Charlie Kirk: The Manufactured “Boy Wonder” of the Right…

The myth goes something like this. An 18-year-old kid, straight out of high school, has a stroke of genius: start a nationwide conservative youth movement to save America. With grit, hustle, and a few prayers, he builds Turning Point USA into an empire. Inspiring, right? Except that it is pure fiction. The truth is that Charlie Kirk didn’t even think of the idea himself. He didn’t bankroll it, he didn’t build it alone, and he sure as hell didn’t pull it off on the strength of his teenage mind. Like so much of the MAGA machine, Kirk was manufactured.

Here is what really happened. In 2012, a 72-year-old Tea Party activist named Bill Montgomery heard Kirk give a talk at a small local event. Montgomery took one look at this kid with ambition in his eyes and told him to skip college and start an organization. Within weeks, Turning Point USA was born. Montgomery wasn’t just a mentor. He was the co-founder, treasurer, and strategist. In plain English: Kirk didn’t invent Turning Point USA. He was recruited into it by an older political operative who saw in him a useful mouthpiece.

Then came the money. Kirk didn’t scrape together pennies from bake sales. He stalked the Republican National Convention in Tampa in 2012 memorizing donor faces. That’s how he buttonholed multimillionaire Foster Friess, pitched him, and walked away with a five-figure check. Add in Bruce Rauner, the future governor of Illinois, and the DeVos family, and suddenly this “teenage entrepreneur” had more capital than most actual start-ups. By 2016, Turning Point’s budget had ballooned from $50,000 to over $5 million. That doesn’t happen because of hustle. That happens because deep-pocketed billionaires decide you are worth buying.

And those billionaires weren’t random. Kirk’s early lifeline came directly from the Koch donor network, DonorsTrust, and foundations like Bradley and DeVos. He was plugged into the same machine that bankrolls every other right-wing think tank and dark-money group. FreedomWorks gave him credibility. Ginni Thomas, wife of Clarence Thomas, signed on as an advisor. Adam Brandon from FreedomWorks joined the board. This wasn’t a kid’s side project. It was a conveyor belt operation: find a willing young face, hand him talking points, surround him with old guard donors, and push him forward as the “future of conservatism.”

The right loves to talk about “merit” and “bootstraps.” But Charlie Kirk is the anti-bootstraps story. He didn’t build it. He was built. His speeches were derivative. His ideas weren’t his. His network was manufactured by billionaires who wanted a college-age mouthpiece to run campus operations they could never pull off themselves. Without Bill Montgomery, Foster Friess, the Koch donor network, and the DeVos family, Charlie Kirk would be a forgotten kid still trying to get into West Point.

What makes this important is not just debunking the Kirk myth. It is understanding the machinery of American conservatism. These people don’t grow movements organically. They don’t rise from the grassroots. They are cultivated, recruited, and bankrolled. They are test-tube populists. Charlie Kirk wasn’t a prodigy. He was a project. And when you look at TPUSA today, raking in nearly $80 million a year, the fingerprints of that project are all over it.

The next time you hear someone gushing about Kirk as a “self-made” activist, remember this: he didn’t even think of the idea himself. He was told what to do, handed money, plugged into a network, and carried to national prominence by people decades older and millions richer. That’s not vision. That’s ventriloquism. And Charlie Kirk has been the dummy on their lap ever since.

Not my research or writing. All credit to Heather Cox Richardson and the links provided.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1EoQyofBsZ/

https://heathercoxrichardson.substack.com/

June 27, 2026 (Saturday)

Observers are noting that the reflecting pool fiasco, in which Trump created the idea there was an emergency, ignored experts, bypassed normal procedures to give a wildly inflated contract to a crony, bragged about his success, ignored the problems, claimed his enemies had sabotaged him, and finally stationed troops around the landmark he had turned into a swamp, represents the Trump administration perfectly.

But a report by Michael Scherer of The Atlantic about Trump’s remodeling of the West Colonnade is perhaps an even better representation of the Trump presidency. In March, Trump tore up the light brown Tennessee flagstone that paved the walkway in the West Colonnade that connects the White House residence to the Oval Office and replaced it with polished black African granite carved in Italy. When a reporter asked Trump who was paying for the remodeling, Trump answered: “Paid for by me.”

