"Parents across the country are learning the hard way that we have collectively left the American public education system on autopilot for far too long and the results are troubling. ACT scores are the lowest they've been in more than 30 years. 13-year-olds' test scores on The Nation's Report Card are worse than this time last year, 'continuing a decade-long freefall,' and math scores experienced the largest drop in 50 years.

"But rather than push students to achieve excellence -- or even competency -- in basic academics, many public schools have instead prioritized ideological groupthink. One needn't look far to see examples of curriculum or policies regarding gender, sexuality, race, or any cultural topic-du-jour garnering headlines.

"All of this has many parents asking the question, 'who is accountable, and how do we get back on track?' In most cases, the answer starts with the school board."

Read the entire article here.

"On Monday, the average 30-year fixed mortgage rate reached 7.48%, marking the highest level since the year 2000. Even prior to this recent surge in mortgage rates, housing affordability, as monitored by the Atlanta Fed, had already deteriorated beyond the levels seen at the housing bubble's peak in 2006. Once this latest mortgage rate surge is factored in, August 2023 will become the worst month for housing affordability this century.

"The journey to this predicament can be traced back to last year's sharp rise in mortgage rates, which escalated from 3% to over 7%. That rate surge, coupled with the Pandemic Housing Boom pushing U.S. home prices up over 40% in just over two years, deteriorated housing affordability (or better put the lack thereof) across the nation.

"'The housing market is at a pivotal point as we head into fall. Mortgage rates are now at more than a two-decade high and for some home shoppers, those higher rates are enough to cause them to step back from the market,' wrote Lisa Sturtevant, chief economist at Bright MLS, in a statement to Fortune. 'It is likely to be a very slow fall [in the] housing market this year. Home prices, which had rebounded this summer, will dip in some markets as new listing activity increases at the same time a segment of the home buying population sits the market out.'"

Read the entire article here.

"As whale deaths mount on the east coast, the Biden administration can no longer pretend offshore wind farms are harmless to marine life.

"FOX News Digital revealed that the U.S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is quietly offering a grant to study interactions between wind farms and critically endangered North Atlantic right whales. Even though government-issued permits allow the offshore wind industry to kill whales, scientists and allied nonprofits have loudly denied any connection between wind farms and dead whales to protect the industry.

"The Biden administration's total and hypocritical, if not illegal, disregard for the welfare of whales is consistent with the regulatory and financial favoritism it extends to foreign green energy companies who are industrializing America's coasts. The government's many accommodations to these entities puts the lie to claims that wind energy is good for the environment.

"The whole path is greased: mandates, subsidies, permits, and see no evil regulators."

Read the entire article here.

"Winston Churchill famously said that democracy is the worst form of government -- except for all the others that have been tried.

"Something similar might be said of our democratic and free-market economic system.

"For all its faults, it beats hands down the top-down and autocratically run economies of our main political rivals.

"Anyone who doubts the superiority of our system over that of our rivals has not been paying attention to the wheels coming off the economies of Xi Jinping's China, Vladimir Putin's Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Turkey.

"The one thing these three faltering economies share is autocratic leaders who make their country's key economic decisions without the checks of independent and well-functioning economic institutions."

Read the entire article here.

"President Joe Biden's use of multiple pseudonyms during his vice presidency appears to have hidden some of his communications from that period, including some involving Ukraine policy and his son, Hunter Biden.

"The House Oversight Committee asked the National Archives on Thursday for communications involving three of Joe Biden's aliases: Robert Peters, Robin Ware, and JRB Ware.

"The committee sought correspondence between those aliases, Hunter Biden, and two of his former business partners, Eric Schwerin and Devon Archer."

Read the entire article here.

"Workers in the Nancy Pelosi Federal Building in San Francisco were told to work from home indefinitely given conditions in the downtown area.

The building, at the intersection of Seventh and Mission streets, is home to the office of former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as well as the local branches of several federal agencies, including the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the U.S. Department of Labor, and the U.S. Department of Transportation. The area around the building has also become a notorious hotspot for open-air drug dealing.

According to the San Francisco Chronicle, building workers received a memo penned by Cheryl Campbell -- an assistant secretary with the Department of Health and Human Services -- on Aug. 4. It advised workers to stay home 'for the foreseeable furture' because of crime in the area."

Read the entire article here.

"FBI Director Christopher Wray has forfeited all grounds for confidence in his integrity. He was caught this week in yet another falsehood, this time about an infamous memo targeting 'traditionalist' Catholics, which appears to mean those who hew to orthodox doctrines and unmodernized liturgies. Wray must be made to clean up his act or clean out his office.

"The memo, produced by the FBI's Richmond field office, said the bureau should particularly monitor 'traditionalist Catholic' people, such as those who prefer the Latin Mass, as potential purveyors of 'violent extremis[m]' who may need to be targeted for 'threat mitigation.' It assumed traditionalist Catholics are particularly prone to becoming domestic terrorists. This is false and defamatory, and the specter of law enforcement targeting a faith community raises serious First Amendment concerns."

Read the entire article here.

"Garland's naming of Weiss as special counsel not only contradicts any earlier claims that there was no need for such an appointment, but it also contradicts nearly everything we've been told about the investigation and the DOJ's role. We were told that Weiss was the ultimate decisionmaker -- well, except that he obviously wasn't or he wouldn't have needed the appointment. We were told he could take any steps and make any investigative decisions, having ultimate authority over this matter -- except now we're told he is no longer subject to the day-to-day supervision of the Department of Justice.

"Either Weiss had that power, or he dind't. Either he was in charge of the investigation, or he wasn't. Naming Weiss special counsel confirms everything we've been told until now was a farce. And it wasn't just Garland telling us Weiss was totally in charge -- it was also Weiss. Weiss even stuck with that story when contradicted by the IRS whistleblowers who had contemporaneous emails confirming the Delaware U.S. attorney had told upper-level managers on the investigation that he was not the ultimate decisionmaker."

Read the entire article here.

"Liberal cities and states are continuing to sound the alarm over a surge of migrants into their jurisdictions. Some are going so far as to call on the federal government to declare a state of emergency, while maintaining welcoming rhetoric to all who come across the border.

"Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey last week declared a state of emergency 'due to rapid and unabating increases in the number of families with children and pregnant people -- many of them newly arriving migrants and refugees -- living within the state but without the means to secure safe shelter in our communities.'

"The state currently has more than 20,000 families in its state shelter system and costs are around $45 million a month, her office said."

Read the entire article here.

"Listening to the Biden White House on economic issues is always a surreal experience.

"It calls to mind Charles Dickeens' famous line -- 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.'

"They can't keep it straight.

"While President Biden claims 'Bidenomics is working,' his Vice President Kamala Harris bemoans the fact that '[m]ost Americans are a $400 unexpected expense away from bankruptcy.'

"So, which is it?"

Read the entire article here.