A columnist I sometimes disagree with, at least partially, is spot-on here

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Matt Margolis

Here’s Why It’s Okay When People Lose Their Jobs for Cheering Charlie Kirk’s Death

The death of Charlie Kirk has exposed something ugly, something far worse than political disagreement. Within hours, tens of thousands of social media accounts were ghoulishly celebrating his murder, treating it not as a tragedy but as a victory. Now there’s a growing push to hold these people accountable, and I’m perfectly fine with them losing their jobs.

Someone set up a website to collect and archive posts from people cheering Kirk’s assassination. The site isn’t just documenting. It’s calling on schools and employers to review this archive and act. Its X account claims to have received nearly 50,000 submissions in just a few days, which my PJ Media colleague Rick Moran framed as the largest coordinated firing campaign in history.

Whistleblowers have named and investigated public school teachers, firefighters, members of the military, even a reporter and a Carolina Panthers employee. NPR counted at least 33 people fired or under official review within the first week, 21 of them educators. It’s spreading far beyond one profession; this is cutting across the culture.

Predictably, the cries of “cancel culture” have already begun. And normally, I’d be right there in agreement. The right has fought tooth and nail against the left’s weaponization of these tactics. For years, ordinary people on the right have gotten doxxed, blacklisted, and ruined simply for supporting Donald Trump, opposing abortion, or daring to question leftist orthodoxy. Conservatives know all too well the destruction that comes from treating political disagreement as grounds for cancellation.

This isn’t the same thing, and it's where I draw a hard line. Cancel culture targets people for thinking wrongly. You lose your livelihood because you donated to the wrong cause, liked the wrong tweet, or expressed the wrong viewpoint about immigration or COVID. 

But what we’re talking about here isn’t a simple disagreement. It’s people literally applauding an act of political violence. It’s the same as justifying the shooter’s trigger pull. To me, that crosses a moral threshold that puts this in a whole other league from the cancel culture tactics of the left.

Freedom of speech is real and vital. You can criticize Charlie Kirk all day long. Millions disagreed with him on guns, on religion, on gender ideology, on Trump. Some faced him in rigorous, civil debate, and that’s the essence of a free society. That conversation must always be protected. But that protection does not extend to cheering someone’s assassination. To celebrate murder is to condone it. At that point, it’s not just “speech” anymore; it’s a grotesque endorsement of evil, arguably incitement. As you read this, leftists are posting hit lists of the next conservatives they want killed.

I understand why critics say this approach mirrors the left’s crusade to silence dissent. I reject that framing. There’s an enormous difference between trying to erase people for being conservative and holding people accountable for celebrating political homicide. The left sought to cancel people for their opinions. This campaign exposes people for applauding murder. That’s not a slippery slope, that’s a cliff. There are countless videos on social media of Charlie Kirk debating raging leftists with radical opinions. Never has anyone sought to out these people and get them canceled for their views.

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If you’re a teacher entrusted with molding young minds and you publicly cheer the murder of a conservative commentator, parents have every right to know who you are and demand your dismissal. If you’re a firefighter who mocks the death of a man over his beliefs, your community has a right to ask if it can trust you in a crisis. If you’re a doctor who celebrates the death of Charlie, can we trust you to provide adequate care to a conservative? When your speech forces us to ask these questions, it’s not cancel culture anymore; it’s accountability.

We live in a world where speech has reach. Posting “good riddance” to a man who died for his beliefs isn’t clever, it isn’t edgy, and it isn't a mere expression of political disagreement. It’s an endorsement of political killing, and if their employer deems them unfit for their job, they made that choice. And I’m okay with them living with the consequences.

Back for more

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203 Riverside Avenue, purchased for $4.2 million in August ‘22, is back on the market and looking for five. It has a stunning chef’s kitchen, of course but then, it claimed the same feature in 2022, so no improvement there. It is, however, a fine, old 1910 home, in the most coveted Riverside neighborhood, and within walking distance of Riverside and Eastern — just ask Sally Osann, who was an essential part of the kid pack that made that trek back in the 60s — and has almost a full acre of land.

Flipping on Cutler

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A builder paid $3.5 million for 20 Cutler Road last April, fixed it up (“stunningly renovated” — I had a folder going for awhile in which I was collecting every listing that used “stunning” in its description, but quickly realized that stunning houses are even more common, if that’s possible, than those with gourmet chef kitchens, so I gave it up) and has put it back on the market at $6.295 million. That’s more than I’d pay to live on Cutler, but I suppose someone might be willing to.

Old Greenwich, two lots: sold seperately, or buy both, and save!

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17 & 21 Keofferam Road, 0.72 acres in total, but two seperate building lots (or redo the 1906 existing home) is new to the market for $6.850 million.

#17 Guest cottage

If that number’s a tad too deep for your pocket, No. 17, 0.333 of an acre that includes a 1930 one-bedroom cottage, is available for $3.2 million, and No. 21, 0.39 of an acre with the existing residence is offered at $4.8 million. By my admittedly limited math, buying the lots individually will run you $8 million, so, together, they’re practically giving the full parcel away at just $6.850.

The late owner, who lived to 96, sounds like a remarkable woman.

She's said she's sorry, her lawyer says any loss suffered by JPMorgan is "inconsequential"; by golly, shouldn’t that be enough?

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“So we’re good, right?”

Charlie Javice, who defrauded JPMorgan out of $175M [or $200M, but who’s counting? —Ed], invokes Holocaust survivor grandmother in letter to judge: ‘I am truly sorry’

Javice, 33, was convicted in March of securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy after a Manhattan jury found she fabricated customer data to convince JPMorgan that Frank had more than 4 million users. 

In reality, the platform had fewer than 300,000.

