In January of 2022, Vice President Kamala Harris denounced Georgia’s 2021 election integrity law as part of a vast GOP conspiracy to make it difficult to vote: “I have met with voters in Georgia.  I have heard your outrage about the anti-voter law here.” No amount of demagoguery …  will distract the voters from the direction in which the country is headed under the Biden-Harris regime. This was robotically reported by the corporate media, of course, but the “anti-voter” claim was soundly refuted by early voters in the Peach State last week. In addition to the record-shattering first day turnout (313,383), Saturday’s turnout (162,966) was the largest ever in a general election. The number of ballots cast during the first five days of early voting totaled 1,377,371, according to data provided by the Georgia Secretary of State’s office. These robust turnout numbers were no shock to anyone familiar with the 2021 statute, but there was one major surprise. As the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports, “Already, early voting turnout in about a dozen rural Georgia counties has far surpassed totals for this point in the 2020 election. By contrast, early voting rates in deep-blue metro Atlanta counties is lagging behind where it was at that stage in the campaign.” Historically, rural Republicans have eschewed early voting, and waited for Election Day to cast their ballots. But this year GOP leaders — including former President Trump — have encouraged Republicans to “make a plan to vote” and do it early. And, as the following suggests, it’s working in Georgia.                                                                        How 2024 Early Voters Voted in 2020 District PVI       Voted Early 2020        Voted ED 2020      Didn’t Vote 2020 GA-1 R+9                   73,423                   6,263                    17,729 GA-3 R+18                   87,923                   8,388                    16,823 GA-6 R+11                   88,770                   3,147                    16,279 GA-8 R+16                   74,217                   6,858                    13,451 GA-9 R+22                   83,339                   5,918                    18,076 GA-10 R+15                   84,667                   6,184                    15,129 GA-11 R+11                   65,133                   5,179                    14,699 GA-12 R+8                   76,610                   6,460                      9,439 GA-14 R+22                   75,106                   4,602                    14,637 Total                709,188                52,999                 136,262 Georgia has 14 congressional districts. This table lists the nine in which Republicans dominate. The “PVI” column indicates the partisan lean of each according to the Cook Political Report. The next column shows the 2024 early voters who also voted early in 2020. The following column indicates the number of 2024 early voters who cast their ballots on Election Day in 2020. The last column on the right shows the 2024 early voters who did not bother to vote in 2020. The number of voters who cast ballots in these districts during the first week of early voting totaled 898,449 — 65 percent of all ballots cast. The most important number on the table is at the foot of the last column. It represents the crucial low propensity voters. Georgia’s Low Propensity Voters Low propensity voters, as the label suggests, have little in common with the readers of this column. They don’t follow politics closely, their knowledge of specific candidates tends to be superficial, and they certainly don’t pore over election polls. Very few of them could tell you what Nate Silver or Allan Lichtman do for a living. That does not, however, mean that they never vote. They are much more likely to vote in presidential elections than in midterm congressional contests and, as the above table suggests, they can be motivated by circumstances and candidates. It is all but certain that these voters played a crucial role in Trump’s defeat of Hillary Clinton. As Philip Bump suggested in the Washington Post: One of the factors that drove Trump’s success in 2016 was that he managed to motivate low-frequency voters — largely Whites without college educations — to come out and support his candidacy. The Equis data suggest that he did something similar in 2020, spurring much more enthusiasm for voting among conservative Latinos, including both conservative Republicans (about 14 percent of the Latino voting population) and conservative Democrats (11 percent). Those groups were not only more motivated to vote but also became more approving of Trump’s presidency from 2019 to 2020 (though only modestly in the case of those Democrats). Considering that fully 15 percent of the people who cast ballots last week in Georgia’s red districts were low propensity voters — about twice as many as voted in blue districts — it’s a good bet they will play a major role in deciding who wins the state. Nor is it difficult to divine what has motivated them to get off their posteriors and exercise the franchise. Many of these people are asking themselves, “Am I better off now than I was four years ago?” The answer to that question is just as clear as it was when Ronald Reagan asked it in 1980 during his debate with the feckless Democrat he was running against. The obvious answer is, of course, “Hell no!” This is why Georgia’s Republican districts are dominating early voting. It’s probable that similar dynamics are at work in Pennsylvania. This is why Kamala Harris’s poll numbers are heading southward nationally and in the battle ground states. She is right when she says it’s time to “turn the page” politically. No amount of demagoguery about voter suppression in Georgia will distract the voters from the direction in which the country is headed under the Biden-Harris regime. Early voting in the Peach State suggests that it is indeed time for a new chapter in which Kamala Harris is written out of the plot. READ MORE from David Catron: How Democrat Lawfare Launched Trump’s Comeback Kamala Harris Is Melting The post In Georgia GOP Districts Dominate Early Voting appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Twenty years from now, historians will look at the election of November 5th, 2024 as either the end of America or its salvation. Of course, should the Democrats win, real historians won’t be able to chronicle the former. They’ll be banned on any public medium. Because the last best hope for free