China just launched their new aircraft carrier.

They should add an e at the end of Oregon:

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Mail Chimp is the company I use through which my memos are mailed and, additionally, they provide me a daily list of who reads them and some information about what they read.

I want to boast a little bit because those who read them are among some of the most intelligent and rationale minds in America. They encompass readers from all walks of life, professions, political views (predominantly conservatives) and if the entire make up of those who vote were a composite of my readership we would have a far different government.

My readership includes friends with national reputations and ordinary citizens who are "deplorables." They all care about this country and most are deeply saddened about the news and current scene. They are frustrated and many voted for Biden because they were turned off by the way Trump conducted himself though they agree they were happy to vote for him the first time and give him credit for his accomplishments.

Those who vted for Biden are quiet, embarrassed and either avoid talking about or are defensive.

To all of my readers , thanks for taking the time to explore/wade through what I post. I know it is a lot to digest and thus a challenge. I always encourage you to at least peruse and then pick and choose and always free to let me know what you think.

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Putin Moves To Cut Off Urkaine Towns From Support As Deadly Invasion Continues

(PresidentialWire.com)- Russian military bombarded the easternmost Ukrainian-held city in the Donbas area on Wednesday, threatening to cut off the final significant escape route for residents. They aim to gain complete control of the Donbas, two eastern provinces it claims for rebels after failing to conquer Kyiv and Kharkiv.

Putin has sent hundreds of troops to the region to encircle Ukrainian forces in Sievierodonetsk and Lysychansk. Their defeat would give Russia control of Luhansk, a crucial Kremlin military goal.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said that all of the Russian army’s remaining power is in Donbas. His office claimed the Russians attacked Sievierodonetsk early Wednesday, and mortar bombardment was relentless.

Serhiy Gaidai, governor of the Luhansk area, stated six people were killed and eight wounded in Sievierodonetsk. The primary exit road was still bombarded, but humanitarian supplies was trickling in.

Ukraine’s military says it thwarted nine Russian strikes in the Donbas on Tuesday, but Aircraft, artillery, tanks, mortars, and missiles killed at least 14 people.

In Kramatorsk, near the front line, streets mainly were abandoned, while in Sloviansk, farther west, many civilians left during a lull in the Russian attack.

Officials said shelling in Zaporizhzhia killed a civilian and damaged dozens of homes, and missiles destroyed an industrial site in Kryviy Rih.

Moscow has blocked ships from southern Ukraine that would transport grain and sunflower oil across the Black Sea, driving up costs and jeopardizing lives. Russia blames the food shortage on Western sanctions. It indicated Wednesday it would allow food-carrying ships to leave Ukraine if sanctions were relaxed.

Interfax reported Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Andrei Rudenko as saying Moscow was in contact with the UN and didn’t rule out global discussions to unlock Ukraine’s ports.

Dmytro Kuleba, Ukraine’s foreign minister, accused Moscow of “blackmail.” Ben Wallace, Britain’s defense minister, similarly rejected the Russian proposal, stating that food is for starving nations.

President Vladimir Putin issued a law easing the procedure for recently acquired regions to get Russian citizenship and passports.

Wednesday, the U.S. denied Russia’s request to pay bondholders, bringing it closer to a historic financial default. Meanwhile, the European Commission suggested criminalizing anyone breaking EU sanctions against Russia.

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Just another friendly day in the USof A, brought to you by the radicals in The Democ(rat) Party:

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https://bariweiss.substack.com/p/tgif-of-drag-queens-gas-stations

TGIF: Of Drag Queens, Gas Stations and Crypto Banks

Everything you need to know from another chaotic week in America. By Bari Weiss

→ Inflation is the only story: Until Biden can get this under control, there’s nothing to talk about but inflation, which is wreaking havoc on every American. This week inflation hit 8.6%, the fastest annual pace in 40 years. Consumer sentiment fell to an all-time low. Grocery prices rose nearly 12% in a year. Rents are soaring—up 15% and the average cost of a rental across the U.S. hit $2,000 a month. The stock market is down 21% from its highs, and we’ve officially entered a bear market. Biden meanwhile still blames everyone but himself and his party: Inflation is “the Putin Price Hike” and “ultra MAGA” politicians (i.e.: how they refer to most Republicans) are mucking things up. Elizabeth Warren is still blaming rapid onset greed. Biden’s approval has fallen below 40%. The Federal Reserve just raised interest rates by .75%, the sharpest hike since 1994.

