The Top 5 Plus (August 15)

1) “The Cultural Revolution Is in Full Swing: Our country’s ethos is being subverted by radicals seeking to transform it.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)

From the article -- There are myriad examples of woke’s staying power in our nation’s schools, where far-left ethnic studies programs still prevail. In California, the adopted curriculum includes lessons on settler colonialism and the Third World Liberation Front and even uses Black Panther Party newspapers as primary sources. California law encourages districts to develop their own ethnic studies curricula, and many have gone beyond the state model. Some have incorporated materials on the “Land Back” movement, which rejects widely accepted notions of borders and citizenship. These are not fringe supplements, and this content is already in many classrooms.

The teachers’ unions are at the forefront of this fanatical trend. On May Day, the National Education Association issued a toolkit that is essentially an updated version of Marx and Engels’ Communist Manifesto.

As reported by Defending Education, the NEA toolkit contains typical leftist claptrap, including a laundry list of demands for a day of action that stresses “building the Society we ALL deserve.” The union’s agenda includes “stopping the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption within the Trump administration, taxing the rich, and eliminating ICE,” among other measures.

May Day is just one example of students being used as pawns by radicals. Defending Education maintains a “K-12 Student Walkout and Protest Tracker” that documents K-12 student walkouts and protests from 2022 to the present, all orchestrated by left-wing educators.

2) “Socialism And Bible Prophecy: Training Societies To Surrender Freedom To The State” (David Bowen, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- Modern democratic socialists may not advocate Soviet-style communism or the abolition of all private property -- yet -- but many citizens seem to be more comfortable with government-provided healthcare, education, housing assistance, social programs, higher taxation of wealthy individuals, and greater regulation of private enterprise. There is a big difference between government having a legitimate role in society and government becoming the instrument on which society depends for nearly everything.

Scripture recognizes government as a legitimate institution. Romans 13 describes governing authorities as having responsibility for restraining evil. 1 Peter 2 instructs believers in regard to their relationship to governmental authority.

The danger comes when government moves from being the protector to becoming the controller of human life. When government becomes the source of our livelihood, healthcare, housing, education, money, identity, information, and ability to participate in commerce, it possesses extraordinary leverage over the individual.

3) “Making Policy: Marxist Rainbows and Mob Shock Troops” (Peter Huessy, Gatestone Institute)

From the article -- Ever since the time of Karl Marx, communists and their socialist brethren assumed that the envy of financial success would attract the proletariat to carry out a workers' revolution in the rich countries of the West. It turned out, however, that even the poor would like to be rich. In America, instead of locking up the wealthy or stealing their money, the poor tried to figure out how to get rich themselves. Given America's economic liberty, nearly every day, a typical American worker likely hears of some ordinary guy inventing some gizmo or figuring out how to sell millions of the same thing -- and meanwhile getting wealthy.

The ‘Democratic Socialists of America’ winning primaries and elections around the nation are almost entirely foreign-born immigrants or first-generation descendants of newcomers, some even originally illegal aliens. Note that the race, ethnicity and gender of all "people of color" are inherited characteristics: none has any connection to merit. Once proclaimed to be part of the oppressed, you are in that class forever, unable to escape.

Conversely, once described as part of the oppressor class — white and successful — you also can never exit it. You are stuck for eternity, unless you are an exempted billionaire such as George Soros or a multi-millionaire such as Senators Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren or Representative Ro Khanna. They get a special dispensation.

4) “El-Sayed, the Democrats, AIPAC and the war on American Jews: The Michigan primary was a referendum on the Jewish presence in the public square. The consequences of normalizing his antisemitism will impact much more than the pro-Israel group.” (Jonathan S. Tobin, JNS)

From the article -- It would be difficult to underestimate the impact of Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on American politics. His victory in the Michigan Senate Democratic primary over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) has inspired endless commentary and analysis about the sources of his personal appeal, the shortcomings of his opponent, the state of the electorate and the failures of pollsters to come even close to predicting the results. And it won’t be until we see how he fares against his Republican opponent, former Rep. Mike Rogers, in the general election, that we will have a better idea of how most Americans—and not just Democratic primary voters—feel about his beliefs.

But there should be no mistaking one thing: Democrats have given a person whose most important issue was demonizing Jewish participation in American politics a narrow plurality. By rallying around him and unifying behind his candidacy, as the defeated party establishment has already done, they are normalizing a hateful position against a segment of citizenry. They are declaring that politics driven by traditional tropes of antisemitism and money is not merely debatable, but a stand they can all get behind if it means winning a majority in the U.S. Senate.