speech, Elon Musk’s X, will be as censorious as its previous incarnation, Jack Dorsey’s Twitter. Then every other venue, including Fox News, will celebrate the “evolution” of the nation into a one-party Democratic state. And Musk himself will be in prison or broke. Conservatives and patriots protested on their lone medium, X. But then the platform was shut down for hate speech and misinformation. But somewhere and on something, perhaps an old school notebook, some brave historian will record the truth. How easy it was for the deep state to terminate the 250-year-old Republic. Certainly the key element was in place well before Election Day: a mass of ignorant people brainwashed by the anti-American education system and the mainstream media. They first had to embitter lonely less attractive women into blaming men for their misery, minorities into hating white men, and losers to despise heroes. With enough numbers, it became simple to spread wide the disdain. Mothers saw their unborn children as soulless leeches on their career-oriented bodies. Black scumbag criminals were victims of a white-supremacist police force. The Founding Fathers were slaveholders, making the Constitution an illicit parchment. And once the Constitution was neutralized, so too its anti-government safeguards: the First Amendment, the Second Amendment, the Electoral College, the Supreme Court. All of them were summarily removed or altered. Did none oppose this? Yes, Republicans did. Their party, although now a symbolic joke, once boasted half the country. But they stood no chance after the Harris-Walz Administration citizenized more than 20-million illegal aliens, turning every battleground state blue almost overnight. Not for nothing had the Biden-Harris Administration opened the border to a vast inflow of immigrants, offering them welfare benefits denied many Americans. Naturally, the Supreme Court ruled the Citizenship Act unconstitutional by a 6-3 margin. The ruling delayed the act for two years until the midterm election, when the resulting confusion increased the Democratic majority in the Senate. That body promptly overruled the filibuster, allowing President Harris to add four new SCOTUS justices. They reversed the previous decision to find the Citizenship Act constitutional — yet the First Amendment, Second Amendment, and the electoral college unconstitutional. Conservatives and patriots protested on their lone medium, X. But then the platform was shut down for hate speech and misinformation. When people took to the streets, they were arrested for insurrection. They futilely cited their rights under the First Amendment, which no longer existed. Neither did the Second. Hence guns were confiscated from formerly law-abiding citizens, leaving only armed criminals. Many resistors were arrested or shot. The above scenario is not Orwellian fiction. Prominent Democrats have stated on the record their desire to implement such measures. Ex-Secretary of State, John Kerry, recently blasted the First Amendment as an obstacle, in his view, to benevolent government censorship. “If people only go to one source, and the source they go to is sick, and, you know, has an agenda and they’re putting out disinformation, our First Amendment stands as a major block to be able to just, you know, hammer it out of existence,” Kerry said. “So what we need is to win the ground, win the right to govern, by hopefully winning enough votes that you’re free to be able to implement change.” And “border czarina” Kamala Harris not only enabled more border crossings, she wants to facilitate the illegals’ “pathway to citizenship.”. She told CNN, “The solution includes putting resources at the border to do what we can to process people effectively. And putting in place laws that actually allow for a meaningful, meaningful pathway to citizenship.” According to a September Pew Research Poll, eight-in-ten Democrats favor replacing the Electoral College. Which reflects the school system’s malfeasance in teaching youth about the Constitution, and what the Electoral College was sagely designed for — to keep the sane states of America from being ruled by the loons in California and New York. And Joe Biden did announce a commission to study mandatory changes to the Supreme Court, like expanding it by four justices. The Left is Loath to Elect Trump The nation-ending stakes of the election are ignored by far too many Americans, mostly on the Left. Their hatred of Donald Trump blinds even the more patriotic old-school Democrats. But Trump is all that’s standing between the fanatics’ dreams of destruction and the right path for the country. And it’s driving them insane. Enough to try to hit Trump where it doesn’t hurt by questioning his manhood. Wannabe action star Dave Bautista — with two post Guardians of the Galaxy movie bombs on his resume — beclowned himself attempting this on video last week. In the latest desperate Hollywoke attempt to decrease Trump’s appeal to men, Bautista appears wearing boxing gloves in a ring, looking slightly more convincing than the White Dudes for Harris. “Fellas, we gotta talk,” Bautista begins. “A lot of men seem to think that Donald Trump is some kind of tough guy. He’s not … The guy’s afraid of birds … ” But not of real bullets, Bautista forgot. As did most leftists, from whom the image of a bloody Trump standing up after being shot in the head has been erased by their preferred media. But we didn’t forget. We’ll pull the lever for Trump on November 5th. And with God’s grace, November 6th will bring morning in America once again. READ MORE from Lou Aguilar: The Hysterical Attempt to ‘Woo’ Real Men for Harris A Woman Underground Is A Great Book Looking for the ideal mystery book for Christmas? Read my new political thriller novel The Washington Trail. Because in a turbulent election year, politics can be murder. The post To Be or Not to Be America — After Election Day appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

