K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: Gov. Kate Brown signed a law to allow Oregon students to graduate without proving they can write or do math. She doesn’t want to talk about it. “For the next five years, an Oregon high school diploma will be no guarantee that the student who earned it can read, write or do math at a high school level…The Oregonian/OregonLive asked the governor’s office when Brown’s staff notified the Legislature that she had signed the bill. Charles Boyle, the governor’s deputy communications director, said the governor’s staff notified legislative staff the same day the governor signed the bill. Boyle said in an emailed statement that suspending the reading, writing and math proficiency requirements while the state develops new graduation standards will benefit ‘Oregon’s Black, Latino, Latina, Latinx, Indigenous, Asian, Pacific Islander, Tribal, and students of color.’ ‘Leaders from those communities have advocated time and again for equitable graduation standards, along with expanded learning opportunities and supports,’ Boyle wrote.”

THIS IS CNN: CNN finds the real border crisis: Republicans pouncing.

HE STUDIES POLITICAL POLARIZATION, TOO: Journalism professor deletes tweet that appeared to advocate for violence against Rand Paul.

All the lefty hate for Rand Paul is quite striking.

THE MAGIC ‘D:’

This is the only real qualification for a career in journalism, as is true in Hollywood and in academia. No actual talent is necessary. So long as you are useful to the basic media project of propagating liberalism, you’ll never miss a paycheck. And therefore nothing — not even accusations of sexual harassment — could dislodge Al Hunt from his seemingly eternal career as a D.C. journalist. He’s 79 years old, and still cranking out columns, now for The Hill, including this one last week:

Read the whole thing.

DISPATCHES FROM THE 1984 PROJECT: UNC Dean Worried ‘Diversity of Thought’ Would Interfere with Social Justice ahead of Nikole Hannah-Jones Appointment.

AND AGAIN: James Lindsay just got suspended from Twitter.

DON’T GET COCKY: You’d Rather Be the GOP.

There will be a lobbying effort among progressives to extend those expanded benefits beyond their September sunset date, and that effort could be as successful as their demand that Joe Biden violate the Constitution to extend a national moratorium on evictions. If so, the nation’s employment vacancy glut will continue. It will be hard for Democrats to argue that they’re creating new jobs even as they’re doing all they can to exacerbate shortages in the labor market.

By contrast, Republicans are preparing a salient midterm messaging strategy that has to have Democrats worried. They’re planning to run against Democrats on rising rates of inflation—a condition the GOP-aligned American Action Network’s polling suggests resonates with 86 percent of the voters surveyed in 51 key battleground districts. Beyond that, the GOP intends to leverage the organic outpouring of contempt for including precepts related to “critical race theory” in American K-12 curricula. Democrats have managed no compelling counterargument against either of these two conditions save to say that the former is cyclical and sure to pass before the midterms while the latter isn’t happening at all.

It’s the Democrats’ Catch-2022:

PARTYING LIKE IT’S 1975: The US is sending B-52s and AC-130 gunships back in Afghanistan to slow its impending collapse.

It’s bound to work, since the Biden administration is also milking the soft power dividend of this moment as well: US Envoy In Doha To Press Taliban For End To Offensive: State Dept.

MORE OF THIS, PLEASE: Cheers to Jim Jordan and Darrell Issa for Investigating the IRS. “More specifically, they’re looking into how the private tax returns of very rich Americans were leaked to ProPublica, and from there to the public. . . . In this case, certain Americans did their taxes and filed them confident that their filings would remain confidential. The IRS violated the expectation of confidentiality with its leaks. The violations are unacceptable. Few things are more personal than income, and the idea of an entity that at least nominally exists to serve us is leaking our personal information is truly offensive. It quite simply shouldn’t happen. The review of tax documents should be designed so that it cannot happen.”

The government promises confidentiality, but government employees break government promises at their whim.

IDIOCRACY: DC Gyms Want To Require Vaccination Instead of Masks. The City Said No.

GIVEN WHAT A FEW LARPERS MANAGED TO DO WITH NO ORGANIZATION, IT SHOULD BE EASY TO TOPPLE THIS GOVERNMENT IF NEEDED: GAO Bombshell: DHS blew it on Jan. 6, can’t adapt to security threats.

Flashback: Department of Bureaucratic Security.

Of course just having the Capitol Police keep the doors closed might have worked.

