Ron Paul: Who killed Charlie Kirk?

I do not believe we have anything near the real story about the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk last week.  The narrative presented by the FBI and other government agencies is wildly contradictory, with an ever-changing plotline that makes little sense. 

Some individuals close to Kirk have reported that his foreign policy position was shifting away from the standard neoconservative militarism in favor of a more non-interventionist approach.  Tucker Carlson recently recounted that Kirk had even gone personally to the White House to urge President Trump to refuse to take military action against Iran.  He was rebuffed by President Trump, Carlson informed us.

 Likewise, conservative podcaster Candace Owens, who was a close friend of Charlie Kirk, has stated on her program that Kirk was undergoing a “spiritual crisis” and was turning away from his past embrace of militarism and in favor of America-first non-interventionism, particularly regarding the current unrest in the Middle East.

Was Charlie Kirk murdered – directly or indirectly – by powerful forces who could not tolerate such a shift in views in such an influential leader?  We don’t know.

~ Ron Paul, "Who Killed Charlie Kirk?," Power & Market, September 16, 2025

 

 

Ron Unz on the Charlie Kirk assassination

Maybe it was a a professional assassination, maybe it was just a random nut, but it seemed much closer to being a professional assassination than any of the recent assassination attempts I can think of in American society over the last 20 to 30 years.

~ Ron Unz, "Is Charlie Kirk's Assassination the Most Shocking Since JFK?," Coffee and a Mike, 31:05 mark, September 13, 2025

 

Ron Unz on the message Charlie Kirk's killing sends to high-profile influential people in America

Probably 99.9% of wealthy, powerful, prominent people in America - Hollywood stars, top elected officials, billionaires and multibillionaires - don't have anything like the security that Charlie Kirk had, and he was still killed.  So if he was killed by an organization rather than a random nut, that's a very very powerful message to send to all of the wealthy, powerful, influential people in American society.  If you're a content creator and spend your time home doing videos, you're relatively safe, but if you're somebody who goes out on a daily basis, who speaks before audiences, who is an elected official, holds public meetings, who's a corporate executive who goes to your office every day, you're much much vulnerable, I think, than someone like Charlie Kirk is.  And if he can be killed, you can be killed.  And that's a very dangerous message to send to people.

~ Ron Unz, "Is Charlie Kirk's Assassination the Most Shocking Since JFK?," Coffee and a Mike, 38:00 mark, September 13, 2025

 

Matthew McConaughey on purpose

Your purpose in life is to create something that outlasts you.

~ Matthew McConaughey

 

Tho Bishop on the assassination of Charlie Kirk

Modern America has been one of constant shock: decades of war, economic turmoil, covid lockdowns, contested elections, rising political escalation, and resulting political violence. Despite this contemporary backdrop, the assassination of Charlie Kirk is a moment that stands apart in the way that singular death—with a face, a family, a story, a particular context—is always easier to process than a broader event, no matter how horrible. 

Kirk was a 31-year-old husband, a young father, and perhaps America’s leading “political influencer” of an age defined by the craft. His traditional calling card, the one that brought him to the Grand Valley State University campus, was characterized by debate and dialogue that was dismissed by enemies on the left as cheap stunts and criticized by some on the right for being corny. Regardless of one’s opinions on Kirk’s individual views, it was a throwback to the romantic notions of persuasion and conversation still holding value when so many voices advocated for political domination and conquest.

It was precisely Kirk’s desire to engage with those he disagreed with that put him in the path of a killer bullet. This event will forever shape how generations of Americans view our politicized society.

~ Tho Bishop, "The Dehumanization of Charlie Kirk Came from the Establishment," Mises Wire, September 11, 2025

 

Kevin Duffy on wars in the Middle East

Wars are the embodiment of collective delusions.  The same laws that govern bubbles apply: the madness of crowds, intolerance for dissent, promotion of false and simple narratives and a rush of euphoria that brings about an orgy of poor decisions.  The good news is that all bubbles eventually burst, reversing a long, ruinous trend and exposing the false belief that supports them.  

In the Middle East there are multiple delusions taking place.  The first is that Israel has a history of acting in self-defense.  The second is that the U.S. has long been a “global force for good.”  The third is that Donald Trump is opposed to “forever wars” and a threat to the military industrial complex.

~ Kevin Duffy, "The End of the Innocence: American Foreign Policy in the Middle East," The Coffee Can Portfolio, August 27, 2025

 

Doug McMillon on the delayed impact of tariffs

We're keeping our prices as low as we can for as long as we can. As we replenish inventory at post-tariff price levels, we've continued to see our costs increase each week, which we expect will continue into the third and fourth quarters. 

~ Doug McMillon, Walmart CEO, August 21, 2025

 

Sabrina Escobar on why the impact of tariffs has been muted so far

There’s another reason for the persistence of consumer strength: Shoppers haven’t yet felt the sting of higher prices.  That is largely because many retailers imported products ahead of spring and summer tariff implementations, allowing them to keep most of their prices unchanged, and have been willing to eat some of the higher costs. 