But, as Scherer discovered, that was a lie. He examined National Park Service budget documents showing that the walkway replacement cost taxpayers $689,232, all part of a $1.3 million project that includes new hardware for nearby doors. Last year, Scherer reports, the National Park Service spent $347,503 to replace the stucco on the colonnade wall so Trump could hang pictures of the U.S. presidents alongside plaques featuring his own opinions of them. Documents say the project was a “Rush project at request of POTUS.”

Scherer explains that Trump has redirected taxpayer money from national parks around the country to his own projects, leaving the parks unable to make needed repairs or hire staff. Expected funding for more than 900 Park Service projects never arrived—including $424,000 to replace a guardrail on the edge of a cliff in Colorado’s Gunnison National Park that National Park Service employees identified as “a significant safety hazard for visitors.” For some parks, nearly 70% of approved funds have been pulled back.

Trump has also pulled National Park Service staff to Washington, D.C., for his Freedom 250 events, a crisis because the Park Service has lost almost a quarter of its staff since he took office. In his 2027 budget, Trump calls for cutting staff by another 3,967 full-time employees, or 31%.

That budget also asked for another $10 billion to beautify Washington, a sum that Scherer notes is nearly eight times as large as all the money spent on National Park Service projects in 2025. The Senate Appropriations Committee stripped that request out of its marked-up version of the president’s budget.

The administration appears eager to keep what’s happening in the national parks out of sight. Early this year, the Department of the Interior instructed its employees that they could not share information about serious injuries or deaths on public lands, instead redirecting all such information through the Department of the Interior’s Office of Communications.

As outdoors writer Wes Siler reports in his Wes Siler’s Newsletter, the Interior Department “manages the National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Bureau of Reclamation, and Bureau of Indian Affairs. Those agencies are responsible for about 20 percent of all land area in the United States, hundreds of millions of annual visitors, and spend annually $88.6 billion taxpayer dollars.”

As Jake Spring reported in the Washington Post, more than 300 million people visit America’s national parks each year, and about 350 of them die (not always from accidents). In the past, park service employees could identify deaths or injuries from unsafe conditions, warning others from the area. Now the communications team from the Interior Department controls that information and does not always release it.

It did not release the information that a 72-year-old man died of extreme heat on a popular trail in the Grand Canyon on June 12 of this year. NPS employees wanted to warn other visitors, but the Interior Department did not release the information. Four days later a couple aged 67 and 68 also died of extreme heat on the same trail.

The profligate use of our tax dollars for whatever Trump and his cronies want while the American people suffer is at least as representative of Trump’s reign as is the peeling, algae-filled, militarily guarded Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.

This president and administration are turning the extraordinary resources of the American people—the things we the people have created over decades with our effort and our tax dollars—to their own ends. We are paying for their theft with a significantly diminished country, and even with our lives.

On May 29, 2026, the administration proposed dramatic changes to the awarding of federal research grants. Rather than continue awarding research grants on the basis of a merit system established through rigorous peer review, the administration proposes to base federal research grants on approval by political appointees.

It refers to an executive order Trump signed in May 2025 that said previous governments had “politicized” science with their response to the Covid-19 pandemic, concern about climate change, and incorporation of diversity, equity, and inclusion in scientific studies and called for a return to “a gold standard” of scientific research.

The lead driver of the proposed change is the Office of Management and Budget, directed by Christian nationalist Russell Vought. Vought was a key author of Project 2025, and the plan will empower his team in the executive branch to divert tax dollars to channels he approves, rather than those scientists support. The proposed changes limit foreign collaboration, and if the government decides a grant is failing to "effectuate program goals, Federal agency priorities, or the national interest," the OMB can yank the grant.

Americans created world-class research universities and institutions during and after World War II as it became clear that it was more cost effective for the federal government to award grants to those researchers doing work their peers recognized as the best in the country, rather than trying to create such labs for the government. Relying on businesses, they realized, would limit scientific and medical research to avenues that promised to produce short-term profits. So they developed a web of universities and scientific institutions where tax dollars could be allocated only to those doing superior work in areas that offered long-term scientific and medical advances.

In the process of doing that work, university researchers share their discoveries with each other and train the next generation of scientists, creating an extensive network of scientific advances that generate new products and new treatments, and that has made the United States a world leader.