5) “The Unwelcome Return of Sentimental Socialism” (Christine Rosen, American Enterprise Institute)

From the article -- But one aspect of the DSA’s appeal has been too often overlooked, particularly by conservative critics: its appeal as a form of instant community for a generation that often lacks one. DSA supporters are a highly homogenous group: 85 percent of DSA members are white, and 80 percent of them have college degrees. But it turns out that one of the things this knowledge-class proletariat is seeking (besides the abolition of prisons and the end of landlords) is . . . friends?

Reporting from the recent DSA summit, the New York Times noted that “for many of its members, the DSA is both a political and a social home.” One DSA leader told the paper that “the DSA fills the same social function for him that the Catholic Church played for his parents when they were in their 30s.” Another young DSA leader echoed the sentiment: “Our generation is so alienated—when you go to a canvas [canvassing for a political campaign], it’s a huge social affair.”

The Times found similar positive social impacts during Zohran Mamdani’s run for New York City mayor last year, describing Mamdani campaign events (which included organized scavenger hunts, board game nights, singles meetups, and crafting sessions where devotees made beaded bracelets spelling out “Zohran for NYC”) as “a salve” for young people suffering from anxiety. “It’s honestly what I would prescribe for the loneliness epidemic,” one Mamdani supporter said.

Socialism as a cure for loneliness might seem farcical (the jokes write themselves: You’re never alone in a bread line! etc., etc.). But paired with the DSA’s youthful and ironically hip aesthetic, it’s no wonder it’s proved to be an intoxicating brew for a population of young people grown weary of both established political parties. During the DSA summit, at a nearby dive bar, DSA acolytes “punched their fists in the air” and “formed a sea of sweatshirts that read ‘Red Hot Socialist Summer’” while a nearby socialist merch table hawked copies of The Communist Manifesto (which sold out).

Other Important Articles from this Week

* “Witchcraft Courses Rapidly Expand Across University Campuses, Outnumbering Christianity 8 to 1 At Arizona State” (Decision Magazine via Harbinger’s Daily)

* “A 911 Call That Highlights Everything Wrong with the Abortion Drug Debate” (Suzanne Bowdey, Washington Stand)

* “Alarming study finds top chatbots more likely to repeat falsehoods from the left: ‘Truly astonishing’ -- Just Facts tested 100 questions on key political issues and found roughly half of all AI-provided sources were illegitimate.” (Kiera McDonald, Andrew Mark Miller, Fox News)

* “Tucker Carlson Is Playing a Dangerous Game” (Victor Davis Hanson, Daily Signal)

* “Jimmy Lai: Apostle for Freedom” (Jonathan Miltimore, Civitas Outlook)

The Top 5 Plus (August 8)

1) “If The West Won’t Defend Itself, Third World Hordes Will Destroy Us” (Nathan Stone, Federalist)

From the article -- The “Allahu Akbar!” screaming invaders — some 60,000 military-aged Moroccans with nothing but the clothes on their backs — were dumped into Ceuta, Spain to destroy it. The laxer ones did their part by turning the streets into toilets and the fountains into bathtubs (two ways of killing beauty fast). The friskier ones waged war against the city and its people. They set cars afire. They cracked open and looted homes and businesses...

Why is all this important? Because Ceuta is the latest reminder of what the stakes are. It’s not just about borders, or even sovereignty; it’s about civilization. “Civilization” gets thrown around a lot, and people have spilled good gallons of ink defining it. The simplest and truest definition is that civilization is the bedrock of who we are as a people.

Being part of a civilization means that the world is divided between “us”— we who see the world this way, we who believe this, and do things this way — and “them” — everyone else. Greeks are not Romans; Romans are not Frenchmen; and Frenchmen are not Americans.

You can lose a lot of things — influence, power, even territory — but if you can keep your civilization, you’re still in the game. It’s why the Jews are still a people (in the religious sense) and the Carthaginians are not. Lose that, and you lose yourself.

2) “The Current Status of American Schools -- As we head into the new school year, what follows is a brief assessment of the sorry state of public education in the U.S. and what parents can do about it.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)

From the article -- Student skills are diminishing.  Recently, more than 1,800 math and science lecturers at the University of California signed an open letter outlining a distressing problem. First-year undergraduates, they say, are increasingly arriving without the basic skills needed to succeed. At U.C. Berkeley, they maintain that 20-30% of students taking an early calculus course face “severe preparation deficits.” The challenge has become so great, they add, that instructors are forced to reteach middle-school math.

