Authored by Sam Sorbo via American Greatness,

For decades, Americans have watched as federal involvement in education expanded, ballooning into a behemoth bureaucracy that imposes top-down mandates while divorcing parents from their rightful role as the primary educators of their children, while failing to achieve academic success for students.

If we are serious about fixing our children’s education, we must restore parental authority and end federal control of education.

America’s Founding Fathers never intended for Washington, D.C., to dictate how children in Kansas or Kentucky learn to read, write, and think. Education was, and should be, a local and parental matter. President Donald Trump rightly stated in Executive Order 13985, Combating Race and Sex Stereotyping, “The experiment of controlling American education through federal programs and dollars…has plainly failed our children, our teachers, and our families.” That failure is clearly documented by the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), often referred to as “The Nation’s Report Card.” Even before the COVID-19 pandemic, NAEP scores had stagnated or declined. Today, nearly 40% of fourth graders read below basic level, despite record federal funding. Billions of taxpayer dollars have produced declining literacy.

It’s not just ineffective—it’s indefensible.

Federal education initiatives have repeatedly promised results, especially for low-income students, but have failed to deliver. Programs like Title I and Head Start have cost hundreds of billions of dollars over the years with no consistent academic gains to show for them. Similarly, federal control over college grants and loans has inflated tuition and buried young Americans under a mountain of debt.

The evidence is clear: centralized, bureaucratic control undermines education.

As the founder of the “They’re YOUR Kids Foundation,” I work with parents every day who feel helpless. The system fails their children academically and often undermines their values. If we truly want to empower families, we must strip away the federal red tape and hand the reins back to those who know and love their children best: parents.

Representative Barry Moore of Alabama has proposed legislation (H.R. 2691, “Eliminate the Department of Education Act,” Congress.gov) to eliminate USED and redirect education funding based on what residents in each state pay in federal income taxes. But simply shifting USED’s functions to other agencies, as some proposals suggest, won’t solve the problem—it just moves the bureaucracy around.

That’s why I support the US Parents Involved in Education (USPIE) Blueprint: a five-step plan to close the U.S. Department of Education and return education governance to the states. The Blueprint is simple, sensible, and long overdue:

1. Return all program management and funding to the states.

2. Repeal laws like the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) that enable federal overreach.

3. Privatize college loan programs through local financial institutions for increased accountability.

4. Eliminate all divisions and spending within USED.

5. Reduce federal tax collection so states retain education funds directly.

We have a singular opportunity to implement meaningful change, including a federal tax credit system that empowers parents to direct their own children’s education. Under this proposal:

• Parents who homeschool or choose private education would receive a Child Tax Credit equal to the federal per-pupil expenditure.

• Federal taxpayers of households with children attending government schools would prompt their per-pupil allocation to be block-granted to their respective states.

This model respects choice while avoiding the pitfalls of government entanglement. Voucher programs, while well-intentioned, often bring government regulation with them. The 1980 Supreme Court ruling involving Hillsdale College affirmed that any institution accepting federal funds—even indirectly through student aid—is subject to federal control. [Grove City College v. Bell, 465 U.S. 555 (1984)] That’s the Trojan horse we must avoid.

We must stop pretending we can reform federal education mandates and instead recognize them for what they are: unconstitutional, ineffective, and dangerous to parental rights.

As a mother who homeschooled three children, I know firsthand the value of individualized learning guided by a parent who knows their child’s needs and aspirations. Education is not simply the memorization of facts or test preparation. It is the formation of character, virtue, curiosity, and conviction. That formation is best entrusted to families—not bureaucrats in Washington.

President Trump’s 2025 executive order declared that closing the Department of Education would “restore the proper role of families and local governments in education.” But that can only happen if we also change the funding structure and remove all federal strings. If not, we risk replacing one failed model with another, abandoning the nation’s most precious resource, and ultimately forfeiting our very future.

It’s time to reject the lie that Washington knows best. Parents are not the problem. They are the solution. Local communities, not federal mandates, are best equipped to nurture the next generation of citizens. And education must once again become the deeply personal, values-rooted family journey it was meant to be.

