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University of Michigan to Bury Grades for First Year Students Starting in 2027 to ‘Curb the Mental Health Crisis’

Starting in 2027, the University of Michigan is changing from letter grades to system of pass or incomplete for first year students, claiming that they are doing it to ‘curb’ the mental health crisis.

If you can’t handle getting a letter grade that you don’t like, maybe you are the problem. Maybe you’re just not ready for college.

This is just more coddling, safe space nonsense that higher education has become known for in recent years.

Campus Reform reported on this:

UMich to bury first-semester grades in bid to ‘curb the mental health crisis’

The University of Michigan’s College of Literature, Science, and the Arts (LSA) will stop reporting traditional letter grades on first-semester transcripts for incoming freshmen beginning in Fall 2027, replacing them with “pass” or “no credit” designations as part of a pilot program aimed at reducing student stress and curbing a “mental health crisis”.

Students will still earn letter grades and receive instructor feedback in every course. However, those grades will remain internal, will not appear on official transcripts, and will not affect first-semester GPAs.

University officials say the policy is intended to help freshmen transition to college, support student well-being, and encourage students to take academically challenging courses without worrying that one difficult semester could permanently affect their records.

”We believe that covering grades will help students start strong and curb the mental health crisis unfolding among college-aged individuals,” the policy page states.

The school argues the program will shift students’ focus from grades to learning by promoting collaboration over competition and allowing freshmen to explore unfamiliar subjects without fear of damaging their GPAs.

America desperately needs more young people to go to trade schools and learn to fix things. Mike Rowe has been sounding the alarm about that for years.

If college students want less stress, they should consider learning to weld or becoming a plumber. The income will be better and there will be less student loan debt involved.

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The Old Are Volunteering the Young for War

According to the European Council on Foreign Relations, support for mandatory military service reached 62% in France, 53% in Germany, and 51% in Poland. Yet the most revealing numbers appear when the German results are divided by age, because net opposition among those aged 18 to 29 reached 46%, while net support among respondents over 70 stood at 49%.

The people safely beyond military age are volunteering the young for war. They will not receive the draft notice, undergo the medical examination, surrender their careers, or be ordered into a trench. They will watch the war on television while congratulating themselves for supporting “national service,” as if clicking yes in a poll were an act of personal courage.

There is something profoundly immoral about demanding a sacrifice that you will never be required to make. If those over 70 believe so passionately in military service, governments can create senior battalions and hand them the rifles first. Let the politicians, retired bureaucrats, television commentators, and comfortable academics who preach war demonstrate their convictions personally before they conscript an 18-year-old who wants nothing to do with their geopolitical fantasies.

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Chris Cuomo Tries to Play Dumb on DSA Radicals: ‘Who’s a Communist?’

During a conversation about the rise of the DSA on NewsNation, Chris Cuomo tried to play dumb, asking Bill O’Reilly, ‘Who’s a communist?’

O’Reilly schooled him and you can read and watch their exchange below.

This is an important moment to remember. From now until November, there will be numerous exchanges like this one, where a liberal media type will completely downplay the DSA, their goals, and their own words.

Multiple high ranking members of the DSA are on camera saying that communism is the ultimate goal of their movement.

Transcript via NewsBusters:

CHRIS CUOMO: Look, we see this all the time, which is: in the primary, we hate each other, but then when it’s against the other guys, especially in this toxic to some that are talk, party politics is we got to come together. Because the last thing we want is, you know, as Democrats would say, is another Trumper, especially in a blue seat. So, I don’t understand that motivation.

BILL O’REILLY: Then I will enlighten you.

CUOMO: Please.

O’REILLY: There’s hasn’t been, in my lifetime, a movement as radical as a Bernie-Sanders-led progressive movement. This took me by surprise on – Two years ago, if you were to say ‘Hey, there’s going to be a big communist element and it’s going to get traction.’ I would have went, ‘what are you talking about Albania?’

CUOMO (interrupting): But who’s a communist? Who’s a communist? Who? Who’s a columnist?

