From the article -- I once testified before a state legislative committee that I thought it should be a felony for a school principal or superintendent to knowingly hire a graduate of a college of education. States breaking from the old ways of the educational establishment are showing big gains in student performance. The poorest state in the Union, Mississippi, has shown eye-popping gains in student test scores by rejecting contemporarily fashionable curricular and evaluation practices and getting back to the basics. According to Education Week, less than 30 years ago (1998), only 47 percent of Mississippi students performed at or above the basic level of proficiency on the nationally used National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam. Poor academically, poor economically.
Fast forward a generation to 2022. The proportion scoring at the basic level or above on the NAEP exam rose substantially to 64 percent — above the national average. Why? Massive economic growth in Mississippi accompanied by a huge expansion in educational spending? No. The state remains the nation’s poorest. More native-born Americans are still leaving the state than are moving in. But the old educational ways have been interrupted and some adult supervision imposed, surprisingly in large part by Mississippi’s leading politicians. The legislature passed a Literacy-Based Promotion Act. Third-grade students doing poorly on a standardized literacy test are now not advanced to the fourth grade until they show at least minimal literacy competency. Horrors of horrors! Meaningful consequences for poor academic achievement.
There are lessons here that can be replicated.
Related articles: “Class Warfare: Student behavior is deteriorating, and teachers are leaving the profession as a result.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness) ...“How Schools Made Gen Z Weaker: Screen-based learning and the replacement of discipline with therapy have undermined students’ cognitive and emotional development.” (Dana E. Abizaid, American Spectator)
2) “Congress Needs To Defund Planned Parenthood -- Once And For All” (Family Research Council via Harbinger’s Daily)
From the article -- Meanwhile, pro-life advocates are now expressing outrage as the expiration date for blocking Medicaid dollars to Planned Parenthood came and went on July 4 — a ban that Congress failed to renew. The defunding of Planned Parenthood originally passed under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, but the provision only lasted a year. Now, the abortion giant will once again receive funding for all non-abortion services.
That frustrates conservatives like Rep. Nathanial Moran (R-Texas), who sees the reconciliation 3.0 process as an opportunity to take a big bite out of the abortion mammoth’s bottom line. “It needs to be in there,” he told Family Research Council President Tony Perkins on Tuesday’s “Washington Watch.” “I will be very unhappy if we don’t have … an instruction from our Budget Committee that allows us to deal with that, because … we only got a one-year moratorium effectively [from the One Big Beautiful Bill],” which, he added, expired on July 4th. “One year is not good enough,” Moran insisted. “It certainly did some good work, but one year is not good enough. We need to make it permanent — or as long as possible — to keep those Planned Parenthood centers from popping back up.”
FRC’s Quena González, senior director of Government Affairs, agrees. “In the first year of the Trump administration, it looked like we might get a down payment on what we had wanted for so long. … But in a twist of irony, America celebrated its 250th anniversary by turning back on the spigot for $800 million in taxpayer funding through Medicare for Planned Parenthood,” he told The Washington Stand. “We have faced the indignity of watching our tax dollars being spent to subsidize Big Abortion. Pro-life voters turned out enthusiastically in 2024 to re-elect a pro-life president and pro-life majorities in the House and Senate, hoping to put an end to this injustice.”
3) “The Iran-Backed ‘Decisive Campaign’ To Destroy Israel and the West” (Khaled Abu Toameh, Gatestone Institute)
From the article -- The documents, recovered by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) in the Gaza Strip and published by the Amit Terrorism and Intelligence Research Institute, reveal that Hamas had meticulously planned the October 7 massacre more than a year before it was carried out. They also expose Sinwar's unwavering commitment to Hamas's founding objective: the destruction of Israel through mass murder and conquest.
The operational planning was astonishingly detailed. Sinwar envisioned breaching the border simultaneously at 25 locations using approximately 2,500 terrorists in the opening assault.
