K-12 IMPLOSION UPDATE: The Great Parent Revolt.

When Tina Descovich and Tiffany Justice finished their terms as school board members in Florida, they decided to form Moms for Liberty to teach parents how to serve as watchdogs of their local schools boards. When they established the organization in January of this year, they had intended it to serve as a statewide entity in Florida. But today, just over six months later, they have 65 chapters nationwide and have more applications for new chapters.

Wherever these parent groups have emerged, they are finding creative ways to challenge the attempted progressive takeover of K-12 education. Sloan Rachmuth, founder of EdFirstNC, has held webinars and in-person events to educate parents on how the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction rewrote the social studies standards for K-12 based on critical race theory. Patti Hidalgo Menders, a mother of five boys in Loudoun County, Va., read aloud to school board members obscene passages from Tiffany D. Jackson’s “Monday’s Not Coming” and Gretchen McNeil’s “#Murder Trending.”

Educating parents is a critical part of the work. As Hannah Smith, a newly elected board member in Texas explained, “There were a lot of people who had, by their own admission, just kind of fallen asleep. They just thought we’ve got these award-winning schools, we’ve got this awesome community, everything’s going well. I don’t need to show up at board meetings. I don’t need to be worried about what’s happening in the schools.”

In addition to raising the alarm about what’s happening in the schools, parent groups are challenging school boards through recalls — for example in Loudoun County  and San Francisco — and by actively running candidates for school board, with some notable successes.

More like this, please.

HIGHER EDUCATION BUBBLE UPDATE: REPORT: Diversity ‘bureaucrats’ outnumber history professors at top colleges.

IRONY ABOUNDS: Cops fired for guarding ‘defund the police’ Dem Rep. Cori Bush without permission. “St. Louis Sheriff Vernon Betts told KMOV that he initially warned now-former deputies Tylance Jackson and Maurice Thompson to quit moonlighting as muscle for Bush (D-Mo.) and fill out the proper forms after they accompanied her on a tour of St. Louis jails in April. However, Betts said he was told by Veterans Affairs Police several weeks later that Jackson and Thompson were providing security for Bush again. In addition to violating policy by not getting approval to work a secondary shift, neither Jackson nor Thompson have licenses to work private security, Betts told KMOV.”

IF THE WAR ON “DOMESTIC EXTREMISTS” GOES AS WELL AS THE WAR ON TERROR, THE PROUD BOYS WILL HAVE TAKEN WASHINGTON, D.C. BY NEXT YEAR: Dept of Homeland Security Makes Official U.S. Government Announcement, If You Question Govt COVID Response You are Considered A Domestic Violent Extremist.

LOOTING THE TREASURY IS THE FINAL STAGE OF A FAILING STATE: Inflation keeps growing, but Dems won’t stop spending.

OUR MILITARY DOESN’T SEEM TO BE ESPECIALLY GOOD AT ITS JOB THESE DAYS: The Afghan Military Was Built Over 20 Years. How Did It Collapse So Quickly? We poured money into training and equipment. It didn’t matter.

An army will collapse rapidly when its soldiers “feel abandoned by corrupt leaders.”

In other news, I have a nephew whose MP unit isn’t being fed, with the soldiers told to scrounge at the PX out of their own pockets. A friend’s son stationed in Korea hasn’t been paid in three months. Anecdotes aren’t data, but I don’t like this.

YET MORE BIPARTISAN SUPPORT FOR RON DESANTIS: Virginia Candidate Terry McAuliffe Showcases Florida Workers in Campaign Ad.

Virginia’s Democratic gubernatorial nominee Terry McAuliffe released a new ad promoting his goal of “growing Virginia’s economy”—but the workers pictured in the ad are in Florida.

The new ad from McAuliffe, who is running for his second term as governor, includes stock footage sold by Getty Images of a diverse pair of workers in Florida, a Washington Free Beacon investigation found. The “workers walking through metal fabrication shop stock video” was shot in Florida in February 2019 and can be purchased for $170.

Earlier: Top Gretchen Whitmer Aide Takes Spring Break Trip to Florida, Ignoring MI Gov’s Warning.

BUT NOT AS ROTTEN AS THE ONES TO COME: Weekly Biden Report Card: A no good, rotten week.

Related: Biden Braces for Brutal Loss:

Biden is at Camp David this weekend, not at his Delaware beach house. He can relax there, but also has full comms.

People can come and go without detection, and he avoids the optics of a beach vacation amid a mass evacuation.

The big picture: The U.S. embassy in Kabul wasn’t just a diplomatic building. It also was a major intelligence center with paper records and equipment there that the U.S. will remove or destroy. Protocols are in place for just such an emergency.

Unlike Tehran in 1979, when the Iranian fundamentalists gained access to some sensitive material, the U.S. staff still in Kabul will ensure there’s nothing to gain.

American diplomats at the embassy have been instructed to destroy important papers and desktop computers before they leave, according to a memo obtained by NPR.

Despite the efforts to secure intelligence and safeguard U.S. personnel and their Afghan supporters, Biden must brace for the symbolic defeat of seeing the Taliban overrun the space that housed the embassy.

That includes the ambassador’s residence — and the landmark “Duck and Cover” bar frequented by generations of troops, diplomats and journalists.

The major moment to come: Lowering the American flag that flies over what is essentially sovereign U.S. territory.

Heckuva job, Joey.

PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS: Salon writer argues that there’s no such thing as left-wing authoritarianism.

—Twitchy yesterday, which includes this classic pull quote:

During and after the Cold War, the right undertook a relentless campaign that rages on to this day of falsely smearing Democrats and the left as the cause of authoritarianism, like the horrendous dictatorships of Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union, Adolf Hitler in Germany, Fidel Castro in Cuba and Hugo Chávez in Venezuela.