In some Democratic circles it would be unseemly to celebrate the death of Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas. But let’s give three cheers for the Israeli soldier who fired the shot that emptied Sinwar’s brain pan. The world is a better place for it. There is no genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza or anywhere else. We have to begin our analysis of Sinwar’s death with the fact that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris repeatedly told the Israelis to not go into the city of Rafah in southern Gaza where the Israeli forces bagged Sinwar. In March, Harris said, “Any major military operation in Gaza would be a huge mistake … I have studied the maps; there’s nowhere for those folks to go, and we’re looking at about a million and a half people in Rafah who are there because they were told to go there.” Whether she can read a map without help is questionable but it’s a very good thing that the Israelis are ignoring her and Biden. The long and short of it is that Sinwar would still be alive — and Hamas preparing to resume its government of Gaza — if Israel had followed Kamala’s advice. She must believe that her genius in tactics and strategy — scratch that; in diplomacy — qualifies her to be our commander-in-chief for the next four years. The Significance of Sinwar’s Death The death of Sinwar hasn’t brought about the end of a round of war Hamas started on October 7, 2023, nor will it. It is a tactical achievement, not a strategic one. That’s easily demonstrated by two statements. First, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “To the Hamas terrorists I say — your leaders are running away and they will be eliminated. I call on everyone who holds our hostages: whoever lays down his arms and returns our hostages — we will allow him to leave and live. Whoever harms our hostages — there will be blood on his head and we will hold him accountable.” Netanyahu is not Winston Churchill but he stands in a Churchillian moment. It is only because of his courage that Israel stands against Biden’s and Harris’s absurd cease-fire demands and keeps fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and against Iran. His courage has sustained Israel in this war: he shows no sign of faltering. Netanyahu’s offer of amnesty to those who aid in releasing hostages may yet help the hostages be released or rescued. All but the most fanatical of Hamas members have to understand the significance of Sinwar’s death. The second proof (and there are others) was the answer to Netanyahu’s statement by Khalil al-Hayya, reportedly a senior Hamas leader. (They have to be running out of them at this point). He said on Friday, “These prisoners will not return unless the aggression on Gaza stops, the occupiers withdraw, and our heroic prisoners are released from Zionist prisons.” Stop right there. The people Hamas holds aren’t prisoners, they’re hostages. Hamas, like all the Islamic terrorists, always seeks moral equivalence but there is none. Israel doesn’t take hostages and neither does any civilized country. Hostage-taking is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. (See Common Article 3 and the Fourth Convention. Hostage-taking is only one of the many war crimes Hamas has committed on and since October 7.) Al-Hayya may be following the orders of Khaled Mashal, Hamas’s political leader, who is living it up in a luxury hotel in Doha, Qatar.  Mashal is obeying the orders he gets from Iran. Mashal should be extradited to the U.S. or Israel or he should join the long list of terrorist leaders the Israelis have whacked in the past couple of months. The former would be a greater spectacle, but you can bet on the latter. The fact that Sinwar’s death is only a tactical victory is also demonstrated by the fact that Hizballah — Iran’s Lebanese proxy — is still firing missiles at Israeli civilians. There is no letup in the pressure they exert on Israel or on the pressure Israel is putting on Hizballah. Further demonstrating that fact, either Iran or Hizballah launched a drone attack on Netanyahu’s residence, attempting to kill him and his wife. If the Israelis wanted to, they could launch as strike intended to kill Ayatollah Khamenei. It’s unlikely they would but, for the attempt on Netanyahu and the October missile barrage from Iran, Khamenei is on the long list of targets Israel could strike in retaliation. Hamas still holds about one hundred hostages out of the 240 taken which included seven Americans. Biden and Harris have done absolutely nothing to get the Americans released. Three of the seven Americans are believed to still be alive. The other four were murdered in captivity by Hamas. As this column has said several times, the Israeli special forces don’t need — and probably don’t want — help from our Navy SEALs or the Delta Force in rescuing hostages. They’re probably on scene advising the Israelis. The Israelis have been at it for a year now, they know the ground and have mapped most of the tunnels where the hostages are probably being kept. But there is a lot more Biden can do to get our people home. The Biden-Harris Failure As I’ve also written before, Biden-Harris never utter a discouraging word to Hamas or Hizballah, both of which are Iranian proxies. It is long past time for Biden-Harris to condemn them in the harshest terms, hold them responsible for the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza and tell our diplo-dunces to do the same in every place they can go, especially the UN. But that won’t happen because Harris — and to whatever degree Biden is conscious of the world around him — they are consumed by election politics. According to a Fox News report on Saturday, a panel of Arab-American voters on MSNBC said they refused to vote for Harris. One, who said she’d vote for Trump, added that she would do so because, “my main goal is to get someone who is actively funding a genocide out of office.” There is no genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza or anywhere else. But if that person votes for Trump and the rest don’t vote for Harris, that would be a good enough result. READ MORE from Jed Babbin: The Real Forever War One Year Since Oct. 7, Iran Is in Israel’s Crosshairs The post Après Sinwar appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The 2024 General election is less than a month away, meaning campaigns nationwide have zero hours. Republicans are seeing momentum in their favor, as the presidential election is a statistical tie, and polling shows Republicans poised to retake the U.S. Senate. Surprisingly, the state of Nebraska could foil the Republicans’ plan to take back the upper chamber despite a Democrat not running for Senate.  “This race is more competitive than it should be,” said political science professor Randy Adkins. Incumbent Republican Senator Deb Fischer is fighting off a challenge from Union boss Dan Osborn, an independent candidate with populist overtones. His campaign is bringing in millions of dollars from outside political PACS, forcing the NRSC to spend half a million dollars on campaign advertisements in a safe state rather than spend money in swing states to take back the majority in the Senate.  