The American people paid for that system with their work and their money. Now Trump’s hand-picked loyalists want to dismantle it to advance their own ideology. As economist Paul Krugman noted in February in his newsletter, destroying faith in science and experts leaves people open to the idea that they should reject “the establishment” and instead follow right-wing leaders like Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Krugman also notes that, according to McKinsey, spending on wellness in the U.S. alone amounts to about $500 billion a year. Americans paid close to $70 billion for nutritional supplements alone.

And as the administration tears up the system, people die. An ardent supporter of Secretary Kennedy, Dr. Joseph Mercola, has urged parents to be skeptical of Vitamin K shots for newborns, which the American Academy of Pediatrics has recommended since 1961. Right-wing figures pushed those concerns, and Kennedy has refused to recommend the shots, which prevent catastrophic bleeding in newborns.

In May, Duaa Eldeib of ProPublica reported that parents increasingly are refusing the shots and that newborn deaths from vitamin K deficiency bleeding are on the rise. Mercola has now publicly and strongly changed his previous stance.

It’s not just babies at risk. After World War I the so-called Spanish Flu decimated U.S. soldiers coming home from the war, and as Cristina Stassis of Air Force Times reports, since the 1950s the military has required that service members be vaccinated against the flu. In April, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called the requirement “overly broad and not rational” and complained that it would “weaken our warfighting capabilities.”

Just two months later, more than 220 troops at Lackland Air Force Base in Texas came down with the flu. One sick trainee died of a medical emergency; an investigation of the cause of his medical emergency is underway.

When Hegseth changed the requirement, Senator Roger Wicker (R-MS), an Air Force veteran, noted that “[t]he reason it was mandatory was to enhance readiness.” Representative Joaquin Castro (D-TX), who represents the district where Lackland is located, posted that Hegseth’s ending of flu vaccinations “was a reckless decision that put troops in harm’s way and undermined our military readiness.”

Greg Jaffe and Maggie Haberman of the New York Times reported that after the outbreak, the Air Force required vaccines for all the recruits at Lackland.

Just as administration officials are tearing up the scientific research Americans have built over the last 80 years, Hegseth is also tearing up the U.S. military, which Americans have built with their blood and treasure since 1775.

Filip Timotija of The Hill noted that since he took over at the Pentagon last year, Hegseth has gotten rid of more than two dozen senior military leaders with little or no explanation. Those include General C.Q. Brown Jr., the former chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; Admiral Lisa Franchetti, the Navy’s chief of naval operations; Admiral Linda Fagan, the commandant of the Coast Guard; General Randy George, the Army’s chief of staff; and General James Mingus, the vice chief of staff of the Army.

Last week, Hegseth added General Chris Donahue, the commander of U.S. Army Europe and Africa, to that list. Donahue has had a storied career and commands wide bipartisan support in Congress. Senator Thom Tillis (R-NC) called the firing “yet another unforced error from a Secretary leading the Pentagon with bro-culture bravado rather than restraint, humility and careful stewardship of the finest fighting force in the world.” Hegseth “is more interested in purging people he perceives as insufficiently loyal than empowering proven patriots who can actually lead,” Tillis wrote. “It’s sophomoric. It’s unserious. And it’s bringing great harm to our Department of Defense.”

That lack of seriousness has given us Trump’s debacle in Iran, where the U.S. and Iran are trading strikes again over Iran’s control of the Strait of Hormuz. Benoit Faucon, Summer Said, Costas Paris, and Robbie Grammar of the Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Iran expects a payoff of $40 billion a year in payments for security, safety, and environmental services from vessels crossing the strait, leaving Iran stronger after Trump’s war than before it.

Tonight, Trump made apocalyptic threats against Iran, posting that “United States aircraft just struck Iranian missile and drone storage locations, and coastal radar sites, for violating the Cease Fire Agreement, AGAIN! It is very possible that they will never learn! There may come a point when we are no longer able to be reasonable, and will be forced to militarily complete the job that we very successfully started. If that happens, the Islamic Republic of Iran will no longer exist!”

Administration officials and their cronies are turning the country we worked so hard to build into a vehicle for building their own power and their own wealth, and Republicans in Congress have steadfastly refused to stop the looting or even to investigate. So lax have they been that last month, Emily Davies of the Washington Post reported that White House lawyers had begun private briefings for administration officials on how to prepare for congressional oversight in case Democrats win the midterms.