Prosecutors said Javice and her growth officer, Olivier Amar, paid a data scientist to generate millions of fake student accounts to mislead the bank before its $175 million acquisition in 2021.

Javice now faces decades in prison but has pleaded for mercy, citing her youth at the time of the crimes and her family obligations.

“At 28, I was out of my depth and made poor choices that still haunt me,” she wrote.

…. Her lawyers are asking for a no-prison sentence and no restitution to JPMorgan.

Sentencing is scheduled for later this month.

And here’re those lawyers now — it’s an argument that would play well in today’s college and law school classrooms, but there are still some federal judges around who may not find it convincing:

Javice, in sentencing memo, calls JPMorgan a ‘unique’ victim

Comparing the bank’s annual revenue against the median U.S. household income of $80,610, the Frank co-founder’s lawyer said the bank’s alleged $200 million loss equates proportionately to $58.

Frank co-founder Charlie Javice called JPMorgan Chase’s $200 million loss at her hands “not consequential” in a court filing Monday arguing for a light sentence for her fraud conviction.

The $200 million loss JPMorgan incurred in its purchase of Frank – done under the impression of incorrect information about Frank’s user base – was pennies on the dollar compared to its $4 trillion in assets and annual revenues exceeding $169 billion, Javice lawyer Sara Clark, a partner at Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan in Washington, D.C., argued.

“This case lacks the devastating human impact that typically justifies lengthy fraud sentences, and the Court should impose a penalty proportionate to the offense’s actual harm,” Clark wrote. “Evidence introduced at trial further underscores the limited practical impact of the alleged loss.”

Judge Alvin Hellerstein should “consider the unique nature of the victim” at her Sept. 29 sentencing, Javice’s lawyer argued. Comparing the bank’s annual revenue against the median U.S. household income of $80,610, the Frank co-founder’s lawyer said the bank’s alleged $200 million loss equates proportionately to $58.

“This comparison provides a more realistic picture of the relative scale of the alleged loss when measured against the resources of the institution involved,” Clark wrote.

Javice and Frank co-founder Olivier Amar were convicted on one count each of securities fraud, wire fraud, bank fraud and conspiracy in March, roughly two years after they were charged with those counts for allegedly grossly misleading JPMorgan on their user count. Both face years in prison.

Federal guidelines indicate that Javice should receive a 12-year sentence, according to a pre-sentence report by court staff seen by Bloomberg.

But Javice’s attorney argued the “absence of tangible or lasting harm to an individual victim or vulnerable community weighs strongly in favor of a below-Guidelines sentence” – and posited that unlike other companies involved in fraud, Javice’s fintech “delivered genuine social good” by helping students navigate the “often prohibitive” financial aid process.

…. Additionally, Clark wrote that a custodial sentence isn’t necessary to deter future conduct for Javice, whose effective banning from financial services and entrepreneurship, international shame in the media and financial ruin add up to “collateral consequences,” she wrote.

“A period of incarceration is not necessary ‘to protect the public from further crimes of the defendant,’” Clark wrote.

By that logic, someone who robs them of, say, $100,000 deserves a toaster oven and free checking.

The Tex Antoine of Albany capitulates to the inevitable, and looks happy doing it – Silly her

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NY Gov. Kathy Hochul endorses Zohran Mamdani for NYC mayor

Hochul must have read the polls, remembered the late and lamented weatherman Tex Antoine’s advice to those in her situation, and has hopped into the commie canoe. At least she’s smiling; she might not be so happy, however, were she to reflect on what happened to her Manhattan rishi after he passed along his bit of wisdom:

Tex was a likeable-enough fellow who, unfortunately, liked to drink his dinner between the 6:00 and 11:00 p.m. broadcasts. One evening he returned to the station after his liquid repast and ad libbed some advice for those who are facing the unavoidable; it did not go well for Tex, and Hochul may fare no better.

AI Overview

Tex Antoine was suspended from WABC-TV in 1976 after making an offensive on-air comment about rape, which he falsely attributed to the Chinese philosopher Confucius

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The incident

  • The comment: On November 24, 1976, Antoine, a WABC-TV weather reporter, was on the air during the station's early newscast [pretty sure it was the late-night bracast, but perhaps he’d been tanking up before kickoff. Either way, alcohol was involved] Following a news report on a sexual assault* he stated, "With rape so predominant in the news lately, it is well to remember the words of Confucius: If rape is inevitable, lie back and enjoy it".

  • The reaction: WABC-TV was inundated with more than 650 protest calls within 25 minutes of Antoine's comment airing. Station officials considered the comment a "flippant remark" and "an inexcusable lapse in judgment".

  • The outcome: Antoine was suspended indefinitely by WABC-TV, and station officials issued an apology to viewers for his "insensitive and offensive" remark. Following the incident, Antoine never returned to his on-air position. 

*the rape victim was, if I remember correctly, 6 years old; Tex later claimed he hadn’t heard that part of the report, but it didn’t help him much.

Who are you going to believe. me, or your own eyes? (updated)

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Anti-Trump Historian Claims With Straight Face Left Wing Wasn’t ‘Celebrating’ Charlie Kirk Assassination

“As soon as the shooting happened, there is this outpouring insisting that he [Kirk] was a target of the left, insisting that people who were not MAGA were celebrating his death. I didn’t see that absolutely anywhere and I was online significantly that day,” Richardson claimed during her podcast “Politics Talk.” “There was an outpouring from liberals and most of the left — maybe there were some people who thought that he was, you know, live by the sword, die by the sword, because he was quoted — there is a video of him talking about how if we have to have deaths to support the Second Amendment, that’s fair because we need that to support our greater rights, and, you know, people posted that.”

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That's our boy

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