The polling for the race is varied, adding an element of suspense to the campaign. The latest poll from Impact Research shows Osborn with a slim lead over Fischer, 48 percent to 46 percent. By contrast, an internal poll from the Fischer campaign shows her ahead of Osborn by 48 percent to 42 percent, but 10 percent are still unsure. “This race is more competitive than it should be,” said political science professor Randy Adkins of the University of Nebraska-Omaha. He says an independent taking on a Republican is a “novel phenomenon” in today’s politics. The last time Nebraska voters elected a U.S. Senator who was not a Republican was the 2006 midterm with a deeply unpopular Republican President in George W. Bush. In 2012, Deb Fischer defeated former Nebraska Senator Bob Kerrey by 12 points and then won reelection in 2018 by nearly 20 points. Democrats did not bother to recruit a candidate this cycle, which opened the door for an independent candidacy. For Nebraskans, Dan Osborn became a household name when he led a union workers’ strike against Omaha’s Kellogg plant in 2021. He gained national notoriety when he organized a strike as president of the local Bakery, Confectionary, Tobacco Workers, and Grain Millers International Union. With the strike ending after two months and workers agreeing on a new contract, National Democrats, including President Joe Biden and Senator Bernie Sanders, took notice. Since his run for the Senate, Osborn has distanced himself from both Republicans and Democrats and has not received any backing from the DSCC or Nebraska Democrats. His refusal to take corporate handouts is a significant aspect of his campaign, as it aligns with his pro-union stance. Even though he has refused to take corporate handouts, Osborn is receiving campaign contributions from pro-union organizations as well as Soros-linked dark money organizations.  To their credit, the Fischer campaign is working to portray Mr. Osborn as a Democrat pretending to be an Independent with his liberal stances on abortion, amnesty for illegal immigrants, and vowing to eliminate the Senate filibuster. The campaign just recently released a TV ad portraying Osborn as a “Trojan Horse” as his win would likely mean Democrats remain in control of the Senate. Senator Fischer is taking this Senate race seriously. To help blunt Mr. Osborn’s momentum, she came out with the endorsement of former President Donald Trump, who referred to Osborn as a “Bernie Sanders Democrat” who does not stand for Nebraska values. “This move is significant considering Trump won Nebraska in 2020 by 19 points. What is even more important for Republicans in Nebraska is that Donald Trump will win the Great Plains state again, and it will be a landslide. Three state-wide polls from both campaigns show Trump ahead by 20 points. Republicans outnumber Democrats by a 2-1 margin in the state, and no GOP senator lost a race where Trump prevailed in the state for the past two election cycles. Senator Pete Ricketts is running in a special election to finish out Ben Sasse’s Senate term since he left office. Ricketts is beating his opponent by the same margin as Trump, so it doesn’t add up to vote for Trump and Ricketts and then vote for a candidate who is a Bernie Sanders admirer.  While Osborn’s campaign has appealed to Nebraska’s blue-collar, independent voters, he has not said who he would caucus with in the Senate. It is essential for an independent to caucus with one of the two main parties in order to get committee assignments, and every independent Senator currently caucuses with the Democrats. By contrast, Senator Fischer has delivered results for the people of Nebraska through appropriations and infrastructure as a member of the Armed Services and Agriculture committees. She was a reliable voter during Trump’s first term in office and was described as a “workhorse” during her two terms in Washington. Republicans will not need to worry about this race as long as they hammer out the message that Dan Osborn is too liberal for Nebraska.  READ MORE from Alex Adkins: Montana Might Be the Only Flip for Senate Republicans In Defense of Our Defense: Senator Wicker’s Plan The post Do Republicans Have a Problem in Nebraska? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

TAMPA — Is America a great country or what? There’s still room in the last best hope on Earth for the alert and fast-acting entrepreneur. I’ve just learned that one can purchase on Amazon, and doubtless elsewhere, a stylish T-shirt that says, “I survived Hurricane Milton,” and featuring a likeness of the state with the gruesome Milton bearing down on it. Normal is on the way after the Helene/Milton one-two punches. But it hasn’t overtaken us yet. We Americans do love our T-shirts. There seems to be one for every purpose or cause. As is the case with bumper-strips, there’s hardly a philosophy, political candidate, product, athletic team, rock band, town, saloon, or organization with more than three members, that’s not celebrated on somebody’s T-shirt. Next time one of your Democrat friends comes out with some leftist delusion, you can leave him in doubt by replying: “That must be true — I read it on a T-shirt once.” T-shirts have become a cheap form of advertising. Mobile bill-boards. Not free of the entrepreneurial spirit myself, I’m thinking of having one made up that says: “This space available.” Perhaps my chest could generate a little cash flow. It’s not doing anything else just now. Bumper strips are a similar medium, with the same variety of messages. Some of them downright exotic. The late Southern novelist, Walker Percy, enjoyed running across oddball strips. He had a life-list of them, sort of like birders do. His favorite was: “Goat ropers need love too.” That one is indeed splendid. I’m sure it would brighten my day to spot one of these on the back bumper of an F-150. As a Milton survivor myself, I’d rather forget than celebrate this destructive storm from Hell, as I’m sure millions of other Floridians would. But I’m sure this item will enjoy brisk sales. Hats off to the entrepreneurs who found a way to turn a buck from the storm without approving of it, or ignoring the death, destruction, and heartache it brought with it. It can be seen as a celebration of the toughness of Floridians. Even without hurricanes, Florida summers are not for sissies. They’re long, hot, humid, and often have stormy finishes. And Milton was a finish for the ages. The Helene/Milton One-Two Punch It was a hairy Wednesday night for my wife and me. But we escaped without damage to our persons or to our 100+ year-old Tampa home. We didn’t even lose power, which tells me the Age of Miracles is not over. (Millions across the peninsula weren’t so lucky.) Thursday morning, however, we couldn’t help but notice that one of our neighbor’s trees had taken up residence against the side of our house. It’s been removed and is now part of the endless sea of tree debris across the city which will be a long time being removed. I’m not sure where it will go. If we sent it all to Minnesota for fire wood there’s enough of it to keep that state warm throughout its long winter.  