We have a roadmap. We have legislation. And most importantly, we have an awakening of parents across this country who are saying, Enough is enough.

Let’s seize this moment to make education truly free—by making it family-led.

Authored by Rachel Acenas via The Epoch Times,

New York Gov. Kathy Hochul on Tuesday announced the state’s first-ever “inflation refund,” a one-time payment to eligible residents.

Hochul said during a news conference that inflation has driven up costs for New Yorkers, and they should get that money back. The funding, according to the governor, will come from the money the state collected in higher sales taxes because of inflation.

“We collected more in sales tax as a result. Unanticipated revenue. I said, this can go into the state coffers, but why not give it to the residents whose pockets it came out of? They paid more than they ever expected. That’s the whole idea behind an inflation refund.”

Collectively, the one-time payment will put $2 billion back in the pockets of over eight million New York taxpayers, Hochul said. The amount of the payment would be based on filing status and income.

Joint tax filers who earn up to $150,000 will receive a $400 check, while those earning between $150,000 and $300,000 will get $300. Single tax filers with incomes up to $75,000 should expect to receive a $200 inflation refund check, and those earning between $75,000 and $150,000 will get a $150 check.

Hochul first proposed her plan of an inflation refund check last December and secured the funding in the fiscal year 2026 state budget agreement. Her initial plan called for higher refunds, specifically $300 for single filers making $150,000 or less, and $500 for joint filers making up to $300,000.

According to data from the Consumer Price Index, the New York area experienced the highest inflation rate in the country from April 2024 to April 2025, with a rate of 3.9 percent. New York’s rate was much higher than the national average, which was 2.3 percent in April 2025. The New York-Newark-Jersey City metro area experienced a 3.9 percent increase in prices, while core inflation reached 4.3 percent.

In announcing the inflation refund plan, the governor signed a large check while announcing the inflation refund. “We got it done, everybody. We got it done,” she told supporters.

Residents who qualify for the one-time payment don’t need to fill out an application or take any type of action, according to a news release by the governor’s office. Rather, the state will automatically send them a check based on their 2023 tax filing. The checks will be mailed over a period of several weeks beginning in the fall of 2025.

As part of the state budget, Hochul is also giving 1.6 million New York families an annual tax credit of up to $1,000 per child under age four and up to $500 per child from four through sixteen, marking the largest expansion of New York’s child tax credit in its history. The state budget agreement also includes her plan to cut taxes for more than 75 percent of all tax filers in the state.

United Way of New York City President and CEO Grace Bonilla said in a statement in response to Hochul’s budget: 

“These changes will ease the burden on people who are already facing untenable challenges – forced to choose between feeding their children or paying bills.”

According to United Way’s 2023 True Cost of Living report, 50 percent of working-age people in New York City are struggling to make ends meet.

New York’s inflation refund checks are similar to California’s Middle Class Tax Refund program. That one-time payment was issued to eligible recipients between October 2022 and January 2023, to provide relief to residents in the state. California’s refund came in the form of a debit card that required activation.

By Rob Jenkins of Minding the Campus

My colleague at Minding the Campus, Jared Gould, has written persuasively on the problem of colleges and universities over-admitting foreign students, who can fill seats that should have gone to American students, drive up costs for everyone, and ultimately take jobs from American workers. 

In my view, however, a more pressing issue—although one that is rarely broached, lest the complainant be labeled “xenophobic”—is that of foreign-born professors, especially those whose command of spoken English is, shall we say, less than optimal.

These days, institutions have come to rely more and more on non-native Ph.D.s. Just scan through the faculty roster at any American university and see how many names you can pronounce. This is a problem for some of the same reasons Jared mentions: Not only did many of these professors take grad-school seats from American students, they eventually took jobs that might have gone to American candidates.

There’s another problem with foreign-born professors, though, on an even more basic level: Students often struggle to understand them in class. If students literally can’t grasp what the professor is saying, due to a language barrier, how can they learn the material? Often, they resort to essentially teaching themselves, using textbooks, study groups, and online aids.