Sinwar estimated that approximately 10,000 "well-trained fighters" would eventually be required to carry out the operation successfully. Each Israeli community was assigned specific assault teams. Military bases were designated for destruction. Strategic road junctions were mapped and allocated to specialized units. Every aspect of the operation had been carefully calculated.
These were not defensive plans. They were invasion plans.
4) “Scapegoating the Jews: Astoundingly, the demonization of Israel has become a key driver of Western politics.” (Melanie Phillips, Jewish News Service)
From the article -- Astonishingly, in America and Britain, the vilification and scapegoating of Israel through an agenda of malice and mendacity—and with undertones of something even darker—has become a key driver of political life.
U.S. Vice President JD Vance has ramped up his attacks on Israel by channeling anti-Jewish tropes of covert manipulation and warmongering...
Not only is there no evidence in the article for this recycled Jewish conspiracy theory, but Vance himself is reportedly close to lobbyists for the Iranian regime. Two years ago, he addressed the Quincy Institute, which Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) has described as a “hotbed of pro-Iran lobbying.”
In April, Lee Smith wrote in Tablet magazine that the group of officials, journalists and think-tank experts who formed the Obama administration’s notorious “echo chamber” to give a favorable spin to the 2015 nuclear deal, which would have allowed Iran to develop nuclear weapons with only a few years delay, were trying to pull the same stunt again—this time with “structurally aligned” Vance as America’s lead negotiator pushing things their way.
The more obvious reason for the criticism of Vance is that he’s responsible for a stupid, gullible and dangerous strategy that’s now gone belly-up. He tried to negotiate with a regime whose goal of destroying America and Israel is totally non-negotiable. Vance has chosen to mask his humiliation by the time-dishonored ploy of dumping on the Jews.
Related articles: “Israel as Alibi” (Yochanan Schimmelpfennig, Times of Israel)...“Absolutely Screwed Up -- JD Vance accuses Israel of secret plot against him and drops Mossad-Epstein bombshell in explosive Joe Rogan interview” (Phillip Nieto, Daily Mail)...“The Conspiracy Vance Needs” (Amit Segal, It's Noon In Israel)
5) “Trump Administration Unleashes Global Campaign to Crush Radical Left Terrorism” (The White House)
From the article -- Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent announced powerful tools to combat illicit funding: “At President Trump’s direction, Treasury is expanding its efforts to identify organizations that abuse charitable and nonprofit structures as vehicles for illicit finance. We are examining where tax-exempt status has been exploited, where charitable entities have become financial conduits for foreign influence activity…”
Secretary Bessent vowed to dismantle the financial infrastructure sustaining left-wing terrorism: “We will identify illicit funding, however artfully it is concealed. We will dismantle the networks that sustain political terrorism, however respectable their fronts may be. We will pursue those who enable political violence, however distant their jurisdictions.”
Homeland Security Advisor Stephen Miller made clear there must be no retreat: “One of the hallmarks of left-wing violence and terrorism is its completely pre-textual and disingenuous appeal to civil liberties in an effort to shield its own violence… When the leftist — who does not believe in freedom, who does not believe in civil rights, who does not believe in any ordinary notion of justice — protests that we are violating his rights, understand the he is lying to try to persuade people who are not closely following the political scene that some injustice has perpetrated against him. We must stay the course and be completely unflinching in the pursuit of justice against these enemies of civilization.”
Other Important Reads from the Week
* “British Police Course Correct after Conservative Christian Politician Murdered” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)
* “Facts, Figures, and Fantasy: Why Children Need Fairy Tales and Myths” (S.A. McCarthy, Washington Stand)
* “The West Is a Superior Civilization (And I Don’t Care If That Offends You) -- The civilization that gave the world constitutional liberty, modern science, and human dignity deserves defense, not embarrassment.” (Itxu Díaz, American Spectator)
* “Erasing Little Italy Is About More Than a Map” (Ben Shapiro, Jewish World Review)
* “U.K. Bars Finnish Christian MP from Country over Biblical Beliefs on Sexuality” (Dan Hart, Washington Stand)