Meanwhile, the mainstream press would like you to know: Things are great! Any complaints about 40-year-high inflation are a bunch of right-wing naysayers. Here’s how an MSNBC host responded to the economic pain Americans are feeling:

→ Tail between the legs, the White House heads to Saudi Arabia: Gas prices are up about 50% from a year ago. Biden promised throughout his campaign to stop all future drilling on federal land here in America. Here he was in 2020: “No more drilling on federal lands. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill. Period.” Biden also promised to crack down on Saudi Arabia for human rights violations (namely, brazenly dismembering a writer). Well, things have changed. Now, Biden is slamming oil companies for not drilling enough. Next month, Biden will head on a tour of the Middle East, popping into Israel to reaffirm the Abraham Accords and schmoozing with the Saudis.

Three Great Reads:

A very funny Intercept piece by Ryan Grim on the mess inside nonprofit organizations, where leaders are grappling with a workforce that doesn’t care much about whatever they’re ostensibly working on (climate change, helping poor kids read, all the boring stuff) because the well-compensated employees believe they themselves are the top victims and the job is revolution.

Jesse Singal on the real risks of puberty blockers—and how activist doctors, scientists and journalists are lying about those risks.

And a story by Ginevra Davis on how Stanford University slowly killed off its student’s social life, shutting down the frats and pushing the teens to live quietly alone in rooms, safely plugged into the internet.

This Week in Common Sense:

A ‘Trojan Horse’ in the Los Angeles D.A.’s Office: Peter Savodnik reported on what happens when anti-law enforcement progressives run cities: Serious crimes go unpunished. Savodnik spoke to Desiree Andrade, whose 20-year-old son, Julian, was murdered in the woods north of Los Angeles in 2018. Andrade is active in the recall effort against Gascon.

What Can Be Done About Guns: Last week, Bari recorded an Honestly episode with David French and Rajiv Sethi to talk about what we can realistically do about gun violence in the United States. Take a look at excerpts from the conversation, in which they separate the substance of the debate from the noise that swirls around it.

How San Francisco Fell: We also released an edited version of my piece, How San Francisco Became a Failed City, that was published last week in The Atlantic. I dove into the nihilism that’s almost ruined the great town—and how moderates are trying to take it back.

Honestly: The Case For American Seriousness: How can we recover the adventurous, optimistic, audacious, forward-thinking, risk-taking attitude that has made America the most innovative country in the history of the world? Venture capitalist Katherine Boyle—who also has a mellifluous voice!—explains how.

TGIF everyone.

Oh, last thing: If you want to make sure you never miss an episode of Honestly—which is sometimes hosted by yours truly, including today!—click right here and check the “Podcasts” box under notifications in your account settings.

And:

The radicals never stop. Like ants they are at it 24/7. Hatred is their energy source.

Another High-Tech Lynching of Clarence Thomas

By Erick-Woods Erickson

The worst thing in the world to be is a prominent black conservative. The amount of character assassination, sleights, and insults such a person must endure for daring to have conservative convictions while being black is horrendous.

Since the early nineties, Clarence Thomas has put up with a non-stop, in his words, “high-tech lynching” at the hands of Democrats for being a black conservative and on the United States Supreme Court.

The latest comes by way of a report in the New York Times that Trump’s stupid lawyer John Eastman, claimed insider knowledge of a “heated fight” at the United States Supreme Court over whether to hear the President’s arguments about the stolen election. Eastman had been a law clerk to Clarence Thomas and had exchanges with Ginni Thomas. Because of those facts, the media and Democrats are yet again dragging Clarence Thomas through the mud.