Power is back now in most Tampa precincts. Normal is on the way after the Helene/Milton one-two punches. But it hasn’t overtaken us yet. In hopes that Milton has put paid to this storm season, Floridians are keeping up with tropical weather reports. A storm-weary friend told me that if he learned in the coming days that there was something else cooking in the Gulf of Mexico he might jump off the Skyway Bridge. I fear he might have to stand in line for the privilege. I tried to reassure him by saying that as well as all good things, all bad things also come to an end. This must be true. I read it on a T-shirt once. Or was it a bumper-strip? READ MORE from Larry Thornberry: RIP Pete Rose — Few Played the Game Even Remotely Like Him Venice Is Still in Good Hands — With Detective Guido Brunetti and His Team The post Entrepreneurship Survives Vicious Milton appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

My brother is currently a sophomore in college, and he hasn’t read a single book in the entirety of his time there. He has taken courses that include English, history, religion, psychology, and other humanities. You would be right to assume that reading books, often in their entirety, would be required in these subjects.  This follows a new trend in the education system. In the past two weeks, I have read at least two recent news stories lamenting the plummeting reading levels in students and young people. While you might assume that this has the alarm bells ringing; it appears that this is all part of the plan. It is a part of a systematic shift in education, as well as how we think about the world. It’s a shift away from reading and writing and toward the sciences — resulting in negative effects on a student’s studies, as well as their mental well-being. (RELATED: The Classical Education Reformers Have a Chance) In 2022, the National Council of Teachers of English released a statement about the “expansion” of English classes: “The time has come to decenter book reading and essay-writing as the pinnacles of English language arts education.” This shift originates in a pragmatic societal shift that has devalued the humanities in an effort to promote economic success. Now, the National Council of Teachers of English suggests in its statement that the role of English teachers is to prepare students through media literacy or alternate forms of information, like social media. Ultimately, this means increasing the use of phones and computers in class and decreasing the use of textbooks and novels. A shift of this magnitude does not happen in a vacuum or without consequences. Research done by neuroscientists suggests that “smartphone use can be disruptively habitual, with the main detrimental consequence being an inability to exert prolonged mental effort.” The failure to concentrate is not merely a malady happening without cause, but is directly related to the choices we are making. This has even led psychologist Jonathan Haidt to suggest, “More American schools — arguably all schools — should make themselves into genuinely phone-free zones.” Perhaps schools should go back to teaching students how to read novels instead of how to read social media. The curious thing about these studies is that they assume the same flawed premise: Science and technology hold the answers to our problems. If we just study and quantify the problem enough, then the solution will emerge, and we can diagnose it. Yet, isn’t part of the problem here an overemphasis on technology? The rise of technology is part of a greater shift in society towards STEM-focused education. Certainly, science and math are important subjects, but you cannot cast aside the humanities for the sake of STEM. Education needs wholeness.  Phasing out the humanities, while propping up STEM and media literacy, abandons the students to the very thing causing them so much anxiety. More than that, there’s a deeper spiritual reason — not spiritual in terms of religion, but in terms of what it means to be human. We want to cure humanity through quantifying and diagnosing it. We give them tools (media literacy) that will help them operate in the world, but you are missing wonder.  Why Books? We should require our students of all ages to read books from cover to cover. Not only does that reaffirm the virtues of perseverance, hard work, and an understanding of beginning, middle, and end; oftentimes, those books teach students how to think and understand the world around them. The Great Books do not just entertain the mind, but inspire it. When you read Dostoevsky or Dickens or Dante, you are immersed in a world of ideas and characters that spur you to action with lofty ideals. They give students reference points and standards to shoot for. But we’re seeing them vanish from under our very noses. Increases in anxiety, poor attention spans, and plummeting reading levels are interlinked. The societal shift towards a wholehearted embracing of technology is bleeding into the classroom. As a result, children are losing the ability to focus and think through complex issues. The relentless stream of information snippets causes anxiety, even in adults. Focus and peace are key components of what it means to be human. Reclaiming attention spans begins with teaching kids how to read. You can’t do that without books in the classroom. May the recent tales of schools rejecting paper books serve as our wake-up call. Samuel Schaefer is a Research Analyst at Peter Schweizer’s Government Accountability Institute and a contributor to Schweizer’s Drill Down. He studied politics, philosophy, and English at Hillsdale College. Follow Samuel to receive more breaking news and analysis. READ MORE: Lies Abound In Higher Education. Now They’ve Lost Our Respect. Americans Vouch for Religious Education Over Public Schools The post What Happens When You Abandon Books? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