On a similar note, a shocking report on the University of California San Diego campus finds that the number of first-year students entering with math skills below the high school level has increased nearly thirtyfold over five years, to almost one in eight.

Along with worries about undergraduate math skills, there are long-standing concerns about declining literacy levels. Lecturers warn that literature students cannot finish books.

These problems are widespread. At Harvard, some humanities and social-science professors say they feel compelled to shorten texts, according to a report released in October. Students are entering America’s most revered university with less experience reading complex prose and a reduced capacity for focus and sustainedattention andd are struggling with books they completed with ease just ten years ago.

Chronic absenteeism remains a major problem...In the 2024-25 school year, after recovering from the COVID-19 school shutdowns, the chronic absenteeism rate remained high at 23%.

3) “Misidentifying The Enemy: What Happens When a Nation Can No Longer Recognize Its Allies?” (Daniel Cohen, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- Yet even as Iran demonstrated exactly who it is, much of the public debate shifted away from the regime responsible for the attack and toward Israel, America’s closest ally in the Middle East. Vice President J.D. Vance argued that Israeli influence helped derail negotiations with Iran, suggesting that voices in Israel preferred continued military action over diplomacy. That framing misses the larger point. The agreement did not collapse because Israel objected to it. It collapsed because Iran has repeatedly demonstrated that it uses negotiations to buy time while continuing to pursue its long-term objectives.

This is where discernment becomes indispensable. A nation that cannot correctly identify its adversaries will inevitably begin questioning its allies instead. History is filled with civilizations that spent more energy arguing among themselves than confronting the threats gathering outside their borders. The danger is not merely military. It is intellectual and moral. When a society begins treating warnings as manipulation and allies as liabilities, it loses the clarity necessary to make wise decisions.

Israel’s relationship with the United States has never been based on sentimentality. It rests on shared strategic interests, democratic values, intelligence cooperation, and a common recognition of the dangers posed by radical Islamic terrorism. Those realities should not disappear simply because political narratives become more convenient than geopolitical facts.

4) “What the Fauci Diaries Reveal About America’s COVID Response: The hearings have revived debate over lockdowns, government power, scientific authority, and who should be held accountable.” (Steve Apfel, American Spectator)

From the article -- Fauci’s undoing was to forget that discretion is the better part of valor. Senators, keen to trap him into perjury, desired to nix Biden’s autopen pardon. It’s a crying shame that getting rich while massive misery stalked the land is not a felony. Ditto for sending love notes to himself and logging media stories that really did make him the most famous and talked about celebrity on earth.

Yes Fauci, the vainest of men, disabled a whole generation of school-goers by locking schools. Yes, he lied that Covid came from bats in a wet market rather than a leak from a lab. Yes, he was among the first shutdown adherents. Yes he knew as early as February 2020 that the fatality rate was pretty low...Yes, he deleted emails. Yes, lies tripped off his garrulous tongue. Yes, he approved aborted baby parts used in mice research. Yes and more yeses.

Even so, Governors Gavin Newsome and Andrew Cuomo outdid Fauci by a long chalk in the havoc they sowed, the preventable deaths they caused, and in the business collapse they cold-heartedly supervised. They too should be grilled by Senators.

Though we spare a thought for the commoners, in their hundreds of millions, they weren’t exactly blameless. The greater part, poltroons who caved to PC, were enamoured with a limpid rule of thumb guaranteeing the apocalypse that was Covid...

Related articles: “Fauci Tyrannus: To restore public trust, we must have accountability.” (Jacob Howland, American Mind)...“COVID-19: Fauci's Holocaust” (Kevin Downey Jr., PJ Media)...“Collins and Fauci and the GOP’s Missed Opportunity” (Chuck Donovan, Washington Stand)

5) “The Typhus Rats of Los Angeles: A medieval disease is rocking the vermin-ridden county.” (Christopher F. Rufo, Ryan Thorpe, City Journal)

From the article -- Rats, and the fleas that live on them, can be carriers of deadly diseases—including, most notably, the plague, which, in bubonic form, killed tens of millions of people and laid waste to cities in the Middle Ages. In L.A., however, the main concern is a different medieval disease: typhus.

Since 2009, the number of flea-borne typhus cases in L.A. has increased by a staggering 2,300 percent. Last year, the county recorded more cases than at any point in its history. Some patients have died. Behind the scenes, the authorities responsible for protecting the public admit that they lack the resources they need to get the situation under control.

