Thaddeus McCotter writes for American Greatness about the importance of studying lessons from the nation’s history.

Once more in these trying times, Americans are compelled to recognize and reflect upon the lessons of history.

First, we are compelled to note the danger posed by the radical Left that has pledged its allegiance to ideology over country, rejecting any shard of patriotism for our free republic and shredding the governing paradigm that has united us as sovereign citizens.

What has traditionally united us as Americans is the recognition that our inspired experiment in self-government is a sacred undertaking. Further, we recognize that each succeeding generational calibration of the tension between liberty and equality, while often arduous, is a necessary, noble pursuit made possible, in large part, by equal justice under law. (The expansion and improvement of this legal equality being one of most significant advances accomplished by succeeding generations of Americans.)

Indeed, the supreme law of the land, the U.S. Constitution, issues us a challenge to forge a “more perfect union.” Behind this is the eminently practical realization that no nation comprised of frail, flawed human beings can ever be perfected. Yet, amid an environment of ordered liberty and equal justice under the law, our union can certainly be made less imperfect. That liberty, equality, and the oft-contentious relationship between the two is incapable of being perfected is inarguable to rational minds. It is also true, however, that they can be and have been improved, promoted, and protected in creating a “more perfect union.”

Thus, a governing paradigm in which Americans operated evolved from the beginning: America was an imperfect free republic that was, nonetheless, great, in that it possessed the requisite conditions to continually forge a better future for all—i.e., a “more perfect union.”

Today’s Left denies this is possible and, believing our nation as constituted is irredeemable, has shredded the governing paradigm that has united Americans to impose its radical agenda upon their fellow citizens.

The post Learning valuable lessons from American history appeared first on John Locke Foundation.

Robert Romano writes for the Daily Torch about the impact of falling oil prices on gas prices.

“The big Oil Companies are not dropping their price at the pump commensurate with the sharply lower prices they are paying for Oil. Those prices are dropping like a rock! In other words, customers are being ‘gouged.’ I have instructed the DOJ to immediately start looking into this. Gasoline prices better start going down a lot faster than what I’m seeing!”

That was President Donald Trump on June 24 in a post on Truth Social, stating he had ordered the Justice Department to investigate alleged price gouging at the gas pump, noting oil prices are falling faster than gasoline. The implication is there might be illegal price collusion. …

… In 2014, the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s Michael T. Owyang and E. Katarina Vermann highlighted this phenomenon in an article, “Rockets and Feathers: Why Don’t Gasoline Prices Always Move in Sync with Oil Prices?” noting the oil and gasoline price movements are often asymmetrical.

It stated, “Both casual and industry observers say that gas prices adjust to changes in oil prices faster when gasoline prices are relatively low compared with oil than when gasoline prices are relatively high compared with oil. This uneven pass-through can be seen when oil prices rise after being steady for some time — gasoline prices shoot up quickly. In contrast, when oil prices fall after being steady for some time, gasoline prices retreat slowly. In the gasoline industry, this phenomenon is known as ‘rockets and feathers.’” …

… [T]here could be something to President Trump’s claims, but if so, it might be down to the individual gas station level, as seller market power appears to vary based on how close gas stations are to one another. As Owyang and Vermann noted, “One factor that influences market power is market concentration: Gas stations that are physically close together have less market power than do gas stations that are farther apart.”

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Editors at the New York Post ponder a US senator’s proposal for holding a national teachers union accountable for its misdeeds.

A key US senator wants fellow lawmakers to consider revoking the National Education Association’s congressional charter.

What’s to consider? The union, the nation’s largest representing teachers, clearly hasn’t met its obligations under the charter; Congress should revoke it pronto.

Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), who chairs the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, is urging colleagues to reconsider the NEA’s charter specifically over its links to a number of far-left nonprofits, including the Zinn Education Project and Rethinking Schools, and its alleged out-of-control financial mismanagement.