Eastman made the remarks on December 24, 2020. Eastman now claims his remarks were based on press reports. I actually think that Eastman was either lying or exaggerating for one simple reason — there were no cases before the Supreme Court on the matter.

“So the odds are not based on the legal merits but an assessment of the justices’ spines, and I understand that there is a heated fight underway,” Mr. Eastman wrote, according to the people briefed on the contents of the email. Referring to the process by which at least four justices are needed to take up a case, he added, “For those willing to do their duty, we should help them by giving them a Wisconsin cert petition to add into the mix.”

The pro-Trump lawyer, Kenneth Chesebro, replied that the “odds of action before Jan. 6 will become more favorable if the justices start to fear that there will be ‘wild’ chaos on Jan. 6 unless they rule by then, either way.”

(Source)

We all know how the Island of Misfit Toys works — they claim insider knowledge they do not possess to the group of people they’ve hoodwinked into thinking they have real expertise. But they actually are either exaggerating or making it up. It is why, for years, the misfits around Trump were sidelined or put in the basements of credible conservative organizations. They’re the guys you want licking stamps in the back office, not running the show or being the public face of an organization.

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Eastman is most definitely from the Island of Misfit Toys. He ran for Congress in 1990 and lost badly. In 2010, he ran for Attorney General in California and tried to claim he was an Assistant Attorney General because he’d once helped South Dakota on a case before the U.S. Supreme Court. The California Supreme Court he couldn’t identify himself that way on the ballot and he had to settle on “Constitutional Law Attorney.” He didn’t make it out of the primary.

He found notoriety in 2020 prior to the election by being the most prominent Kamala Harris birther in America. Eastman argued that even though Harris was born in the United States, she might not actually be an American citizen. Of course, you know, he was just raising questions. He’s one of those eccentrics of the conservative movement that glommed on to Trump — like Mike Lindell or Sidney Powell.

The odds are, like the rest of them, he was puffing himself up and not quite truthful with how much insider knowledge he possessed.

Again, it is really important to understand that the Supreme Court quite literally had no cases pending on the election at the time Eastman was claiming there was a heated fight underway.

Don’t take my word for it. Take Steve Vladeck’s word. He’s a lawyer and law professor in Texas and contributes to CNN. As Vladeck accurately notes, the Supreme Court had dealt with the Pennsylvania case with no public dissents on December 8, 2020. It dealt with the Texas case on December 11, 2020. The only things left were applications to expedite certiorari petitions and all that stuff was largely concluded by December 24, 2020. There were no hearings or arguments before the Court when Eastment was making his claims.

There would have been no fights. Likewise, given the leaks we are seeing from the Supreme Court, it is hard to believe “Clarence Thomas helped a coup” claims would not have leaked out then.

Eastman is, excuse my language, a bullshitter. He came up with a wild legal theory that he privately acknowledged to Mike Pence’s counsel would get tossed in a 9-0 opinion before the Supreme Court. That admission is also telling because it’s an admission Clarence Thomas would have tossed it too.

Eastman was having his moment advising the President of the United States on the biggest case of his career. He was friends with and talking to a Supreme Court Justice’s wife. It is both easy to extrapolate that he was b.s.’ing and also easy to presume the left would try to use this to drag Clarence Thomas through the mud.

Regardless of what Ginni Thomas did or did not do, it just simply is not probable that Clarence Thomas or anyone else was leaking from the Supreme Court to Eastman about divisions in the Court over election cases if only because there were no cases at the time before the Court and because, given the Dobbs leak, someone at the Court would have undoubtedly leaked to the press what was happening.

It really is that simple.

And:

The Forest for the Jan. 6 Trees

The Capitol riots were only one example of the growing problem of political violence.

By Kimberley A. Strassel

Viewers of the Jan. 6 committee docudrama this week received two new installments of the standard liberal narrative: America nearly lost its democracy thanks to an extremist GOP.

Residents of Oregon last Friday received the far uglier, far messier reality. They woke up to a torched building after pro-abortion activists threw an incendiary device through the window of the Gresham Pregnancy Resource Center near Portland. The group provides counseling and medical services to vulnerable pregnant women and new mothers.