The rats, meantime, spread disease in predictable ways. They feed on trash, fleas feed on those rats, and the infected fleas bite people, who in turn suffer anything from a mild illness treatable with antibiotics to a sickness that ends in death.

This City Journal investigation—based on interviews with leading rodent experts, on-the-ground reporting, and a review of hundreds of pages of documents obtained via public-records requests—reveals that Los Angeles County has allowed a disease once associated with the Middle Ages to terrorize a major metropolis.

Other Excellent Reads from this Week

* “Abortion Drugs In US Drinking Water: Another Horrifying Consequence Of The Culture Of Death” (Ken Ham, Harbinger’s Daily)

* “Left-Wing Violence Is Being Normalized: Liberal elites created a permission structure for extremism.” (James B. Meigs, (WSJ Free Expression)

* “The Original American Superhero: Young Washington tells an underdog tale for the ages.” (Jack Hunter, Modern Age)

* “Marijuana Overtakes Cigarettes, Alcohol as Most Used Daily Drug in U.S.” (Dan Hart, Washington Stand)

* “The Democrats are a menace to America’s Jews -- Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in Michigan’s Democratic primary is an ominous sign.” (Joel Catkin, spiked!)

“Nothing Stays in the Closet Nowadays”

Remember when Hollywood executives sought to cover up the scandalous activity of their stars in order to avoid severe damage to box office receipts?

Today, anything goes. In fact, the executives now holding those high Hollywood posts actually go out of their way to parade, publicize, and promote the most brazen immorality of the folks they have under contract. They have concluded (rightly so, obviously) that scandal actually helps one’s career, so vastly different are the moral standards of the public from days gone by. 

Forget Dorian Gray. Nothing stays in the closet nowadays.

Meanwhile, American Christians continue to drink freely from these polluted waters, desiring hipness over holiness, entertainment over enlightenment, and mindless conformity over the counter-culture lifestyle that Jesus commanded.

It’s a very sad state of affairs.

As an ancient seer put it, “Like a trampled spring and a polluted well is a righteous man who gives way before the wicked.” (Proverbs 25:26, NASB)

The Top 5 Plus (August 1)

You may find of interest 3 very brief Vital Signs Blog posts that I posted earlier this week. You'll find them further down the Vital Signs Blog entries. But for now, here's this week's Top 5 Plus.

1) “Mainstream Education Systems Have Become Modern Marxist Discipleship Centers” (Patricia Engler, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- For years, public education systems have been discipling young people to believe a destructive false gospel. This reality helps explain why youth we know and love may seem to be learning less about reading, math, and science than about activism, sexuality, and liberal ideology. Here’s a quick breakdown of what’s going on and what we can do about it.

Through an approach known as “critical pedagogy,” schools are teaching students to think and act like modern Marxists. This approach has been pervading mainstream education, as a 2015 article in the Journal for Critical Education Policy Studies reveals:

"After several decades of existing on the educational fringe, it is safe to say that critical pedagogy has entered the mainstream in the United States. . . . Academic conferences such as the American Educational Research Association regularly feature hundreds of sessions related to critical pedagogy and there are special interest groups solely devoted to scholarship in the field. Critical pedagogy and its left-centrist derivative social justice is also applied to previously untouched contexts, from teaching math to physical education. Social justice has even been incorporated into business and sustainability degree programs, including the concept of servant leadership."

In other words, schools are teaching students to view every subject through a Marxist lens...Put differently, the purpose is to raise up modern communists.

2) “John Adams made a terrifying prediction. America is close to proving him correct: The national debt is pushing close to $40 trillion with no simple options to fix it.” (Les Rubin, Fox News)

From the article -- "Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide." John Adams, our second president, wrote those words more than two centuries ago, yet they are relevant today. Adams understood that free societies are not destroyed only by foreign enemies. They can also be weakened from within through complacency, indifference and the gradual abandonment of the principles that made them successful.

America's Founders spent years studying history and learning from the greatest political, economic and philosophical thinkers who came before them. They deliberately created a constitutional republic built upon limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual liberty and the protection of the unalienable rights to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness."

That framework produced the most prosperous and powerful nation the world has ever known. For nearly 250 years, it has survived wars, economic crises, political upheaval and countless challenges because it rested on principles that valued freedom and restrained government.