Those and other NEA-linked groups push agendas that actually justify the terrorism and murders committed by the Black Panther Party and push for indoctrinating young kids with gender extremism.

“Children are struggling to read and to do basic math. Instead of helping students succeed, teachers’ unions are injecting a dangerous, anti-American agenda into our classrooms,” fumes Cassidy.

“Parents deserve to send their children to school without worrying that they will be indoctrinated with DEI and taught that Americans have ‘misplaced faith’ in our institutions.”

A charter revocation wouldn’t stop the NEA from operating, but it would deliver a severe reputational blow to the group.

It’s one that’s long overdue —- and not only because the union has focused on hard-left politics instead of history, geography, math and science. 

In fact, the NEA, along with the American Federation of Teachers, has presided over a decades-long effort to completely wreck any meaningful standards in education in order to shield their millions of members from any accountability.

At the same time, they fought for ever fatter paychecks and pensions, while spending millions in union dues on radical-left political causes. 

After the 2020 George Floyd riots, both the NEA and the AFT ratcheted up their leftist activism and fought to turn America’s classrooms into BLM-indoctrination factories. 

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Editors at the New York Post highlight Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s latest bad idea.

Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s socialist revolution is on the march — with an army of nearly 200 social-media “influencers” promoting their Dear Leader’s message.

And much of it, apparently, on the taxpayer’s dime.

New Yorkers should be downright alarmed.

Per a Columbia Journalism Review report, it seems Hizzoner has launched a permanent, taxpayer-funded PR blitz disguised as legitimate city business and fused with City Hall-directed, North Korean-style propaganda boosting our socialist savior and pushing his team’s talking points.

It’s a clear abuse of power and city resources — and certainly not what most New Yorkers voted for.

The report points to a two-pronged approach: Paying content creators to work with city agencies to promote city services and initiatives, including tenants’ rights and voting — and disseminating daily talking points (via the Signal group chat encryption app) that influencers can do with as they wish.  

The NYC Creators Announcements op is run by Emilia Rowland, a former campaign operative and now the director of City Hall’s new media and cultural communications office.

Rather than look to improve government, promote civic education or make New Yorkers’ lives better, the campaign’s primary objective is to boost Mamdani himself, and his goals, such as encouraging, for example, a tenants insurrection and ultimately a broader radical socialist agenda.

Already, Mamdani’s Office of Mass Engagement has brazenly partnered with the Democratic Socialists of America, using public resources to organize tenants in an anti-landlord crusade that has spiked 311 complaints by 25% citywide this year compared to 2025.

In other words, City Hall is spending taxpayer money to incite a renter revolt against private landlords via favored hipster “influencers.”

The use of the Signal app also raises troubling questions. Regular communication between city personnel and content creators — paid or unpaid — via an app that hides and deletes content seems sure to violate city records-retention rules and freedom of information law requirements.

Moreover, if content creators are being paid with taxpayer money, that needs to be disclosed.

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The Dallas Express reports a significant development involving the federal Treasury Department and IRS.

The U.S. Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service proposed new regulations Thursday that would deny federal tax-exempt status to private schools that discriminate based on race, color, or national or ethnic origin.

Treasury said the proposal, announced Thursday, advances the Trump administration’s effort to enforce nondiscrimination requirements and expand merit-based educational opportunities.

Under the proposed regulations, a private educational institution would not qualify for tax-exempt status under Section 501(c)(3) if it adopts, maintains, or enforces policies or practices that discriminate based on race, color, or national or ethnic origin.

The rule would apply to admissions, scholarships and loans, educational programs, athletics and other school-administered or school-supported activities.

Treasury and the IRS estimate the proposal could affect as many as 18,000 private educational institutions, including elementary and secondary schools, colleges, universities, professional schools and trade schools.

As previously reported by The Dallas Express, the administration has also warned federally funded schools against race-based preferences.

Treasury and IRS officials said the proposed regulations update federal guidance to reflect what they described as a longstanding principle that tax-exempt organizations must comply with fundamental public policy prohibiting racial discrimination.