HEALTH IS THE EXCUSE, REPRESSION IS THE GOAL: COVID politics: Democrats demand masks, vax cards.

I say, require a vax card to vote, and watch them change their tune.

GREAT WORK, CNN: CNN and ‘Squad’ member Cori Bush are blasted for fake news story that helped to raise $230,000 for ‘single mom of three facing homelessness over eviction moratorium’ – but who was actually just a BABYSITTER. The three kids on the couch with her? Not hers.

I would make a joke about layers of editors and fact checkers, but that would imply that they care whether the stuff they carry is true.

BIDEN’S APPROVAL FALLS AS FAUCI WARNS OF THE COVID CASELOAD MORE THAN DOUBLING: Meanwhile, the Lambda Variant Continues Being Escorted Into the US and Seeded Among Small Towns Throughout the USA.

IT’S LIKE THEY JUST WANT TO MAKE AMERICA WORSE: As Violent Crime Rises Across Country, DCCC Chairman Backs Anti-Police Policies.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Academia’s hostility to intellectual diversity suffers a courtroom setback.

The university’s contempt for the district court’s order in the BLinC case indicates that the university officials felt their political high-mindedness entitled them to disregard the law in order to enforce conformity to progressive opinions that hardly need such buttressing on today’s intellectually monochrome campuses. The 8th Circuit concluded:

“What the University did here was clearly unconstitutional. It targeted religious groups for differential treatment under the Human Rights Policy — while carving out exemptions and ignoring other violative groups with missions they presumably supported. The University and individual defendants turned a blind eye to decades of First Amendment jurisprudence or they proceeded full speed ahead knowing they were violating the law. Either way, qualified immunity provides no safe haven.”

So, they can be sued. And they will be. Which should be an educational experience for them, and a teachable moment for the many others like them in today’s academia.

Make them pay.

HEH, INDEED. John Nolte: Barry’s 60th Birthday Bash Was an Appropriate F*ck You to Joe Biden. “This might actually be the first time Barry has done something positive for a country he hates and for the people of this country, who he hates even more. Honestly, if you think about it, the Obamas sent a great message to America… If you’re vaccinated, this pandemic is over. Don’t listen to the fear merchants. Don’t listen to Joe Biden. Go and live your life. Anyway, from the looks of it, the most toxic thing at Obama’s 60^th birthday bash was Chrissy Teigen.”

FOR THOSE WHO MAY BE INTERESTED: HillFaith today is on the fifth of the seven great “I AM” claims of Jesus, including the shortest verse in the Gospels.

THINGS THAT WOULD MATTER UNDER A REPUBLICAN PRESIDENT: The migrant child detention center that’s worse than ever.

THIS IS CNN: CNN Proposes Travel Ban on Florida Over COVID Cases.

Related: American Politics Reaches Its ‘Worse Than Trump’ Phase. “This is simply how Democrats begin to talk about Republican candidates whom they believe are capable of winning a national election. When such candidates reach office, they’re Hitler. When they’ve left office, they’re bad, but not as bad as the ones in office. And when they’re dead, they’re the sort of Republicans whom the living ones should be more like — yes, even if, when they were alive, they, too, were deemed to be Hitler. The assertion that ‘DeSantis is worse than Trump’ was inevitable from the moment Trump lost the 2020 presidential election.”

Flashbacks:

● Every New Republican Is the Most Evil Republican Ever.

● Every Republican president or presidential candidate is the next Hitler — even Calvin Coolidge, who served before the Nazis came to power.

HOW SCARED IS GAVIN NEWSOM OF LARRY ELDER? The governor is cleaning trash off streets ahead of narrowing recall election.

TODD ZYWICKI IN THE WALL STREET JOURNAL: Why I’m Suing Over My University’s Vaccine Mandate. “Teaching law is my job and I owe my students my best. I also knew I could do it safely. During the spring of 2020 I contracted and recovered from Covid-19, which I later confirmed through a positive antibody test. Multiple positive antibody tests have since confirmed that I continue to have a robust level of immune protection. But now my employer, a state institution, is requiring Covid vaccines. In my case, vaccination is unnecessary and potentially risky.”

More (unpaywalled) at the link. He’s being represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, on whose board I serve.

YA THINK? Poll: CDC communication ratings mixed during pandemic.

THE HOLLYWOOD SEXISM NEVER ENDS: