Debates about public school funding sometimes include an underlying assumption that more funding results in better student outcomes. Available data tells a more complex story. Our review of 12,531 school districts across the country shows a negative correlation between overhead and student performance. In other words, districts that spent more on teacher and administrative pay saw their students’ standardized test scores drop.

Using the Open the Books proprietary database of government salaries across America, we calculated how much each U.S. state increased its total public school payrolls from 2019 to 2023. We compared that number to the change in each state’s ranking on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), which measures reading and math skills for 4th and 8th graders.

By plotting the percentage change in payroll, state by state, versus the percentage change in the national rankings of its districts, a surprising picture emerges. Growing payrolls are not closely correlated with improved performance among districts in a given state. In fact, the opposite correlation appears. There is a mild inverse relationship between these two data sets. Higher overhead costs are associated with lower test scores.

In layman’s terms, that means while schools may hope that increasing their payroll will help their students outperform other states, there is little evidence in the data to support that claim. Again, the opposite seems to be true.

There were six states that increased their school payrolls by at least 23% from 2019 to 2023. Four of them saw student performance decrease, and one saw no change. Only Utah moved up in the NAEP rankings. *** Scafidi wrote that this “irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars is indefensible,” and that was before the surge in salaries over the last few years. From 2010 to 2022, the number of administrative staff rose by another 41%, while overall school employment rose by only 10%.

In 2023, 8,884 public school employees across the country earned salaries of at least $200,000, costing $2.08 billion,*** Christian Barnard, assistant director of education reform at the Reason Foundation, previously reported that per-pupil spending in the U.S. increased by almost 21% from 2002 to 2019, but 64% of the increased spending was used to pay benefits for instructional and support staff. Barnard found that if benefit pay had instead only kept pace with inflation, U.S. schools would have saved nearly $70 billion in 2019 — enough to give every teacher in America a $20,913 raise.***

Open the Books, Staff

“I don’t get no respect,” said Rodney Dangerfield, thousands of times. It was one of the great taglines in show-business history. It was the basis of his act—the denial of respect. Whatever his protestations, Rodney was one of the most beloved entertainers of the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s.

There is now a biography, Nothin’ Comes Easy, by Michael Seth Starr. Mr. Starr has written many biographies of entertainers, and several of comedians such as Dangerfield. His other subjects include Joey Bishop, Redd Foxx, and Don Rickles.

You may prefer to read a long magazine piece about Dangerfield. You may prefer to watch a few video clips of his act on YouTube. But if you’re up for a deep dive—this book is for you.

Often, comedy arises from personal pain, as everyone knows. Rodney Dangerfield had a terrible, terrible upbringing. Therefore, he had a lot of material. Would he have traded the material for a better upbringing, and a different career? I would like to ask him.

Rodney once said, “I’m not a happy guy. Comedy is a camouflage for depression. Comics turn to jokes because they don’t want to face themselves. Actually, I’m not a happy guy.”

I grew up with Rodney’s jokes, so to speak. They were very funny—but tinged with pain. He was always talking about how ugly he was. (He was not.) “My kids are good-looking. Good thing my wife cheats on me.”

There were two jokes he reliably told about his birth. (1) “When I was born, the doctor said to my mother, ‘We did everything we could, but he pulled through anyway.’” (2) “When I was born, I was so ugly, the doctor slapped my mother.” Funny, yes, but…

He was born Jacob Cohen in 1921 and he grew up in Queens, N.Y. His father was a vaudeville performer—”Phil Roy,” he called himself. His mother was Dorothy, or “Dotty.”

There have been worse parents. But not many.

The father was simply absent. Rodney (or Jacob, as he was then) saw him once or twice a year, for an hour or two. Later, Rodney would quip, “Dad had no time for kids. He was always out trying to make new kids.” His mother was very, very cold—also needy, which makes for a brutal combination. According to Rodney, she never gave him a compliment, a kiss, or a birthday present. Not even a card.

When he was a boy, Rodney was molested, repeatedly, by a neighborhood man. In school, he was the target of anti-Semitism, not just from students but also from teachers. But Rodney had a goal in life, which was life-saving, as I see it. He had a purpose. He wanted to become a comedian.

