THE ENEMY WITHIN:

Jewish students at Columbia chanting "GOD BLESS AMERICA!"

While the pro-Palestine students chant "DEATH TO AMERICA!"

Do you see the difference?pic.twitter.com/3ZQBdSJSsa

— Vivid.🇮🇱 (@VividProwess) October 9, 2025

A VERY PUBLIC EDUCATION: Nervous in New England: Can the North rise again?

Massachusetts public schools were the best in the nation, and the rest of New England wasn’t far behind, writes Christopher Huffaker in the Boston Globe. Ten years ago, Massachusetts students “led the United States across ages, subjects, and most demographic groups, despite wide achievement gaps,” on the Nation’s Report Card. Students in the Deep South, who came from much poorer families, were at the bottom.

Now test scores are falling in New England, rising in Mississippi, Louisiana, Tennessee and Alabama, he writes. While leaders of the “Southern Surge” focused relentlessly on improving reading instruction, New England schools were lowering expectations, Huffaker writes. To end the Massachusetts Malaise, leaders must “override the wishes of popular and powerful teachers unions, and, most of all, stop resting on their laurels.”

Karen Vaites and others have written about the Southern Surge in reading scores for months now, but it’s an essay last week by Kelsey Piper, Illiteracy is a policy choice, that seems to have woken everybody up. “If you live where I do, in Oakland, California, and you cannot afford private education, you should be seriously considering moving to Mississippi for the substantially better public schools,” wrote Piper in The Argument.

No, Mississippi isn’t cooking the books, Piper and Vaites write this week, also in The Argument. With far fewer resources than most states and far needier students, these deep South states are showing impressive progress.

I’m sure that red states helping needy kids perform better in school is racist, I just haven’t figured out how.

WE DON’T DESERVE DOLLY, BUT I’M SURE GLAD WE HAVE HER (STILL): Dolly Parton Gives Us a Health Update, Shuts Down Online Rumors.

MORE LIKE THIS, PLEASE: Paxton Goes After Antifa. “It’s long been known that far left organizations like George Soros’ Tides Foundation or Neville Roy Singham’s Party for Socialism and Liberation have pumped money into Antifa, sometimes through organizational cutouts to obscure the cash flow. Both Paxton and Kash Patel should be working on subpoenas for bank and communication records for such organizations, to be followed quickly by criminal charges and lawsuits to shut them down for good.”

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Dems Behaving Badly — Not Enough Xanax in the World for These Loons. “Kamala Harris once again made the unfortunate choice to go out in public after her second box of breakfast Franzia and remind everyone just how lucky this nation is that she no longer has a job. I know that I often write about Hillary Clinton, Nancy Pelosi, and Kamala Harris being drunk. I don’t do that because I’m a misogynist, I do it because I’m a professional entertainer who’s spent most of my adult life doing shows in nightclubs and I know what drunk people look like.”

THIS IS NOT A JOE BIDEN HEADLINE FROM 2023: World’s Oldest Leader Aims to Rule Until Age 99.

At 92, Cameroon’s President Paul Biya—the world’s oldest head of state—is defying age critics and history.

Launching his campaign on Tuesday in Maroua, he pledged to tighten security, create jobs, and rebuild infrastructure as he seeks an eighth term, reinforcing his iron grip on power after more than four decades at the helm.

Biya’s bid comes amid growing scrutiny of his health and leadership. In power since 1982, he has outlasted every other African leader and most of his global peers. His continued rule has come to symbolize both political continuity and democratic stagnation. As Cameroon faces economic strain and security threats, questions are mounting over whether the nonagenarian president can still deliver the reforms he promises.

He just needs more time.

ICYMI: Hey, Pritzker — Do You Support THIS?

ALL THE VERY BEST PEOPLE ASSURED ME THIS WAS IMPOSSIBLE:

2.2 Million Decline in Foreign Population Thanks to Record Low Illegal Immigration and Migrants Returning Home.Significantly, the illegal alien population has declined by 1.6 million over that period, indicating that the Trump administration’s increased interior immigration enforcement has had swift and large results.

Camarota and Zeigler say that although some analysts could chalk up the numbers to “a statistical fluke,” they believe the numbers are very much real and mostly thanks to the Trump administration’s record-low illegal immigration levels as well as self-deportations.

The Left and the press (but I repeat myself) lambasted Mitt Romney in 2012 for suggesting self-deportations.

SAME: Rosie O’Donnell Applies for Irish Citizenship; White House Couldn’t Be Happier.

ICYMI: Everytown Just Ghosted Jay Jones (But There’s a Catch).

THIS OUGHT TO BE CONSIDERED HIS RESIGNATION:

LOYALTY? Brigadier General Gronewold of the Oregon National Guard made it clear he believes he has a DUAL duty to protect America and Oregonians – and he believes that includes the Antifa protesters. If federalized he testified that he would protect the insurgents. pic.twitter.com/VmRjZGGrYJ

— @amuse (@amuse) October 8, 2025

DOG BITES MAN: CBS’s Colbert Spreads Even More Fake News. “Yeah. And if you’re just gonna completely make up stupid fearmongering arguments, at least make ’em fun! ‘Ladies and gentlemen, Democrats are spending trillions of dollars so they can Jurassic Park your children. It’s shocking. They’re going to trap your child in amber, suck out the baby blood, then turn your little child into T-rexes. The worst part is, the worst part, ladies and gentlemen: they’ll never be able to hug you.”

Um… comedy?

OH, CANADA: Carney’s Last Resort. “Indeed, in a very real sense, we might say that the Carney/Liberal government is not only anti-Canadian but anti-civilization, threatening the rule of law, limits on state power, freedom of expression, freedom of inquiry, respect for human dignity, and fidelity to the principles of prosperity and private property, of which latter the sanctity of credit and financial independence are critical.”