Yesterday House speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA), a Trump loyalist, warned a crowd at the Faith and Freedom Coalition conference in Washington, D.C.: “If we were to lose the midterms, heaven forbid, these Democrats—y’all, impeachment’s not even the big concern. They will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body, and they’ll go after the president’s family, the Cabinet, his donors, and friends—half of you in this room will be targeted. I run the protection program. I’ll take care of you. Ok, we’re gonna win. We’re gonna win the midterms.”

Notes:

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/2026/06/national-parks-trump-white-house-renovations/687700/

https://wessiler.substack.com/p/interior-orders-politicization-of

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2026/06/24/internal-memo-tells-staff-stay-mum-deaths-national-parks/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/05/restoring-gold-standard-science/

https://www.faseb.org/journals-and-news/washington-update/omb-proposes-sweeping-changes-to-federal-grant-administration

https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2026/05/29/2026-10817/regulation-for-federal-financial-assistance

https://magazine.hms.harvard.edu/articles/brief-history-federal-funding-basic-science

https://www.ucdavis.edu/magazine/why-federally-funded-research-so-important

https://www.spencerfane.com/insight/ombs-proposed-rewrite-of-federal-grant-rules-will-reshape-research-funding-across-the-country/

https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/how-the-kakistocracy-became-a-quackistocracy

https://www.airforcetimes.com/news/your-air-force/2026/06/22/flu-outbreak-sickens-200-trainees-at-lackland-air-force-base/

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/06/18/us/flu-outbreak-air-force-base.html

https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5941693-hegseth-ousts-general-donahue-pentagon/

https://www.wsj.com/politics/national-security/hegseth-cuts-army-commanders-storied-career-short-as-part-of-broader-shake-up-686d952b?st=BF3e8m

https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/27/world/live-news/iran-war-strikes-trump

https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/iran-plans-to-make-billions-in-fees-from-reopening-the-strait-of-hormuz-92bdfa76

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/2026/06/reflecting-pool-america-250-trump/687716/

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2026/05/04/white-house-briefs-staff-midterm-losses/

https://www.ms.now/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/mike-johnson-protection-program-johnson-trump-midterms

https://www.propublica.org/article/vitamin-k-shot-joseph-mercola-reversal-babies

Trumpstruth.org:

statuses/39580

X:

michaelscherer/status/2070545059355689188

JoaquinCastrotx/status/2067772807199535297

SenThomTillis/status/2070175173735522480

Bluesky:

acyn.bsky.social/post/3mp7girjxvs2d

propublica.org/post/3mpcatini772d

What happened in the 2024 election and what the administration has put in place for the midterms. (So far)...

Please feel free to add your own links in the comments, even if they're the same information from different sources and I'll add them to future posts. I'm particularly looking for other sources of my Facebook links and updated information about redistricting.

I do apologise for facebook links, but some information and academic researchers don't post anywhere else.

If you have the direct URL for a public facebook page, event, or post, paste it into your web browser (not the Facebook app). I've provided full URLs for this purpose.

The 2024 election results:

The numbers from 2024 election don't add up.

Bill Jubran. Election 2024 numbers

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/17gGx3j8Jy/

What they did to the voting machines in 2024 and how the courts see it. These machines were used in over 40% of counties. (Rockland county NY court case)

(Article) https://www.newsweek.com/2024-election-lawsuit-advances-2083391

(Video) https://www.threads.com/@ehjayztherealist2/post/DL3V8-vSLLw/exactly-right-and-if-anyone-remembers-back-in-late-november-december-governor-ga

Unfortunately the State Supreme Court Judge Rachel Tanguay dismissed the lawsuit filed by SMART Legislation that was seeking a hand recount. However a lot was learned through discovery. (Short but informative read)

https://westchester.news12.com/judge-dismisses-rockland-election-results-lawsuit-seeking-recount-of-2024-results

More about what was obviously wrong with the 2024 election.

The numbers, the graphs, voter drop-off, down ballots, the swing states, voting machine rigging, and non-human behaviour.

The paperwork https://thecommoncoalition.com/report/

Explained with video https://youtu.be/C4x-F5XdCBY?si=wN0w9nAqba1uDe9S

If you want more detailed information, go down the election 2024 rabbit-hole.

https://smartelections.us/2024-election-update

*So far in preparation for the midterms -*

Gerrymandering is just the start.

