'The actions provided by the citizens were priceless'

Here's yet another thing that you'll need to pay for

'Will live on in the thousands of graduates'

'That's a lie'

Are the floodgates about to open?

'You can't lecture me'

'The secretary's unilateral determination'

What do you think?

On Sept. 10, 2025, Charlie Kirk was assassinated for the political sin of showing up on college campuses across our country and taking and answering questions. These queries came from students and guests whether they were allies or adversaries—or simply curious-minded Americans engaging in their unalienable birthright to engage in civics openly. Charlie Kirk was martyred for the free exercise of his First Amendment rights. And the right to free speech, which he championed, was critically wounded in the attack. The aftermath marks a turning point in our nation’s “house divided” future. Let’s do as Charlie did masterfully and probe the mindset of the other—in this case his assassin’s and that of his like-minded enablers. It was Charlie’s way. It is the Socratic way. It is the Western Civ, the American way. Who will rid us of this meddlesome apostle of free expression? Progressives don’t like to think of themselves as King Henry, the man who uttered the fateful words that caused four loyalists to murder Thomas Becket. But where else can their constant denunciations of Republicans as “Nazis” or “fascists” lead? A young man, who was being groomed to be a moral monster by our culture and the passions it unleashes, heard the dog whistle call to arms, seized the opportunity of a public event in his home state, and did what was collectively seen by his ilk as necessary and proper. To do so, he suspended morality, the rule of law, and human decency in order serve what he and too many others see as a higher political purpose. Sadly, this moral madness is what is taught in our nation’s colleges. This is the ethic that guided the global left—paired now with America’s identitarian vanguard—to fundamentally remake America. Their immoral reasoning not only led to the killing of Charlie Kirk, but it is also the rationale of messianic monsters through the ages. In the 20th century alone, under the guise of National Socialism and global communism, it led to the murder of a hundred million souls. Social media has given it another Great Leap Forward. It is the justification for the show trials, the guillotine, the oven, the suicide vest, and the lone sniper. This assassin’s creed is not for everyone. Only a few have the wherewithal to take this beyond-good-and-evil step. But those who do take things to their evil conclusion do so knowing that those with less nerve but shared adjacency on the ends will find in their partisan hearts that what they did was needed and therefore good, if not praiseworthy. This is the recipe for political madness and incompatible with our venerable experiment in self-government that we must now defend in common. What does Charlie Kirk’s assassination portend for our country? I see the potential of a natural turning point toward the good, the restoration of the First Amendment’s spirit, and a return of political, civic, cultural, religious, and economic toleration. That would be a big rainbow following a storm. So far, there has been little call for retaliatory violence. So much for the “Hitler Youth” handwringing. There have only been completely peaceful prayer vigils. Unlike this assassin’s creed and its enablers, Charlie Kirk’s soul and mind would not allow such a demonic transvaluation of value. His true followers share that moral position. On this point, the partisan calls for moral equivalence don’t hold. The good news for us, the living, is that Charlie is being honored in death by his followers in a way that gives us all a new political lease on life. I first heard of his shooting from my 28-year-old son and 18-year-old nephew. They saw Charlie’s execution with their own eyes within moments of it happening and captured the core un-American inhumanity of it all. “A man is gunned down for the thought crime of debating on a college campus.” “This guy is a family man,” they said. “He has a wife and two young children.” What happens going forward? Charlie’s influence was huge before he was shot. It appears to be growing by the day in death. I hope something good is happening in real time. I believe you can see, hear, and feel it. It turns out that when a public figure with 35 million followers gets assassinated for the whole world to see for simply speaking on a college campus, those who never heard of him—or heard something, good or bad—will naturally check it out themselves. A national re-examination may be happening. The curious are finding an immediate and growing corpus, which is deconstructing the demonic caricature made of him, and are standing up for this smart, fast-talking, civil, happy man in the prime of this life. Charlie’s wife Erika gave a speech full of love and principle that brought tears to those with open hearts. This organization Charlie dedicated half his life to is not going anywhere but onward and upward. Since his assassination, Turning Point USA has received tens of thousands of applications to set up TPP college chapters. College Mandarins in charge of green-lighting or gaslighting student organizations and regulating speech to their Orwellian liking should tread lightly going forward. The Justice Department will be watching. Charlie is dead but not gone. His happy warrior spirit and first-rate mind are already immortalized in the cloud. TPP should enlist the help of AI to give Charlie’s mind and his “Prove Me Wrong” method a second lease on life for our collective sake. To the legion of young people whose hearts are broken and want to do more, you know that Charlie would want you to follow in his footsteps. The time for being a spectator was canceled with an assassin’s bullet. Today, it is time to stand up, show up, and be like Charlie. You know his mind and his method. From heaven, Charlie is saying to all those who love him, “Prove Me Right.” Originally published by RealClear Politics. Reprinted with