“I went into show business to get love,” he later said. “I think nine-tenths of the people in this racket have an identical need … “

He strove and struggled to break into the business, appearing under the name “Jack Roy.” He earned a living, sort of, and gained some attention. But not enough to keep going, as he saw it. So he quit.

“I was the only one who knew I had quit,” he would say, with his trademark self-deprecation.

In an interim period—wilderness years—he sold aluminum siding and paint. He was fairly good at it. But in his heart, and in his head, he was a comedian. He never stopped writing jokes—for himself and for other comedians.

“I had to tell jokes,” Rodney would say. “I had to write them and tell them. It was like a fix, like I had the habit, you know?” In his biography, Starr quotes Joseph Merhi, a producer, who said about Rodney, “Every waking moment, he was thinking about stand-up. He always had a pad and a pen and was writing down jokes.”

Having had his fill of aluminum siding and paint, Jacob Cohen, or Jack Roy, decided to give comedy one more go. And, as Rodney Dangerfield, he made it big. His breakthrough moment came on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1967. He was an overnight success—at 45 years old, having worked his tail off for years.

There was more to come—more than nightclubs and TV shows. There were movies, beginning with Caddyshack in 1980, through Back to School in 1986, to something not exactly funny: Oliver Stone’s Natural Born Killers in 1994. The guy who got no respect became a living legend and national treasure.

I think I can make the claim “national treasure” because Rodney’s signature white shirt and red tie were installed in the Smithsonian.

Throughout his life, Dangerfield suffered from depression—black, awful depression. He would joke, of course. “I told my psychiatrist, ‘I have suicidal thoughts.’ He said, ‘From now on, you pay in advance.’”

There was solace, though—marijuana. He smoked it from young adulthood to the day he died. “It allows me to cope with life,” he explained. Would he have been even sharper, in his comedy onstage, without the daily influence of pot? Many people—I have known some—think they are knockin’ ’em dead when under the influence. Rodney was aware of this.

In his autobiography—It’s Not Easy Bein’ Me (2004)—he wrote, “I did coke for a while. What a mistake that was. When you’re on coke, things can be going bad and you think you’re doing great.” Marijuana, he never abandoned, nor, from his perspective, did it abandon him.

Louis Armstrong was another performer, and living legend, and national treasure, who swore by marijuana. Reading a line in Starr’s biography, I thought of him.

An actress, Candice Azzara, said of Rodney, “Even though he made a lot of jokes, he seemed like the saddest man I knew.” Once, the actor Ossie Davis glimpsed Armstrong in an unguarded moment. Armstrong did not know anyone was observing. He wore, said Davis, “the saddest, most heartbreaking expression” he had ever seen.

As time went on, Rodney developed a relationship of sorts with his father. “Even though he had walked out on me,” he said, “there was a part of me that liked him.” And, “knowing my mother, what were his alternatives?” Rodney attended his father’s funeral. He was the only person there (seriously).

I caught Rodney’s act in 2001, when he was marking his 80th birthday. (For the piece I wrote about that evening, go here.) The performance was in Avery Fisher Hall at Lincoln Center in New York. The last words Rodney spoke were, “My old man was in vaudeville, and he said, ‘You can always count on a New York audience.’”

Rodney died in 2004. By that time, he had his own website, which featured a joke of the day. The joke the day he died—by sheer coincidence—was this: “I tell ya, I get no respect from anyone. I bought a cemetery plot. The guy said, ‘There goes the neighborhood.’” This line was, in fact, inscribed on Rodney’s gravestone (at a cemetery in Los Angeles). The epitaph reads, “There goes the neighborhood.”

Rodney Dangerfield was “an adornment to society,” to borrow a phrase from Paul Johnson, the late British historian. I will borrow another from him: Rodney “added to the gaiety of life.” Yes, but at what cost to him.

Nothin’ Comes Easy: The Life of Rodney Dangerfield by Michael Seth Starr Citadel, 240 pp., $29

Jay Nordlinger writes at Onward and Upward on Substack and is the music critic of the New Criterion.

He exposed the lies at the heart of radical left-wing ideologies—and paid the ultimate price for telling the truth.

Like almost everyone in my circle, I have spent the better part of the last week in a stupor. The news of conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination has left all of us who counted him as a friend or colleague in a state of shock and sadness.

I did not know Charlie Kirk well. But I had met him in various green rooms, appeared on his radio program, and worked with him to find capable staffers for the Department of Education. He was always genuine, idealistic, and dedicated to the cause. I’m still astonished by all that he accomplished in such a short period of time. He built an enormous organization, turned himself into a media star, advised the president of the United States, and built a beautiful family—all by age 31.

When we are in the fray of day-to-day politics, it is easy to get consumed by each new headline and triviality. But Kirk’s death marks a pivotal moment, requiring deeper reflection. His life, and tragically his death, reveal some profound truths about the man and about America.

First and foremost, Charlie Kirk did it all the right way. He was a conservative willing to wade into controversial territory. But he was always guided by the idea that debate is the great clarifier and that, in a democratic society, persuasion is the primary means of political change. He set up tables on campus. He debated his opponents. And he believed he could win through the ballot box.

Kirk’s death, and the subsequent reaction to it by the radical Left, underscored the arguments he had made during his time on the stage. For nearly ten years, Kirk had argued that transgender ideology, especially when paired with experimental medical procedures, would result in disaster. From the reports now emerging, it appears likely that the alleged assassin, Tyler Robinson, was radicalized online into anti-fascist and transgender politics. In their most extreme forms, both lines of thinking advocate a nihilistic embrace of violence—the antithesis of Kirk’s approach.

In fact, when he was murdered, Kirk was answering a question about the relationship between transgenderism and mass shootings, a phenomenon that seems to have accelerated in recent years. Kirk sought to engage his opponents in debate; his killer, quite possibly inspired by the trans-radical movement, sought to end that debate with a bullet.

The reaction to Kirk’s death by the mainstream Left has been equally troubling. Thousands of Americans, including students, professors, and even active-duty military members, have publicly cheered his assassination. Some have called for further violence against conservatives. Though I have covered left-wing radical movements for years, I was surprised by the number of people in the “helping professions,” including teachers and doctors, who embraced violent rhetoric.

How should conservatives respond? First, by drawing a line that Kirk himself exemplified: debate is healthy; violence is unacceptable. I’m glad to see that some institutions have terminated the employment of those who cheered on Kirk’s murder.

Contrary to the criticism that this represents a form of right-wing “cancel culture,” these firings were warranted. During the “woke” era, left-wing social media mobs sought the social annihilation of teenagers who sang rap lyrics and a Latino utility worker who cracked his knuckles the wrong way—examples of extreme and unjustified social policing. By contrast, a public school dismissing a teacher for applauding political assassination is a fair consequence.

All societies require boundaries. If there is no social sanction for celebrating violence, America will become a more dangerous place. Social trust, already fragile, will collapse.

On the question of transgender ideology, more information will emerge about Kirk’s alleged killer. But more than enough evidence already exists for federal law enforcement to consider radical transgender ideologues a threat to the civil order of the United States—much like white nationalists, neo-Nazis, militant “anti-fascists,” and other hateful groups. Some figures in the Trump administration, such as policy adviser Stephen Miller and Vice President J. D. Vance, have already indicated that they are ready to take action to enforce the law against violent movements.

Charlie Kirk sacrificed his life for truth. We should honor his legacy by standing firmly on principle, engaging in political debate, and, when necessary, enforcing the law against those who would organize violence in the name of politics.

Christopher F. Rufo, City Journal

During the process of developing the U.S. Constitution Alexander Hamilton submitted a suggested draft for a Constitution on June 18, 1787. At some point, he also suggested to the framers a proposal for the qualification requirements in Article II as to the necessary Citizenship status for the office of President and Commander in Chief of the Military.  Another version of Hamilton’s proposed Constitution and which principles were stated during the convention’s deliberations per Madison notes and journal (see work of Farrand – pg 619), was given to Madison near the close of the convention for inclusion in Madison record of events for the convention. Hamilton’s proposed Constitution was not accepted.