We’ve all read the stories and seen the videos about the FBI coming to the homes of ordinary citizens to investigate or arrest them. Sometimes it’s a small group of agents exuding faux amiability who assure the subjects that, although they have done nothing wrong, they need to answer questions about their activities, online postings or publicly expressed opinions. In short, according to Cahaly, once again Trump is poised to outperform the polls. Other times it’s a heavily armed contingent of helmeted agents brandishing long guns and ballistic shields dragging the subjects out of their homes and taking them away in handcuffs. And what have these individuals done to warrant such treatment? Some of them may have had a mobile phone that pinged off a cell tower in Washington, D.C. on the day of the Capitol Hill riot. They may not have been anywhere near the riot, but so what? Since they were in D.C. that day they must explain themselves to the authorities. Or else. Others may have prayed too closely to an abortion center or protested at a school board meeting. Then there are those who have expressed themselves online in a manner that has been deemed unacceptable by our all-knowing and omnipotent surveillance-state government. So what do all of these desperadoes have in common? They have said or done something that offends leftist orthodoxy. For example, who can forget the nightmare that befell Marc Houck, the pro-life Catholic, who dared to defend his twelve year old son from an aggressive abortion center escort? Even though he had offered to voluntarily surrender, an FBI SWAT team raided his home in the early morning hours and dragged him away in handcuffs. In the process these heroes terrorized Houck’s seven small and screaming children by pointing automatic rifles at them and their mother. After the nightmare of indictment and trial, it took a jury one hour to acquit Houck on what can only be described as utterly baseless charges. And then there’s the infamous memorandum circulated nationwide among FBI field offices calling for the infiltration of the Catholic Church and surveillance of parish churches to monitor possible terrorist activities. If the FBI’s intention has been to intimidate, cow, and bring to heel the citizenry, it has succeeded. Ordinary citizens who have families, jobs, and lives to lead have learned to keep their heads down, mouths shut and avoid at all costs drawing the attention of the FBI, the Democrat Party’s secret police. So what does this have to do with political polling? Consider the following. In 2016, although the Real Clear Politics national poll averages had Hillary Clinton leading Donald Trump by 6 percent, she won the popular vote by only 2.1 percent and lost in the electoral college. In 2020, the RCP national poll averages had Joe Biden leading Trump by 10.3 percent. But Biden won the popular vote by 4.4 percent. So how and why did Trump outperform the polls in both 2016 and 2020? Almost alone among pollsters, the Atlanta-based Trafalgar Group correctly predicted Trump’s 2016 victory. Similarly, though it incorrectly predicted Trump’s victory in 2020, that loss was by the narrowest of margins in the swing states. Again, in 2020, Trump’s popular vote greatly exceeded the polling averages. In October 2022, Robert Cahaly, Trafalgar’s founder and chief strategist, was interviewed by Elizabeth Staufer of the Washington Examiner. In discussing why the polls had so massively understated Trump’s support among voters, he postulated his theory of the “shy” Trump voters. These were individuals who were reluctant to acknowledge to pollsters their support for the reviled and much maligned Trump. But the “shy” Trump voter theory applied only to 2016 and 2020. After two years of the Biden-Harris reign, Cahaly explained that the shy Trump voter had become the “submerged Trump voter” who was “virtually impossible to poll.” Cahaly attributed this transformation to the Biden-Harris regime’s condemnation of MAGA Republicans as a threat to the nation. “We found a lot of people who don’t want to participate in polls now.… At one time, they would put a sign in their yard or a bumper sticker on their car. Maybe they’d comment on social media or talk to their friends and take polls. They’re doing none of that now.” “A lot of people tell us, with what’s going on … whether this is justified or not, I don’t know the answer, but their opinion is that — based on what they see on television, what they hear, and what they read — the FBI’s keeping track of what’s happening on social media,” he said. “They hear things like the government has told the bank to keep track of gun purchases. So, it’s not a jump in their minds to think that they might be keeping track of what people say in polls. And so, they’re saying, ‘We’re not taking them [polls].’” “In 2020, were there examples of pro-life activists having the FBI come to their house with guns and take people away? No. In 2020, were there examples of people who were willing to turn themselves in but had to go through an FBI-style raid on their homes? No. In 2020, did people think that the FBI was working with Facebook? No. In 2020, did the president of the United States say that MAGA supporters were a threat to America? No.” But with the advent of the Biden-Harris regime, all of that changed. And with the targeting of the MAGA movement, Trump voters began to consider the legal risks of voicing their support of Trump. In other words, why risk drawing the unwanted scrutiny of the FBI, the equally politicized Justice Department, and the rest of the federal surveillance and regulatory behemoth for the sake of taking a poll? Recently Dan Proft, host of American Greatness’ Counterculture interviewed Cahaly regarding the upcoming 2024 election and the difficulties of polling Trump supporters. “We have seen a significant undercurrent of Trump voters that are hesitant to say they are for Trump,” Cahaly said. “And, in 2016, it was being shamed mostly with live callers … people didn’t want to to say to a live caller they were for Trump. They didn’t want to be judged by that person they were talking to. “By 2024 it’s a different thing. There’s a perception among many Trump voters that the Justice Department has been weaponized against them. They