The firebombing is one of an estimated 24 attacks on pregnancy centers and pro-life groups since the Supreme Court’s draft opinion overturning Roe v. Wade leaked on May 2. An outfit called Jane’s Revenge says it perpetrated some of the attacks, several featuring graffiti reading: “If abortion isn’t safe, you aren’t either.”

The organization, which says it is “not one group but many,” issued a communiqué Wednesday threatening worse: “Now the leash is off. . . . We promised to take increasingly drastic measures against oppressive infrastructures. Rest assured that we will, and those measures may not come in the form of something so easily cleaned up as fire and graffiti. . . . From here forward, any anti-choice group who closes their doors, and stops operating will no longer be a target. But until you do, it’s open season.”

The attacks come amid news of a plot to assassinate Justice Brett Kavanaugh. Nicholas Roske, angry over the draft opinion, allegedly showed up at the justice’s house packing a pistol, ammunition, a knife, duct tape and zip ties. A radical group called Ruth Sent Us responded to the threat against Justice Kavanaugh by organizing more protests outside justices’ homes. News organizations last month reported on a Department of Homeland Security memo warning of growing threats to courts, lawmakers, the clergy and medical providers from a range of violent extremists.

This is the real story—the explosion of political violence on all sides—and the committee is missing the forest for the trees. The Jan. 6 riot was a dreadful event, featuring fringe right-wing militants. The firebombings of pregnancy centers have been as dreadful, featuring fringe left-wing militants. Add to the dreadful category the shoot-up at the Republican congressional baseball practice in 2017, the death at a Charlottesville, Va., rally the same year, Antifa attacks, assassinations of cops, anti-Semitic shootings in synagogues, and the torching of a Portland, Ore., courthouse by rioters.

The Center for Strategic and International Studies maintains a database of domestic terrorism, which it defines (much like the U.S. government) as the use or threat of violence by nonstate actors to achieve political goals. It reports a significant rise in such incidents at metropolitan demonstrations in 2020 and 2021—“a major break from historical trends”—and notes that government, military and law enforcement are increasingly the targets. In 2021 about 49% of incidents were perpetrated by people on the far right, and 40% by the far left.

The White House and Democrats are refusing to confront this problem, because it isn’t politically convenient. Jan. 6 was their opportunity to paint the entire GOP as a party of insurrectionists—never mind that the videos of the riot feature a class of raving militants that is alien to most conservatives. With inflation eroding their political fortunes, Democrats are doubling down on this midterm strategy, with Mr. Biden labeling his opponents “ultra-MAGA Republicans.”

This is how you end up with prime-time Jan. 6 hearings that ignore the broader violence and instead feed a cramped, partisan narrative. Or a White House that still won’t condemn protests outside justices’ homes. Or a Democratic House that had to be shamed into voting for a bill for more security for the justices and their families (with 27 Democrats voting “no”). Or a media that described the 2020 riots and fires as “peaceful protests” and that has barely mentioned the attacks on pregnancy centers. Democrats won’t even acknowledge violence on the left for fear of upending a political narrative.

This is also how you end up with more violence. This week Mr. Biden raged about “the ultra-MAGA agenda attacking families and our freedoms.” The Jan. 6 committee is insisting Republicans writ large were engaged in an “attempted coup.” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse this week again said the Supreme Court has “been captured by big special interests” and it won’t stop with overturning Roe v. Wade. Not a day goes by that an elected Democrat doesn’t (falsely) tell the public that the GOP intends to strip their voting rights and basic liberties and kill the planet. Politicians on the right answer in kind. It is no surprise that some fanatics feel moved to act.

The bigger story of Jan. 6 is that numerous brave Republicans refused to swallow or promote crazy claims, and institutions held. We are going to need a lot more of Washington to follow suit to have any hope of stemming the tide of political violence.

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Peggy Noonan has hated Trump from the beginning but, because of his own missteps and the demoniacal desire on the part of equally radical Democrats she has a point.