Alexander Hamilton’s suggested presidential eligibility clause:

“No person shall be eligible to the office of President of the United States unless he be now a Citizen of one of the States, or hereafter be born a Citizen of the United States.”

Many of the founders and framers rightly had a fear of foreign influence on the person who would in the future be President of the United States since this particular office was singularly and uniquely powerful under the proposed new Constitution. The President was also to be the Commander in Chief of the military. This fear of foreign influence on a future President and Commander in Chief was particularly strongly felt by John Jay, who later became the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court. He felt so strongly about the issue of potential foreign influence that he took it upon himself to draft a letter to General George Washington, the presiding officer of the Constitutional Convention, recommending/hinting that the framers should strengthen the Citizenship requirements. John Jay was an avid reader and proponent of natural law and particularly Vattel’s treatise on Natural Law and the Law of Nations. In his letter to Washington he said that the Citizenship requirement for the office of the commander of our armies should contain a “strong check” against foreign influence and he recommended to Washington that the command of the military be open only to a “natural born Citizen”. Thus Jay did not agree that simply being a “born Citizen” or “born a Citizen” was sufficient enough protection from foreign influence in the singular most powerful office in the new form of government. He wanted another adjective added to the eligibility clause, i.e., ‘natural’. And that word natural goes to the Citizenship status of one’s parents, both of them, when their child is born, as per natural law.

The below is the relevant proposed change language from Jay’s letter which he proposed to strengthen the citizenship requirements in Article II and to require more than just being a “born Citizen” of the United States to serve as a future Commander in Chief and President.

John Jay wrote in a letter to George Washington dated 25 Jul 1787:

“Permit me to hint, whether it would be wise and seasonable to provide a strong check to the admission of Foreigners into the administration of our national Government; and to declare expressly that the Commander in Chief of the American army shall not be given to nor devolve on, any but a natural born Citizen. “

See a transcription of Jay’s letter to Washington at this link. This letter from Jay was written on July 25, 1787. General Washington passed on the recommendation from Jay to the convention and it was adopted in the final draft and was accepted adding the adjective “natural” making it “natural born Citizen of the United States” for future Presidents and Commanders in Chief of the military, rather than Hamilton’s proposed “born a Citizen”. Thus Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of the U.S. Constitution, the fundamental law of our nation reads:

Article II, Section 1, Clause 5 of U.S. Constitution as adopted 17 Sep 1787:

“No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

There you have the crux of the issue now before the nation and the answer.

CDR Charles Kerchner (Ret)

ABC News correspondent Matt Gutman described text messages between alleged Charlie Kirk assassin Tyler Robinson and his transgender roommate, about the alleged murder weapon, as “very touching.”

If you do not see a problem with this reporter, then YOU are part of the problem and YOU are one of the reasons we are headed in America for another Nazi Germany, only worse.

Why did the left — and it was the left, not just one sociopath — kill Charlie Kirk? He was reasonable. He gave people a chance to debate him. He was kind, and fair. Reason, not polemics, was his methodology. He belonged more to ancient Greece, the domain of Aristotle, than to our cruel, adversarial, cynical, hard culture of today. Don’t you understand? It was precisely BECAUSE of his most virtuous qualities that Charlie Kirk had to go — from the leftist, utterly psychotic totalitarian perspective that still rules our time.

If Charlie Kirk didn’t have so much to offer, especially to young people who might have been considering an alternative to the brazen insanity, intellectual dishonesty and open evil surrounding them, then it would not have been necessary to kill Charlie Kirk in cold blood, with all the world watching. You must understand just how evil the established viewpoint and attitudes of our era really are. Leftism is more ruthlessly and morally hollow than anything yet served up to humankind, including Nazism, Stalinism and all the rest. Consider yourself warned by the leftists themselves–one more time.

Sen. Eric Schmitt, R-Mo., told Newsmax on Tuesday, “When you see numbers like 25% of self-described very liberal citizens think political violence is justified to achieve political ends, that’s very troubling.”

“There’s a real sickness on the left here that has to be addressed. … We have to tell the truth about what’s going on,” he added.