3) “Socialism and Islam: A tale of two psychoses -- A dark night is descending over America.” (Eric Utter, American Thinker)

From the article -- The times, they are a-changin’. Rapidly. And not in a good way. Two separate -- and growing -- psychoses are converging in a perfect highly imperfect storm of authoritarianism to existentially threaten the land of the formerly free and brave.

To wit: In 2000, only 28% of Democrats identified as “liberal.” Today, that figure has nearly doubled. The number who claim to be very liberal has also risen dramatically. In fact, a recent survey shows that 1 in 3 Democrats now proudly consider themselves to be Democratic-Socialists. The party has been fundamentally transformed — and quickly. DSA candidates are now running in elections across the fruited plain … and winning. This would have been unthinkable just a couple of decades ago.

Simultaneously, the number of Muslims in the U.S. has also dramatically increased, from perhaps as low as 1.1 million in 2000, to perhaps as many as 4.5 million today. That would be greater than a 400% increase. In one generation.

4) “With No Opposition, Canada Has Become The Most Radically Progressive Nation In The World” (Breanna Claussen, Harbinger’s Daily)

From the article -- If the two examples above were not enough, Canada passed the “Online News Act” in 2023, which resulted in Canadians being blocked from viewing news reports from outside the country on Meta platforms. This, coupled with the Liberal government’s suppression of Conservative news groups within the country, should set off alarm bells, harkening back to regimes throughout history that sought to control the information accessible to their citizenry. Today, Canada is the only nation in a total and permanent “blackout” from foreign news sources through Meta.

Of all the Western nations, Canada stands out in the worst possible way. Within the last decade, the nation has startled the world by arresting pastors, freezing bank accounts of dissenting voices, suppressing press freedom, killing its most vulnerable, and taking direct aim at religious liberty. Even members of the highly progressive European Union have pushed back against what they view as a “dictatorship” steadily emerging in the country.

Despite the astonishing state of affairs in Canada, it is even more shocking to hear the views of many average Canadians, who routinely express delight that their politics are not as “messy” as those in the United States. By making this claim, they fail to recognize that the so-called “messiness” stems from having individuals willing to push back and defend their freedoms and morality—something which is present in varying degrees in all other Western nations.

When all of your politicians are careening down the same treacherous path, there is no stopping the train. 

5) “The Left's Rotating Loyalty Oath: The left's articles of faith keep expiring because they were never sincere in the first place.” (John Tillman, The Political Vise)

From the article -- A little more than half a decade later, climate has nearly disappeared from the left’s top concerns. Last year, researchers at Yale asked American voters to rank twenty-five issues by how much they mattered to their midterm vote. Global warming came in twenty-fourth. Only 1% of respondents named it as their most important issue. In September 2025, the Searchlight Institute, a think tank aligned with Democratic priorities, advised progressive politicians to stop using the term “climate change” altogether. The weather hasn’t changed, nor has the left succeeded in its aim of getting everyone to turn vegan and ride public transit. What has happened is that the environment has ceased to be what animates those who turn the levers of the Political Vise.

What’s the latest test? Israel. This year, from Maine to California, primary season has witnessed vicious Democratic infighting over American aid to the Middle East’s only democracy. And to that party’s most dedicated activists, one name has become dirtier than Blackwater or Big Oil: AIPAC.

I am not here to weigh in on foreign policy. The government of Israel may or may not be above reproach. What strikes me here is less Israel itself than the fact that until very recently, other issues commanded far more attention on the American left. Israel, like climate change and the Iraq War before it, has suddenly become the one political issue about which reasonable progressives (perhaps an oxymoron) are not allowed to disagree. And so for the left, this summer’s litmus test is denouncing AIPAC, a venerable organization devoted to drumming up support for our embattled ally.

Other Excellent Articles from the Week

* “The Damage Caused By Fauci’s Lies Is Incalculable—And The American People Deserve Answers” (Mike Pompeo, Harbinger’s Daily)

* “Turkish F-35 Stealth Fighter Jets: A Grave Threat to Greece, Israel, the West” (Nils A. Haug, Gatestone Institute) 

* “AI Will Save the U.S. Economy: The pace of innovation is unlike anything we’ve ever seen.” (Jordan Schachtel, American Greatness)

* “The Misplaced Fixation with Israel’s ‘Image’ -- The practical problems with spinning the Jewish state.” (Eric Dezenhall, American Greatness)

* “3 Lessons from Secretary Rubio’s Speech about Leftist Terrorism” (Kathy Athearn, Washington Stand)