NO, HIGHER TEACHER PAY DOESN’T INCREASE STUDENT LEARNING: A new analysis by Open the Books comparing student academic performance between 2019 and 2024 with school payrolls finds an inverse relationship. You will not read or see this story in the New York Times, Washington Post, ABC, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, USA Today, CBS, etc. etc.

CHARLIE KIRK, IN HIS OWN WORDS: There have been so many tributes to Charlie Kirk since his assassination. But this one — prepared by cross-examined.org — depends solely on what he said in countless situations on campuses across America.

You want to see him at his gentlest, it’s here. You want to see him confront a Satanist, it’s here. You want to hear him on the relationship between Grace and Truth, it’s here, too. This is Charlie, in his own words.

PRITZKER’S ‘FULLY FUNDED’ PENSION PLOY: Illinois has the worst state pension funding of the 50 states in great part due to the word games GOP and Dem officials alike have routinely played. Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker continues the games, which won’t be helpful to his presidential hopes in 2028.

HOW THE RADICAL LEFT REALLY SEES CHARLIE KIRKS: Richard Pollock, who knows the American Left from the inside, reminds us from Saul Alinsky that being a solid church-going, tax-paying citizen-leader is no guarantee of security against political violence.

“[Charlie] Kirk is widely known as a good person, a follower of Christ, a man who openly espoused debate and the free flow of ideas. Therefore, some say, he is beyond attack, especially a murderous attack. Not so, says Alinsky. He says the ‘good person’ label is a ruse and ‘political idiocy.’

“’Can you imagine in the arena of conflict charging that so-and-so is a racist bastard and then diluting the impact of the attack with qualifying remarks such as He is a good churchgoing man, generous to charity, and a good husband? This becomes political idiocy,’ Alinksy argued.”

And in the context of the post-October 7, 2023 Hamas attack in Israel the Kirk assassination should be understood as an escalation from the subsequent surge in anti-Jewish violence in the U.S. In other words, more such violence could be right around the corner.

TURNS OUT I WAS RIGHT ABOUT CHARLIE KIRK: His pastor, Mark Driscoll, explains that Charlie Kirk was preparing to become a full-time evangelist and apologist for Christianity, just as I suggested might well have been the case had he lived.

WHAT IF CHARLIE KIRK LIVED? Yes, Charlie Kirk was an amazing force in conservative politics, but what if he was still with us? Might he have become the next Billy Graham? Check out my latest PJMedia column.

HOW THE LEFT ENCOURAGES, LEGITIMIZES POLITICAL VIOLENCE: Now-former MSNBC Analyst Matthew Dowd got himself fired but not before providing the public with a concise illustration of how the Left does it.

ACT BLUE INDICTMENTS AHEAD? Rod Martin’s status report on the revelations thus far regarding the federal probe of political fund-raising behemoth of the Left suggests some other shoes are about to drop. Money laundering, foreign contributions are involved and 19 states are investigating in addition to the Feds.

THE ORCS ARE COMING FOR RFK JR: That tumultuous Senate Finance Committee hearing last week in which HHS Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. was subjected to an unprecedented series of insults, misrepresentations, outright lies, and character assassination is just the opening of Sauron’s massive assault. The goal is to do whatever is necessary to either persuade President Donald Trump to fire Kennedy, or to render Kennedy so bloodied and distracted that he resigns.

THEY PRAISED IKE FOR SENDING IN THE NATIONAL GUARD: Liberals profusely praised President Dwight Eisenhower in 1957 when he federalized the Arkansas National Guard and sent the 101st Airborne to Little Rock, Arkansas, to escort nine students to ensure the safe enrollment and begin the process of desegregation of that state’s public school system.

Rod Martin wonders why is it the Left goes apocalyptic in angry protests against President Donald Trump for sending in the troops to help local law enforcement protect Chicago’s 2.7 million inhabitants against the murderers, rapists, car-jackers, gangs and drug dealers who will ultimately destroy the Windy City if they aren’t stopped now?

THE SEISMIC SHIFT YOU HAVEN’T HEARD ABOUT: No, it’s not the move of young male voters to the Trump/Republican column, important as that certainly is in the political calculations of the days ahead.

But politics is downstream from culture and culture is downstream from you know what, and that’s where the most important — and totally unexpected — shift in the tectonic plate underlying the American experience is happening. Read all about it in my latest PJMedia column.