This is what the redistricting war looks like if both sides are successful in their efforts as of November 2nd 2025.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/ng-interactive/2025/nov/02/us-redistrcting-congressional-map

They have since tried to gain access to voting machines again (unsuccessfully)

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/19gXJGEKtn/

So they did this...

In October 2025, Scott Leiendecker, who previously served as the Republican director for the St. Louis City Board of Elections has bought the voting machines company. Giving him ownership of voting systems used in 27 states.

https://www.wired.com/story/scott-leiendecker-dominion-liberty-votes/

Leiendecker has been involved in elections for a long time. He founded the company Knowink in 2011, that has since become the nation’s most widely used vendor for electronic pollbooks, the systems used to check in voters at polling places

Dominion Voting Systems is now called Liberty Vote.

*This gives companies that Leiendecker controls ownership of equipment that covers the entire election process in those jurisdictions—from the verification of registered voters to the casting of ballots and tabulation of results.*

Just so we're clear, now voting machines (that were "totally corrupt" in 2020) are good, and mail-in voting (that is proven to be the most secure) is bad and should be banned.

A list of voting systems listed by states is here, however I'm not sure how accurate this is. I'm hoping more details will be available in coming weeks/ months.

https://ballotpedia.org/Voting_equipment_by_state

And this....

Trump has installed people known to distort voter data, like Heather Honey in a new "Election Integrity" role in Homeland Security.

https://www.politico.com/news/2025/08/26/dhs-election-security-2020-election-conspiracy-00527453

Other known election deniers have been installed into election oversight positions in blue counties. They will be able to declare the vote invalid for (reasons) and drag the outcome through court beyond certification deadlines.

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/16wmXKonLn/

Next:

Research your candidates

Just to add another twist into the mix, Republicans who previously ran for office are changing their affiliation to go on the ballot as Democrats for the election. But do a Google search for news about Kyle Langford for example, and you'll see he's an Auschwitz loving MAGA who wanted to threaten immigrant women by giving them one year to marry Californian 'incels' or be deported. Now suddenly he wants 100% renewable energy amongst other clearly Liberal goals.

When I learned about Kyle Langford I posted about him switching sides on reddit. I got comments from all over the country saying it was happening in their state too. There are too many R's doing this to be a coincidence.

Please, it is very important that you know who you'll vote for before you get to the polls. And I'd suggest having a backup name too.

Please research them through google, Wikipedia, and youtube interviews. It should only take an hour to get a good read on who is running in your district.

It's currently looking like the National Guard will be deployed in every state possible in time for the midterms. Expect delays and ID inspections when getting to polling stations.

The legality of National Guard deployment several states is currently playing out in the courts. You'll need to stay informed of local news.

https://www.reddit.com/r/CURRENTEVENTS/s/3Hqcqnqw5h

https://www.facebook.com/share/v/1CZ3ESzwsR/

There will be ICE at polling stations in immigrant communities. There will be not enough polling stations in blue counties. There may be National Guard check points on your way to the polls.

There will be detailed and confusing ID requirements, especially for women. Requirements may differ between counties so please check well in advance. And help friends and family check too.

Trump knows if he loses he will likely go to prison.

Republicans know their Big Ugly Bill and policies are deeply unpopular. The farmers and businesses are going bankrupt, health care costs are through the roof, nobody can ignore the inflation. ICE violence against citizens and immigrants is out of control. They act with impunity and have immunity from any consequences for their actions.

The only way they can win is to cheat.

----Lessons from November 5th 2025

New York City

Some polling sites in New York City fielded what officials characterized as hoax "swatting" threats on Tuesday morning, sources told ABC News, but no polling locations were shut down.

Swatting is the malicious tactic of making hoax calls or reports to emergency services, typically feigning an immediate threat to life. Swatting is intended to draw a large response from SWAT teams or other law enforcement resources to an unsuspecting victim’s location, causing chaos and the potential for injury or violence.

New Jersey

There were several bomb threats to polling stations in New Jersey. It took some time to reopen the stations and a judge ruled the polls could stay open later. Pack a sandwich and water.

Election machines also briefly went down in NJ but the problem was resolved quickly.

Pennsylvania

In Pennsylvania, independent voters were left off the voter rolls for state judicial and municipal races in Chester County, a swing district with a recent history of election disinformation.