What America needs now is calm, a steady effective hand and for citizens to see solutions, or at least efforts, towards resolving our many crippling problems. I prefer De Santis over Trump:

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Trump Voters Need a New Direction

He might have been the only Republican who could beat Hillary in 2016. But he’s a sure loser in 2024.

By Peggy Noonan

An image of President Donald Trump appears on video screens before his speech to supporters near the Capitol, Jan. 6, 2021.

Photo: Bill Clark/Zuma Press

This is what I tell Trump voters when they ask. It’s my general view on future paths.

I start with the obvious. I never meet Americans who love America more than Trump people do. They really love it—its history, what it means in the world, what it’s done. It has not always been a fully thought-through love but it’s generally fully felt, and at a time when not everybody bothers to feel such allegiance and gratitude it is admirable.

Six or seven years ago they had a piercing, bottom-line insight that smart people told them was crazy. It was that what was happening with America’s southern border couldn’t be solved by the two parties. They had 20 years; they failed. Democrats thought all the illegal immigrants would in time prove themselves Democrats. Republicans were terrified of being called racist and thought if they took moderate-seeming half-measures maybe they wouldn’t be seen as the enemy; maybe they’d get a piece of the Hispanic vote too. Nothing budged. Only some kind of human bulldozer could break through, some guy so intemperate and embarrassing in his language that he couldn’t backtrack, couldn’t change in office. There were other issues—maybe the businessman could do something about globalism, and China—but immigration was really it.

In 2016 Trump supporters called an audible, threw the long ball, and to the shock of all won.

There were things beyond country-love and insight in the Trumpian brew—the joy of social resentment, some jacked-up nihilism, the pleasure of suddenly having comrades and belonging to something, of suddenly having power and being able to rub your so-called superiors’ faces in it. But there was strategy, too.

Republicans can argue about Donald Trump’s single term. He was not strictly speaking a capable man, which surprised those who think the rich are. It’s not that he couldn’t make a deal; it’s that he never knew where the deal was, didn’t know who to go to because he didn’t understand Washington. The border is more overwhelmed than ever, the wall wasn’t built, China continues to loom. But there were no new wars, and conservative justices joined the high court.

Now we jump to this moment, to the Jan. 6 committee and the testimony—under oath—of Mr. Trump’s loyalists, who worked for him in the White House and led his 2020 re-election effort. What they said in essence—and again, under oath—is that the idea the election was stolen was all made up, pure fiction, a deliberate lie aimed at overturning the election.

This was an act against the Constitution, against the formal and informal arrangements and traditions better people had labored to maintain for more than two centuries.

The president’s people had told him he hadn’t won. On election night, according to one witness, everyone said so but an “inebriated” Rudy Giuliani. But a drunk Rudy wasn’t enough, so Mr. Trump looked around for kooks, crooks and freaks. He didn’t have to look far because America has lots of them, and Trumpworld more than most.

Their efforts were knocked down in the courts by Trump-appointed judges and rebuffed in the states by Republican officials. Mr. Trump tried to get his vice president to go along, but he refused. So he threw his most passionate supporters on the ground into it, and told them to march on the Capitol. “Be there, will be wild!”

Those poor stupid people did. From the testimony of those arrested: “Trump asked us to come,” said Robert Schornack. Eric Barber : “He personally asked us to come to D.C. that day . . . for everything he’s done for us, if this is the only thing he’s gonna ask of me, I’ll do it.” Daniel Herendeen understood Trump to be saying, “Come to D.C., big things are gonna happen.”

More than 800 people were arrested. Some have served painful time; there was at least one suicide.

There is no record of Mr. Trump visiting them in prison. There is no record of his paying their bills. No record of his taking responsibility for their actions and requesting mercy. No record they were shown a cent of the $250 million Mr. Trump’s small-donor fundraising operation took in after the election.

The 1/6 hearings have been a powerful indictment, well-documented and undeniable. It is wishful thinking on the part of Trump supporters to dismiss the hearings on the grounds that most Americans didn’t watch them. Everything said will filter out and down, seep into the general knowledge base, and come to be understood as “what happened.” It will further damage Mr. Trump’s standing.