O’REILLY: The means of production is what people like Mamdani want to control. All you got to do is look it up. Okay, the means of production. They wants to control that

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Denmark Is Drafting Its Youth for Europe’s Manufactured War

Reuters reports that 1,600 Danish recruits began an expanded 11-month term of military service on August 3, up from only four months under the previous system. Denmark has extended conscription to women, plans to increase the annual intake from roughly 5,000 to 7,500 by 2033, and will send conscripts to Greenland for the first time. Europe is not preparing for peace. It is preparing an entire generation for a war its political class refuses to prevent.

The new Danish program requires five months of basic training followed by six months of operational service. New tracks include drone warfare, and more than 100 conscripts will be sent to Greenland to assume military duties previously performed by professional soldiers. The government calls this security. I call it the gradual conversion of ordinary citizens into military assets for politicians who have spent years escalating every dispute they could have negotiated.

Denmark still uses volunteers before filling vacancies through a lottery, but a lottery backed by state coercion is still conscription. Every healthy man and woman who turns 18 enters a system that can seize nearly one year of life because politicians in Copenhagen, Brussels, and NATO have decided that Russia represents a permanent threat. When voluntary recruitment no longer supplies enough bodies, the meaning of “service” will become much clearer.

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Public Restroom in Los Angeles That Cost $1 MILLION to Build, Still Not Open Six Months After Completion

The city of Los Angeles spent a million dollars building a public restroom and six months after its completion, it’s still not open to the public.

This is a perfect example of government mismanagement. It also explains why it has been so difficult to rebuild there after the wildfires that happened over a year and a half ago. The city and state are drowning in red tape that comes in the form of permits and inspections.

To add irony to the situation, this restroom is in the district of Nithya Raman, the DSA candidate running for mayor of the city.

The New York Post reports:

Six months after completion, $1M Runyon Canyon restroom in Nithya Raman’s district still closed

Los Angeles hikers are fuming over a nearly $1 million public restroom that remains locked and fenced off six months after it was installed at Runyon Canyon.

The two-stall prefabricated facility was delivered by crane in February near the popular park’s Fuller Avenue entrance following months of controversy over its eye-popping price tag.

But despite the stalls, sinks, sidewalks and lighting appearing to be in place, visitors still can’t use it.

“I’ve had some close calls. I had to improvise, but that’s all I’ll say. I don’t want to incriminate myself,” frequent Runyon Canyon visitor Josh told FOX 11.

Construction began in January and was expected to take about 15 weeks, according to the Council District 4 website, which would have put completion around April or May.

The city later said the restroom was expected to open sometime this summer.

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Conservative National Review Urges Trump Impeachment Over Latest Grift

On Wednesday, the National Review – the preeminent conservative magazine since 1955 — called it: President Donald Trump has done the “impeachable.”

“There is no plausible defense of Trump’s TruthSocial scheme,” declared National Review Senior Editor Charles Cooke. “It is flagrantly corrupt. It is impeachable. Congress should intervene. (It won’t, I know.)” He posted this assertion over his latest article, entitled “Truth Social’s Early-Access Scheme Is Indefensible.”

As he explains, over the weekend, the Trump Media & Technology Group announced the creation of a “real-time feed on the Truth Social website that will give paying institutions early access to certain high-profile posts for between $60,000 and $100,000 per month.” Cooke doesn’t hold back with his assessment of the scheme, writing, “There is no credible defense of this. The only reason that anyone would want priority access to Truth Social is to gain priority access to President Trump’s pronouncements on that platform. And the only reason that anyone would want priority access to President Trump’s pronouncements on that platform is to act on them for pecuniary gain.”

As Cooke elaborates, “Trump often uses Truth Social as the primary forum for his announcements — announcements that include changes to personnel, the imposition or rescission of tariffs, key foreign policy decisions, and more. These announcements are extremely useful to financial institutions, and, in the age of high-speed trading, the faster those financial institutions can obtain them, the more money those financial institutions can make. Facilitating this access is not a byproduct of Truth Social’s API offering; it is its core — perhaps its sole — purpose. Simply put: President Trump is charging Americans a fee — a fee that, in part, goes into his family’s pockets — for the privilege of receiving news about his official actions earlier than those who do not pay.”

According to Cooke, it is “obvious how unequivocally corrupt this setup is. Technically speaking, the beneficiaries will not gain the information they seek directly from Trump himself, but indirectly, via an API (Application Programming Interface) whose output will be processed by a bunch of semi-autonomous servers and acted upon according to a set of predetermined parameters. But the results will be the same as if Trump had personally picked up the phone.”

He continues, “Good traders do not react to the news on the fly; they have plans of action, which are to be implemented if a war starts or ends, if taxes are raised or cut, if the Federal Reserve’s next chairman is expected to be hawkish, dovish, or somewhere in between, and so on. If, instead of using Truth Social as the middleman, President Trump announced that, for a hefty annual charge, he would call a select group of brokers at the stock exchange to inform them of his important decisions, and thereby give them a head start in executing their plans, we would call that what it is: corruption. Why not here?”

Here Cooke concludes in rare agreement with Democratic lawmakers, writing, “Senators Warren and Schiff have described Trump’s plan as ‘an outrageous abuse of the President’s office for his personal benefit that undermines everyday investors and the integrity of our markets, while enriching Wall Street and other wealthy insiders.’ They are correct… It is certainly a grave offense against honesty, transparency, and good government. If it has any self-respect, Congress will respond to the president’s brazen provocation by passing a law that renders his model flatly illegal. And, if that fails to persuade him, it will impeach and remove him from office, the better to drain the swamp.”

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The Normalcy of American Wars

The war in Iran is unlawful and unconstitutional, but in post-World War II America, it is normal. Here is the backstory.

When President Donald Trump decided to begin bombing Iran last June, he did not state a coherent or lawful reason for doing so. His director of national intelligence and his own CIA had publicly told him that Iran did not possess a nuclear weapon and had ceased building one in 2005.

His secretary of state told him that Iran and Israel had threatened each other, but he could not articulate how Iran imminently threatened the United States. Yet, since Israel planned to attack Iran, he wanted the U.S. to help Israel do so. This was not a lawful request as the U.S. has no treaty with Israel and, under treaties to which the U.S. is a party, the legal bases for all offensive wars can only be treaty compliance or prevention of an imminent attack.

When Trump addressed the nation, his helter-skelter rationale argued for replacing Iran’s government, destroying its civilian-use enriched uranium, destroying its ability to build a bomb it wasn’t building, and neutralizing its offensive and defensive weaponry. None of these goals was lawful; nor was attacking a Tehran girls school. There was no mention of an imminent attack on the U.S. or the economic effect of war on the vital international oil super-highway, the Strait of Hormuz.

No one in Trump’s inner circle registered disagreement, except his vice president and his director of counterterrorism. They told him there was no legal or constitutional basis for his war.

They were correct, but Trump had history on his side.

For much of American history, presidents have steadily accumulated the power to wage war while Congress has gradually surrendered the constitutional authority that the Framers explicitly entrusted to it. This transformation has weakened constitutional checks and balances, expanded executive power beyond its constitutional limits, claimed millions of lives, cost trillions of dollars, and repeatedly drawn the United States into conflicts that had little or nothing to do with defending America.

The Constitution is remarkably clear on the question of war. Article I grants Congress · not the president · the power to declare war. The president, under Article II, wages war, but only after Congress has authorized it.

James Madison argued that the executive branch is the branch “most interested in war, and most prone to it,” which is precisely why the Constitution deliberately divided the war power.

The Framers believed that no single individual should possess the authority to plunge the nation into armed conflict, yet over the past eight decades, presidents of both political parties have steadily ignored these constitutional limits.

President Harry Truman committed hundreds of thousands of American troops to combat in Korea without obtaining a declaration of war from Congress because he said U.S. troops there constituted a “police action.”

The pattern only intensified during the Vietnam War. Although Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, it was based on a fraud and effectively delegated its congressional constitutional responsibility to the president. The result was years of escalating conflict that ultimately claimed the lives of more than 58,000 Americans and millions of Vietnamese while achieving none of its stated objectives.

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Hamas-Tied CAIR Gave El-Sayed Over $100,000

The new Michigan Democrat Senate candidate received a large donation from a terrorist front group, which also endorsed him in the primary.

Abdul El-Sayed won the Democrat Senate primary and will face Republican Mike Rogers in a key race in the midterm election. More ominously, between employees and leaders of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), El-Sayed has raised over $115,000. But CAIR is little more than a front group for Islamic jihad, with close ties to Hamas.

Fox News reviewed evidence that resulted in the exposé on El-Sayed, who ironically has made “money out of politics” a rallying cry in his campaign. Then again, Democrats always lie, and Muslims believe lying to infidels for the sake of jihad is praiseworthy (taqiyya), so it is hardly surprising that El-Sayed is a hypocrite.

CAIR’s national Board Chair Manal Fakhoury, national Vice Chair Emad Sabbah, national Board Treasurer Eyas Abdeen, and CAIR-Michigan board member Jukaku Tayeb all donated to El-Sayed. And Tayeb also just happens to be El-Sayed’s father-in-law. Jihad is all the family, it seems.

Tayeb has been one of the largest financial backers of the super PAC supporting El-Sayed’s campaign and is also part of the founding committee of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), a group linked to Hamas and Muslim Brotherhood funding … One donor, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad, listed in FEC records under the name Nehad Hammad, drew national condemnation after saying he was “happy” to see Hamas break out of Gaza on Oct. 7, 2023, and arguing Israel “does not have the right to self-defense” as an occupying power.

Fox News also found that members of CAIR chapters in Arizona, California, Texas, Georgia, Illinois, Washington, Minnesota, and Ohio donated to El-Sayed. CAIR publishes a list of candidates it wishes to see win their elections, and its voting guide for the Michigan primary listed El-Sayed as its very first endorsement.

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Baltic Republics Foment Crises With Russia

Historically, one of the greatest dangers to a major power in the international system is letting smaller allies and clients drag that power into an unwise war. Both the United States and leading European powers seem inclined to make that blunder with respect to the Baltic republics. Too many U.S. policymakers have not only tolerated but also facilitated the obsession those “allies” (i.e. protectorates) have exhibited with defeating Russia in Ukraine and weakening their arch adversary overall.

The belligerent behavior of some of NATO’s smallest members creates the prospect of disastrous results in Europe and beyond. A crucial policymaker, Kaja Kallas, is a former prime minister of Estonia and now serves as the European Union’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy and Vice‑President of the European Commission. That does not help matters. Kallas is not only one of Ukraine’s most avid supporters, but is also an outspoken Russophobe on a wide range of issues. Kallas has received strong, vocal support from Dutch-born Ursula von der Leyen, an influential German politician and currently President of the European Commission.

Kallas has repeatedly pressed her EU colleagues as well as NATO officials and policymakers in other European governments to make no concessions to Russia with respect to territorial or other issues involving Ukraine. Any compromises, she contends, would reward Moscow’s aggression, and increase the risk of a much larger war.

The former Estonian leader combines such policy rigidity with an alarming degree of arrogance and overconfidence about Europe’s power. In one speech, Kallas asserted that if NATO simply stayed united on policy, Russia stood no chance of prevailing in Ukraine or of achieving any of its other objectives. Horrific wars have emerged throughout history from far less hubris than she routinely displays with respect to the democratic West’s policy toward Russia.

The centerpiece of the current effort by leaders of the Baltic states to exacerbate tensions with Moscow is a propaganda campaign asserting that the Kremlin is plotting to launch military attacks on vulnerable NATO members in the near future. In mid-July, the presidents of Lithuania and Latvia warned that Russia “may be preparing ‘limited kinetic operations’ against NATO’s eastern-flank infrastructure to test Article 5” – the provision in the North Atlantic Treaty proclaiming that an attack on any Alliance member will be considered an attack on all. Latvian President Edgars Rinkēvičs asserted that “The next few months, or even the next 12 months, will be crucial for Baltic security.”