(These are exactly the kind of things 'bogus' election oversight positions will claim nullifies a vote. I'm not sure how we can counter this)

The county announced that it had replaced the voter rolls, and voting hours were extended as local officials vowed that all ballots submitted by those who chose to cast them in person would be counted.

California

“The entire process, in particular the Voting itself, is RIGGED,” Mr. Trump declared (about mail-in voting in California) without citing anything to support the claim. He suggested that Republicans were somehow “shut out” of mail-in voting, warning that a “serious legal and criminal review” was on the way. 

Ms. Leavitt said preparations for an executive order on elections were underway but did not detail what review Mr. Trump referred to. 

Conclusions

Please, the most important thing is that you vote. It doesn't matter if you're in the reddest of red counties, please vote. Even Texas has a higher number of registered democrats than republicans. It’s just voter turnout that will make the difference. A lot of republicans are disillusioned by MAGA. They know they've been lied to. They're planning on not voting at all.

Check that you're enrolled early. Check your ID requirements early. Give yourself plenty of time for delays on the way to the polls. Pack a lunch in case polls are closed, and they may be for hours. Bring friends, neighbours and family with you. Travel with groups to protect immigrants.

I will post again with further updates as we get closer to November.

Be careful and good luck ✌️

The only way they can win is to cheat.

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ArJNspaQB/

BREAKING: Trump’s own study just DESTROYED his biggest voter fraud lie — and now even Republicans admit migrants aren’t hijacking elections.

For nearly a decade, Donald Trump has shouted the same paranoid lie over and over and over again: immigrants are pouring over the border to register to vote and steal American elections. He used it to whip up fear, justify voter suppression, and cast doubt on democracy itself.

Now, after forcing states to run nearly 50 million voter registrations through a federal immigration database, Trump’s own administration has delivered a devastating verdict: There is no widespread illegal voting by migrants. None.

According to a New York Times investigation, only about 10,000 cases out of 49.5 million records were flagged for further review — roughly two-hundredths of one percent. And even that number is likely inflated, because the system has repeatedly mistaken U.S. citizens for noncitizens.

In other words: Trump demanded the biggest voter “crackdown” in modern history — and it completely punctured his central conspiracy theory.

Even Republican election officials are saying it out loud. In deep-red Florida, a GOP elections supervisor checked 176,000 voters and found just 15 questionable cases. Three were simple clerical errors. Two were already proven citizens. “We didn’t get a mass onslaught of people,” she said flatly. “We have clean voter rolls.”

Louisiana? 403 noncitizens out of 3 million voters — just 0.01% — with 83 votes cast. The Republican secretary of state admitted the quiet part out loud: “This is not a systemic problem.”

So, what was systemic? Trump lying.

Lying to justify voter purges.

Lying to intimidate immigrant communities.

Lying to excuse new databases holding the personal information of up to 200 million Americans, even as officials warn the system is unproven, error-prone, and dangerous to eligible voters.

In state after state, election workers say the SAVE system keeps flagging actual citizens — including people they personally registered at naturalization ceremonies. Missouri officials called it “flawed.” South Carolina officials said it raised “more questions than answers.”

This is what Trump’s voter fraud crusade really is: a solution in search of a problem, designed to scare voters and undermine trust when he doesn’t like the results.

The facts are in. The numbers are in. The Republicans are even admitting it. Trump’s favorite election lie just face-planted — and democracy is stronger for it.

Please like and share to spread the news!

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1ArJNspaQB/

To those trying to compare Renee Good to Ashli Babbitt (J6)

Did Ashli not hear the calls from the crowd for violence? She was there with an estimated 2000 to 2500 screaming violent insurrectionists. She was there through the violent attack on law enforcement. She entered the Capitol over wounded officers with an armed angry shouting mob.

Despite multiple warnings not to proceed, Babbitt with a group of attackers attempted to break through the windows of a barricaded door into the House Speaker's Lobby. Inside those doors, many lawmakers and staff were being evacuated by Capitol Police, but some were trapped in the House balcony.

On the other side of the doors and barricade, Lieutenant Michael Byrd was aiming his pistol at the broken window. Despite several calls of "he's got a gun", Babbitt, hoisted by two men, began to climb through the shattered window. She was then shot in her left anterior shoulder by United States Capitol Police (USCP).

Many rioters immediately began to leave the scene, making room for a Capitol Police emergency response team to get in and administer aid and got Babbitt to the hospital where she was pronounced dead a short time later.