If you have known any leftists, it’s not surprising. Most are riddled with hatred. 25 percent of leftists will support concentration camps, or some equivalent, in our time. Much of the other 75 percent will turn the other way. We are one rigged election (or armed insurrection) away from it happening. My point here isn’t to be alarmist. It’s acceptance of the hard reality of just how evil many of our fellow countrymen are. Be vigilant.

Michael J. Hurd, Daily Dose of Reason

The sad news of the recent assassination of Charlie Kirk shed light on the elephant in the world’s living room. It exposed society’s underlying hatred of anything good, especially true Christians. Let’s take a realistic look at the reason behind the hate and what the Christian response should be.

Although the hatred of believers is nothing new, the crescendo of vitriol and violence is. In the coming days, much will be said about the need for civil discourse, the open exchange of ideas, and free speech, which are good things, of course. But despite our best efforts to appeal to humanity’s ‘better nature,’ the problem remains, and it’s the utter depravity of the human heart.

In John 15:18-25, Jesus warned about the world’s hatred of His followers and explained exactly why they will hate us. They hate us because we’re not of the world, our identity is in His name, and they hate Him and the Father. Jesus said that the world would actually love us if we belonged to it. So here we are, roughly twenty centuries later, and the hatred of Christians has only increased, as was just shown in vivid evil detail, with the murder of Charlie Kirk.

Some people might blame the violence and vitriol directed at Christians on a lack of sustenance. In our modern society, we have the benefit of plumbing, food, and medicine. I am aware that there are areas of scarcity and lack around the globe. But in the West, sustenance is generally within reach, if not plentiful. As a minister, I’ve seen firsthand the amount of practical and tangible help available to people in need in the inner cities, if they take the time to find, ask for, and receive it. So hate doesn’t come from a lack of help. It also doesn’t come from a lack of information or education.

When Jesus told His followers that the world would hate them, it was at a time when education was generally limited to those with wealth or connections. We know from history that the Roman world was a time when a majority of the people were uneducated. So maybe the lack of information and education was the reason for the hatred of Christians. That wasn’t the case because the people fanning the flames of hatred were the authorities and the educated.

But now we have a wealth of accumulated knowledge and terabytes of digital information at our fingertips. For the first time in history, social media platforms have enabled unlimited human interaction and connectivity. The opportunity to share thoughts, ideas, and beliefs with the masses has arrived, and with it comes the unmasking of the wicked human heart 2 Timothy 3:1-5.

Just a few years ago, there was a level of civility and decorum expected in both public and private settings. In just the last decade, empathy and human kindness have given way to widespread apathy and hatred, and this is on full display on the internet. But now the angry anonymous keyboard critic has rematerialized in the public square as the hater in your face. Society is in a perilous state when buying a particular brand of car, voting a certain way, or telling the truth becomes a dangerous act. Ironically, most so-called tolerant people are anything but when it comes to differing views on social issues and faith in public. We used to be able to agree to disagree. Disagreement used to get you cancelled, now it might get you killed Philippians 1:28.

Thoughts on politics, free speech, and where society is heading are understandable given recent events. Still, the fact remains that there are people in our world who hate good and love evil, and because lawlessness is increasing, the love of many will grow cold. The response of true Christians isn’t to bring the fight to our enemies or to repay violence with violence. Far from shrinking back, we should speak the truth in love to those who are unloving, with gentleness and respect, giving a reason for the hope that we have. We must pray for our enemies while understanding they have an enemy of their souls who wants to destroy them. Christians should be wise as serpents and harmless as doves, using spiritual discernment as we navigate society as salt and light Matthew 5:13.

A time is coming, if not already here, when standing for Jesus will increasingly cost us. We might be told to tamp it down, not to speak in that name, or from that book. Our response is to listen to God rather than people, let the Spirit speak through us, and pray for boldness Acts 4:29. Such a response will result in bringing glory to God in this world and for eternity. Every blessing as you make Jesus known. Let us remember to pray for Charlie Kirk’s family.