The daughter of a good friend is currently in medical school at a large, highly respected Southeastern university. I had a chance to chat with her over the holidays and asked her how it was going. What she said frankly shocked me.

According to her, not a single one of her medical school professors, so far, has been American-born. All speak with thick accents, although some are clearer than others. Asking questions in class doesn’t help much, because she often can’t understand the answers. And she isn’t alone. Her classmates all have the same problem.   

So how are they supposed to learn this information that is presumably so important for doctors to know—information they will be tested over, repeatedly, throughout their years in medical school, culminating in board examinations?

This bright young woman, along with her classmates and many other medical students all over the country, has simply taken matters into her own hands, purchasing expensive software that covers the same material. She attends class religiously each day, then goes home and spends eight or ten more hours watching videos. Despite shelling out tens of thousands of dollars on an “elite” medical school education, she is essentially having to teach herself—all because her professors don’t speak clear English.

This is just one example of what seems to be a widespread problem. In my 40 years of college teaching and advising, I’ve had dozens of students complain to me that they have one or more professors they can’t understand, particularly in mathematics, engineering, and the hard sciences.

How did we get ourselves into this situation, and how can we get out of it?

The answer to the first question, which also suggests an answer to the second, is that we got here mainly by prioritizing research over teaching—in some cases, by a wide margin. Indeed, some of our most prestigious institutions seem to value research almost exclusively and teaching hardly at all. Almost any tenure-track professor at a Research 1 university will tell you that their annual evaluations and tenure bids are highly focused on research, publishing, and grant procurement, with teaching coming in a distant second, if that. In other words, if a candidate is an accomplished researcher or has the potential to be, schools don’t really care if students can understand them or not.

The simple solution is for institutions to prioritize teaching, or at least make it equal to research. Honestly, most of what passes for “research” these days is either derivative naval-gazing or unreproducible nonsense; only a relative handful of professors are doing truly groundbreaking work in any field. The rest should be expected to teach more and publish less, and be evaluated accordingly. Departments, too, should be judged primarily on how well students learn in their classes, not on how many journal articles they produce or how much grant money they generate.

With a renewed emphasis on teaching, departments might start to care a little more about whether students can actually understand their professors and make that an integral part of the screening process for new faculty. Some institutions already do this, but every candidate for a faculty position should have to give a public presentation that students are encouraged to attend—bribed with food, if necessary—and their opinions solicited.

In that way, perhaps we can eventually move beyond this frankly untenable situation in which even our brightest students sometimes struggle to pick up on important concepts. We might be pleasantly surprised at how much and how fast they learn once they actually understand what their professors are saying.

Financial centers are a core pillar of the modern economy, channeling capital, facilitating trade, and driving innovation across the world.

In this graphic, Visual Capitalist’s Marcus Lu visualized the world’s top 40 most competitive financial centers, using data from the 37th edition of the Global Financial Centres Index (GFCI 37).

Data & Methodology

The GFCI 37 was compiled using 140 quantitative measures from sources like the World Bank, OECD, and UN.

These measures are combined with assessments collected by respondents to the GFCI online questionnaire. In total, the GFCI 37 used 31,314 assessments from 4,946 respondents.

The data we used to create this graphic is listed below.

Areas of Competitiveness

The quantitative factors used in the GFCI model are grouped into five areas of competitiveness:

• Business environment: Transparency and stability of systems, regulatory complexity

• Human capital: Access to skill professionals, investment in education

• Infrastructure: Quality of physical and digital infrastructure

• Financial sector development: Accessibility to clients, development of digital solutions

• Reputation: Trustworthiness of legal and regulatory systems

Regional Insights

We’ve summarized the main highlights from each GFCI region below.

North America

North America has four centers in the top 10: New York, San Francisco, Chicago, and Los Angeles. The most improved within North America are Miami and Vancouver, which both climbed over 10 places in the ranking.

Western Europe

London is the region’s dominant center, with seven other cities featuring in the top 20. The average rating across Western Europe increased by 2.14%.

