Please Follow us on Gab, Minds, Telegram, Rumble, Gettr, Truth Social, Twitter

Thousands of people rolled into the Cadillac Ranch in Southington, Connecticut, on Sunday to join in a vigil in honor of Charlie Kirk, though depending on what newspaper you read, you might think only hundreds were there.

The truth is the place was absolutely packed to capacity, with somewhere on the order of 500 to 600 people inside the building, and another perhaps thousand outside. Like with other vigils we've seen, the crowd has been nothing but warm, kind, caring and peaceful.

A big shout out goes to Graham Nicholson, the owner of the Cadillac Ranch, who was kind enough to open his business to host the vigil on a day when the facility is normally closed, and to Lisa Milone and Annalisa Stravato and others who organized the vigil -- people absolutely needed to come together to heal in the face of this senseless tragedy.

The Centinal arrived early on Sunday, thanks to sage advice from a group of "regulars" who have been organizing pro-Trump events at the Cadillac Ranch for ages.

In fact, there was quite a bit of confusion prior to the event as to who was the "real" host of the vigil, with many people assuming it was the "Logical Conservative" Trump bus crew and the Cadillac Ranch regulars; it was not. Though it would have been nice for CT GOP Chair Ben Proto to recognize that group for their relentless commitment to the cause.

There was also some confusion about who would have an opportunity to speak at the event, since other vigils in the state had more of an "open mic" situation, but the speaker line-up for Sunday's vigil was pre-arranged.

This led to hard feelings from a couple folks, like CT-RAMM's Kate Prokop, who thought she might have an opportunity to speak during the main event, only to find out later that it wasn't going to happen. By the time there was an open mic, it was after Prokop had left and after the crowd had thinned, too late to have the desired impact.

Stravato and Milone started off the vigil with thoughtful comments, followed by Proto.

Proto's speech was all about unity, following in the spirit of that controversial "joint statement" he issued in conjunction with Democrat State Chairman Roberto Alves the day after Kirk's assassination.

The call for "unity" with democrats sharply divided the room -- on one hand you had people who appreciated the sentiment, but on the other hand you had a lot of people who, like the Centinal, line up with Vice President JD Vance's perspective that there can be "NO UNITY" with radical leftists.

The calls for "unity" from Proto immediately led to quiet mumbles of "he means uniparty" amongst the crowd.

The "unity" theme also caused people to send comments to us, saying "remember when Proto lied about Trump and said Trump regretted saying 'fight fight fight'" ... and "remember when Proto said he didn't want to have dinner with Trump" ... and remember when Proto told Matt Corey not to mention Trump's name during his campaign.

After Proto came comments in the same vein from House Republican Leader Vince Candelora -- another call for "unity" followed by more DMs to us with pictures like this:

An absolutely incredible gal who wished to remain unnamed belted out a rendition of Amazing Grace that brought people to tears -- it was just beautiful -- and she followed up at the end of the vigil with another powerful rendition.

But before she sang the second song, we had the absolute pleasure of hearing from Rev. Jacob W. Dell, Pastor of The First Congregational Church of Woodbury, whom you might recall was investigated by Connecticut Attorney General William Tong for a tweet about Tong's silence over the tragic suicide of a Connecticut girl who got secretly transitioned in school with the help of a transgender pastor and activists.

Everyone should stop and take a moment to listen to what Pastor Dell has to say, because he was spot on. He talked about how Communists had set their sights on this country long ago to demoralize us and more.

"They did a lot of damage," Pastor Dell said. "And by the time Charlie's generation came of age, that damage had pretty much run it's course."

Now, in the wake of Charlie's death, Pastor Dell says the burden of correcting the damage falls on all of us. He is absolutely right.

Thank you, again, to the organizers -- we do not want to minimize how much the community appreciated their hard work and good intentions.

Thank you to all of the amazing people we met out there in the parking lot on Sunday for all of the kind feedback for the Centinal, we are humbled.

And a special shout out to all of you brave freedom fighters out there who have promised to carry on the torch for Charlie.

‘NO AD’ subscription for CDM!  Sign up here and support real investigative journalism and help save the republic!‘