FOR THE CHILDREN OR WHATEVER: Woke War on America’s No. 1 High School: Push to ‘Segregate by Race and Income.’

Last month, Suparna Dutta spent countless hours researching how her son could safely return to school this fall as a rising sophomore at Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology, a sprawling campus of classrooms, laboratories and open spaces with names like “Gandhi Commons” and “Einstein Commons,” outside the nation’s capital here off Braddock Road. Little did she know that a secretive “task force” assembled by orders of Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam was quietly meeting to discuss legislating radical changes to the school that would threaten the very future of the school.

Unbeknownst to Dutta — and me, also a TJ mother — Virginia Secretary of Education Atif Qarni, a former teacher, met remotely on Friday, July 24, with a carefully curated list of Democratic lawmakers, state education officials and others in a “Diversity/Equity/Inclusion Group” to make recommendations to the Virginia State Legislature on how to increase the number of Black, Hispanic and low-income students at the state’s 19 Governor’s Schools, specialized public school programs with admissions requirements. The group met again on Friday, July 31, and last week on Friday, August 7, and is expected to issue its recommendations in the coming days.

In its final meeting last week, the group weighed several options that would gut TJ’s merit-based, race-blind admissions process and replace it with standards that they even admitted in their private meetings would essentially be race-based.

Plus: “They set their sights on the school’s mostly Asian and mostly immigrant student body and vowed to change the demographics of the school.”

BUT OF COURSE: VIDEO: Young voters love Trump’s COVID plan…when told it’s Biden’s.

AT AMAZON, Hot New Releases – Updated Every Hour.

Plus, Best Selling Products – Updated Every Hour.

Also, Shop Amazon Outlet – Clearance, Markdowns and Overstock Deals.

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEF: Will Kamala Kill the Progressive Vote in 2020? “If the Biden-Harris 2020 ticket is going to appeal to progressives, Kamala Harris is going to have to vigorously and publicly disavow almost everything that she did before she was elected to the Senate. There may be enough Orange Man Bad fever out there make the progressives sing Kumbaya on election day, but that’s not likely given the taste of blood that they’ve gotten in recent months.”

CONFIDENCE: CNN: Joe Biden Picked Kamala Harris as VP Nominee for ‘If and When’ Biden ‘Decides to Step Aside.’

POLAND TELLS THE KREMLIN AND NATO IT’S PREPARED TO FIGHT:

Let’s agree that the 21st-century NATO vs. Russia cold war is a small-case version of the 20th-century Cold War. But Russia’s invasion and annexation of Crimea and invasion of eastern Ukraine aren’t small-case imperialism. Russian hybrid war — political meddling, information warfare, narrative warfare, economic threats, covert attacks and assassination — is a powerful and disruptive cocktail that savages Ukraine and threatens still-free Europe. The war in Ukraine’s east, the Donbass, continues, receiving scant major media coverage.

The front’s moved east, and strategically, Poland is where West Germany was circa 1960.

It’s my latest Creators Syndicate column.

DRAGON LADY PREPARES TO TAKEOFF: A venerable U-2 “Dragon Lady” spy plane advances down the runway at Osan Air Base, Republic of Korea. Photo taken August 12, 2020.

FLASHBACK: FOUR YEARS AGO: GOP insiders: Trump can’t win: ‘Trump is underperforming so comprehensively…it would take video evidence of a smiling Hillary drowning a litter of puppies while terrorists surrounded her with chants of ‘Death to America,’’ said an Iowa Republican.

Actually, all it took was for people to seriously contemplate the prospect of a Hillary presidency. But don’t get cocky. The experts were wrong last time, but if you care about this time you need to get out and work.

IRAN’S ISRAELI PROBLEMS: Iran’s ayatollah dictatorship has a host of problems, including an angry population and a hellhole economy. The regime blames its most explosive problems, literally and figuratively, on the Israelis. Well, when it comes to explosions involving nuclear development and support facilities, the robes could have a point. It’s the latest StrategyTalk. Link goes to youtube. MP3 download version is here. If you like it, please subscribe.

YOU’D THINK A SEASONED PROSECUTOR WOULD DISPLAY MORE SKEPTICISM: Kamala Harris Called Jussie Smollett’s Hate Crime Hoax A ‘Modern Day Lynching.’

GOOD NEWS AND BAD NEWS FOR LEGAL EDUCATION: NALP: Law School Class Of 2019 Attains Highest Employment Rate (90.3%) In 12 Years As Uncertainty Looms For Class Of 2020.

