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Half of Students Now Get A’s, But Actual Achievement Is Declining
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Daily Economy
Your child’s report card may be sending the wrong signal. Grades and GPAs increasingly reflect institutional incentives rather than academic achievement. Half of all seniors graduate now with grades in the A range (up from 39 percent in 1990), making it by far the most commonly awarded grade. But state-administered proficiency test and SAT and ACT scores decline year after year. Once upon a time, grades were at least a nominally objective measure of academic merit, in the sense that they equated roughly to a percentage: an A meant a student got 90–100 percent of the work correct, a B meant they got 80–89 percent correct, and mastering less than half meant a failing grade. And more importantly, there were far fewer incentives for a teacher to misrepresent them.

4 House Republicans BLOCK attempt to codify Trump's trans military ban
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Post Millennial
The amendment to the NDAA sought to codify President Trump's January 2025 executive order on the matter. Four House Republicans joined Democrats on Tuesday to defeat an amendment that would have written President Donald Trump's executive order barring transgender individuals from serving in the US military into federal law. The amendment, introduced by Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., failed in a narrow 212-217 vote during House consideration of the annual National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a must-pass defense policy bill that sets priorities and authorizes funding for the Department of Defense. The Republicans who voted against the amendment were Rep. Mike Lawler of New York, Rep. Brian Fitzpatrick of Pennsylvania, Delegate James Moylan of Guam, and Delegate Kimberlyn King-Hinds of the Northern Mariana Islands. The measure was defeated after all Democrats opposed it. [Ed: the real surprise here is that a trans provision was attached to the NDAA.]

Trump's New DOJ Nominee Wants To Ban Online Porn and Prosecute Big Tech
Topic: Porn, Prostitution, and Sexual Freedom
Source: Reason
Adam Candeub has been nominated to head the Justice Department's Antitrust Division. Currently serving as general counsel for the Federal Communications Commission, Candeub recently penned a report about how we need to criminalize pornography in order to protect marriage and promote human flourishing. Earlier generations, which he calls on us to emulate, took "measures to curb access to [sexual material] so that sexual desire could be channeled more easily into marriage," he wrote.

Dave Portnoy blasts USA Today columnist
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: FOX News
... for claiming Caitlin Clark’s referee complaints fuel racism. Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy blasted USA Today columnist Nancy Armour on social media Thursday after she argued that Indiana Fever star Caitlin Clark's reactions to officiating fuel racist abuse and endanger Black and queer WNBA players. Armour argued that some of Clark’s supporters interpret her disputes with referees as a White woman needing protection and respond by targeting other players.

Ex-Texas doc who lost medical license over child sex changes
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Post Millennial
now works at OHSU's pediatrics department. A former Texas doctor who surrendered her medical license after being sued by the state for unlawfully providing irreversible sex change drugs to children has relocated to Portland, Oregon. Dr. May Lau has been hired as an associate professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health & Science University (OHSU), online records show.
Lau surrendered her license in October 2025 shortly after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton secured a Rule 11 agreement with Lau that barred her from practicing medicine in Texas during litigation. The lawsuit for violating state law remains ongoing.

Model recruiter who introduced young women to Epstein found dead in France
Topic: Violence Against Women
Source: CNN
A French professional model recruiter who for over a decade arranged for the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein to meet multiple models, was found dead in his home near Paris on Monday. Daniel Siad’s body was found in his house in Colombes, a suburb of the French capital, Marie-Céline Lawrysz, deputy public prosecutor at the Nanterre Judicial Court, told CNN in a Wednesday statement. An autopsy will be performed on the body to determine the cause of death.

Tokyo urges men to wear shorts to work
Topic: Sexual Harassment
Source: BBC News
but some women say it’s ‘leg hair harassment’.As temperatures rise this summer, Japanese men are baring more leg at work than ever before. The Tokyo Metropolitan Government is pushing company employees to ditch their usual suit and tie for more casual attire, featuring t-shirts, trainers - and shorts. Tokyo Governor Yuriko Koike introduced "Tokyo Cool Biz" in April, hoping to expand on her signature cool down initiative which has now become a widely recognised annual summer tradition. Almost four months in, the newly allowed shorts in the office policy is getting mixed reviews.