don’t know what’s going to happen …When you talk to strong second amendment defenders they are always opposed to gun registration because they know that that will be the list they use to go collect the guns. People feel that way about polls. They are always asking what are you doing with this information? Who are you? What’s this about? Who’s going to have access to this? Is this is going to be something Big Tech can get? They’re very nervous. “And so what we’re finding is people who hear stories about people using an ATM in Washington on January 6 even though they weren’t near the Capitol being investigated. There’s too much of that undercurrent.” In short, according to Cahaly, once again Trump is poised to outperform the polls. But this time, it’s because American citizens, who fear the enforcers of the Biden-Harris regime, dare not speak their minds. READ MORE from George Parry: The Hidden Vote Kamala’s Media Bodyguards George Parry is a former federal and state prosecutor. He blogs at knowledgeisgood.net. The post The Submerged Trump Vote appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Former U.S. ambassador to Israel Michael Oren presented what he calls “the view from Israel’s universe.” After noting that since October 7, 2023 Israel’s terrorist adversaries have fired 25,000 rockets and missiles at the Jewish State, Oren rhetorically asks whether hitting Tehran with 25,000 missiles would be acceptable. He answers: “In practice … there is no effective counter-offensive action that Israel can legitimately take.” Neither Biden, who has told Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, nor Harris … will use the new super-weapon. He then explains why the West sees the war so differently than does Israel: “Our Western allies…. inhabit a universe utterly alien to ours. In their world, [Tehran] can be induced to deescalate by means other than escalation…. jihadists can be mollified by creating a Palestinian state.” Illustrating this dichotomy is Tehran’s October missile strike, when Iran fired 200 missiles, of which 19 failed to launch; 23 struck Israeli air bases, causing little damage; and the remaining 158 were downed or missed their targets. Team Biden/Harris told Israel to make its response “proportional” to the magnitude of Iran’s minuscule destructive results, instead of that which is likely to deter future attacks — let alone serve as predicate to an Israeli victory. Now, factor in three astonishing, game-changing directed-energy wonder-weapons, two already operational; the other, highly promising, in early stages of development. Wonder Weapon for Deep Underground Targets Enter a U.S. super-weapon, Boeing’s Counter-electronic High-power Advanced Microwave Project (CHAMP), which emits high-frequency microwave pulses that can fry computer chips deep underground, effectively zapping Iran’s nuclear facilities. There are 20 CHAMP missiles extant, each equipped with an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) cannon, that properly-equipped combat aircraft can release from 700 miles away, flying at low-altitudes (harder to track); each missile can take out several targets. Moreover, these EMP pulses can also disable radar systems designed to track incoming planes. The U.S. government estimates that at present, Iran is one to two weeks away from breakout: producing enough weapons-grade fuel for an atomic bomb; Iran would need several months to create a deliverable A-bomb. At this writing there are three months until a new president is inaugurated. Neither Biden, who has told Israel not to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, nor Harris, who threatens unspecified “consequences” if U.S. policy is ignored, will use the new super-weapon. Thus the “several” months in the Iranian atom-bomb assembly estimate must number at least four, if our super-weapon will ever be at Donald Trump’s disposal. Former president Trump has said that Israel should destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons program. The only other way to stop this catastrophe from coming to pass would be if Israel carries out its longstanding promise that it will not allow Iran to cross the nuclear threshold. Israel will assuredly do so if Kamala wins, but would have to do it without U.S. help Two Air-Defense Wonder-Weapons Boeing has developed the Compact Laser Weapons System (CWLS), powerful and accurate enough, at ranges from 650 feet to 1.6 miles, to destroy incoming first-person view drones, “swarm” munitions and heavy, Group 3 drones. (Here is a list of drone groups used by our military.) Already, in a series of tests conducted jointly with Saudi Arabia in realistic climate conditions, CWLS has destroyed 500 targets, using operators with one hour of training on an X-box controller. A second air-defense laser system, under development by Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd., in conjunction with the U.S., is a laser gun that has already in early tests destroyed rockets, mortar shells, drones, and anti-tank missiles (which follow a low, flat trajectory). Significantly, its effective range is six miles, and it detects and tracks targets in seconds, versus minutes for earlier air defense systems. And it costs $3.50 per shot, versus thousands of dollars per shot with kinetic-kill systems. (Lasers are, however, less effective in low-visibility areas, and hence are more useful in the Mideast than in the frequent cloud cover encountered in Europe.) Bottom Line Directed-energy weapons are essential for successful, affordable operation in the emerging battlefield environment of significant threats posed by cheap, mass-produced unmanned aerial systems. Israel leads the world, with systems being tested under actual combat conditions. READ MORE from John C. Wohlstetter: 25th Amendment: Acting President Is Not President The Summer 2024 Presidential Succession Crisis Explodes John C. Wohlstetter is the author of Presidential Succession: Constitution, Congress and National Security (Gold Institute Press, 2024) The post Can Wonder Weapons Defeat Terror Masters? appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Oxford, Ohio — With early voting underway in Ohio, the stakes in the Buckeye state’s Senate race couldn’t be higher. The tight contest between incumbent Democrat Senator Sherrod Brown and Republican outsider Bernie Moreno will be among the most decisive races determining control of the U.S. Senate. Sen. Brown has had a steady lead in the polls, but the gap has narrowed considerably