Meet Lisa Schmidt, a senior sustainability and climate adviser, the kind of professional whose job involves lecturing corporations on ethical responsibility. Her LinkedIn bio, now scrubbed of Nasdaq’s logo, once brimmed with buzzwords like “ESG integration” and “stakeholder capitalism.” Yet when faced with the assassination of a 31-year-old man — Charlie Kirk — her first instinct was to spit on his memory from a European café, celebrating his death. But when she gets back from her European trip, she won't have a job with Nasdaq.
Nasdaq rebuked her immediately:
“We are aware of social media posts by an employee regarding the shooting of Charlie Kirk that were a clear violation of our policy. Nasdaq has a zero-tolerance policy toward violence and any commentary that condones or celebrates violence. The employee in question has been terminated, effective immediately.”
Key points:
- Nasdaq fired senior climate adviser Lisa Schmidt after she posted “Rest in piss” in response to Charlie Kirk’s assassination, alongside a photo of herself flipping off the camera.
- Schmidt is part of a growing wave of professionals — teachers, lawyers, professors — openly celebrating Kirk’s death, revealing a cultural rot that transcends politics.
- Companies like MSNBC and Perkins Coie have also terminated employees for similar comments, but the scale of the problem suggests a deeper radicalization.
- White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller warned that society has been “dangerously radicalized by a closed circuit of radical left propaganda.”
- The killings of conservative figures (Kirk, the attempted assassination of Donald Trump) are being normalized as "justice" by a faction that sees speech it dislikes as a capital offense.
- The hypocrisy of corporate "values" is exposed: Firms preach ESG and "kindness" while employing people who cheer political murder.
A disturbing pattern of hatred
Schmidt’s Instagram post was not an isolated outburst but part of a broader, alarming trend. In the wake of Kirk’s shooting, left-wing figures across industries — from academia to corporate law — have openly reveled in the violence. Bradley Dlatt, an attorney at the progressive firm Perkins Coie, lost his job after calling Kirk a “leading spreader of hatred.” A University of Kentucky security officer was suspended for quoting Clarence Darrow’s infamous line about reading obituaries “with great satisfaction.” The disgusting MSNBC’s Matthew Dowd faced immediate termination after suggesting Kirk bore responsibility for his own attack, parroting the dangerous notion that “hateful words lead to hateful actions.”
The implication is chilling: If you disagree with someone politically, their suffering becomes justified. This is not activism. It is dehumanization.
Corporate accountability meets political radicalism
Nasdaq’s decisive response —“The employee in question has been terminated, effective immediately” — stands in stark contrast to institutions that have hesitated to punish similar behavior. Schmidt’s role as a “climate adviser” adds another layer of irony. The same movement that preaches empathy and social justice produced a woman who laughed at a near-fatal shooting.
White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller summed up the crisis aptly: “A huge portion of our society has been radicalized by a closed circuit of left-wing propaganda.” The normalization of such vitriol didn’t happen overnight. Years of divisive rhetoric, from media pundits to activist educators, have eroded basic decency. When a city council member declares “the world is a better place” after an assassination attempt, it’s clear how deep the sickness runs.
This isn’t about silencing dissent. Kirk has been a vocal advocate for free speech on college campuses, and has given opposing views a platform to speak and be heard. Those mocking his assassination aren’t defending progressive values — they’re endorsing terror. The left’s descent into violent rhetoric mirrors the very extremism it claims to oppose.
The solution starts with firing bad actors like Schmidt, but it goes beyond that, and requires a cultural reckoning, a spiritual awakening. If hatred and the celebration of murder and assassination is allowed to fester under the guise of political expression, the next target of assassination could be anyone who dares to speak on important issues.
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