people in so-called flyover country are just as informed, just as hip as those on the coasts.

But they don’t have the same cultural options.

Growing up in the suburbs I never thought I’d live in a city. We lived fifty miles from New York and went in frequently, but I had no desire to be there full time. As a matter of fact, I could have gone to college there, but that meant I wouldn’t be able to ski as frequently…

But New York is completely different from Los Angeles. In New York, on the east coast, everybody’s on top of each other, there’s a constant jockeying for position, people letting you know they’re smarter or richer or more pedigreed than you are. Los Angeles? It’s a free-flowing society where where you went to college is irrelevant, and everybody is making it up as they go, and I love that!

Also, it’s a giant suburb. Yes, the traffic is terrible and real estate prices are stratospheric, but if you compare it to Manhattan… No one owns this much property in Manhattan, where buildings spread vertically as opposed to horizontally, where you have common walls, where you’re on top of each other, whereas in Los Angeles you have room to move. You can own a car…then again, I wish we had a subway like New York, it would be great to be able to pop downtown to the Crypt or to Inglewood and the Forum on a train instead of being gridlocked in traffic, but that’s the price you pay. At least every act comes through Los Angeles!

That’s another reason I live in L.A. Everybody in the music business has to come through at least once a year.

And there are the restaurants and ready access to anything you want to buy and…

Of course, the weather, but I’d live here even if it got cold and rained.

One of the great things about L.A. is the cultural advantages.

Now in Colorado, they have many more events than they used to, a veritable plethora, I’ve seen household names at the Vilar in Beaver Creek, but…not everybody comes through, and the left field events like Dinner Party Animal don’t happen.

Felice saw a listing and bought tickets. 4 PM on a Sunday afternoon. Who has plans then? Sunday is a slow day, so okay.

So I was stunned at the number of people in attendance, I was trying to find out the exact hook to bring hundreds of people to the Skirball, which is just around the corner from where we live, with free parking and everything.

And they hit the stage and…

You don’t have to be Jewish to love Levy’s, but if you are…

Well, actually if you are, you know there are much better places to buy rye bread, but…

We keep hearing we live in a Christian nation. As if homogenization is the goal. But it is our various tribes, the melting pot, that makes America great, all the different flavors. And being Jewish…

There was immediately a remark about the constant talking… These are my people!

I’m not saying you need to care, but it feels good to be in the pocket, amongst your cohort.

So what we had here were three roommates and a TV producer. Three guys and a girl. And one of the guys wrote a cookbook, “Dinner Party Animal.” So I guess this was kind of a launch…

When Felice first told me about the event I thought it would be cooking and eating. Then I thought it would be a cooking demonstration. Ultimately, it was four Jews riffing. As if you were at their house.

It made me envious. I wanted to be involved.

And I could see the attraction to non-Jews, and why Jews do so well in the arts.

You see we’ve been persecuted for years. And we know we’re tarred. But that does not mean we don’t have our rites and rituals, that we can’t have fun!

These three guys were talking over each other and cracking jokes (with Jenji Kohan occasionally adding flavor) and I said to myself, “That’s not my life!”

And I wondered why.

Did I just not hold enough dinner parties? Was I just not invited to enough dinner parties?

Or was it my age.

I read somewhere that when you’re seventy you don’t need new friends. It’s not like you’re going to use connections for business purposes. Everybody’s kind of settled and satisfied and it can be boring and scary.

And then you get a left field event like this.

Purely conversation. No plot needed.

What question was best to start a dinner party?

When was the last time you got into an argument with a stranger?

So many people I know want to talk to me about business, they’re trying to get ahead, they’re trying to be a good friend of mine (thanks Joni!)

But I just want to know how your relationship is going. Where you’re going to travel next. About a good meal. The ins-and-outs of people you know. All irrelevant, but the spice of life.

This is why techies will never truly rule the world, because they’ve got no soul.

This is why Black people can be happy despite being oppressed.

This is why ethnicity is a badge of honor.

It’s all about life. I’ve got mine, you’ve got yours…TELL ME ABOUT IT!