The November election will be good for Republicans, how good we’ll see. The presidential cycle then begins. The Biden administration from Afghanistan through inflation denialism hasn’t been a success. The economy won’t get better in time for 2024. My guess is little will.

In this atmosphere a normal upstanding Republican or a normal accomplished conservative would beat whatever the Democratic ticket is.

It is only Mr. Trump who would surely lose.

He lost in 2020 by seven million votes with a growing economy and no inflation—and that was before the events of 1/6.

America isn’t going to elect him again. They’re not going to let that guy back in that house. Because everyone knows it: Let Donald Trump back there and he’ll do a 1/6 again. Because while his followers love America, he doesn’t. He likes it as far as it goes, appreciates it as the stage for his greatness, but beyond that . . .

Trump voters: Call an audible again. Look at the field and the facts, be strategic. Donald Trump, in the 2016 primaries, tended to win with about a third of the vote. In a field of 17 that was enough. It’s looking like the GOP field could be larger than expected in 2024, and of course Mr. Trump could run again and win the nomination again. It will be easier for him if past Trump voters fail to think strategically, and if donors big and small don’t move early to winnow the field.

Here is the Republican tragedy of the past seven years: In 2016 only Donald Trump could have beaten Hillary Clinton. And of all GOP primary candidates that year, only Mr. Trump couldn’t govern, because he had no interest in governance and is himself ruled by emotions and impulses as opposed to judgment. He is sort of a 1950s caricature of a woman. Actually I suppose I mean he’s colorfully masculine yet not at all manly—a screaming meemie instead of a steady bomber pilot. I say this not to be gratuitous but because his nature dictated his actions on 1/6 and before, and will again.

Why doesn’t the party get someone who can govern now? Why not try to know reputable power, right what needs righting, put competent people in charge?

Serious people will know to move more quickly this cycle than they have in the past.

So that’s what I tell Trump voters: Be serious. Move quickly. Let go of the anvil that, in the most buoyant waters imaginable, will sink you to the bottom of the sea.

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I am sure the FBI continues to be an agency of predominantly honest and competent people but, of late, far too many bad apples are being discovered throughout the ranks have been revealed and it makes the entire agency appear rotten to the core. In these days of contempt for government this is unhealthy.

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The Department of Justice (DOJ) said Thursday that two former FBI agents accused of botching the sex-abuse case against former USA Gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar, who raped kids on the team, will not be prosecuted. After a ” careful re-review of material, the government declined to prosecute the former agents, who are suspected of lying about their work on the case, after a “careful re-review of material.”

The former agents were being investigated after dramatic testimony from gymnastics sensation Simone Biles and several of her colleagues who Nassar harmed even though he had been reported to the FBI last year.

The DOJ stated that this does not indicate a view that the investigation of Nassar was conducted as it should have been, nor does it imply approval or disdain of the former agents’ behavior. After numerous gymnasts delivered sad testimony to the House Judiciary Committee last September, Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco initiated a probe. They detailed the abuse they endured at the hands of Nassar, a 58-year-old Michigan State University doctor who is serving a life sentence for possessing child pornography and abusing at least ten minor girls. Prosecutors believe he sexually molested hundreds of girls while pretending to be a doctor. Former FBI agents, including a supervisor and his subordinate, lied to internal investigators to cover up their failure to investigate credible claims made against Nassar in 2015.

According to DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz, the former FBI agents, including a supervisor and his subordinate, lied to internal investigators to cover up their failure to investigate credible claims made against Nassar in 2015. Nassar was able to continue to victimize young girls due to his failure. W. Jay Abbott, one of the agents, retired, and Michael Langeman, the other, was dismissed last year.

The Justice Department stated that it would continue to learn from what occurred in this matter, and undertake efforts to keep victims at the center of our work and to ensure that they are heard, respected, and treated fairly throughout the process, as they deserve,” and that it wants to work with Congress to address unspecified gaps in the law to help prevent events like this from occurring in the future and hold perpetrators accountable.

