 Dear Weekend Jolter, The kids are back in class — and facing a learning deficit far deeper than your typical summer slide. Just before the holiday weekend, the National Center for Education Statistics reported that math and reading test scores for elementary-school students plummeted to the lowest levels in decades. This, of course, was only the latest evidence for the already-unassailable conclusion that pandemic-era school closures drove historic learning loss. Yet the infuriated parents and policy-makers who saw this coming won't get so much as an apology. Not a note of contrition, nor a qualified admission. Instead, those responsible for this education catastrophe are pretending to have done everything in their power to avoid it — to be leading America's children out of it — while their allies emit a smoke screen intended to cloud an otherwise clear view of the very recent past. "Staggering audacity" is how Walter Blanks Jr., of the American Federation for Children, described teachers' union honcho Randi Weingarten's response to the learning-loss report. She had tweeted: "Thankfully after two years of disruption from a pandemic that killed more than 1 mil Americans, schools are already working on helping kids recover and thrive." Walter writes: It is true that countless teachers in schools across the country are hard at work trying to help struggling students recover. Weingarten failed to mention that teachers and parents are cleaning up the mess she and her union left behind. Despite gaslighting from unions and their allies, it's no secret that the American Federation of Teachers and its affiliates fought tooth and nail to ensure public schools remained closed. When information about Covid-19 was scarce, closing schools was a reasonable response, but keeping schools closed when the evidence showed it did more harm than help to children was an extreme blunder. While most schools in Europe were open as early as April or May 2020, the unions were hard at work fighting to keep U.S. schools closed long after any point of reasonable concern. By October 2020, 90 percent of private schools across America were open, providing instruction without the devastating Covid outbreaks unions predicted. Meanwhile, Weingarten and the unions lobbied the CDC to keep kids out of public-school classrooms. This effort continued even after teachers in many states were given priority for vaccines and an overwhelming majority were vaccinated.
More audaciously, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre argued that Democrats managed to reopen schools "in spite of Republicans." This was high-level gaslighting indeed. Sean Spicer could learn something. The thread fiber holding that claim just barely together was that Republicans opposed the (inflationary) American Rescue Plan (ARP), which designated billions for school reopening via Covid mitigation, among other things. Fox News fact-checked the assertion and calculated that, though schools reopened on Biden's watch, states and local districts tapped into only about 12.7 percent of the funds under that program. Was the ARP the key to reopening this whole time? Doubtful. There's also the nettlesome detail that red states reopened schools more readily than blue states did, and everybody knows this. Once upon a time, Democrats attacked Republicans for it, as Brittany Bernstein recalls here. Yet Senator Patty Murray (D., Wash.) was on CNN last weekend praising fellow Democrats for getting kids back in school by way of the blessed American Rescue Plan. "No second thoughts?" Dana Bash asked. Nope, not one. So . . . what? To quote one prominent hearing witness: What difference, at this point, does it make? Deflection is to be expected, especially in an election year. We should focus on closing that learning deficit above all else, recriminations included. Still, after parents and other reopening advocates for months were advised this position was fundamentally racist, the new narrative that all this could have been avoided with a ventilation upgrade in the cafeteria is not just insulting but untenable. Mary Katharine Ham wrote recently about why some measure of accountability is called for on this failure; namely, because to skip that step "is to give tacit approval for those same mistakes to be made again." Journalist Anya Kamenetz, who openly roots for the Democrats, also called for a party "apology tour" in order for them to reclaim the education issue with voters, stressing that parents aligned with Democrats "sorely want it acknowledged that they were right all along." Parents are not, however, helpless, as Dan Lips explained in the most recent edition of the magazine. And parents have eyes to see who has been working against their interests. They don’t do a very good job hiding it. NAME. RANK. LINK. EDITORIALS R.I.P.: Queen Elizabeth II: An Extraordinary Life of Extraordinary Service Democrats figure out how to make the nation's most expensive child care even more expensive: The D.C. Day-Care Debacle What's behind the worker shortage? The Missing Laborers ARTICLES Rich Lowry: John Fetterman's Fitness for Office Is a Legitimate Issue Charles C. W. Cooke: Queen Elizabeth II, R.I.P. Charles C. W. Cooke: Biden's Pointless Presidency Ryan Mills: Disabled Portland Residents Sue City for Surrendering Sidewalks to the Homeless Michael Brendan Dougherty: I'm a New Yorker, Governor Hochul Luther Ray