The agencies cited Supreme Court decisions including Brown v. Board of Education, Bob Jones University v. United States, and Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard.

Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said schools would not avoid the proposed standard by describing race-based preferences as diversity, inclusion, or other similar programs.

“Schools rebranding race-based preferences as equitable, inclusive, or diversity-enhancing does not change their discriminatory nature,” Bessent said.

IRS Chief Executive Officer Frank J. Bisignano said schools that continue discriminatory practices should expect to lose their tax-exempt status.

The proposal would not prevent private religious schools from maintaining religious missions, religious curricula or programs of religious observance.

Religious schools could continue selecting students based on genuine religious affiliation or membership when permitted under existing federal law.

The proposed regulations would also allow schools to assist disadvantaged students through race-neutral criteria.

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North Carolina’s election began on September 4, with county boards of elections distributing absentee ballots and accepting voted ballots online from military and overseas voters. County boards accepted ten ballots that same day.

With that start, we will also start a weekly review of election data.

North Carolina has the longest absentee ballot voting period by far

North Carolina started accepting absentee ballots on September 4, 60 days before election day, and continues accepting them through election day (county boards of election continue to accept military and overseas ballots for 10 days after election day).

As seen in the chart below from the Center for Election Innovation and Research, that is long before any other state. The next-earliest state, Wisconsin, does not begin mailing absentee ballots until September 17, 47 days before the election. Even Washington, which accepts ballots until 20 days after election day, only has a 39-day absentee voting period.

On the day ballots went out, 10 ballots came in through email, online, or (unlikely) fax. Military and overseas voters may submit ballots online. The system is designed for those military and overseas voters who cannot get regular absentee ballots delivered on time. The ballots came from the United Kingdom, Belgium, Mexico, Spain, Bahrain, Ireland, France, Canada (2), and the USA.

Here is the distribution of votes by county of registration, as seen on the John Locke Foundation’s Vote Tracker:

Early voting starts on Thursday, October 17. Election day is on November 3.

Absentee ballot requests lag behind 2022

The State Board of Elections reports that county boards have received 49,126 absentee ballot requests through September 5. That is down from 64,936 requests at the same point in 2022.

As seen in the chart below, Republicans account for a larger share of absentee ballot requests than they did at a comparable point in 2022.

I would not read too much into that, however. Voters in 2022 were still voting based on the habits they had acquired during the COVID panic of 2020. Democratic voters disproportionately voted by mail that year. Just as 2024 was a return to normal on absentee voting, I suspect that 2026 is as well.

Both parties lag in voter registrations, but Republicans lag more

I compare voter registration numbers starting 15 weeks before the election to a comparable period in 2018, the previous Trump midterm election. The results through September 5 are in the chart below:

While unaffiliated registrations are running ahead of the 2018 pace, both Democrats and Republicans are doing worse than they did eight years ago. Democrats have only added 3,257 registrations, well behind the 5,388 they added in 2018. Republicans performed even worse, adding only 1,610 registrations, compared to 5,928 in 2018.

(I considered including 2022 data, but it would have made the chart too cluttered.)

I will post election data every Monday until election day, although the posts might be short until early voting starts.

The post 9-7 election data dump: North Carolina’s election begins appeared first on John Locke Foundation.

School districts and charter schools throughout North Carolina will be required to adopt policies on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by students and staff, according to a requirement in North Carolina’s new state budget.

The budget, signed by Gov. Josh Stein on July 7, includes a provision requiring the Department of Public Instruction (DPI) to develop a model policy on AI use. At a minimum, this model policy will define AI, include guidance on developing AI literacy and protecting data privacy and security, and describe when using AI is “ethical and acceptable” in an educational setting. After reviewing the policy, districts and charter schools will be required to adopt their own policies on AI use by June 30, 2027.

The budget also directs the State Board of Education to “adopt age-appropriate standards for instruction on artificial intelligence (AI) literacy for grades kindergarten through 12.” Similar legislation was introduced in 2025 but did not make it out of committee.

Standards are a broad framework covering the knowledge and skills students should have after completing a grade or course, and they are developed and updated periodically by the State Board of Education. The state sets the standards, while districts choose the curricula used to implement them at the local level.

According to the budget (p. 158), the new AI standards must:

• Define responsible and ethical AI use
• Explain the limitations of AI tools
• Provide guidance on how to evaluate and verify information supplied by AI
• Discuss data and privacy concerns surrounding AI use
• Establish best practices for interacting safely with AI chatbots or tools

The new AI standards will be incorporated into existing computer science standards beginning with the 2028–29 school year, and the state board will update them annually to ensure they are responsive to advancements in this rapidly changing field. Computer science coursework necessary to graduate from high school, as well as any elective computer science classes for middle schoolers, must be updated accordingly.

These developments mark somewhat of a departure from the more advisory approach to AI in education that North Carolina has taken so far. In January 2024, the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction issued a guidebook to give direction to schools on the use of AI, making North Carolina one of the first states to issue statewide guidance. That guidebook recommended — but did not require — policies on AI usage at the local level.

The most recent version of the guidebook, which is updated periodically, “strongly recommends” that districts develop “public-facing generative AI guidelines that ensure a common understanding of how generative AI tools may be used within the education system to further student learning.” Although the guidebook discusses the difference between board policies and guidelines, it appears to focus more on guidelines, which can be updated more easily in response to new technological developments or concerns.

Up until now, districts in North Carolina have taken mixed approaches to addressing AI usage in schools. Some have chosen to provide access to AI tools or platforms for students or staff. Columbus County Public Schools, for example, plans to use the platform MagicSchool in middle and high school classrooms this upcoming school year to “support student learning.” Onslow County Schools provided access to MagicSchool for high school students during the 2025–26 school year.

Some districts, like Hoke County Schools and Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools, have published AI guidelines to direct AI use in their schools. Districts such as Durham County Public Schools (Policy 4310 and Policy 3220), Johnston County Schools (Policy 3220), and Cumberland County Schools (Policy 4310 and Policy 3225) have added sections on AI to existing policies regarding academic integrity or technology use or both. The Pender County School Board, meanwhile, has adopted a fairly robust, standalone policy on AI.

How the new AI standards and policy requirements change districts’ approaches to AI use in schools remains to be seen.

The post How NC’s state budget affects AI literacy in public schools appeared first on John Locke Foundation.

Steven Richards writes for Just the News about one leading congressman’s critique of FBI actions under past administrations.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan on Wednesday said that the decade-long era of weaponization at the FBI and Justice Department undermined the spirit of the Constitution by impeding Congress’ duty and power to conduct oversight of the federal government. 

Earlier in the day, Jordan sent a letter to FBI Director Kash Patel demanding evidence related to the bureau’s counterintelligence operation codenamed “Round River,” which classified President Donald Trump’s own administration officials and political allies, including congressional Republicans, as “conduits” of Russian disinformation – in an apparent effort to tamp down a Ukrainian corruption scandal engulfing the Biden family during the 2020 election. 

As part of that operation, the FBI gave defensive briefings to members of Congress, arguing the lawmakers were spreading Russian disinformation by investigating corruption allegations against President Joe Biden, during his time as vice president, and son Hunter Biden in Ukraine.  

“So almost half the confidential human sources say that was a concern, and yet they said, ‘No, no, no, no, we’re going to push that to the side,’ and the Justice Department said we’re going to go instead say this is a Russian information operation, and they’re using members of Congress as conduits to convey that Russian misinformation that they’re trying to get out. That is ridiculous,” Jordan told the Just the News, No Noise TV show.

“So that is how ridiculous this whole thing became, and I think it really underscores when you talk about the weaponization of government and what they were up to in trying to protect Biden and harm President Trump. They were willing to go to that length, to that extreme, saying Republican members of Congress were conduits of Russian information misinformation,” he also said.

