Saturday, September 13, 2025

Saturday’s Final Word – HotAir

September 13, 2025
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Saturday's Final Word – HotAir
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Here it’s another Saturday night and I ain’t got no tabbies …

NBC News: Following the assassination of conservative activist Charlie Kirk this week, educators across the country have found themselves facing swift termination or potential discipline after allegedly sharing opinions on social media about the killing.





At least a dozen faculty and staff, from school board officials to classroom teachers, have been met with fallout over insensitive posts about Kirk’s death. In at least two instances, universities fired staff members entirely for posts deemed inappropriate.

Many other educators have been suspended or are under investigation, and the number is likely to grow as conservative online influencers share screenshots.

 Ed: Hmmm. NBC seems puzzled about how incentives drive behavior. The Left has done this to conservatives for years, and maybe decades in some circles, Hollywood and Academia especially. When the shoe is on the other foot, however … 

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… positively outraged that the Right is using the same techniques to punish those who have publicly spoken out against Kirk since his murder, often cheering.

All of a sudden, free speech rights are sacrosanct and organized efforts to get someone cancelled are unacceptable.

Amazing.

Ed: Not so much ‘amazing’ as ‘predictable.’  And bear in mind that this double standard isn’t even about policy differences or ideology. These people are literally celebrating an assassination, and suddenly they’re amazed that people are horrified enough to cut ties with them. Boo frickin’ hoo to them and to the Protection Racket Media acting stunned that the Left’s favorite social punishment has been turned against them. 





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NY Post: Some public-school districts have refused to say whether they yanked teachers from classrooms for gleefully celebrating Charlie Kirk’s assassination in sick online posts — while a top House GOPer on Friday demanded the educators be investigated.

One school district still employs a New York-based math teacher who spewed offensive remarks, said New York Rep. Elise Stefanik — and higher-ups overseeing two Texas districts would not say whether they were booting their educators who ghoulishly cheered the 31-year-old conservative activist’s murder Wednesday, outraging some lawmakers and activists.

“These are public school employees. These are the people standing in front of classrooms, tasked with guiding and mentoring our children and students,” Stefanik wrote in a letter to Gov. Kathy Hochul on Friday, demanding an investigation.

Ed: Hochul won’t do it, but Stefanik needs to hold her feet to the fire publicly nonetheless. I wonder whether Linda McMahon will take it up as a Title VII issue at the Dept of Ed, though. Stay tuned on that front, although I’d be somewhat concerned about the speech implications thereof.

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Ed: No one’s playing games any longer. As Mrs. Kirk declared last night, they have no idea what they have unleashed, not just with the assassination but also with the public celebrations of it. They have enraged the Right not into violence but organized activism, and that is not going to stop in the foreseeable future after this assassination. Erika Kirk will not allow it. 





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Rolling Stone, 2023: Cancel culture has leveled the playing field for those who can’t always rely on the government to protect them. Right now, bigots are protected under the First Amendment to fuel disgusting rhetoric without state-sanctioned consequence. The America that tolerated white supremacy in their policies and laws is the same country that wants to remind us how such forms of hate are still legal via free speech. Cancel culture is the poison to those in power that have benefited from unchecked free speech.

When conservatives on Fox News declare that it’s a “free country” and that cancel culture is “un-American,” they forget  speech works two ways: It allows for discourse to take place but grants all voices can be heard. In other words, straight white men and other people with power aren’t used to getting pushback for the ways they conduct themselves—and cancel culture has reset the ways society can react. Those who fear cancel culture may claim they fear suppression of speech, but it’s accountability that they want to avoid.

Rolling Stone this week: 

Ed: Via Townhall’s Amy Curtis. Res ipsa loquitur. And also: Did anyone NOT expect Rolling Stone editors to be massive crybullies? Taylor Lorenz would fit right in. 

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Ed: We tried to warn them that they would not like the new rules they were setting. The Left just assumed they were immune to consequences. Oopsie!

