How Glenn Youngkin could become the education governor we need?

On Tuesday next week, Virginia voters will be selecting their next governor.

They’ll be choosing between Clinton-era Democrat and former governor Terry McAuliffe, and the Republican nominee—Glenn Youngkin, a very successful businessman.

If Youngkin wins—and I believe he will—it will be as a result of the issue of education, which has become the central issue of the Virginia’s governor’s campaign.

McAuliffe struck a nerve with Virginia voters when—in their final debate—he told Youngkin what he actually really believes:

 “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach” 

Youngkin was right to press back immediately—and press back hard.

Youngkin has promised to return parents to a place of authority over their kids’ education. He could become the “education governor,” serving as a model for other governors across the nation—he’s promising to do that.

All the momentum is with Youngkin, but Virginia voters … of course … will decide.

They should not take anything for granted. They should get out there and vote! 

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In one of the great walkbacks of all time, the National School Boards Association has now apologized for its hysterical letter labeling parents “domestic terrorists”—just for showing up at school board meetings to weigh in on their children’s education. Apparently, the leaders hadn’t even gotten their board’s authorization to publicize the letter—they went rogue at The White House’s behest.

But what about Attorney General Merrick Garland, who has threatened to sic the FBI on suburban moms?—despite admitting there was no proof of increased violence at the meetings? He was serious. Apparently, the feds have shown up to at least one school board meeting in Fairfax County, Virginia.

Garland has said he “supports” parents’ First Amendment rights. But refusing to withdraw his over-the-top memo gives the game away. The goal is to intimidate the moms who vocally oppose critical race theory and pornographic books in the school library.

Good luck with that. The mama bears I know don’t back down from defending their cubs.

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The Chinese markets, and indeed global markets, took a big hit when China engaged in its second set of crackdowns on financial markets. First, it was education companies. Now it’s real estate. The Chinese real estate giant Evergrande is facing expectations of default.  

These events are widely known in the financial press, but what is less widely known is that these actions are the downstream effect of the forced abortion policies of the past. The One Child Policy has left China demographically distorted. These market crackdowns are the party’s attempt to deal with the consequences. 

Simply put: There is no policy solution for half a billion lost children. 
 
It’s easy for us to look down our noses on that regime, but the west has its own demographic challenges, having aborted much of its future as well. It's time for both a legal shift (away from Roe v. Wade) but also a cultural shift towards “be fruitful and multiply.” 

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Many of you have no doubt tracked closely the recent statement from Terry McAuliffe, former governor and now candidate for governor of Virginia.  McAuliffe said in a debate, “I don't think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

His statement of course raises the huge question: Who should determine the education of children? The parents or the professional elite?

Our own nation has wrestled with this question and has—through the Supreme Court—answered the question very clearly.

It was answered clearly in 1925. It was answered again in 1972. In that decision known as the Yoder decision,  the court—in a unanimous decision—said this, with clarity: “The child is not the mere creature of the state. Those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right coupled with the high duty to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.” 

Let me repeat that key line: “The child is not the mere creature of the state.” 

The child was not created by the state. The child belongs to parents as those lives are given to us by God.

Keep that in mind: The child is not the mere creature of the state.

Thanks be to God.

 

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Last week, the presidential commission formed to examine reforms for the U.S. Supreme Court issued a draft report. At least for now, the Commission has declined to endorse any proposals to change the Court’s size or tenure.

This came as a disappointment to the left, which has been pushing to add new justices to the court to counterbalance its 6-3 conservative majority.  Quite sensibly, the report noted that court-packing would only reinforce a perception that judges are partisan while undermining judicial independence.

But stay tuned. The final report isn’t due until next month—and the two conservatives on the commission have just resigned.

The left should be careful what it wishes for. If the commission ends up endorsing court-packing, it may face an angry public. A poll conducted just last spring found fully 68 percent of Americans oppose it.

That’s because Americans understand the judiciary is supposed to be insulated from naked partisan power grabs—like the current effort to pack the Supreme Court.

 

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Thirty years have passed since Justice Clarence Thomas was confirmed to the US Supreme Court. His tenure there has been consequential, indeed.