Howard Green, Rapture Ready

The Baltic Defense Line established by Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania has become the largest fortification effort in Europe since World War II. The multi-layered defensive installation includes anti-tank obstacles, surveillance systems, trenches, and bunkers. The “East Shield” is intended to protect these nations, and therefore Europe, from Russian invasion, which they believe is inevitable.

Estonia announced that it has begun construction of a 40-kilometer trench along its border with Russia. Other Baltic States, such as Lithuania and Latvia, have constructed “dragon’s teeth” or anti-tank barriers that act as large pyramid-shaped concrete obstacles for armored vehicles.

The three Baltic states will each install a minimum of 600 bunkers along the border. The 600-mile-wide project is expected to take up to ten years to complete. “[Vladimir] Putin is not going to let us wait those 10 years,” said Gabrielius Landsbergis, who served as Lithuania’s foreign minister until November. “The most dangerous time for the Baltics will be immediately after a ceasefire in Ukraine,” he told The Telegraph.

The new neocon tale states that a ceasefire with Ukraine would cause a world war. To the neocons, a ceasefire would give Russia more time to regroup, rearm, and attack NATO nations. Danish Intelligence reported that Moscow could “fight a local war in a country bordering Russia,” and in as little as two years, the nation will “be ready for a regional war against several countries in the Baltic Sea region.” By 2030, Danish intelligence believes Russia will engage in “a large-scale war” in Europe.

Now the Baltic states are spending a minimum of £60 million each to implement this Baltic Defense Line. “We must be able to hold the line, make sure Russia does not get inside, but we must also be able to take the fight to the enemy,” declared Raimond Kaljulaid, the head of Estonia’s delegation to NATO.

Russia has no motive to invade the Baltics unless NATO provokes it to do so. Moscow’s strategic concerns lie elsewhere. But NATO must keep expanding the conflict, because without Russia as the eternal enemy, the alliance has no purpose.

The wall is being built not because of military necessity, but because the neocons want perpetual confrontation. The Baltic Defense Line is political theatre for the masses to believe that Europe is protecting itself against Russian threats, when in reality, the neocons in Europe have been planning to wage war against Russia at the nearest opportunity.

Martin Armstrong

FBI Deputy Director Dan Bongino told Newsmax on Monday that investigators have uncovered “significant developments” suggesting a broader network of people might have been involved in the assassination of conservative icon Charlie Kirk.

Bongino told “Rob Schmitt Tonight” the bureau is working to determine whether online chatter that surfaced around the time of Kirk’s murder indicates foreknowledge of the plot. He cautioned that investigators are still sorting out a timeline.

“The only question is the timeline that other people knew about the incident,” Bongino said. “Did they know before? Did they know afterward? … When you read some of the traffic, it’s unclear if that message was received before or after.”

Urgent: You need to read Charlie’s Foreword for the book – which is eerie in its prophetic message. See It Here

Bongino confirmed much of the evidence came from the chat platform Discord, where suspected gunman Tyler Robinson, 22, was active.

“It is not a safe harbor to go on a platform and say, ‘I can threaten to kill or harass someone,'” Bongino said. “We’ll go anywhere to look for you if we believe you committed a crime.”

Bongino stressed the investigation is in its early stages.

“This is not the end of the investigation,” he said. “It’s not even the end of the beginning. … We are investigating a potential broader network of people who may have known.”

Pressed on whether the “developments” involved other individuals, Bongino acknowledged that was the case but said he had to tread carefully.

“That’s an accurate assessment,” he said. “My goal in coming on your show, Rob, is I and [FBI Director] Kash Patel obviously want to be transparent and get out into the public. We don’t want an information vacuum which can be filled by others. What we can get out there we fully intend on doing, but we still have to respect process in the investigation.”

Bongino also addressed the Trump administration’s nationwide anti-crime push, launched five months ago in coordination with the Department of Justice. The campaign has flooded federal resources into cities hindered by gang violence, carjackings, and narcotics trafficking.

“People can say, ‘Stay out of our cities,’ all they want, but their cities are in the United States of America,” Bongino said. “We have a field office presence in just about every major city.”

The FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration, and local police have worked jointly on what Bongino described as a “baseball card” system, targeting fugitives and violent offenders one by one. He said recent declines in crime rates in cities such as Chicago, Los Angeles, and Memphis, Tennessee, are directly tied to the federal surge, despite Democrat leaders’ claims of success on their own.