Abel: How to Fix the SEALs' Training Amity Shlaes: What's Wrong with Siding with Unions? Kevin Williamson: A Clear and Present Danger Nate Hochman: Chile's Constitution Flop a Win for Basic Sanity Andrew McCarthy: Judge Throws Mar-a-Lago Probe into Chaos Diana Glebova: Irish Teacher Imprisoned for Continuing to Teach after Refusing to Use ‘Gender-Neutral’ Pronouns Diana Glebova: U.K. Lawyer Takes a Stand for Children Harmed by Gender Ideology Sharon Supp: With Gender-Transition 'Sanctuary State' Law, California Declares War on Parents in All 50 States Dan McLaughlin: Don't Apply Different Speech Rules to Libs of TikTok Dan McLaughlin: Joe Biden Can't Decide What 'MAGA Republican' Means CAPITAL MATTERS Daniel Pilla provides helpful history for taxpayers who might get caught up in the next wave of audits: The IRS Commissioner's Warning of Audits to Come A bubble is about to burst. From Desmond Lachman: China's Property-Market Party Is Over LIGHTS. CAMERA. REVIEW. Armond White finds this fairy tale falling flat (and check out the first installment of his new series on the media here): Why Three Thousand Years of Longing Is Unacceptable Brian Allen reviews a museum that shows true vigor (though look out for the flip side of this review this weekend): Atlanta's High Museum, Looking Good and On the Move NOTHING BUT A-SIDES What made Queen Elizabeth II special, from NR's editorial: The monarchy is powerful as a result of its formal powerlessness. It transcends the political fray, partly because it cannot (except, theoretically, in extraordinarily rare circumstances) play any material part in it. As such, it can play an invaluable unifying role, which is reinforced by the living link it represents with the past, a link that was only reinforced, in Elizabeth's case, by the length of her life and, in an increasingly fractious United Kingdom, her close connection with, and fondness for, Scotland (her mother was of partly Scottish descent and was brought up there). It is somehow appropriate that Elizabeth died in Balmoral, a place that she loved. The last serving head of state to have served in the military (she joined the Auxiliary Territorial Service in 1945) during the Second World War, Elizabeth stuck with the standards expected of Britain's wartime generation, standards also reflected in the advice on the role of a modern constitutional monarch that she was given by George VI, the father she adored, a king profoundly shaped by the wartime years. Conscientious, hardworking, and self-disciplined, and with a life apparently free from scandal, Elizabeth rarely put a foot wrong. She did her best to ensure (with occasional, discreetly phrased exceptions, such as over Scottish independence) that she kept clear from revealing anything about her political views, exercising a discretion that, like so many of her other qualities, has not been so apparent in her successor, King Charles III. The queen's qualities, her generally careful adjustments to modern times, and, as the years passed, her seeming permanence have helped Britain weather turbulent and rapidly changing times. Almost perpetually popular (we should pass over the brief period of hysteria that followed the death of Princess Diana), in her later years she had become, if not quite the nation's grandmother or great-grandmother, something akin to it, with a position in British minds and, often, hearts that is itself a tribute to a life very well lived. R.I.P.
Sharon Supp, of Alliance Defending Freedom, sounds the alarm about a far-reaching California proposal: The California legislature just passed S.B. 107, a dangerous bill that undermines the fundamental right of every parent in every state to direct the upbringing of their children. It allows California courts to strip custody from parents — even parents who don't live in California — who have legitimate concerns about a young child undergoing irreversible medical procedures to appear as a different gender. California wants to become a "sanctuary state" to which minor children from around the country can flee (or even be taken by someone else) to obtain on-demand puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, or surgeries to remove healthy body parts . . . without the knowledge or consent of their parents. Assuming Governor Gavin Newsom signs S.B. 107 into law, California courts will have "temporary emergency jurisdiction" over any child in, and any person who may bring the child to, California for the purpose of obtaining harmful interventions on children's minds and bodies. Ignoring the growing body of medical evidence demonstrating the damage caused by those medical and surgical interventions on children, California wants to reach into homes across state lines and offer such interventions to all children in America even if — perhaps especially if — their parents object. In reality, California offers no "sanctuary" to American children. No, like the Pied Piper, California under S.B. 107 would entice children nationwide to leave their families and run away into the arms of California bureaucrats who believe that harmful drugs and sterilizing surgeries should be freely available to anyone who asks regardless of age, mental health, or legal capacity. And those courageous parents who oppose the coercive corruption of their child's mind and body will be met with the full force of the courts, police, and child-protective services.
