A massive crowd is set to converge on State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, today for a memorial service dedicated to Charlie Kirk, the influential conservative activist assassinated earlier this month. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance will lead the tributes at the event, dubbed “Building a Legacy: Remembering Charlie Kirk,” where tens of thousands of supporters, including young conservatives and top administration officials, are anticipated to gather in honor of the 31-year-old founder of Turning Point USA.
Kirk, who launched Turning Point USA in 2012 at just 18 years old, transformed it into a powerhouse for mobilizing conservative youth across high schools, colleges, and online platforms. His organization championed free speech, limited government, and traditional American values, amassing a following that reshaped political engagement among the next generation.
Tragically, Kirk was assassinated on September 10 during the kickoff of TPUSA’s “American Comeback Tour” at Utah Valley University, where he was addressing a crowd of about 3,000 students. Authorities charged 22-year-old Tyler Robinson with capital murder, alleging he acted alone out of personal animosity toward Kirk’s views, and prosecutors are pursuing the death penalty.
Many have questioned whether Robinson actually acted alone or if he was the patsy in a much larger plot.
The shooting has ignited fierce debate over political violence in America, with many pointing to inflammatory language from the left as a contributing factor. President Trump addressed this directly in a statement, saying, “For years, those on the radical left have compared wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals.”
This comparison, Trump argued, fuels division and endangers lives, as seen in a string of recent attacks. He went on to connect Kirk’s death to broader patterns: “From the attack on my life in Butler, Pennsylvania, last year — which killed a husband and father — to the attacks on ICE agents, to the vicious murder of a health care executive in the streets of New York, to the shooting of House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and three others, radical left political violence has hurt too many innocent people and taken too many lives.”
The President’s words point to a pattern where extreme leftist ideology escalates into real-world harm, eroding the civil discourse Kirk worked to foster.
In the wake of the tragedy, Trump reflected on Kirk’s impact among young people, noting, “He had just an army of young people.”
Kirk’s ability to rally millennials and Gen Z conservatives is legendary, turning them into a formidable force against progressive dominance on campuses. Kirk’s events often featured unfiltered debates, welcoming questions from all sides to promote genuine exchange—a rarity in today’s polarized environment.
Vice President Vance echoed this sentiment, praising Kirk’s approach: “If you actually watch Charlie’s events — as opposed to the fake summaries — they are one of the few places with open and honest dialogue between left and right. He would answer any question and talk to everyone.”
The emotional toll of Kirk’s loss resonates deeply within conservative circles. Trump captured the widespread grief, stating, “They loved him so much. I mean, they’re devastated right now. Everybody is devastated.”
Donald Trump Jr. shared a similar heartfelt tribute, describing Kirk as someone who “was like a little brother to me” and adding, “Moments like this remind us just how fragile life is. We can’t wait to tell people how much they mean to us — we can’t admire them in silence. Charlie knew he was loved, but I want to say it again: he was a brother to me, and I will carry that with me forever.”
Representative Anna Paulina Luna minced no words in assigning blame: “EVERY DAMN ONE OF YOU WHO CALLED US FASCISTS DID THIS. You were too busy doping up kids, cutting off their genitals, inciting racial violence by supporting orgs that exploit minorities, protecting criminals, and stirring hate. YOU ARE THE HATE you claim to fight. Your words caused this. Your hate caused this.”
In a video message from the White House, Trump called for national reflection, urging, “I ask all Americans to commit themselves to the American values for which Charlie Kirk lived & died. The values of free speech, citizenship, the rule of law & the patriotic devotion & love of God.”
Elon Musk, a vocal supporter of populist causes, added his blunt assessment: “The Left is the party of murder.”
The memorial itself promises to be a fitting send-off, starting at 11 a.m. local time with entry on a first-come, first-served basis. Attendees are encouraged to wear patriotic attire, and strict security measures—including a no-bag policy—will be enforced, especially after a man with a gun and knife was detained at the stadium the day before.
TPUSA’s spokesperson clarified the incident: “The man was doing ‘advance security for a known guest’ but it wasn’t properly coordinated with the Secret Service or Turning Point,” adding that “it was not believed the man was ‘attempting anything nefarious’.”
Kirk’s widow, Erika Kirk, recently named as TPUSA’s new CEO, will also speak, ensuring the organization carries forward his vision.
As mourners from across the nation arrive, the service will not only commemorate Kirk’s life but also serve as a rally point for conservatives to reaffirm their resolve. Broadcast live on Fox News and streamed online, the event stands as a testament to Kirk’s enduring influence, drawing a crowd that could fill the stadium’s 63,400 seats and beyond.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.
“Disney says, “Jimmy Kimmel Live will return to ABC on Tuesday.” Boycott Disney and ABC!
“Disney says, “Jimmy Kimmel Live will return to ABC on Tuesday.” Boycott Disney and ABC!