Last year, Simone Biles and three other high-profile gymnasts testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee about Nassar’s abuse and the FBI’s reluctance to intervene. Biles told legislators, “I blame Larry Nassar, and I blame a whole system that tolerated and perpetrated his assault.”

At least 330 girls and women have come forward to say Nassar sexually abused them. According to Director Christopher Wray, the shortcomings of the FBI are “inexcusable.”

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Adam Schiff is the last politician who should be accusing anyone of anything. The man is the personification of what is wrong with Pelosi and her crew of liars and radicals.

The constant pursuit of Trump and the unwillingness to pursue the likesof Rep.Waters and Hillary for corruption and lying, as well as Pelosi's pet from California who had an affair with a Chinese spy and yet continues to serve on a sensitive committee is contemptible.

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Democrat Rep. Adam Schiff claims the House Select Committee investigating the “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol has acquired substantial evidence proving former President Donald Trump “engaged in multiple criminal acts” while attempting to overturn the presidential election on January 6.

In an interview with CNN on Tuesday night, the California Democrat called on the Justice Department to “follow the evidence” and pursue charges against

“Our mission is to expose the facts to the public light about a plot to overturn a presidential election, the first non-peaceful transfer of power we’ve had in our history, and prescribe remedies, legislative remedies to protect our country going forward. The principal mission of the Justice Department is to bring people to justice who break the law,” Schiff told CNN’s Don Lemon.

“We can make a referral, but of course, the Justice Department doesn’t sit around waiting for referrals from us, at least, they haven’t in the past. I hope they’re not simply waiting for us now,” he continued. “It’s their duty to follow the evidence and, if there are credible allegations of crime, to pursue them against anyone, including former presidents.”

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Tom Sowell presents his thoughts on charter schools and education:

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The Hoover Institution Monthly Briefing on Education

June 2022

In this briefing, we explore the Hoover fellowship’s latest research and analysis on education policy. In particular, we glean insights from Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy Thomas Sowell in his recently published book Charter Schools and Their Enemies (Basic Books, 2020)

FEATURED ANALYSIS

Charter Schools and Their Enemies

In Charter Schools and Their Enemies, Fellow Thomas Sowell writes, “If I thought that, amid all the research and writing about failing black schools, many scholars and policy-makers would be interested in black schools that succeeded, I was sadly mistaken.”

Acclaimed for his data-driven analysis of contemporary social issues, Sowell once again demonstrates that individual accountability yields positive outcomes. He argues in Charter Schools and Their Enemies that traditional public schools, backed by powerful teachers’ unions and their enabler politicians, behave as monopolies in the domain of education and have skewed the learning gap between White and minority students.

In his research, Sowell concludes that no such gap exists where charter schools have been successful. Moreover, he maintains that “black and Hispanic students [in charter schools] achieve educational results far above [students in] most schools in affluent white neighborhoods.”

Though charter schools are publicly funded, administrators and teachers are driven by incentives and accountability. The schools’ survival is ultimately based on parents’ decisions to enroll their children as well as student performance. By contrast, traditional public schools remain open regardless of educational outcomes.

In a salient example, Sowell cites the performance of Black and Hispanic high school students at New York City’s Success Academy Charter Schools. In 2019, while most students in New York’s public schools failed to pass statewide tests in mathematics and English, most of the Success Academy pupils passed in both subjects.

Sowell argues that the educational achievements of the New York charter school students undermine educational dogmas about cultural bias in testing and negative outcomes based on students’ socioeconomic status.

Sowell found that the average family income of a Success Academy student was $50,000 per year, one-fifth that of White students who attended the traditional schools in more opulent New York neighborhoods. Accounting for these economic disparities, the minority charter school students were still more successful than their White counterparts.

Despite Success Academy’s record, its expansion has been impeded by New York City officials, under pressure from the United Federation of Teachers, which sees student achievement in charter schools as an existential threat. Today, fifty thousand students remain on the Success Academy waiting list. If the district were to agree to the transfer requests of parents concerned about their children’s education, traditional public schools would stand to lose $1 billion.