in recent weeks. Identifying Ohio as “a microcosm of the nation,” Vivek recognized that the state had long been one of the most innovative and prosperous. Recent internal polling by the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) has Moreno actually leading by two points, fueling further optimism for Republicans (most polls have Brown with a slight lead). With growing momentum for Moreno, big-name conservatives have come to the state to try to help push Moreno over the finish line. A case in point was the October 10 Future Leaders Forum at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio featuring former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and conservative talk-show host Ben Shapiro. The event was hosted by the Ohio College Republicans Federation (OCRF) and Miami College Republicans, with local and state officials across the Butler County area in attendance to rally around the Republican Senate nominee. What Moreno, Vivek, and Shapiro Said For the first 90 minutes of the event, OCRF members welcomed and informed attendees of their recent notable successes with voter registration across Ohio and in assisting Ohio Republican candidates across the state. Then came Moreno and Vivek. They addressed a crowd of about 200, with Moreno starting his 45 minute speech with a NASCAR analogy to the three-lined posts used to help racers know when to turn on the track. Moreno told the crowd that America is the car that has already past the post with the one line, a jumping point for the rest of his energetic talk. Moreno focused on his life experiences and lessons as a businessman in helping him formulate his conservative views. He then dove into the failures of Sherrod Brown, highlighting the fact that when Brown first ran for office, the two issues he ran on were restoring manufacturing jobs — Ohio has since lost around 200,000 manufacturing jobs — and backing term limits, which Brown now opposes. “It’s very simple,” said Moreno. “If Kamala wins and Sherrod wins re-election, we will go off the cliff.” Despite that dire assessment, Moreno ended on an optimistic note, insisting that young conservatives today have the opportunity to not just help him win a Senate majority for Republicans, but to get the country back on track towards freedom and prosperity. Following Moreno, Vivek spoke about America’s problems from a more philosophical and historical perspective, insisting that he’s optimistic about Trump’s and Moreno’s chances in 2024, but also that today’s problems can’t be addressed unless their root causes are properly understood.  America, he said, suffers from a “national identity crisis” that finds too many of our young people not proud to be Americans and citing a 30-40 percent recruitment deficit across all three military branches. How did the country come to this point? According to Vivek, the answer starts with LBJ’s Great Society. During the 1960s, the nation underwent “a second American Revolution and second Constitutional Convention.” LBJ’s Great Society led Americans to surrender their own self-governance in exchange for “free” stuff, thus giving way to the welfare state. For decades, this bargain became the status quo until the government ran out of “free” material. “What happens to the bargain when you run out of stuff?” asked Vivek. He said the nation has been heading towards revolt as Americans now lack both the material benefits promised to them as well as their ability to self-govern. In turn, the progressive solution to our impending bankruptcy has been “tax the rich,” a non-answer reflecting the “bleak moment” at which we have arrived and must move past. While Shapiro originally planned to be at the forum for the fireside chat with Moreno and Vivek, he arrived late due to flight delays in Florida, where his family had been dealing with hurricanes Helene and Milton. Though he didn’t speak for long, Shapiro spoke vigorously and passionately made his case for Moreno. He told Ohioans that if they do their part in helping Moreno, not only would Ohio rid itself of Sherrod Brown but it would secure Republican control of the Senate. The Prospects for Conservatism Though much of the forum’s attention focused on Moreno and encouraging young Republicans to help him win in November, a major theme was the future of conservatism. Moreno stated that today’s political environment is one characterized between two opposing philosophies, one being big government and “total control” progressivism versus pro-freedom and “self-determination” conservatism. Echoing Vivek’s sentiment, Moreno said that Americans today “have forgotten what makes this country special.” On the plus side, Moreno believes that we’re witnessing a revival of America’s founding principles. This is drawing people to conservatism and helping them rediscover what it means to be patriotic and prosperous without government telling them what to do. For Vivek, the conservatism of the present and future must seek to dismantle the deep state. “We don’t want a left nanny state or right nanny state,” he said. “We want to dismantle the nanny state and shut it down.” Vivek said that while progressivism has pushed the country towards indigence and stifled incentives for innovation, young people are beginning to see that conservative principles strive for prosperity. Identifying Ohio as “a microcosm of the nation,” Vivek recognized that the state had long been one of the most innovative and prosperous. Unfortunately, he explained, progressivism and failed promises have stifled the pioneering and frontier spirit the state once had. Vivek believes that Ohioans and Americans generally are desiring a return to the pioneering spirit offered by conservatives, especially young conservatives. “We can be victims or victors,” said Vivek, and conservatives have the “values, record, and enthusiasm” to show that America can once again be a nation of victors. Shapiro seconded this point, insisting that like Ohio, America can once again be a nation of innovators, pioneers, and entrepreneurs. While the event at Miami University of Ohio aimed to bolster Bernie Moreno’s prospects for the U.S. Senate, it also bolstered conservatism’s prospects for America. The ultimate prospects for both remain to be seen. READ MORE from Hunter Oswald: Iran Pushes the Middle East Closer to Catastrophe Progressives Are Trying to Make Ohio More Like Michigan The post Ohio Senate Race: Moreno Scores Vivek and Shapiro appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.