Jordan believes the era of weaponization, and infringement on Congress’s oversight powers, began even earlier, during the 2016 election when the FBI relied on the now-discredited Steele Dossier as predicate to spy on Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.

The post Jordan says FBI undermined congressional oversight authority appeared first on John Locke Foundation.

M.D. Kittle writes for the Federalist about the Justice Department’s plans for keeping tabs on upcoming elections.

Last month, Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division Harmeet Dhillon announced her office will be deploying 1,000 election monitors at polling sites throughout the country in November’s midterm elections. A Department of Justice official tells The Federalist that the monitoring effort could be the largest in DOJ history. 

The official did not have details on precisely where the volunteers will be, but some hotspots immediately come to mind. 

Monitors already have been serving on the primary election front lines, covering 15 jurisdictions in six states — Arizona, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New Hampshire and Virginia. Twelve monitors were present at polls in Boston, New Bedford, and Lowell in Massachusetts’ primary elections earlier this week, according to the DOJ. The department has deployed more than 80 monitors at more than 200 polling locations in eight states this primary season. 

Democrats have railed against the election integrity initiative, accusing the Trump administration weaponizing the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Of course, past Democrat administrations have deployed their share of federal election monitors. In the 2022 midterm election, the Biden DOJ dispatched nearly 300 monitors to polling sites around the country, CBS News reported. In the 2024 presidential election, the DOJ sent 714 people to ensure compliance with federal voting laws 86 jurisdictions in 27 states. 

“I’ve been a volunteer and private election lawyer in prior years and some of these jurisdictions are jurisdictions where I know I’ve got personal knowledge of there being problems in the past,” Dhillon told conservative talk show host Joe Pags last month. “So I think it should be a welcome sign in all jurisdictions that we have an eye on things … The more eyes we have on elections, in my opinion, the better because the more people will be confident in those elections. We all want that as Americans.” 

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Chuck Ross writes for the Washington Free Beacon about the latest dubious move from Michigan’s Democratic US Senate candidate.

Democratic Michigan Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed is scheduled to speak at an Islamic convention this weekend—six days before the 25th anniversary of 9/11—on a panel alongside a “9/11 truther” and a Muslim cleric conspiracy theorist who has called for an “examination” of the official narrative surrounding the terrorist attacks.

El-Sayed is headlining the Islamic Society of North America’s annual convention in Detroit on Saturday. There, El-Sayed will speak on a panel to examine a “turmoiled America” alongside left-wing pundit Cenk Uygur and Zaid Shakir, an outspoken New Jersey-based cleric, according to a convention itinerary.

Both men have promoted conspiracy theories surrounding 9/11, in which al Qaeda operatives killed 2,977 Americans.

“I no longer believe [sic] official 9/11 story,” Uygur declared in a social media rant in February. Uygur, who hosts the Young Turks YouTube show, is now pushing debunked claims about Israeli involvement in the attacks, including the “dancing Israelis” myth, an antisemitic conspiracy theory that posits that five Israeli spies filmed and celebrated the terrorist attack. “I didn’t know we arrested Israeli spies who were here to ‘document the event,'” wrote Uygur, who is the uncle of Hasan Piker, a close El-Sayed ally who has said that “America deserved 9/11.”

Uygur was widely mocked for, as one outlet described it, “going full 9/11 truther.”

Shakir has similarly called for an “examination” of what he described as “glaring weaknesses and inconsistencies” in the official 9/11 narrative. He has argued that the U.S. government used the attacks to “launch a war on Islam,” and he directed followers to the writings of David Ray Griffin, a leading 9/11 conspiracy theorist who has argued that the United States orchestrated the attacks.

El-Sayed’s appearance alongside the conspiracy theorists comes as his own record of seeking to minimize the horror of 9/11, and to draw equivalence between 9/11 victims and casualties of the war on terror, is under scrutiny.

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