Sowell maintains that as a result of the limited enrollment in the Success Academy, many gifted students will remain in traditional public schools and perform below their potential.

“Understanding why and how educational success had been such unwelcome news to so many people and institutions is the purpose of this book,” Sowell writes. “With growing political threats to charter schools across the country, the stakes could not be higher for poor and minority youngsters, for whom a good education is their biggest opportunity in life.”

Thomas Sowell Discusses Charter Schools and Their Enemies on Uncommon Knowledge with Peter Robinson.

In an episode of Uncommon Knowledge recorded on July 1, 2020, Sowell talks with Peter Robinson about Charter Schools and Their Enemies. In this hour-long interview, Sowell explains that in comparison to traditional public schools, charter schools have been very strong in helping children master English, mathematics, and other curriculum fundamentals. He argues that students who emerge from the education system with these proficiencies have a clear ticket to building a better life for themselves and using their talents to support the progress of their communities at large.

More education policy analysis from the Hoover Fellowship

Senior Fellow Chester E. Finn, Jr. talks about his new book, Assessing the Nation’s Report Card: Challenges and Choices for NAEP, with Visiting Fellow Michael Petrilli on the Fordham Institute’s Education Gadfly Show.

In an article for Fordham’s Flypaper blog, Petrilli provides potential solutions for narrowing the “excellence gap” in early elementary school.

In an episode of the Education Exchange podcast, Senior Fellow Paul E. Peterson talks with Edgar Sanchez, lead scientist in Applied Research at ACT, about dramatic increases in grade inflation since the COVID-19 pandemic.

Fellow Spotlight: Thomas Sowell

Thomas Sowell is the Rose and Milton Friedman Senior Fellow on Public Policy at the Hoover Institution.

He writes on economics, history, social policy, ethnicity, and the history of ideas. Prior to Charter Schools and Their Enemies, he wrote Discrimination and Disparities, which gathers a wide array of empirical evidence to challenge the idea that different economic outcomes can be explained by any one factor, be it discrimination, exploitation, or genetics. His books on economics include The Housing Boom and Bust, Intellectuals and Society, Applied Economics, Economic Facts and Fallacies, Basic Economics, Affirmative Action Around the World, Classical Economics Reconsidered, Say’s Law, and Economics: Analysis and Issues. On social policy, he has written Knowledge and Decisions, Preferential Policies, Inside American Education, The Vision of the Anointed, Barbarians Inside the Gates, and The Quest for Cosmic Justice. On the history of ideas, he has written Marxism and A Conflict of Visions. Sowell also wrote Late-Talking Children and a monograph on law titled Judicial Activism Reconsidered. Sowell’s research also focuses on cultural history in a world perspective, a subject on which he wrote the trilogy Race and Culture, Migrations and Cultures, and Conquests and Cultures. Sowell’s autobiography, A Personal Odyssey, was published in 2000.

His writings have appeared in scholarly journals in economics, law, and other fields. Sowell's journalistic writings include several thousand essays he penned for a nationally syndicated column that appeared in more than 150 newspapers from Boston to Honolulu until he retired from this work in 2016. Some of these essays have been collected in book form, including Ever Wonder Why? and Other Controversial Essays.

Over the past three decades, Sowell has taught economics at various colleges and universities, including Cornell, Amherst, and the University of California–Los Angeles, as well as the history of ideas at Brandeis University. He has also been associated with three other research centers in addition to the Hoover Institution. He was project director at the Urban Institute (1972–74), a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University (1976–77), and an adjunct scholar of the American Enterprise Institute (1975–76).

Sowell was awarded the National Humanities Medal in 2002. In 2003, Sowell received the Bradley Prize for intellectual achievement. Sowell received his bachelor’s degree in economics, magna cum laude, from Harvard in 1958, his master’s degree in economics from Columbia University in 1959, and his PhD in economics from the University of Chicago in 1968.

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Duffus responds:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/06/16/how-dumb-is-joe-biden-ask-him-hell-tell-you-n1605860

AND:

https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/06/16/pelosi-drag-is-what-america-is-all-about-n1605920

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