Asia Pacific

Asia Pacific has six centers in the top 20, with four belonging to China (Hong Kong SAR, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Beijing). Looking elsewhere, Hangzhou, New Delhi, Kuala Lumpur, Ho Chi Minh City, and Manila all rose six or more places.

Middle East & Africa

The region’s leading centers are Dubai and Abu Dhabi, with Dubai climbing four places to 12th in GFCI 37. Meanwhile, Tel Aviv, Kuwait City, and Johannesburg each fell more than 10 places.

Latin America & The Caribbean

São Paulo rose seven places this year, making it the leading financial center in the region.

If you enjoyed today’s post, check out Billion Dollar Companies by Country in 2025 on Voronoi, the new app from Visual Capitalist.

Former FBI Director James Comey posted a photo of sea shells arranged into the numbers “86 47” on his Instagram account today, before shortly deleting the post.

The immediately preceding post shows Comey lounging at the beach while pretending to read his own crime novel, his presence at the beach lending to the fact that this was not a hack.

Many are blasting Comey for issuing a not-so-thinly-veiled threat at sitting President Donald Trump, including the President’s son and Congressman Andy Biggs:

Just James Comey causally calling for my dad to be murdered.

This is who the Dem-Media worships. Demented!!!! pic.twitter.com/4LUK6crHAT

— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 15, 2025

Disgraced former FBI Director James @Comey is calling for President Trump to be eliminated.

cc: @FBIDirectorKash @FBIDDBongino pic.twitter.com/4R0s1Eo4Z4

— Rep Andy Biggs (@RepAndyBiggsAZ) May 15, 2025

And here is his explanation for the ‘shells’ and the deletion…

…you simply cannot make this shit up!!!

And we screen-grabbed this before it was deleted too – oh the inspiration…

Runs in the family…

As covered previously in a ZeroHedge piece titled “From Epstein To Diddy: Spotlight Shines On James Comey’s Prosecutor Daughter”, Comey’s offspring smell a little swampy as well. From the piece:

In a thinly covered news story from December that’s suddenly relevant again (read on), New York Prosecutor Maurene Comey – whose father James Comey famously refused to prosecute Hillary Clinton for mishandling classified information & then participated in the Russia collusion hoax – joined the prosecution against Combs. The younger Comey has previously worked as lead prosecutor on both the Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell cases, as well as that of former Epstein cellmate Nicholas Tartaglione.

…

Maurene Comey becamse a US attorney in the Southern District of New York in 2015.

In 2019, when she was just 30-years-old, Comey became one of the lead prosecutors in the Jeffrey Epstein case before he was found dead in his jail cell in August 2019.

Two years later, she became one of three lead prosecutors in the trial of Ghislaine Maxwell, Epstein’s partner in crime and daughter of suspected Mossad operative Robert Maxwell. 

Before becoming a US attorney, Comey clerked for US District Court chief judge Loretta Preska of the SDNY – who notably oversaw a long-running defamation case filed by Epstein victim Virginia Giuffre against Maxwell.

Comey was also involved in the case of Nicholas Tartaglione, a former NYPD officer who was convicted of killing four men in 2016, and who was briefly Epstein’s cellmate in the Manhattan Metro Correctional Center. Tartaglione claims to have helped Epstein after ‘finding him unconscious’ (and totally not trying to kill him) prior to Epstein’s actual death.

In 2016, Tartaglione suspected a man named Martin Luna had stolen money from him – for which “Tartaglione tortured Martin and then forced one of Martin’s nephews to watch as he strangled him to death with a zip-tie,” according to a statement by the US Attorney’s Office.

Two days after Epstein’s death, NY Times reporter James B Stewart, who had spent 90 minutes with Epstein a year prior, wrote “The overriding impression I took away from our roughly 90-minute conversation was that Mr. Epstein knew an astonishing number of rich, famous and powerful people, and had photos to prove it. He also claimed to know a great deal about these people, some of it potentially damaging or embarrassing, including details about their supposed sexual proclivities and recreational drug use.

And so, whether this is just a case of ‘it’s a small world’ or something a little (or a lot) less innocent, James Comey’s daughter is now involved in a second case where high-profile celebrities and politicians may have been secretly filmed engaging in sexual activity with minors.