In fact, the right so maligned the concept of “socialism” and the profoundly influential thinker Karl Marx that “socialism” remains a poisonous word to this day, often wielded as a weapon against Democrats and liberals.

Flashbacks:

● Democrats have a massive opportunity with Capitol riot committee: Shove it down the GOP’s throat.

—Salon.com, July 27th.

● “Hugo Chavez’s economic miracle.”

—Salon.com, March 6, 2013.

● “Let’s nationalize Fox News: Imagining a very different media…Excerpted from ‘Imagine: Living in a Socialist USA.’

—Salon.com, January 18, 2014.

● Like [the late communist Pete] Seeger and the FDR cargo cult, Salon also harbors turn-the-clock-back fantasies of their own: Last month, the publication called for the nationalization of the news media because it was uncomfortable with the glut of right-leaning news and opinion led by — you guessed it! — Fox News. (Hmmm — I wonder if someone in the FCC read that article?) Now the Website wishes to turn the clock back on the film industry because of a perceived glut of independent films.

—Easy Riders, Raging Stasists, Ed Driscoll.com, February 22, 2014.

● “Let’s nationalize Amazon and Google: Publicly funded technology built Big Tech. They’re huge and ruthless and define our lives. They’re close to monopolies. Let’s make them public utilities.”

—Salon.com, July 8, 2014.

As Charles C. Cooke asked the left in 2016, “Herewith, an under-asked question for our friends on the progressive left: ‘Has Donald Trump’s remarkable rise done anything to change your mind as to the ideal strength of the State?’”

GEORGE LEEF ON ALL THE FOOLISHNESS COMING OUT OF LAW SCHOOLS:  “Progressivism Surges Through America’s Law Schools.”

A SOPHISTICATED, VACCINATED CROWD: Americans with PhDs are the most reluctant to get vaccinated against COVID, study finds.

(Classical reference in headline.)

SHOCKER: Biden’s Afghanistan Predictions Were All Wrong: ‘Highly unlikely’ Taliban will overrun Afghanistan, Biden said in July.

WELCOME BACK, CARTER: Consumer sentiment plunges to lowest level in decade as delta variant surges.

#RESIST: NYC Restaurants: We Won’t Be ‘Vaccination Police’.

THE 21st CENTURY ISN’T TURNING OUT AS I HAD HOPED: American Medical Association, Descending Into Wokeness, Calls for Eliminating Sex on Birth Certificates.

LET THEM BURN? How Wildfire Restored a Lost Forest Ecosystem in Yosemite: “I think climate change is no more than 20 to 25% responsible for our current fire problems in the state, and most of it is due to the way our forests are,” said the University of California, Berkeley’s Scott Stephens.

SEGREGATION NOW, SEGREGATION TOMORROW, SEGREGATION FOREVER! Parent files complaint against Atlanta elementary school, alleges it’s segregating classes.

BYRON YORK: Humiliation in Afghanistan.

SOMETHING CHEERFUL: Tal Bachman shares this video and comments:

I just watched this entire video. My thoughts:
1.) This was a casual rehearsal – and it makes every other musical rehearsal I’ve ever participated in (symphonic, rock, jazz, choral) feel ridiculous.
2.) This is the Mexican “Freebird”.
3.) La muchacha on harp is face-melting. Combines supreme technical skill with supreme musical skill.
4.) The only instruments you’re hearing are those three (harp, guitarron, and vihuela), yet at first listen, you’d think there were a dozen people playing.
5.) This level of syncopation – and constantly improvised, no less – is beyond any other type of music I’m familiar with. The downbeat gloriously vanishes here and there, sometimes for bars, especially during the solo parts in the middle. How do they keep track of where the downbeat is?
6.) This is the most you can make out of only three chords. Impressive.
7.) I wonder how la muchacha has tuned her harp…?
8.) Guitarron player plays octaves on each note.
9.) There is only real error here: the last chord. Just end it on the one chord, amigos. But we can forgive that.

It’s worth a few minutes of your time.

RICHARD FERNANDEZ: Getting Ready for the End of the World. “Why is eschatology suddenly so big, not among the so-called crackpots beloved of leftist caricature, but among the tech savvy millionaires and billionaires? . . . Undoubtedly the optimism of the Reagan era has been eclipsed by the apparent second coming of Jimmy Carter.”

IT’S COME TO THIS: B-52 bombers head to Afghanistan — to bomb our own planes before they fall into the hands of the Taliban.

American B-52H bombers are understood to be conducting an attack on the largest Afghan air force base in order to destroy the aircraft based there.

The aircraft are reportedly heading towards toward Mazar-e-Sharif.

“It is highly possible that they bomb the second largest air base of Afghanistan National Air Force now in hands of Taliban. They don’t want A-29B & AC-208B attack aircraft [to] remain in hands of Taliban.”

Related: All the Times Joe Biden’s Love for Ice Cream Melted Our Hearts.

OPEN THREAD: This is not a dream. If you could go anywhere, where would you go?

GOOD LUCK — I WANT YOU TO KNOW THAT WE’RE ALL COUNTING ON YOU: Biden Administration Wants Airlines Off Fossil Fuels By 2050.

BOEING STRIKES AGAIN: Boeing’s Starliner launch, a critical test flight for NASA, delayed indefinitely as capsule heads back to factory. “In the aftermath of Nauka’s malfunction, the space station was temporarily too preoccupied to receive Starliner on its planned arrival date of July 31, so OFT-2’s liftoff was postponed for a few more days. But during that time, teams on the ground discovered that 13 valves on the Starliner spacecraft were not functioning properly during preflight checks. Boeing has been troubleshooting that issue in an effort to get the spacecraft off the ground this month.”

Anybody can have tech problems, but Boeing seems consistently to have more than its share nowadays.