PAPERS, PLEASE: UK and EU push forward with mass surveillance
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Human Events
...infrastructure under the guise of protecting children. Last September, British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer announced the UK would get a mandatory national digital ID. The Estonian model was cited approvingly. Labour MPs believed the pitch was narrow and reasonable-sounding, especially considering Starmer had just given a migration speech so hardline it was compared to Enoch Powell’s "Rivers of Blood." The ID, called a BritCard would stop illegal Channel crossings, and prove people's right to work and residency status. However, it wasn’t long before Darren Jones, Chief Secretary to the Prime Minister, put his foot in it. He admitted the card "could have much wider uses in the future."

This Congressional Candidate Just Told LGBTQ Community They're Not Her Priority.
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: Townahall
This writer keeps warning the LGBTQ+ community that the Democratic Party, especially the Democratic Socialists, will sell them out to the Islamists. We've already seen some of that conflict, as the Greta Thunberg-led Gaza flotilla had fights between the Muslim members and the LGBTQ+ participants last fall, with the Muslims telling the alphabet soup crowd their activism is "incompatible" with Islamic beliefs. This is an intersectionality game the LGBTQ+ community is going to lose, and Melissa Chaudhry, who is running for Congress in Washington's 9th Congressional District, just proved that. She said she doesn't publicly promote her LGBTQ+ agenda on her campaign website so she doesn't alienate Muslim voters.

Jasmine Crockett, The Incredibly Racist Exiting Congresswoman
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: The Victory Girls Blog
Representative Jasmine Crockett is exiting Congress the same way she came in. Crockett came in a racist and is leaving racist. She learned nothing in her four Congressional years (2023-2027). She lost the Senate Primary to James Talarico. While we are glad that she won’t be an elected official, we will miss the comedy she brings us. Take for example her Fifa World Cup racist rant.

Playground for Predators. Profit for Platforms.
Topic: Children and Family
Source: High Wire
Who’s Really Grooming Our Kids? In 2019, the online platform and game creation system Roblox told the U.S. government about 675 suspected cases of child sexual exploitation on its platform. Four years later, that number had grown to more than thirteen thousand. In 2025, that number had grown to over 65,000. Nobody had to go undercover and coax those figures out of a whistleblower. No indeed. Instead, the company reported them itself, year after year, while also telling parents that Roblox was a safe place for them to leave their kids. That is the whole story in a nutshell. Everything else is detail. But our children are being exploited, and those details matter.

Love Her or Hate Her, Sophie Cunningham Won't Be Ignored
Topic: Individualist Feminism
Source: ESPN
Cunningham, now in her eighth WNBA season, has had a meteoric rise in recognition over the past year. Cunningham, like the WNBA, has become a cultural flashpoint. The league's footprint has never been bigger and the chorus of voices around it has never been louder. All-Star voting and sponsorship opportunities, whistles and non-whistles, who and who does not get to capture this attention economy -- all have become proxies for debates about race and gender, identity and politics. Squarely in this morass sits Cunningham, a white, conventionally attractive, attention-grabbing reserve player who is not one of the league's All-Stars but is one of its most magnetic stars.

The New Feudalism
Topic: Political Correctness
Source: James G. Martin Center
How academia accidentally recreated medieval hierarchy. Almost everyone who has spent significant time in academia has a story about someone: the professor who makes rude demands of the IT department; the dean who plays favorites (much to the detriment of everyone around them) or treats disagreement like disloyalty; the graduate advisor who relentlessly belittles anyone under their care, making a mockery of mentorship; or the insecure adjunct who thinks that their lawn guy must have a doctorate to be worthy of acknowledgement. The problem, however, is not that academics are merely rude, or that insecurity is simply one of the negative trade-offs of a proper life of the mind. The problem is that this poor behavior has a structure and logic governed by academia’s obsession with credentials.

The UK Censors The Net 'For The Children'
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Zero Hedge
Britain is discovering what happens when the state appoints itself the parent of a nation. On June 15, Starmer stood at Downing Street to announce that Britain would ban under-16s from social media, after intense pressure from campaigners. Possibly his last meaningful political action before resigning on June 22. Additionally, the now-departed PM has left the door open to curfews for 16 and 17-year-olds. The country that gave the world the liberal philosophy America's Founders drew on is now imposing digital ID and information bans. The justification is public safety. A framing that has a habit of expanding well beyond its original scope. Banning under-16s from social media is framed as "giving children back their childhoods"; in reality, it has a much darker undertone.

Motherhood You Know How This Happens, Right?
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Mises Institute
Contemporary culture, with its fixation on careers, tends to downgrade the career of motherhood. Openness is a common theme in the recent book by economist and social scientist Catherine Pakaluk titled, Hannah’s Children: The Women Quietly Defying the Birth Dearth. In this book, Mrs. Pakaluk seeks to uncover the reasons why only five percent of women are having five or more children, and why—despite numerous government programs in countries around the world—most women are decidedly not. In fact, most of the world is currently at below-replacement fertility rate. In our current culture family planning is the norm. If a child is conceived without planning, it is an “accident” or a “surprise.” In the book Peter and Wendy, Mr. Darling considers their financial situation upon the birth of their first child...

Teachers union power isn’t helping students
Topic: Children and Family
Source: The Washington Examiner
American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten titled her keynote address at this year’s convention “Building Our Power to Create a Better Future.” But after listening to the speech, one was left to wonder: A better future for whom? Conspicuously absent was any serious discussion of how teachers might educate students better than they do now. Teachers unions might consider how to help students improve their reading and math skills, for example, but they don’t.

The Great Menopause Grift
Topic: Women's Health
Source: The Brownstone Institute
We can see fearmongering everywhere, but the most brazen current example is the full-frontal assault on menopause. If you’ve read a newspaper or scrolled through social media lately you might be asking yourself: Why the heck is everyone getting worked up about menopause? Are hot flashes taking over the planet? Are women really as angry as the media portrays them to be? And the drugs: who do you believe about whether the drugs will help or harm you? These are good questions, focusing on a condition that every woman—our mothers, grandmothers, great-grandmothers and so on – went through, back to the dawn of time. The fearmongering today bypasses the fact that most women who arrive at the end of their periods get through this phase without serious discomfort or suffering.

A Step-by-Step Guide to AI in Schools — How Much to Use and When
Topic: Children and Family
Source: 74 million
Weber: Let artificial intelligence help build critical thinking in elementary school, teach AI literacy in MS, use it for personalized learning in HS. Every few years, a new technology enters schools. Television beamed lessons from the best teachers into classrooms. Computers and the internet gave students access to a wealth of information, right at their fingertips. Interactive whiteboards, tablets and Chromebooks were sold as the future of education. Now, it is artificial intelligence. And educators must ask: What does this innovation help students learn that they couldn’t without it? [Ed: a contrary view to the following piece.]

The philosopher who wants schools to slow kids down
Topic: Children and Family
Source: Big Think
Gert Biesta on the real reason we should be wary of AI in education. As Biesta put it in a conversation with Big Think, such a task is much harder than being told what to do: “It’s being confronted with your own freedom, when you need to figure out: What do you do if no one tells you what to do?” This is the space Biesta — a widely influential philosopher of education and professor of public education at Maynooth University in Ireland — has struggled to defend for decades. He argues it’s been shrinking in schools that prioritize speed, efficient learning, and measurable outcomes. To him, nothing has done more to minimize that space than AI: a machine almost designed to hurry us past the moment of not-knowing before we have had any real chance to inhabit it.