Comey’s deep state tentacles make the cryptic Instragram post that much more unsettling. Might there be some hints in Comey’s shitty novel? Donald Barr’s Space Relations anyone?

On Tuesday, Montana State Governor Greg Gianforte announced that he had signed a bill into law banning the manufacturing and sale of lab-grown meat. 

“So-called “lab-grown meat” has no place in Montana,” Gov. Gianforte wrote on X, adding, “By signing HB 401 into law, I am proud to defend our way of life and the hardworking Montana ranchers who produce the best beef in the world.”

So-called “lab-grown meat” has no place in Montana.

By signing HB 401 into law, I am proud to defend our way of life and the hardworking Montana ranchers who produce the best beef in the world. pic.twitter.com/INc2WuAvNI

— Governor Greg Gianforte (@GovGianforte) May 13, 2025

Montana is now the fifth state in the nation to pass legislation prohibiting lab-cultivated proteins. The push comes after concurrent Biden-era policies that simultaneously created a loophole for safety testing while prioritizing lab-cultivated proteins as “Climate-Friendly” ahead of labeling requirements. 

Not exactly a drug, but not necessarily food harvested in nature, in 2019, Congress directed the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) to establish a formal agreement delineating each agency’s responsibilities for regulating lab-made or “cellular-cultivated” meat.

By early 2021, the Biden administration prioritized lab-made meat products as a “Climate-Smart” Agricultural alternative, promising a fast track to manufacturers Good Meat Inc and the Bill Gates-backed Upside Foods.

By 2023, the FDA had issued a “No Questions Asked” approval for lab-cultivated “chicken cells with characteristics of fibroblasts.” 

While the USDA does not regulate processed food, the agreement stipulated that the USDA’s Food Safety Inspection Service (FSIS) would be handed off regulatory oversight “at the point of harvest.” 

Bureaucratic translation: The USDA’s regulatory role would be limited to “labeling and sanitation.” 

While sanitation seems fairly straightforward, it’s the labeling requirement – which has yet to materialize – that has state lawmakers pumping the brakes.

Since early 2020, FSIS has gone round-after-round with “stakeholders” about what to call this petri-dish creation. During the last round of “name the thingamajig” stakeholders warned the FSIS that transparent labeling would “hamper innovation,” and “violate the First Amendment.”

To-date, the USDA has not fulfilled its regulatory role, according to the delineated agreement. To be fair, the FDA didn’t exactly uphold its end of the bargain either with fast-tracked “No Questions” approvals. 

Some employees are comparing the lab-grown meat startup, Upside Foods, to Theranos.

“Are we the next Theranos?” asks one former employee. “People are being lied to, but no one is going to die. Ideally.”

“Batches of meat growing in the custom-made bioreactors would frequently… pic.twitter.com/2kMhz7ZOju

— Meat Head (@markeatsmeat) September 27, 2023

Even as whistleblowers were equating lab-made meats to the next Theranos, the “Big 4” meat packers began rapidly investing billions to replace ranchers with biotech.

With the FDA’s blessing and zero red tape requiring transparent labeling, companies like JBS, Tyson, and Cargill have quickly begun producing lab-grown beef, cultured chicken, pork, fish, sausages, burgers, meatballs, and other prepared foods.

While some argue that state-level bans harm the free market, local lawmakers see them as part of a larger fight to preserve Western values.

“Agriculture is our state’s number one industry, and this bill takes a clear stand to protect our ranchers and our food supply,” Montana State Rep. Braxton Mitchell said. “We won’t let synthetic products with misleading labels undercut the hard work of Montana’s farm and ranch families.”

*   *   * 

We’ve launched a “Rancher-Direct” e-commerce platform to secure access to clean, American-raised beef sourced from independent ranchers across the country.

Eat real food. Very simple.

Authored by Steve Watson via modernity.news,

Hillary Clinton can’t help herself when it comes to President Trump, posting on X Wednesday “No one gives someone a $400 million jet for free without expecting anything in return. Be serious,” in reference to Trump’s acceptance of a luxury Boeing 747 from Qatar’s royal family.

