1) “In the Time of Covid” (Matthew Hennessey, WSJ Free Expression)
From the article — My guess is that decades from now, historians will look at this period and conclude that well-intended public-health officials simply overreacted to the sudden appearance of a deadly and contagious pathogen. They got the response wrong because the world was in a panic and they felt they had to do something. Nobody knew the best way forward, so everybody deserves a pass.
That’s wrong. Not everyone panicked. Some kept their heads. Some saw what needed to be done and said so. They told an unpopular truth that contradicted the views of the high and mighty. For that they had targets placed on their backs, their reputations dragged through the mud. They were mocked, vilified and deplatformed. Now they have been vindicated.
If we’re learning lessons from the pandemic, one of the clearest is that credentialed elites would often rather be wrong than disobeyed. The threat from Covid is over. That’s a relief because it was awful. But the authoritarianism of arrogance is in many ways a far greater threat. That’s with us still.
2) “Stop Destroying Civilization! The Left’s favorite moral crusades always end the same way: manufactured hysteria, institutional damage, and a quiet retreat from the wreckage.” (Victor Davis Hanson, American Greatness)
From the article — So, their long-term solutions have four predictable aspects: 1) Open the borders to create a more diverse, impoverished, and needy constituency. 2) Create fake “working-class” pseudo-populist candidates like the pampered Graham Platner, the God-is-nonbinary “new Christian” Talarico, and, of course, the waxen effigy of “good ol’ Joe Biden from Scranton.” 3) Destroy time-tested systems by seeking to demolish the Electoral College, the 50-state union, the Senate filibuster, and the nine-justice Supreme Court. And 4) Gin up these end-of-days, pseudo-existential crises whose solutions require massive new taxes, bigger government, and more dictatorial elite managers.
One good sign of growing antidotes is that increasingly Americans, and indeed all Westerners, are saying no to green haranguers, no to the gender and sex demagogues, no to the race-baiting industry, no to the open-borders conglomerate, and no to ungrateful immigrants. Their pushback might be summed up as follows: “We are no longer going to allow you to destroy ancient traditions that ensured our prosperity, security, and liberty, and which were handed down to us by generations far better than your own.”
3) “The defenceless realm: We can’t fight a war. We can’t defend our borders. Britain is a nation in name only.” (Brendan O’neill, spiked!)
From the article — At first glance, they look like two distinct scandals. Fire and violence on the streets of Belfast following the vicious gouging of a local man’s eyes by a suspect from Sudan. And then the resignation of virtually the entire defence wing of Keir Starmer’s cabinet, including the secretary of state for defence, John Healey. Yet both that riotous fury and the polite but scathing resignations flow from the same toxic source – the almost total withering of our kingdom’s ability to defend itself from external menace.
The defence storm swirling around Sir Keir feels staggering. It is the most serious act yet in the tragicomedy of his government’s slow-motion unravelling. First Healey went, and as he did, he issued a stinging verdict on Starmer. You are ‘unable’, he said in his letter of resignation, ‘to commit the resources that the nation needs to defend the country at this time of rising threats’. He was followed by the armed forces minister, Al Carns. To send men to war without proper funding and equipment is a scandal, Carns said. ‘We ask soldiers to fight for this country. In return, we owe them the kit to do the job.’
This feels existential, not just for Starmer’s knackered administration but for the entire machinery of the state. And for us, the people that machinery is meant to defend. Just like that, Britain lost the minister in charge of securing the realm from foreign threats and the minister who oversees our fighting forces. Who’s protecting the kingdom?
Related article: Bloody Thursday for Starmer: Two More Ministers Quit, Seven Gone in a Month (Ben Smith, Red State)
4) “Public Schools Are in a Downward Spiral: Low birth rates, chronic absenteeism, parental choice, homeschooling, and microschooling are driving rapid student losses in public schools.” (Larry Sand, American Greatness)
From the article — For those still attending public schools, chronic absence—the percentage of students missing 10 percent or more of a school year—is a growing problem. As of January 20, the latest data show that chronic absenteeism, which surged from 15 percent pre-COVID to 28 percent in 2022, remains elevated at 24 percent.
Nat Malkus, the American Enterprise Institute’s director of education policy, notes that the surge in absenteeism affects districts of all sizes, racial backgrounds, and income levels. However, the data reveal significant racial and ethnic disparities, with 39 percent of black students, 36 percent of Hispanic students, 24 percent of white students, and 15 percent of Asian students chronically absent.
A major factor behind rising absenteeism is that many students lack motivation to attend school. In 2024, Gallup and the Walton Family Foundation surveyed more than 1,000 Gen Z students ages 12 to 18 and found that only 48 percent of those enrolled in middle or high school feel motivated to attend. Only half said they do something interesting in school every day. Similarly, a 2024 EdChoice poll found that 64 percent of teens said school is boring, and 30 percent view it as a waste of time.
Additionally, a 2024 survey revealed that nearly 64 percent of school parents say K–12 education is headed in the wrong direction, up 8 points from 2023. Marc Oestreich, an education policy consultant and strategist, writes that in many cases, students are responding to schools that fail to teach them to read, fail to adapt to their needs, and fail to demonstrate that another day in the building is worth their time.
5) “What We Learned From the Federal Charges Against a Pro-Hamas Ring” (Seth Mandel, Commentary)
From the article — Two bright young University of Michigan-connected pro-Hamas activists were having a conversation in 2024 about their spree of destruction aimed at school administrators and Jewish targets. Given the illegality of their actions and the extent of their group’s planning before each alleged crime, federal conspiracy charges weren’t out of the question if they got caught. Their actions, one activist said to another, could “hit RICO territory very quickly.”
Well, congrats kids—you and your friends have just been indicted on federal conspiracy charges. Despite one defendant’s assessment that law enforcement is “not smart enough” to catch them, law enforcement caught them.
To be clear right off the bat: No one in this case is being punished for protesting. They are being indicted for behavior they knew fell into the category of federal criminal conspiracy. And the way that they talked about their mission, as captured in the communications referenced throughout the federal complaint, is criminally deranged. Indeed, what we are dealing with here is a genuine crisis of college-aged young men and women; it is the ungluing of a generation, and it is already fully infecting everything from education to culture to politics.
Related article: “‘I’m Gonna … Poison Her %#8& Slowly’– University of Michigan Students and Graduates Charged by Feds With Violent, Anti-Israel Plot To Terrorize University, Jews: The indictments of college-educated researchers and scientists are an escalation in the Trump administration’s crackdown on violent, far-left extremism” (Adam Credo, Washington Free Beacon)
Other Excellent Articles from this Week
* “FDA (Finally) Launches Study on Safety of Abortion Pill” (Paul Batura, Daily Citizen)
* “Israel Has No Choice Left But to Stand Up: Israel must show that it is not a vassal of the U.S. or even its fifty-first state, but a sovereign nation with an unassailable duty to defend its land and citizens.” (Michael Oren, Clarity)
* “A Worldwide Network: AI Is Already A Spymaster With Unprecedented Capabilities” (Tom Gilbreath, Harbinger’s Daily)
* “SPLC ‘Hate List’: Christian Pro-Life Groups ON, Antifa OFF” (Paul Batura, Daily Citizen)
* “Jane Fonda Praised Jim Jones Before She Protested Donald Trump’s Birthday — Before leading a concert against Trump, Jane Fonda might explain why she pledged herself to one of history’s deadliest cults.” (Daniel J. Flynn, American Spectator)