Bongino’s comments came after President Donald Trump and senior adviser Stephen Miller urged an expansive federal response to what they described as organized networks fueling political violence. Miller went viral earlier Monday for warning about the growing faction of extremists celebrating Kirk’s murder online.

“We’re not the Federal Bureau of Fairy Tales,” he said. “We’re the Federal Bureau of Investigation. If you break the law and threaten to kill or in fact violently attack someone … you don’t get a pass because you disagreed with his politics.”

He emphasized that the bureau intends to keep the public informed while safeguarding the integrity of the case.

“What we can get out there we fully intend on doing,” Bongino said. “We don’t want an information vacuum that can be filled by others.”

Newsmax

The Deep State used its investigative tools to try to intimidate or stop Charlie Kirk from being a conservative leader.

Charlie Kirk’s Turning Point USA was on a short list of Republican groups targeted by President Joe Biden’s FBI under the direction of then-Director Christopher Wray.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, dropped that bombshell Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Committee regular hearing on the oversight of the FBI, along with a revolting new document.

“It’s well-understood that your predecessor left you an FBI infected with politics,” Grassley said in his opening statement, speaking to current FBI Director Kash Patel. As proof, Grassley shared recently released records listing 92 targets the FBI was investigating or intending to investigate in the large-scale, multi-year political weaponization operation named Arctic Frost, a joint investigation using resources from the FBI, Department of Justice, and Office of Inspector General. This bogus witch hunt involved more than 150 interviews, over 400 subpoenas (largely for bank records), hundreds of witnesses, and search warrants for cell phones of high level government officials, electronic devices, iCloud access, and email accounts.

“Arctic Frost was the FBI case opened and approved by anti-Trump FBI agent [Timothy] Thibault. Arctic Frost became Jack Smith’s elector case against Trump,” Grassley said. “These new records show that Arctic Frost was much broader than just an electoral matter. The case was expanded to Republican organizations. Some examples of the groups the Wray FBI sought to place under political investigation included the Republican National Committee, Republican Attorneys General Association and Trump political groups.”

Grassley said 92 Republican-linked targets, including Turning Point USA, were placed under the investigative scope of Arctic Frost.

“In other words, Arctic Frost wasn’t just a case to politically investigate Trump. It was the vehicle by which partisan FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors could achieve their partisan ends and improperly investigate the entire Republican political apparatus. Today, Sen. Johnson and I are making these records public for the country to see,” Grassley added.

While the FBI, DOJ, and OIG could have been fighting crime, the Biden Administration instead used these far reaching government agencies to probe the finances of its political foes, fishing for wrongdoing. Where was the probable cause to launch such investigations?

In addition to Turning Point USA or Turning Point Action, the list included numerous entities related to Donald Trump. Here are a few others on the target list: My Pillow, Women for America First, Conservative Partnership Institute, America First Policy Institute, Tea Party Express, Attorney Sidney Powell, Public Interest Legal Foundation, and several entries listed simply as “Giuliani,” likely referencing Rudy Giuliani.

The Deep State used its exclusive access to investigative tools to try to intimidate or stop Charlie Kirk from becoming the next generation’s leader of the conservative movement.

Beth Brelje, The Federalist

The U.S. relationship with Qatar was a function of Washington’s post-9/11 delirium. Yesterday’s strike was about finally undoing it.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office says that Tuesday’s attack on Hamas leadership in Qatar “was a wholly independent Israeli operation.” That’s only partly true, though—because there’s no way Israeli Air Force jets fired missiles at Qatar, home of the largest U.S. air base in the Middle East, without a green light from the White House.

President Donald Trump says he feels “very badly” about the location of the attack. But if he didn’t want to give the impression that Israel was an instrument of his will, he wouldn’t have stated in the same breath that “eliminating Hamas, who have profited off the misery of those living in Gaza, is a worthy goal.” And that’s on top of him having warned Hamas last week to free all 48 hostages, Israeli and American, immediately or else.