The reaction to earnings, however, suggests that doubts are seeping in.  Walmart stock dropped 4.5% on the day of its release, while BJ’sWholesale Club lost 6%, and Target, 6.3%, though the last had more to do with its choice of a new CEO than its business.  And those doubts largely stem from new tariffs as retailers restock inventories for the holiday season and companies are forced to pass on higher import costs to consumers to protect margins. “I don’t think you really start to feel the pinch of tariffs until the third quarter, so I think that’s the make-or-break quarter,” says Steven Shemesh, an analyst at RBC Capital Markets. 

Look no further than Walmart, whose stock has earned a premium valuation for its ability to attract shoppers with its low prices.  On Thursday, CEO Doug McMillon said the impact of tariffs has been “gradual enough that any behavioral adjustments by the customer have been somewhat muted.” But he warned that the company has seen costs increase each week as it replenishes its inventories at post-tariff price levels—a trend that McMillon expects to continue into the third and fourth quarters. And while Walmart plans to keep prices as low as possible, some increases are inevitable, especially after the company missed earnings expectations despite its superior revenue growth. 

~ Sabrina Escobar, "Walmart and Other Retailers Have Eaten the Cost of Tariffs. Now It Is the Consumer’s Turn.," Barron's, August 22, 2025

 

Jonathan Newman on Fed independence

Fed independence platitudes are like the robes worn by Supreme Court justices.  They provide the appearance of objectivity, sophistication, and sacredness.  Underneath, it’s all politics.

~ Jonathan Newman, "The Myth of Fed 'Independence'," The Misesian, July-August 2025

 

Rick Newman on socialism, Trump-style

Socialist Sen. Bernie Sanders applauded Trump’s plan to nationalize Intel and other chipmakers.  Sanders is the same guy who co-authored the Green New Deal, which would have entailed a government takeover of the transportation and energy sectors for many dubious reasons, including promoting “justice and equity” and “repairing historic oppression” of certain ethnic groups.  Trump’s motivation is obviously different, but at a certain point, socialist central planning and Trump’s attempted hostile takeover of capitalism start to look like the same thing.  Stock buyers beware. 

~ Rick Newman, "This week in Trumponomics: POTUS is on an investment spree," Yahoo!Finance, August 23, 2025

 

Shaun Rein: "China is going to become the AI leader of the world"

Going forward, China is going to become the AI leader of the world.  And part of the reason is because they're doing open source, which is something that Global South (or the Global Majority) likes because it's going to lower their own costs in adopting AI.  And then second, the reason why DeepSeek and other Chinese artificial intelligence companies are going to win is because they are able to do the same as American firms can do at a fraction of the cost.  So when you have a combination of cheap and open source, that means it's going to be adopted throughout the entire world.

 ~ Shaun Rein, Twitter/X post, August 18, 2025

 

Harris Kupperman on his investment edges

I know that many investors like to talk about their competitive advantages, but I’ve come to realize that I really don’t have any great advantages on the research side.  So much of my process is simply trusting my gut.  If I’m curious about something, it has a funny way of working, and when I become bored with something, it has a funny way of falling apart.  I frequently have visceral views of things, and an uncanny inability to sleep when some position needs to be disposed of.

Competing investors, focused on harvesting real-time data for almost imperceptible competitive advantages have unlimited resources at their disposal, and we are always going to lose the informational arms race against them.  Where we can win is through investing discipline, knowledge of prior cycles, and most importantly, by harvesting the foibles of others who fixate on the immediate, while ignoring that investing is a process—what happens a year or two from today, should get discounted today, yet rarely does, as investors increasingly truncate their timeframe.

~ Harris Kupperman, Praetorian Capital 2025 Q2 Investor Letter, August 7, 2025

 

Tom Woods on why the MAGA movement shouldn't ignore economics

If you neglect economics, which is really just shorthand for understanding how the world works, you will not achieve the goals that you have convinced yourself are far removed from economics.

 ~ Tom Woods, "Austrian Economics in the Age of Donald Trump," The Tom Woods Show, August 7, 2025

(Speech was given at 2025 Mises University.) 

 

David Stockman on Scott Bessent and Trumponomics

Go back to Wall Street, Scott.  You are clueless about economic policy.  Only free markets including in wages and labor, sound money and balanced budgets can actually revive economic prosperity, Trump-O-Nomics is just populist statism that will eventually generate an economic disaster for the long-suffering folks of Flyover America who mistakenly think the Donald is their savior.

~ David Stockman, tweet, August 5, 2025

 

Ralph Raico on self delusion of the masses

Machiavelli contends that mass of people prefer appearance to reality.  They prefer their fantasy to what actually exists.  If they knew what politics really was, they wouldn't have a good night's sleep for the rest of their lives.

~ Ralph Raico, The Struggle For Liberty: A Libertarian History of Political Thought, p. 258

2025

  

Friedrich Nietzsche on truth

Sometimes people don't want to hear the truth because they don't want their illusions destroyed. 

~ Friedrich Nietzsche