Everyone quickly pointed out the hypocrisy, given the Clinton Foundation’s history of accepting substantial donations from Arab states, including Qatar, during her tenure as Secretary of State.

The Clinton Foundation has received over $40 million from Arab countries like Saudi Arabia and the UAE, and even accepted a $1 million gift from Qatar in 2011 without informing the State Department, despite Clinton’s agreement to disclose such contributions for review.

No one gives someone a $400 million dollar jet for free without expecting anything in return. Be serious.

— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) May 14, 2025

Respondents noted that Clinton’s post, comments closed as ever, reopened scrutiny of her own ethical lapses, with many pointing out that she’s the last person who should be commenting on this matter.

what did Qatar want from you https://t.co/l3lIEp1zw3 pic.twitter.com/pog3p2KnJ1

— Jerry Dunleavy IV 🇺🇸 (@JerryDunleavy) May 14, 2025

Clinton’s out here tweeting “be serious” about Trump’s plane while her Foundation’s Qatari cash begs for a mirror.

Reminder, the Clinton Foundation received more than $40 million from four Arab states including Qatar https://t.co/2ijleAMBE6 pic.twitter.com/gbC2AcFXvT

— Ryan James Girdusky (@RyanGirdusky) May 14, 2025

Her money laundering front Foundation is basically an ATM for Arab donors.

Be serious. Nobody give millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation without expecting anything in return. Be serious. https://t.co/IqHMYunYeR pic.twitter.com/VeHpLkzG9B

— Soquel by the Creek (@SoquelCreek) May 14, 2025

She’s permanently residing in a glass house.

Locking the replies gives the game away. She knows we know and yet

— Thomas Raffles (@TomRafflesJr) May 14, 2025

No one tweets that stuff without expecting the replies. Be serious.

— Amelia (@AmeliaHammy) May 14, 2025

Hillary was on speed dial for Qatari cash.

This from someone who jetted around the world collecting “donations” and depositing them in the Clinton Foundation.

— Random Observer (@WilburFudd) May 14, 2025

It’s OK when they do it!

Although that is some of the best expert testimony on subject matter I’ve ever seen. If anyone knows about bribes and graft, it’s the Clintons.

— Frank Mustafa (@FrankMustafaDJ) May 14, 2025

The Uranium One scandal was also referenced, with claims that Clinton facilitated a deal benefiting Russian interests after donations to her foundation, further fueling accusations of double standards.

If there was ever a topic that Hillary Clinton specifically should stay out of it’s suspicious foreign transactions that have the stink of “pay for play” about them https://t.co/DXAHTsWvh5

— Enguerrand VII de Coucy (@ingelramdecoucy) May 14, 2025

This is the biggest self-own in the history of the internet. https://t.co/4Xj1uXoPs4

— Couldn’t Be Papa P (@CouldntBePapaP) May 14, 2025

The Pay for Play Queen has thoughts, y’all. https://t.co/BIWieTzyhN

— Inappropriate Ray of ☀️ (Sworn Enemy of Rufus!) (@MrsRotnjetski) May 14, 2025

You ran a pay for play State Dept, so maybe you should sit this one out, you braying harpy https://t.co/rsqsPHJr3X

— CarolinaConservative3 (@1776Carolina3) May 14, 2025

Hillary isn’t getting an award for self-awareness any time soon.

This Is The Last Thing Hillary Clinton Should Be Talking About…

Excellent point, @HillaryClinton. No one knows this better than you.

To use a random example in support of your assertion, let’s look at foreign government contributions to the Clinton Foundation while you held positions of influence in government vs. contributions after you… https://t.co/iXP3KCH2lW pic.twitter.com/3kD8G5WdqV

— Jason Beale (@jabeale) May 14, 2025

How about that Qatari fan mail.

I swear she posts these on purpose https://t.co/8Fh45uPCgv

— LB (@beyondreasdoubt) May 14, 2025

She is the master of unintended self-owns.

— Jeffrey A. Setaro (@jasetaro) May 14, 2025

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