AB5 FALLOUT: Uber CEO Says Its Service Will Probably Shut Down Temporarily in California If It’s Forced to Classify Drivers as Employees. “Khosrowshahi said on Wednesday that his Plan B if Uber can’t win on appeal would be to temporarily pause service in California. While he said Uber would later resume service in the state, it would likely be more centered in cities, which could mean limited availability in less concentrated areas like suburbs.”

SALENA ZITO: Progressive election upsets are one thing. Progressive legislating is another.

BELARUS: Mass Beatings, Detentions in Belarus as President Clings to Power.

Related: Thousands Arrested For Protesting ‘Rigged’ Presidential Election In Belarus.

Also: Belarus elections: Shocked by violence, people lose their fear.

And: Belarus Nobel-prize winner tells Lukashenko: ‘Leave before it’s too late.’

Some people I know are saying this is more like Romania than Ukraine, but others think Lukashenko is competent enough — and has been careful enough to pay his security forces well and on time — that he may survive. One difference: In Ukraine, protesters targeted the families of security services; that doesn’t appear to be happening in Belarus.

ASHE SCHOW: Judge Denies Blue State AG’s Attempts To Deny College Students Due Process. “Judge Carl J. Nichols – a President Donald Trump appointee – denied the AGs motion to block the new Title IX regulations. The AGs made numerous arguments against the new regulations, including the fact that the new regulations provide due process to accused students. As The Daily Wire previously reported, the lawsuit filed by the AGs claimed the new rules would ‘reverse decades of effort to end the corrosive effects of sexual harassment on equal access to education,’ ignoring the fact that denying due process makes it easier for false accusations to limit access to education and does nothing to stop actual sexual harassment.”

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Chicago Neighborhood Ejects BLM Protesters At Police Station. “Englewood may set the tone for dealing with rioters for the rest of the summer. After the organized pillaging this weekend on the Magnificent Mile, the city of Chicago toughened up their security stance. Black Lives Matter protesters and others set their sights on the Englewood neighborhood’s police precinct, but residents there pushed them out — literally.”

NOT THE PANDEMIC, BUT THE RESPONSE TO THE PANDEMIC: The Covid-19 Crisis Has Wiped Out Nearly Half Of Black Small Businesses.

AMERICA’S POLITICAL DIVIDE IN A NUTSHELL: Federal workers cheer Harris pick, never liked Trump. If I were Trump I’d make that into an ad.

DECOUPLING: Foxconn says trade war means China can no longer be ‘the world’s factory.’

Foxconn, which has just reported second quarter profits 34% up from last year, is now said to believe China’s manufacturing supremacy is over.

According to Bloomberg, the chair of Foxconn’s parent Hon Hai Precision Industry Company, says that the company is planning to move ever more manufacturing away from China. Young Liu said it was specifically to avoid the escalating tariffs on Chinese-made goods intended for the US.

“No matter if it’s India, Southeast Asia or the Americas, there will be a manufacturing ecosystem in each,” he Liu said. Reuters reports that he added that China will still remain a key part of its production, but the country’s “days as the world’s factory are done.”

Reportedly, the current proportion of Foxconn manufacturing made outside China is now 30%. In June 2019, it was 25%.

Faster, please.

THINK OF THE “FACT CHECKERS” AS DEMOCRATIC SHILLS AND CENSORS AND YOU WON’T GO FAR WRONG:

QUESTION ASKED AND NOT ANSWERED: Who Owned the Chemicals that Blew Up Beirut? No One Will Say.

REMINDER: Kamala Harris’s Threat to Pack the Supreme Court. “Senator Kamala Harris has said that she is ‘open’ to increasing the number of justices on the Supreme Court, in order to reverse the conservative majority (as she sees it) and pave the way for the progressive agenda. This position and the implied threat behind it deserve a lot more attention than they’ve gotten.”

All I can say is that when Trump actually does it next term, he’ll be able to point to this as evidence that it’s perfectly fine. Though the press will pretend that no one has even contemplated the matter before.

OH: Portland Antifa Mayor Candidate Can’t Bring Herself to Condemn ‘Attempted Murder’ in Violent Riots.

WHEN THEY LIED ABOUT THE MASKS, THEY POISONED THE TRUST WELL. WHEN THEY GAVE THE BLM RALLIES THEIR SEAL OF APPROVAL, THEY SHAT IN IT. Contact Tracing Is Having a Trust Crisis. Nobody trusts the tech companies, either, for similar reasons. When you lie and cheat, people don’t trust you.

At this late date, contact tracing is largely pointless anyway. It might have mattered in February and early March, but the CDC made sure there weren’t enough tests.