Predictably, Russian officials dismissed the warnings as cynical cover for NATO’s own military buildup in the Baltic region. There is no question that such a provocative campaign by the Western powers has taken place and continues to do so. Indeed, a sizable buildup of NATO air, naval, and ground forces has been occurring for years. One important move was the re-deployment of U.S. F-22 fighter planes to Estonia from Poland in the spring of 2023. The most significant Russian provocations have been repeated spy plane incursions into the airspace of the Baltic republics and Russia’s other neighbors. Similar maritime incidents have taken place involving Russian naval and civilian vessels. Although Moscow’s moves are foolish and needlessly antagonistic, they are hardly in the same category as the major NATO buildups of troops, warplanes, and naval vessels.

Alarmist warnings from the Baltic governments also are nothing new, so cynical American observers might be tempted to respond to the latest flurry with indifference. However, Poland – a much more significant political and military player than the tiny Baltic countries–has been outlining similar alarming scenarios. There have been numerous warnings in recent weeks by Polish politicians, following multiple media reports that Russia could carry out a limited military or hybrid provocation against Poland in the near future. In late June 2026, a leading Polish outlet called onet.pl reported that U.S. intelligence had alerted its Polish counterparts about the possibility of a Russian attack. Prime Minister Donald Tusk said on July 3 that the warnings should be taken seriously and noted that he had been issuing similar alerts for weeks. “Poland is preparing very intensively for various scenarios,” Tusk said.

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Now We Have Proof the Democrats’ Anti-Trump Lawfare Was Never About the Law

Long before Donald Trump took the oath of office for his second term — heck, before he was even reelected — Democrat state attorneys general were already building the machine designed to stop him.

Records show that at least 22 Democrat attorneys general joined a coalition called the Project for Federal Accountability starting in April 2024, roughly seven months before Trump defeated Kamala Harris. Seven attorneys general signed the agreement on April 28, 2024. Thirteen more joined in May and June.

The pact was called “Privileged & Confidential Common Interest Agreement.” It was built to do exactly what it sounds like: Keep the states’ coordination hidden from the public and from anyone who might dare oppose them in court. The signers said they wanted to pursue their shared legal interests “while avoiding any waiver of the confidentiality of those privileged materials.” Translation: Total secrecy while colluding against a sitting president who hadn’t even taken office yet.

To me, the most significant part of this pact is that Biden was still in the race when the first signatures went on that agreement in April 2024. He wouldn’t drop out for nearly three months. The sitting Democrat president was telling the country he intended to serve another term, the party was acting like he was going to win, all while Democrat attorneys general were already plotting to stop Trump upon his inevitable return to office.

The coalition had already divided up legal research by topic, built a shared “brief bank” of pre-drafted briefs, and pored over the Project 2025 policy blueprint hunting for lawsuit targets. Trump hadn’t signed a bill. He hadn’t issued an executive order. He hadn’t taken any official action as president, because he wasn’t president yet. None of that mattered. The lawsuits were already being written.

Since Trump’s second term began, Democrat attorneys general have sued his administration close to 100 times. California Attorney General Rob Bonta (D-Calif.) has taken part in 82 of those lawsuits. Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser (D-Colo.) has joined at least 75. Washington Attorney General Nick Brown (D-Wash.) has joined 70.

Bonta insists the coalition’s work is “apolitical.” Seriously? He also said, “If (Trump) doesn’t want to get sued, all he has to do is follow the law,” adding, “I don’t think our cases are likely to be dismissed… Trump shows no sign of slowing down, so we will continue to sue him.”

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown (D-Md.) claims the early coordination was reasonable preparation once Trump’s nomination looked inevitable, but this confirms that the strategy was always about resistance, not the rule of law.

Even people outside the conservative media world find this strange. Retired Connecticut judge Thomas Moukawsher mocked the coalition’s chosen name: “‘Federal Accountability?’ That’s just a little strange.” 

Former Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, a Republican who now often votes for Democrats, called the secrecy “not normal at all.”

You think?

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