He’s the Court’s foremost proponent of natural law—an understanding that our individual rights are transcendent and come from God. This understanding undergirds his approach to the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, powerfully informing the Justice’s unyielding commitment to limited government and equal justice before the law.

Over the last five years, Justice Thomas has authored more opinions than any of his colleagues on the Supreme Court. His influence only continues to grow. 

And he’s beloved by the scores of people who know him. Justice Thomas has time for everyone. He knows the names of the children of the marshals who guard the courthouse. He’s mentored generations of clerks, treating them like family, and his distinctive, hearty laugh rings out within his judicial chambers.

May God bless this great, good and brilliant man, and may he serve on the Court many years longer.

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With Democrats in Congress feuding over their massive social-engineering reconciliation bill, Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi need a distraction from their failure. Hence, we will have a meaningless vote on the House’s election-federalizing bill, the Freedom to Vote Act, which has even less chance of passing. 

The bill finally achieved unanimity among Senate Democrats—or so Schumer claims—after bowing to Joe Manchin and eliminating the most radical elements of the For The People Act. What remains still amounts to the biggest federal intrusion on state’s jurisdiction over elections. Mitch McConnell accurately labeled it a “partisan power grab.” 

Not a single Republican senator will vote for it, let alone the ten Schumer needs to break a filibuster. It is, as one aide put it to NBC, nothing more than public-relations filler while Democrats try to rescue their massive spending bill. 

Voters gave Joe Biden, Schumer, and Pelosi a big opportunity to govern. It’s clear that they prefer political stunts—playing to the hard left—over responsible governance. 

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Pat Gelsinger is the CEO of Intel and perhaps the most visible tech executive in America who is also a Christian. In a recent interview with Rich Karlgaard, the publisher of Forbes, he made a simple but powerful point about the push for diversity in corporate America and especially in Silicon Valley: diversity should also include people of faith. Gelsinger argues that if companies are truly inviting us to “bring our whole selves to work,” that ought to include Christians like him. If not, then it’s really diversity at all?

It reminded me a conversation I had with a manager of a major company. She boasted—“L, G, B, T, Q…we have all the letters.” 

I asked “What about C?”. 

“What’s C?” 

I told her “Christian…c is Christian”. 

Of course: They had no convictional position on religious liberty.

To have the CEO of America’s largest chip-maker arguing for a diversity that includes “c” is something that other CEOs should emulate. 

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Giddy with his recall reelection win, Gavin Newsome is living large. Last week, he signed laws making it illegal to use gas-powered “off-road engines” including leaf blowers, lawn mowers and golf carts; prohibiting gender-specific sections in toy stores; and mandating the teaching of ethnic studies in schools.

While Governor Newsom celebrates, the rest of his state is suffering. The off-road engine mandate will make life infinitely more difficult for thousands of small businesses. California has the highest rate of homelessness in the country – with more than a quarter of America’s homeless living there. And his state has the second highest unemployment in our nation, and saw a whopping 31 percent jump in homicides last year.

This is heartbreaking. I once lived near Los Angeles. California is a beautiful place, filled with wonderful people.

They deserve better than a governor who distracts with nonsense legislation and fails to address his state’s real problems. 

 

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Joe Biden’s Department of Justice has released a memo announcing it would crack down on parents at school board meetings, because some board members feel “threatened” by parents objecting to everything from critical race theory to mask mandates.

But there are serious problems with this approach. First, the Justice Department is only empowered to investigate federal crimes. Even if some behavior is as bad as the National Association of School Boards has claimed, that’s a local or maybe a state matter.

Second, in America, before we’re punished for a crime, we’re entitled to understand exactly what is illegal. Here, the Justice Department’s memo is unacceptably imprecise. Is simply yelling at a school board member now prohibited, or are actual threats or violence required? Vagueness doesn’t fly.

Cherokee activist Wilma Mankiller once noted, “Whoever controls the education of our children controls the future.” The left understands that well. Let’s hope America’s parents, do, too—and don’t back down an inch.

 

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