WHERE WERE SENATE DEMS WHEN CDC ISSUED THESE LIES? Yesterday’s Senate Finance Committee hearing in which Democrat after Democrat raised bogus issue after bogus issue should be understood in the context of the sorry performance of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the Department of Health and Human Services, headed by Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Over and over again, in response to ridiculous Democratic claims that assumed the CDC could do no wrong, Kennedy retorted by pointing out Senator X said nothing for years as the nation became sicker and sicker.

Now Just Facts’ documents the reality that “the CDC issued reams of unscientific pronouncements that killed and harmed multitudes of people during the Covid-19 pandemic.” THIS IS A MUST-READ.

WHY DO BAD THINGS HAPPEN TO GOOD PEOPLE? It’s a classic question, but maybe, as suggested by the latest issue of the Colson Center’s “What Would You Say?” video on HillFaith, the issue may be less complicated than we think.

TALK ABOUT COOKIN’ THE BOOKS: Officially, the U.S. National Debt is more than $37 trillion. But, as I report today at The Washington Stand, experts at Truth-in-Accounting (TIA), the Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC) and elsewhere point out, the actual debt is $158 Trillion. That’s because the federal government exempts itself from the same accounting rules it imposes on private and corporate businesses.

Let’s say you are the government and you just bought a new vehicle for $50,000 (including the interest on the loan). The monthly payment is $500. As things presently stand, your balance sheet only show a debt obligation of $500.

If you had $50K in hand, you could have slapped those bills on the table and driven away debt free. But the fact is you incurred an unfunded obligation you must repay at the rate of $500 per month for a total of $50,000.

That’s how the feds account for hundreds of trillions of dollars of unfunded obligations under Social Security, federal pensions, Medicare, loan guarantees and a host of other programs. And that’s why any time you see a politician in either party wringing their hands about that terrible $37 Trillion National Debt, ask them what they are doing about the other $121 Trillion.

WHEN HATE CALLS ITSELF ‘THE PEOPLE’S CONFERENCE FOR PALESTINE:’ If you were in the vicinity of Huntington Place Detroit this past weekend, you were at Ground Zero in America for radical Leftist and Islamists making common cause to destroy Israel and America, according to Richard Pollock.

During the three-day hatefest, Rep. Rashida Talib (D-Mich.) provided yet more evidence, as if any more was needed, for why the House of Representatives should refuse to seat her. As Pollock reports:

“She defiantly told cheering Palestinian activists, ‘We aren’t going anywhere. We’re just getting started. I want to say to all of them, look at this room, mother-f—–s – we aren’t going anywhere!’

“Talib routinely denounced many of America’s political institutions, including the U.S. Congress where she serves, saying they were objectively evil. ‘The political situation that I have to work in, that we are surrounded by, was built on slavery, genocide, rape and oppression.’

“Channelling the rhetoric of the 1970’s she urged the activists to seek the ‘power in the streets,’ telling the adoring crowd, ‘the power that we will have in the streets and pushing these institutions is going to work!’”

Stay tuned because it’s also becoming clear that the New Left of the 1960s and 1970s never really changed or went away; they just changed their costumes.

CRIME FACTS NEWSOM MISSED: Issues & Insights (I&) dug into the crime data for America’s major urban areas and found some facts that ought to be on the front page of the New York Times, Washington Post and throughout the Mainstream Media:

• Of the 20 cities with the highest homicide rates in the country, 14 are located in blue or purple states.
• Just one of the remaining six currently has a Republican mayor – Dallas’ Eric Johnson – and he was twice elected as a Democrat, and switched to become a Republican in his second term.
• The remaining five cities, despite being in red states, have been under Democratic control for years, if not decades.

There’s more, much more, in this much-needed fact-based corrective to pretty much everything being claimed about crime by the like of California Gov. Gavin Newsom, Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson and the Democratic leadership on Capitol Hill.

DON’T GIVE UP TOO SOON: That’s the bottomline advice of David Tennent, a remarkable young former Capitol Hill aide and aspiring entrepreneur who heeded the Lord’s guidance even in the darkest pit of the COVID closure of Congress.

Three years later, Tennent’s CNCT, a digital platform that breaks down social and political isolation among congressional aides, is a great success, demonstrating that following God’s plan for your life and embracing the free market culture of opportunity and innovation is an amazing combination.

Happy Labor Day to my fellow Instapunditeers!

WHEN IDENTITY BECOMES IDOLATRY: The lesson at the darkest center of the Minneapolis school shooting.

READ A GOOD, FREE BOOK LATELY? No, this is not a pitch from me for you to buy my latest new book. You won’t find my name as the author on any book these day because, while I can flip pages for hours in a good one, writing books has never been my passion.

But for others, like Josh McDowell, writing great books that are bought and read by millions is among his greatest of passions. This is nowhere so well-illustrated as by his classic of Christian Apologetics, “More Than A Carpenter.” More than 15 million copies of MTAC have been printed and sold since the first edition hit the bookstands in 1977,

Over at HillFaith, I have for several years had a standing offer of a free copy of MTAC to anybody willing to share their name, snail mail address and email address. More than 500 folks, including a bunch of Instapundit readers, have taken me up on the offer.

Periodically, I receive thoughts and/or thank yous from folks who have asked for and received a copy of MTAC. Tom Colson did so recently and I so appreciated his comments that I asked him for reprint permission, which he gladly granted. It’s a useful reminder of a great offer of a wonderful book. Check it out here.

AND GUESS WHAT THE ‘PALESTINIANS’ ARE DOING THIS WEEKEND IN DETROIT: A bunch of radical far-Left political activists are meeting, again, this Labor Day weekend in Detroit to plot new deceit and destruction about and of Israel in the U.S., according to award-winning journalist Richard Pollock.

One key to understanding where and why these folks are headed for the coming months is found in understanding the influence of Saul Alinksky, the mind-master of Barack Obama and thousands more New Left radicals in America. Pollock knows these plays backwards and forwards, having been among Alinksky’s American followers for years before his own ideological rebirth:

“This is the model for the pro-Palestinian protesters. It is to intimidate, instill public fear, and for the authorities, to be regarded as the enemy. At all of the previous pro-Palestinian college encampments, only radical students were permitted to enter and they exuded intimidation. They barred Jewish students from entering the encampments or engaging their fellow students in open dialogue who were inside the Palestinian strongholds.

“Across the country’s campuses, radical Palestinian activists disrupted classes, attacked students who wore Jewish symbols, hunted down Jewish students, occupied buildings, painted Swastikas in student dormitories, and in some cases, beat security guards who tried to help.

“The ‘fear factor’ was one of their best weapons. And I suspect, they intend to use it again this fall. I think we can expect that we’ll soon see the ‘next phase’ of Palestinian ‘resistance. Get ready.”

Cauz it ain’t gonna be pretty!

NO, THE PALESTINIANS ARE THE COLONIZERS: Among the many endlessly repeated lies from the Left about Israel, Gaza, Hamas and the Palestinians is the one that claims Israel is the illegitimate foreign conqueror and colonizer of lands the Palestinians historically own. The truth, as Rod Martin explains this morning on Substack, is the exact opposite. Once that fact is recognized, all the rest of the lies fall into place.

THOUSANDS OF DOUBLE-DIPPING BUREAUCRATS? Oh surely not! Oh surely yes, declares Sen. Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate DOGE Caucus, in a new report that points to multiple agencies where, cumulatively, literally thousands of federal workers are still drawing paychecks and Pandemic-related unemployment checks.

But wait! There’s more!! Thousands more federal workers, according to the report, are using their insider access to steal millions of tax dollars that are paid to fake contractors, suppliers, beneficiaries, etc. et.

“Why are government employee unions fighting so hard, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, to block [DOGE] from accessing the information necessary to stop fraud and abuse? The answer is obvious. The deep state doesn’t want those meddling whiz kids at DOGE exposing the Washington corruption that’s been hiding in plain sight for way too long. Unscrupulous bureaucrats have been ripping off public assistance programs intended to help the needy, disabled, hungry, out-of-work folks, veterans, small businesses, and even children who lost a parent,” the report contends.

Unfortunately, there is yet more to this expose, which you can read all about in The Washington Stand this morning.

TWO MODEST PROPOSALS FOR THE NATION’S CAPITAL: Can you imagine an end to the Traffic Hell that is commuting to and from the District of Columbia and thereabouts? How about a massive infusion of Real World America values into the federal bureaucracy? I’ve got just what you’re looking for in my latest Substack column.

WHAT NEWSOM HATES, LOVES: Issues & Insights surveys the man’s record and concludes that what California’s governor hates is Californians and absolutely, totally, completely worships is being in the spotlight.

ERIK HAS A QUESTION: How do you get non-material consciousness when all you have to work with is material? Regardless if you are an atheist or a theist, it’s the kind of question that will make you think hard about what you think and why you think it.

NOTE TO COMMENTERS: Folks, I really appreciate the civility and depth of analysis exhibited in so many of your comments to the post. Thank you!