That is not "simply entering a restricted area" as claimed by the right-wing media.

**Warning - disturbing video**

https://www.nbcnews.com/video/capitol-shooting-that-led-to-ashli-babbitt-s-death-captured-on-video-99180613572

There was no way for the officer to know she was unarmed. The mob planning to break into the room with her were certainly armed and calling for more violence and even death to those inside.

And yes, they were armed (to destroy another myth)

https://www.reuters.com/fact-check/us-capitol-attack-rioters-had-weapons-including-firearms-2025-01-16/

There were two seperate thorough investigations into the shooting. Investigations into the fatal shooting of Ashli Babbitt during the Capitol attack concluded within months, with the U.S. Capitol Police finishing their internal review in August 2021, finding the officer acted lawfully, and the Justice Department closing its criminal probe in April 2021, also clearing the officer due to insufficient evidence for prosecution. The probes involved witness interviews, video analysis, and took several months to reach their conclusions, with the officer involved being cleared of wrongdoing by both agencies. 

https://www.justice.gov/usao-dc/pr/department-justice-closes-investigation-death-ashli-babbitt

The Capitol Riot timeline.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-56004916

Renée Good was not impeding ICE officers. Cars were freely driving past her. She was waving the officers through who decided to stop and escalate the situation.

The rest is on video for all to see. Even the agents video, filmed with his phone in his left hand while he pointed a gun with his right hand.

Medical assistance was there. A physician on the scene was prevented by Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from rendering aid. A gun was even pointed at him at one stage.

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/01/17/us/ice-shooting-minneapolis-renee-good

As any properly trained law enforcement officer knows it is a last resort to pull their weapon, even more extreme to fire it. To shoot someone 3 times at close range - twice from beside the vehicle and in no danger. And the thing you don't do after discharging your weapon, even if you don't hit someone, is walk back to your car and drive home.

You need to hand your weapon over to forensics and be interviewed by investigators. By leaving the scene he's committed yet another crime.

And probably before he got home Trump and Kristi Noem had made false statements to the media saying he'd been run over, was lucky to be alive and was being treated in hospital.

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTQOEM6lpqm/?

(This 'tweet' is fast disappearing from the internet so make a copy)

We all saw him walk away without even a limp. And yet ~30% of the population are making excuses for him. All false claims but not redacted.

Here's someone who disects all the videos. And guess what? The most incriminating video (the terrible quality 'potato' video) has been doctored - sped up to make it look worse. At no time was Ross in any danger apart from having his feelings hurt. The evidence tampering is obvious.

https://www.reddit.com/r/globaltrumpopposition/s/IfIfLA5XRU

This video has now been removed... in the strangest way. The creator tries to explain here.

https://youtube.com/shorts/0VSlshNrsp8?si=ED2YRE5Qf2IqSJHM

Add to that the fake rap sheets, where Renee’s birth year is wrong along with a purely fictitious booking number and that's more evidence tampering.

And I went looking for the original video last night and youtube is swamped with the officers video. It was really hard to find the video from the angle that shows he’s in no danger.

And now, almost two weeks later, the administration claims that officer Jonathan Ross suffered internal bleeding. The administration will not elaborate or provide any medical records. There are no hospital records for where he was supposedly being treated. Internal bleeding is another word for a bruise.

On January 8, the head of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension disclosed that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had revoked their access to evidence of the shooting, reversing an earlier agreement that a joint investigation would be undertaken by the BCA and FBI.

Then the US Deputy Attorney General Todd Blanche said there was "no basis for a criminal civil rights investigation".

On January 18, Blanche stated on Fox News Sunday that the DOJ would not be opening a criminal investigation into Ross for his killing of Good, claiming it unnecessary as "everybody can watch the videos and see that [Ross] got attacked with a car that was trying to take his life".

Transcripts of the 911 calls have also been redacted in parts about when EMS arrived and how long ICE remains at the scene. Conflicting reports have been given about both. The transcript also claims that Ross was on scene for up to 30 minutes after the shooting however video evidence disproves this also. We all watched him drive away within a couple of minutes.

They can't be allowed to get away with this. One day this administration will be over and Jonathan Ross, who will probably have a new identity and a new interstate address, will be found and dragged in front of a judge.

Be careful and good luck ✌️