☕️ DISSING UNITY ☙ Tuesday, September 16, 2025 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

Charlie Kirk fundraising smashes records and multiplier kicks off; VP Vance hosts Kirk’s podcast debut; NYT sees only dark omens; Florida sparks a fresh embrace of Constitutional norms; more.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Tuesday! Welcome to September’s back half. We will be amongst the holidays in about ten seconds. You know I’m right. In today’s roundup: Charlie Kirk fundraising shatters records and we launch a multiplier of reinforcement; Vice President Vance hosts Charlie’s first podcast without its star, and the New York Times finds only dark omens; and Florida reinforces a new birth of freedom in what sure looks like an organic embrace of Constitutional norms.

🌍 WORLD NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🌍

Many alert readers have been prodding for a Charlie Kirk memorial multiplier, sometimes unsubtly. But so far, it’s been unnecessary. Around the world, conservatives reflexively formed an organic multiplier. As of this morning, over 40,000 donors have gifted nearly $5 million, shattering all previous GiveSendGo records for speed and amount. That total reflects only one GiveSendGo campaign; the total on all platforms is much higher. On Sunday, Newsweek ran a story headlined, “Donations in honor of Charlie Kirk top $6 million.”

In death, Charlie Kirk has been multiplied far beyond our limited mortal abilities. But since the pace of new donations is starting to slow, I will now propose that we, the C&C Army, choose today to reinforce a new wave of momentum. Here is the link; you know what to do. Give any affordable amount and end that amount in a ‘2’, from $2 to $2,002.

As regular readers well know, the multiplier’s purpose is not only to support and encourage the recipients —here, Erika Kirk and the TPUSA team— but also to send a clear message to our political opponents, a message that cancel culture only makes us more resolved, focused, and stronger.

For example, before she became a household word, we multiplied Libs of TikTok after the Southern Poverty Law Center designated Chaya as a “hate group” and Media Matters reported her to the Biden Administration. She briefly sheltered in the Florida Governor’s mansion due to credible death threats after a Washington Post reporter doxxed her.

Chaya survived and wasn’t canceled. But they permanently canceled Charlie Kirk, literally, with a bullet, because they couldn’t cancel him any other way. And the world responded with the biggest multiplier yet.

Progressives are shocked and appalled. They have contemptuously called this flood of love and support a ‘scam,’ labeled donors ‘suckers,’ and even more offensively hinted darkly that Erika Kirk is faking her grief to fuel fundraising efforts. Who cares what they think. They’ve utterly missed the point. They’ve ‘exposed’ only their own dystopian, self-centered world views.

The generosity is not about Erika, Turning Point, or even Charlie’s precious children. Of course, we will lovingly care for all our widows and orphans. That’s precisely what the Church is for. So this reflexive response of giving is less about Charlie and more about us, now unified in purpose, now acting together, and now flexing our united strength.

🔥 Charlie Kirk is irreplaceable. His mission, though, lives on. It has only begun kindling the flames of massive social change.

Charlie was a once-in-a-lifetime talent; a genius. He saw an opportunity when no one else did. He went to talk to young adults in colleges when most conservatives believed it was a waste of time. Charlie found hope and possibility where everyone else had already concluded hopelessness. Charlie never gave up on the kids; he saw their promise; he patiently reasoned with them, using logic and goofy, approachable winsomeness.

And he succeeded — defying all prediction.

In my most recent podcast appearance, I opined that Charlie Kirk has single-handedly rescued our young men. Charlie arguably deserves sole credit for triggering the dual trends of young men returning to church and recommitting to the sanity of Republican political affiliation, where they are valued and lifted up instead of humiliated and mocked.

What Charlie Kirk has built is fairly called a signature accomplishment. But there’s so much more. Maybe most importantly, Charlie taught the rest of us that it could be done. He practically rubbed our faces in the fact that young people are not a lost cause.

Progressives slew him to shut him up and shut him down. But it was too late. Charlie survived long enough to prove the concept. He pioneered the trail. He showed us the way. He created an organization to train others, to reproduce and multiply his methods across the country and around the world.

No one can ever do it as well as Charlie. We will never again be gifted with an individual of Charlie’s good faith and with his breathtaking combination of talents.

But we will make up in numbers what we cannot reproduce in quality.

His assassination —his martyrdom— has sparked a wildfire of long-overdue conversation. For example, should people be fired for saying hateful and evil political things, calling ordinary people ‘’Hitler’ and fascists,’ and wishing death on fellow Americans? Obviously, the answer is yes. Yes, they should be fired. Promptly.

It shouldn’t be controversial. It’s not ‘cancel culture.’ It’s common sense. No one, for instance, should complain if a daycare worker gets fired for posting man-boy love memes.

Which brings us to more breaking news about the reckoning.

🔥🔥🔥

Yesterday, as a heartwarming tribute, Vice President JD Vance hosted Charlie Kirk’s podcast. It’s the first episode without Charlie. But the New York Times reported the uplifting story with a dark warning. The headline cautioned, “On Charlie Kirk Show, JD Vance Talks of Crackdown on Liberal Groups.” (Later, it revised the headline to read, “White House Plans Broad Crackdown on Liberal Groups.”)

Here’s a link to yesterday’s show on Rumble (2:06:12). It was a warm, heartfelt, star-studded remembrance of JD Vance’s recollections of working with Charlie over the years. One after another, the Veep was joined by notable figures like Tucker Carlson, RFK, Karoline Leavitt, White House Chief of Staff Suzie Wiles, Taylor Budowich, Kaelan Dorr, Deputy Chief of Staff Stephen Miller, and others.

But out of over two hours of moving interviews and poignant memories, all the Times heard were the comments about the poisonous effects of political radicalism. The Times summarized JD’s memorial podcast as follows: “Mr. Trump and his top allies suggested that the suspect was part of a coordinated movement that was fomenting violence against conservatives, without presenting evidence that such a network existed.”

Hang on. “Without presenting evidence” of the network? It was a podcast, not a courtroom, you morons. What “evidence” were they supposed to provide? Footnotes? Documents? The rifle? My patience with the New York Times is running thin; more severe sarcasm may be on the way soon.

🔥 Vance was actually general and gracious. For instance, going much further than I would have, he allowed that “We can thank God that most Democrats don’t share these attitudes.” But, Vance explained, “something has gone very wrong with a lunatic fringe, a minority, but a growing and powerful minority on the far left.”

In other words, Vance made a clear distinction between registered democrats and “a lunatic fringe on the far left.”

But the Times panicked. It heard only dark threats against everyday Democrats. It quoted Stephen Miller, who said, “With God as my witness, we are going to use every resource we have throughout this government to identify, disrupt, eliminate, and destroy this network and make America safe again for the American people.”

It was odd that the Times found Miller’s comment so objectionable. One might hope that, in the wake of a political assassination, Administration officials would promise to sweep up the bad apples and “make America safe again.” But the Times editors apparently disagree that anybody needs sweeping up.

The truth is, the Times is part of the lunatic fringe on the far left. And so it felt personally threatened. But I wonder about how small the “small minority” reall is. Of the article’s 1,300+ comments, there was no sign of any mood among progressive readers of being ready to reconcile or to consciously lower the political temperature. Rather, they seemed ready for more violence. “I'm a liberal and I dare them to try to crack down on me,” one said.

🔥 Among the many promising podcast parts left on the Times’ cutting room floor was VP Vance’s list of groups with which there could be no unity. It was nice to hear something besides banal bromides of “both sidedness.”

CLIP: JD Vance’s “There is no Unity” speech (1:33).

The Vice President’s ‘list of disunity’ included a chain of obvious targets:

• “There is no unity with people who scream at children over their parents' politics.”

• “There is no unity with someone who lies about what Charlie Kirk said in order to excuse his murder.”

• “There is no unity with someone who harasses an innocent family the day after the father of that family lost a dear friend.”

• “There is no unity with the people who celebrate Charlie Kirk's assassination."

• “There is no unity with the people who fund these terrorist sympathizers.”

Following that encouraging inventory of insanity, VP Vance immediately mentioned as examples the radical left George Soros and Ford Foundations. One can only hope.

For libertarian readers, what weight should we give the Times’ overwrought concerns? Did yesterday’s podcast in fact provoke a constitutional crisis?

Don’t be silly. No group has yet been targeted. No policy has yet been announced. The Times is obviously allergic to any scrutiny of far-left groups, but of course, the Times used a completely different tone when Biden’s government generally targeted unvaccinated workers, Catholics, and people with “grievances against the government.” So it’s hardly a credible source of warning.

Let’s wait and see whether the government actually starts rounding up 79-year-old grandmas who are innocently running climate change bake sales.

🔥🔥🔥

Yesterday brought some good gun news, albeit discordant in the wake of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Yesterday, West Palm Beach affiliate WPTV ran a sunny story headlined, “Florida's ban on open carrying of firearms no longer enforceable, AG James Uthmeier says.” The sub-headline added, “First District Court of Appeal struck down 1987 open-carry statute on Sept. 10.” Last time Florida expanded gun rights, progressives put up billboards warning tourists not to visit. I wonder how they’ll like this.

Open carry refers to citizens carrying their firearms in hip holsters, strapped across their backs, or otherwise right out in the open, like in the old days. It’s often contrasted with concealed carry, which means that, as long as the cops can’t see it, you’re fine. Open carry represents the ultimate expression of Second Amendment rights, and all states but three have retreated to this historic default.

For basically my entire adult life as a Floridian, we’ve been taught to make sure that nobody can ever see our firearms. This has led to many hilarious and awkward moments between citizens and officials as guns are magically produced from pockets and purses when Floridians enter courthouses, schools, and other restricted spots.

Three years ago, in the midst of the pandemic’s second full year, on a scorching Independence Day in 2022, freedom-minded Florida resident Victor McDaniels made his stand. Victor took up his post at a major intersection in downtown Pensacola, holding a copy of the U.S. Constitution in one hand and waving at cars with his other hand. He’d set up a camera to film himself. Most importantly, he had a loaded pistol tucked into his pants using a waistband holster that was plainly visible to startled passers-by.

Only took about ten minutes for someone to call 911 and make an anonymous complaint —probably someone named “Karen”— before alert cops arrived on the scene. They checked Victor’s ID and found it valid. They asked for his concealed carry permit, and he produced it. They ran his priors and found his record clean. So they took his pistol, let him keep his holster, and charged Victor with a criminal violation of Florida’s concealed carry law, § 790.053.

According to the police report, Victor told the cops he’d planned to be charged, and intended to fight the charges “to the supreme court.” That’s Florida Man for you. All he needed to complete the scene was a pet alligator. Anyway, that’s where the story gets even more interesting.

Presumably according to plan, Victor’s lawyer moved to dismiss all charges, arguing that §790.053 violated the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution. Victor’s judge, probably sensing he was paddling around in deeper legal waters than he was comfortable swimming by himself, denied the motion. But —and this is remarkable— he, the judge, certified the question to Florida’s 1st Appellate Court.

That’s a fancy way of saying the judge asked his bosses to take over.

Appellate judges aren’t exactly known for calling you right back. Getting an answer would take months. So in the meantime, the judge convicted Victor and sentenced him to probation and community service hours, but stayed Victor’s sentence pending the resolution of an appeal that the judge himself had filed.

Last week, on September 10th, Florida’s 1st District Court of Appeals finally struck down §790.053, the statute requiring citizens to smuggle their firearms instead of wearing them on their hips. In a remarkable opinion that liberally cited dusty old 1800’s case law, the court colorfully noted that, from the time of the Founding, “The right to keep and bear arms did not extend to the carrying of weapons in secret, which was regarded as the practice of the cowardly and the disreputable and as incompatible with the legitimate exercise of the right of self-defense.”

In other words, the Founders despised concealed carry. On the other hand, the judges noted, “open carry was understood to be the manner of bearing arms that gave full effect to the rights secured by the Second Amendment.”

This decision was even more remarkable because, just a few years ago in 2017, Florida’s Supreme Court upheld §790.053 as constitutional. But because of two interim U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the judges at the First DCA essentially overruled the state’s supremes. The First DCA, where I practice, is the smartest and most conservative of Florida’s appellate districts, but they don’t usually get to override their bosses.

Yesterday, Florida’s new (and quite lively) state attorney general James Uthermeier issued a letter to all Florida law enforcement, directing them to follow the 1st DCA’s September 10th decision, and not to prosecute cases for open carry. The timing is fantastic. We are just entering Florida’s legislative working period, and I’d bet a cherry jelly donut that Florida’s legislators will abolish the now ineffective statute in some kind of housekeeping bill.

Charlie Kirk might be dead, but the spirit of freedom is loose. From the cops who didn’t arrest a person who must have appeared to them to be a very colorful character, to the judge who courageously stayed his own sentence and appealed his own case, to the First DCA that bravely overrode the Florida Supreme Court, Americans are starting to take this freedom thing very seriously.

And that is serious good news.

Have a terrific Tuesday! C&C will return tomorrow with a complete roundup of breaking essential news and commentary and we’ll catch up on lots of breaking stories eclipsed by the assassination.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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