Charles C. W. Cooke asks what it's all for: President Biden says that he is engaged "in a battle for the soul of this nation." The trouble is, he doesn't seem quite sure what that means. It is not unfair to ask: What is the Biden administration? What is its purpose? What, besides a haphazard rehashing of Absolutely Everything Progressives Have Ever Thought Of, is its program? Joe Biden became president because the alternative was reelecting Donald Trump, and, much to his detriment, Joe Biden has never managed to transcend that elementary fact. Eighteen months in, his presidency still lacks a theme, a focus, a narrative. The most pressing issues facing the country — inflation, debt, energy — all seem to bore him. His foreign policy is non-existent. His domestic priorities are determined by the transient concerns of Elizabeth Warren's emissaries to the White House and by the trending bar on Twitter. "Who is really in charge?" Biden's critics like to ask. The question assumes too much. Nobody is in charge, because there's nothing to be in charge of. One might as well ask who is in charge of a feather floating in the wind. Around and around Biden spins — smiling here, glaring there, emitting sparks without kindling, telling stories without meaning, gesturing without function, striding purposelessly back and forth in search of something, anything, that might reverse his slide toward irrelevance. Rudderless, he motions momentarily toward tackling inflation, and then moves on to something else. Desperate, he forswears responsibility: Gas prices are up? That's the oil companies' fault. Hopeful, he snatches responsibility: Gas prices are down? That's Dark Brandon's doing! Impotently, he yells and intones and lectures, flitting between ersatz solemnity and peremptory ire with no perceptible loss of vim. We have a crisis in this country, he says, in whispers. What is that crisis? It's Trump and his friends. Or, maybe, it's everyone in the Republican Party, or pro-lifers, or apologists for Wall Street, or people with bad policy ideas. It's something; he just hasn't quite decided what yet. He'll get back to you on that.
And ICYMI, from Labor Day, Amity Shlaes reviews the historical record on what tends to happen when conservatives try making nice with the unions: A few takeaways for your Labor Day, whatever your music: siding with unions out of political expedience generally doesn't work for Republicans. That's because Republicans rarely can deliver more to unions than Democrats, for whom organized labor is embedded DNA. Workers, whether unionized or not, spot the intellectual hypocrisy in such a Republican endeavor. So do other voters. The hero Republicans and Democrats of this story are men and women who responded to voter needs rather than styling themselves as architects of a presidential coalition. Last, and as important, is to recognize the fallacy upon which the whole political discussion is based: "union = workers." Workers, like anyone else, are individuals, some unionized, and some not. To build up unions as workers' proxy is to worsen the possibility of the kind of cronyism our political commentators spends so much energy bemoaning. Union-boosting often ignores the basic need of workers, such as training and employment. Seen from the vantage point of recent decades, U.S. union history looks like a tragic and unnecessary imposition of a primitive class warfare cartoon upon a powerhouse of growth. The fundamental trouble with our union culture is that it forces people to take sides and themselves become those cartoon caricatures. Which side are we on? Well, not that side.
Shout-Outs Chuck Ross, at the Washington Free Beacon: FBI Official Accused of Shutting Down Hunter Biden Probe Was 'Running Point' on Key Witness Fred Bauer, at City Journal: Mixed-Term Elections Thomas Fazi, at UnHerd: The lab-leak theory isn't dead Las Vegas Review-Journal: Police arrest county official in reporter's stabbing death CODA I was in Chicago last weekend, a trip that fortuitously coincided with the city's Jazz Festival. My family indulged a couple swings by the grounds, including to see guitarist Bill Frisell, who was headlining last Friday night. Frisell is a legendary and long-toiling bandleader and player. His body of work is relatively new to me (this recent Journal article is a helpful primer), but he's a musician I was curious to see in action — judging by the size of the crowd, I was not alone. His style is spare and precise, deliberate and, in its own way, experimental. A taste, from his most recent album, Valentine. And from the show. Enjoy, and thanks for reading. | 
Megyn Kelly -> Pete Hegseth responds to 2017 rape accusation. 🔥 vol. 3, issue 13 | December 6, 2024 Quick Hits All the news you need in...
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