As it turns out, what Trump issued wasn’t an ultimatum, but a death sentence. All Hamas has are the bodies of Israeli hostages, living and dead. Without them, the Palestinian terror group has nothing to bargain with and nothing to hide behind. Except, Hamas seems to have thought, Qatar.

That Hamas leaders thought they were safe in Doha is an issue Arab foreign ministries are likely to discuss for years to come. But Hamas must have known the U.S. president wasn’t in the habit of bluffing. Sure, he’d issue lots of warnings and promises—maybe out of a sense of fairness or because that’s how he negotiates. But eventually the hammer would fall. He encouraged the Iranians to make a deal, and when they tried to string him along, he joined Israel to strike the clerical regime’s prized nuclear facilities.

Maybe Hamas figured it was worth the risk, since what could Trump do? Not only did Hamas not have nuclear facilities, but also little was left in Gaza to hit. He couldn’t get to them, since they weren’t in Gaza but were hiding out in Doha. And the Americans wouldn’t dream of striking a Gulf Arab partner with whom he recently signed an agreement to generate an economic exchange worth more than a trillion dollars. Doha had even gifted Trump a plane to use while waiting for Boeing to complete a brand-new Air Force One.

It’s common wisdom, from Paris to Riyadh, that the ruling al-Thani family’s global investments wrapped the gas-rich emirate in a soft, warm blanket of impunity. Thus, Hamas’ mistake was the same one made throughout history, a tragic chronicle of losers who misjudged the strength of their allies and the resolve of their adversaries. Now the Qataris stand humiliated before the world they believed they had bought.

Reports have not yet clarified who was killed by Israel’s strike, though by press time, the several top leaders reportedly at the Doha meeting—including Khalil al-Hayya, Zaher Jabarin, Muhammad Darwish, Taher al-Nunu, Mousa Abu Marzouk, and Hussam Badran—have yet to stick their heads above ground to show they survived. In any case, the larger point is that the strikes showed there’s nowhere to hide for the architects of the Oct. 7 attacks.

But killing Hamas’ top men doesn’t change the reluctance of the IDF’s top brass to go back into Gaza in force. Nor will it dampen France and Saudi Arabia’s desire to push for recognition of a Palestinian state at the U.N. General Assembly later this month. With Israel piling up wins against its foes, the Arabs and their European bankers and real-estate agents have become increasingly determined to put the Israeli military genie back in the bottle. Stopping Iran’s nuclear program was one thing, but laying waste to Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis to augment Israeli prestige and power is untenable to Jerusalem’s regional rivals and the Western capitals that stand with them.

The device they have chosen to slow Israel’s momentum is a Palestinian state, a practical absurdity that has been elevated to the planet’s most urgent and righteous moral cause. And because the Palestinians are incapable of peaceably governing a state that they do not even want, Israel must pay the price in international opprobrium, canceled soccer and basketball games, expulsion from supposedly objective scientific and scholarly associations, and the like for years to come.

Israel will weather the consequences. But the problem of Gaza itself will be more difficult to solve. Even if Hamas’ few remaining higher-echelon leaders flee to Turkey, and Israel raises its flag over the remains of Gaza City, someone will have to take responsibility for security inside the ruined territory. Israel has little apparent appetite for returning there as an occupying power that rules over 2 million miserable people whom it will be accused of deliberately starving to death every time the water system breaks down or a local bakery runs out of pita.

For the United States, the Israeli strike on Doha signals a long-overdue correction of U.S. Middle East policy, which has been a cause of disaster for both America and the region for the past two decades.

Thursday marks the 24th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks. With the Twin Towers still smoking, President George W. Bush vowed revenge against those who slaughtered Americans on U.S. soil. But the man who claimed authorship of the attacks lived on for another 10 years, and when justice finally caught up with Osama bin Laden, he was found in a compound less than a mile from a top Pakistani military academy. That he’d been sheltered by a longtime U.S. ally was evidence of what had happened during the intervening decade: In trying to arrange political outcomes in the Middle East without prioritizing U.S. interests, while pursuing goals disconnected from reality, Washington lost the ability to distinguish between friend and foe.

Lee Smith, Tablet