September 12, 2025 10:53 AM UTC

GOP House Minority Leader's Sudden Turnabout On Policing Speech

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• by: Colorado Pols

In the nearly two days since the assassination on Wednesday of conservative activist Charlie Kirk at Utah Valley University, mourning from conservatives over Kirk’s death has been channeled into a nationwide campaign to publicly shame and unemploy anyone they can find who failed to express the appropriate level of grief and remorse over the passing of this highly controversial and willfully divisive political figure. This campaign is being principally led by a right-wing social media maven known as LibsofTikTok, who over the last couple of days has posted dozens of such comments along with personally identifying information and contacts of employers–while encouraging her millions of followers to do the same.

Here in Colorado, the Charlie Kirk memorial gentility purge is being actively prosecuted by the Republican Minority Leader of the Colorado House, Rose Pugliese, who is calling for the firing of a state employee after LibsofTikTok posted said employee’s comments about Kirk’s killing for mass denunciation:

So as to not contribute to the hatred and threats being directed at this state employee by literally thousands of anonymous voices on social media, we’ve removed identifying details from the image above, and are choosing not to directly link to Pugliese’s posts on the subject. Although we would not ourselves have chosen to respond to Wednesday’s news with some of the words above, this individual like the thousands of others being targeted in this coordinated backlash campaign has the right to express an opinion about a controversial news figure. When evaluated against the ghastly jokes conservative political figures at the highest levels made about the violent attack on Paul Pelosi in 2022, or the indifference on the right to the murder of a Democratic state senator in Minnesota this past June, this whole business smacks of protestation of one side’s own guilt.

It’s even worse in the case of House Minority Leader Rose Pugliese, who just a few short weeks ago was embroiled in scandal of her own after allegedly attempting to help conceal the origins within her caucus of a widespread online harassment campaign against a Democratic colleague. Although this incident was partially resolved by the resignation of Rep. Ryan Armagost ahead of a censure resolution, Pugliese’s mishandling of that incident leaves her with a severe credibility deficit to demand the heads of state employees for voicing their opinion on a news event unrelated to their jobs.

But that’s never stopped her before. From Pugliese’s point of view, this could well be “justice” for Armagost’s fate. But if you can’t see the difference between directly harassing a colleague and commenting in one’s own space about a controversial news figure, you’re not qualified to pass judgment in either case.