THE NEW SPACE RACE: Actually, we are going to tell you the odds of recovering New Glenn’s second launch.

Blue Origin has a lot riding on this booster, named “Never Tell Me The Odds,” which it will seek to recover and reuse. Despite the name of the booster, the company is quietly confident that it will successfully land the first stage on a drone ship named Jacklyn. Internally, engineers at Blue Origin believe there is about a 75 percent chance of success.

From the outside, that estimate seems on the high side of things. During the rocket’s first flight in January, the first stage was lost after successfully boosting its payload to orbit. Blue Origin has provided few details about the propulsion issues that led to the loss of the first stage, which never got close to the drone ship. But it’s clear that the company was unable to test many of the key aspects of controlling the rocket’s flight through the atmosphere and stabilizing itself upon touchdown. A lot of software has to go right to nail the delicate landing dance.

The only comparison available is SpaceX, with its Falcon 9 rocket. The company made its first attempt at a powered descent of the Falcon 9 into the ocean during its sixth launch in September 2013. On the vehicle’s ninth flight, it successfully made a controlled ocean landing. SpaceX made its first drone ship landing attempt in January 2015, a failure. Finally, on the vehicle’s 20th launch, SpaceX successfully put the Falcon 9 down on land, with the first successful drone ship landing following on the 23rd flight in April 2016.

SpaceX did not attempt to land every one of these 23 flights, but the company certainly experienced a number of failures as it worked to safely bring back an orbital rocket onto a small platform out at sea. Blue Origin’s engineers, some of whom worked at SpaceX at the time, have the benefit of those learnings. But it is still a very, very difficult thing to do on the second flight of a new rocket. The odds aren’t 3,720-to-1, but they’re probably not 75 percent, either.

Godspeed — and stick the landing.

YEAH, WE COULD USE MUCH MORE OWNING THE LIBS: Ramaswamy Says No More ‘Owning the Libs.’ Respectfully, What Is He Talking About?

OFFICIAL LAWLESSNESS: Pennsylvania Cities Seem to Think They Can Get Around the State’s Gun Control Preemption Law.

IT’S LIKE WOKE SUPERMAN JUST GOT HIT WITH KRYPTONITE:

Legacy media used to control voters — and terrify Republicans.

Those days are over.

The New York Times’ own polling says 92% of Republicans and 70% of Independents support the GOP in the shutdown.

Half of *Democrat* voters support the GOP.

Media threw away their trust. And… https://t.co/IxezWrrx8F

— Wall Street Mav (@WallStreetMav) October 8, 2025

THEY REALLY DO WANT YOU (AND HER) DEAD: Welcome to Portland, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem. “The former governor-turned-Department of Homeland Security Secretary was not on the ground for more than a few minutes on Tuesday afternoon when the Oregon governor showed up to greet her. But Gov. Tina Kotek couldn’t answer her questions or guarantee her ICE officers’ safety. Kotek, in a towering show of leadership, passed the buck to the Portland police chief, Bob Day, who proceeded to tell Noem that he couldn’t help keep ICE officers safe, either. A meeting with Mayor Keith Wilson netted the same result.”

BREAKING: DOJ Announces Arrest for Palisades Fire.

INSURRECTION, STRAIGHT UP: Oregon senator claims Kristi Noem’s visit to Portland is to ‘incite violence.’

Senator Rod Wyden of Oregon has claimed that the Department of Homeland Security went to Portland “to incite violence.” Noem has been paying close attention to conditions in Portland where Antifa agitators and militants have been aggressive in their attempt to disrupt federal law enforcement.

“Kristi Noem is cosplaying as a public official. In reality, she’s been sent by Trump to incite violence,” Wyden said. “Don’t tar and feather her as Speaker Johnson suggested for Governor Newsom. The best response to her playacting as cop? Ignore her and keep supporting our community.”

Noem was traveling to Portland to tour the ICE facilty. The area around the facility has been under siege since June when Antifa militants began protesting outside, getting in the way of law enforcement vehicles and personnel.

If a federal official can’t visit a federal facility without “inciting” violence, the problem isn’t with the federal official.

THE CHICAGO WAY: Hey, Pritzker — Do You Support THIS? “While Pritzker was busy diagnosing Trump’s mental state, Pritzker’s ‘resistance’ was busy stalking ICE agents.”

WELL, GOOD: Would-be Kavanaugh killer will NOT serve his time in women’s prison. “Attorney General Pam Bondi answered questions before the Senate on Tuesday and said forcefully that the man who attempted to murder Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh at his home in 2022 will not be serving his 8-year term in a women’s prison. The judge who handed down the light sentence said in her ruling that the would-be assassin’s transgender identity informed her decision to only give him an 8-year term.”

It’s a shame about the sentence, but at least he won’t be able to victimize inmates at a women’s prison.

DRUG WAR TURNS HOT: Trump Ends Venezuela Talks; Dems and the Dictator Melt Down.

WRONGTHINK: Australia Confiscating Guns of Those Who Don’t Recognize Government Authority. “Police in Western Australia have seized guns and revoked or suspended firearms permits from dozens of owners linked to what investigators describe as sovereign citizen ideologies, or views that reject government authority.”

BRAVE SIR ROBIN: Everytown Just Ghosted Jay Jones (But There’s a Catch), “Everytown for Gun Safety — or ‘Blue Enclaves and Billionaires Against Your 2nd Amendment Rights,’ if we had stronger truth-in-advertising laws — mysteriously pulled down its webpage endorsing embattled Democrat Virginia attorney general candidate Jay Jones, but I’m here to tell you that there’s less to Jones getting ghosted than meets the eye.”