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Peggy Noonan, WSJ: It has occurred to me that when a country stops making things like cars and toasters it turns its attention to making words, endlessly, sometimes brilliantly and constructively, often idiotically and offensively. People on social media think the words have to be sharp and dramatic. It sure would be nice to see us throttle back on the expressions and throttle forward on the reflection, at least for a while.

In the short term, increase security on everyone in our political life and maybe public life. Spend the money, public and private. Violence multiplies, it wants to increase, it imitates itself. Each incident excites the unstable. When it starts to speed up the first thing you have to do is slow it down.

We have to force our public officials—including judges—to get serious about confining the mentally ill.

Ed: Perhaps especially those who insist on self-identifying on social media by cheering political assassinations and encouraging even more violence. But that aside, yes, we need to restore involuntary commitments and house the criminally mentally ill. That applies more to the murder of Iryna Zarutska than it does to Charlie’s assassination, but that doesn’t mean we should stop discussing it. 

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Ed: Not that the Left — and the Biden administration when it was in power — didn’t routinely try to ruin people financially for speaking their minds in the public square. Ask Dr. Jay Bhattacharya how he was treated after the Great Barrington Declaration, for instance, or platforms like ours who debated and dissented from pandemic policies. The Left sicced “misinformation” monitors on us and pressured Big Tech platforms to silence us. We didn’t remain silent then, and we are sure as hell not going to remain silent now. 

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NY Times: One clearinghouse for the campaign, parts of which were earlier reported by Wired, is a website that appears to have been registered just three hours after Mr. Kirk was killed. The site includes a tip line for submissions and includes photos of the people who disparaged him or cheered his death, along with personal information like their email addresses, place of residence and employer.

As of Friday afternoon, 41 people had been named on the site. Its anonymous creator posted that the site had received almost 20,000 submissions and said the names would be put  in a searchable public database of “radical activists calling for violence,” while also denying that it was “a doxxing website.”

“This website is a lawful data aggregator of publicly available information,” the note read. “It has been created for the purposes of public education. We seek to collect and archive instances of individuals promoting or glorifying of political violence.”

Christopher Landau, the deputy secretary of state, issued a separate call on Thursday morning, asking his more than 200,000 followers on X to reach out to him with information about “foreigners who glorify violence and hatred.”





Ed: Hey, Rolling Stone called this “accountability” in 2023. This is what accountability looks like when it gets evenly applied. Be careful what you wish for. It looks like the State Department has decided to enforce that accountability by excising cancers before they start to metastasize. That’s very good news. 

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Ann Althouse: What Netflix series? ChatGPT tells me it’s the Spanish drama-thriller series “Money Heist,” which involves robbers in red jumpsuits and Salvador Dalí masks breaking into Spain’s mint and printing money. The use of the song suggests a connection between that money heist and the historical fight against fascism. The song “Bella ciao” originated “as an anthem of Italian partisans fighting Mussolini and the Nazis.”

One must infer that the murderer envisioned himself as an antifascist hero. Presumably, he was able to see what happened to Luigi Mangione.

Ed: Yet another example of incentive-setting. And yet another reason to set new incentives. (Via Power Line)

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Ed: Let’s hope this is true. Accountability for Antifa is years overdue, especially from an FBI/DoJ that tried to paint parents attending school board meetings and conservative Catholics as domestic terror threats. 

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If we thought our job in pushing back against the Academia/media/Democrat censorship complex was over with the election, think again. This is going to be a long fight. If you’re digging these Final Word posts and want to join the conversation in the comments — and support independent platforms — why not join our VIP Membership program? Choose VIP to support Hot Air and access our premium content, VIP Gold to extend your access to all Townhall Media platforms and participate in this show, or VIP Platinum to get access to even more content and discounts on merchandise. Use the promo code FIGHT to join or to upgrade your existing membership level today, and get 60% off!





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