permission. We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post Prove Charlie Right appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Autumn is approaching on Capitol Hill, and with it, another shutdown battle. On Tuesday, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., presented his fix to fund the government and avoid an end-of-September government shutdown—a seven-week continuing resolution to extend funding levels from former President Joe Biden’s administration. He explained to reporters that the goal of the continuing resolution is to buy time for the normal appropriations process, in which committees would pass new, individual spending bills in regular order. “We have made substantial progress in government funding. This year, the House Appropriations Committee has passed all 12 [spending] bills out of committee,” said Johnson. “We need responsible options here to keep the government open while all this work continues.” Johnson pledged a “short-term, clean continuing resolution that will keep the government funded and operating at current levels while we continue all this work.” Hot Button Issues: Obamacare, Lawmaker Security But the bill won’t be 100% “clean”—that is, without alterations from previous spending. Johnson acknowledged to The Daily Signal that the continuing resolution will include new spending to ensure lawmakers’ security in the wake of the assassination of Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk last week. “It will be partially addressed in the [continuing resolution] and more to come,” he told The Daily Signal. “So, we have a short-term addition for the member-security issue, and then we’ll be looking at the [legislative] branch appropriations bill to have the further funding.” There’s also the issue of health care. For weeks, Democrats have been demanding some concession on health care—either the reversal of cost-saving health care reforms from the budget reconciliation bill, or possibly an extension of soon-to-expire COVID-era Obamacare tax credits. Johnson, however, says that the issue of expiring credits is not so pressing, since they are set to expire at the end of the year, months after the impending Sept. 30 deadline to fund the government. “They don’t expire until the end of the year, and so we have until December to figure that all out,” he said.  Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La. (Bill Clark/CQ-Roll Call via Getty Images) He explained that these Biden-era policies, which enhanced health care premium tax credits and extended them to higher earners, are not so popular with Republicans. “Republicans have concerns about those policies, if you look at how much they’ve been abused …. People make $600,000 a year and get a government subsidy for their health care.” It remains to be seen how Democrats will respond to Johnson’s plan. In the Senate, Republicans will need Democrat votes in order to reach the 60-vote threshold required to end debate on any funding measure. On Tuesday morning, Democrat House Conference Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., told reporters that his party had not yet come to a decision, since they had not seen the text of the continuing resolution yet. House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass., “can’t whip on something that doesn’t exist,” he explained. But Democrats aren’t so much a problem for Johnson in the House as they are for Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. Johnson’s Headstrong Republicans In the House, Johnson has to make sure he unites his Republican conference, where—due to the sudden resignation of Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., and the election of Rep. James Walkinshaw, D-Va., in a special race in Virginia last week—his majority has shrunk.  With current margins, Johnson can only afford to lose three Republican votes in a party-line vote if he is to pass a continuing resolution by a simple majority. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., appears to be in emphatic opposition, alongside other headstrong fiscal hawks. “This [continuing resolution] would be a copy of the uniparty spending bill under Autopen Biden,” he wrote on the social media platform X on Monday. “I didn’t vote for those spending priorities when Biden was President, and I won’t vote for them now.” ? https://t.co/KsfXVfUR9x— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) September 15, 2025 Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., also has been expressing her unequivocal displeasure with a continuing resolution for weeks. “I can’t wait to see how voting for the CR becomes a Trump loyalty test,” she wrote on X on Monday, before the seven-week measure was officially proposed. “When in all actual reality, it’s a disloyalty to him by passing a Biden policy laden omnibus.” Additionally, Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind., wrote on X on Sunday, “Thanksgiving CR—NO. I am willing to vote for a CR of any duration—short or long—the least damage to the Republic, but I cannot support one that ends funding right before a major holiday to jam us with an Omnibus. I’ve seen this playbook too many times.” Rep. Victoria Spartz, R-Ind. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images) There’s also Rep. Warren Davidson, R-Ohio, a fiscal hawk who voted against the “big, beautiful bill” when it first came through the House. He has spoken out against a continuing resolution that precedes spending increases. “I already hated status quo thinking and approaches (soft incrementalism at best), so I’m out on another CR for the sake of more government,” he opined on X on Monday. “We know we need a smaller, more accountable, more focused America First government. I will tolerate nothing else.” Still, history shows that Johnson usually gets his way in these contentious legislative disputes, with his leadership team overcoming Republican hesitancy to pass a continuing resolution, cuts to foreign aid and public broadcasting, and a 10-year budget reconciliation package. The post Johnson Unveils Bill to Extend Biden Spending, Avert Shutdown appeared first on The Daily Signal.