On this episode of Network reACTS, Neeraja Deshpande, Policy Analyst at Independent Women, is joined by Beth Parlato, Senior Legal Advisor at Independent Women’s Law Center, to discuss parents’ rights under the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) to access their children’s education records.
Resources Mentioned:
Know Your Rights: Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA)
On this episode of Network reACTS, Christy Narsi, National Chapter Director of Independent Women’s Network, talks with Bronwyn Sims, IWN’s Southern New Hampshire Chapter Leader, about the fight to clearly define “woman” in law, advocacy around HB 148, and efforts to protect single-sex spaces in New Hampshire.
Even fully paid-up members of the let sleeping dogs lie club must sit up and take notice.
When respected George Washington University law professor and Fox Contributor Jonathan Turley writes a column like this, you know Russia collusion-gate has legs. Here’s Turley’s headline:
Democrats pulled the greatest political con job ever on Americans. It’s finally unraveling
Turley writes:
This week, Washington was rocked by new releases in the declassification of material related to the origins of the Russian investigation. The material shows further evidence of a secret plan by the Clinton campaign to use the FBI and media to spread a false claim that Donald Trump was a Russian asset. With this material, the public is finally seeing how officials and reporters set into motion what may be the greatest hoax ever perpetrated in American politics.
What is emerging in these documents is a political illusion carefully constructed by government officials and a willing media. The brilliance of the trick was getting reporters to buy into the illusion; to own it like members of an audience called to the stage by an illusionist.
Similarly sober-minded is Douglas Murray, who argues that “it’s important to get answers to Hillary’s RussiaGate plot.” The latest cache of documents to be declassified were the “annex” to the Special Counsel John Durham’s investigation. You’ll never guess where they apparently were:
Alas, the day is here: the annex to the Durham report, the investigation into the origins of the Russian collusion hoax that former Attorney General William Barr initiated, has been declassified and released. It was discovered in the FBI burn bags by Director Kash Patel.
It wasn’t just this file—thousands of documents related to the Russian interference investigation that the Obama DOJ, or lack thereof, conducted. The annex is clear about a few things, some of which you’ve already read about from Katie.
The annex material is two things: extremely juicy and deeply troubling. Shawn Fleetwood of The Federalist examines Soros executive, who predicted that the FBI would “put more oil into the fire” to help the hoax along. The Federalist’s Margot Cleveland says the legacy media hasn’t woken up to the Russia hoax but the public has. Meanwhile, investigative reporter John Solomon says the annex is the “smoking gun.”
The Democrats have been “rending their garments and screaming their hatred for Donald Trump” since before 2016, but it’s not working says Liberal Patriot Ruy Teixeira. Teixeira advises them too “give up on #Resistance 2.0.” Teixeira writes:
In short, voters get that Democrats hate Trump; they’ve already priced that in. Endlessly reminding voters of that fact and how Trump must be #Resisted! does nothing to change Democrats’ fundamental problem: voters neither like nor trust them and therefore do not find them an obvious choice over their opponents.
Not everybody got the memo, as a frail old man who emerged from somewhere to deliver an incoherent address last night obviously didn’t. Also unemployed, Kamala Harris was on Stephen Colbert (ditto employment status) last night, where she peddled her new book—“107 Days”—you should go on Amazon just to read the summary–hilarious.
The New York Post cover this morning is the sea of blue at the funeral of hero NYPD Officer Didarul Islam, who was murdered in the Midtown Manhattan rampage. “The Most New York Story There Is” is the headline, a reference to the fallen Officer as the son of both New York and Bangladesh. Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch delivered an emotional eulogy.
“She Was Murdered in Midtown. The Internet Celebrated It” is The Free Press headline on a story about another casualty of the Midtown murders (I prefer “casualty to victim;”they fell in a war against civilization), Wesley LePatner. The TFP subhead:
Wesley LePatner was a mother, a wife, and a beloved boss. But to a growing number of people, she was a symbol of everything they hate.
Ms. LePatner was an executive at Blackstone, known as a mentor to young women.
The New York Post has published a disturbing picture of the face of Holly, the woman brutally beaten in the viral Cincinnati beatdown:
The woman viciously pummeled in a viral Cincinnati brawl has returned home to Russia — as relatives of one of the attackers claim the brutal beatdown is only drawing national outrage because the victim is white, according to reports.
The female victim — identified as Holly by a US senator from Ohio — was left with a gruesome black eye, busted lip, and bruises covering her face and neck after being knocked out during the horrifying melee that erupted in the city’s downtown early Saturday, shocking footage and photos showed.
Holly is also a casualty in a war against civilization.
A Cincinnati City Counsel member, you might recall, gloated that Holly and other casualties deserved the beatings because of their race. Victor Davis Hanson writes about the “the Cincinnati copouts.” Hanson cites four oddities in the attacks:
Three, there was neither a police presence nor any timely Good Samaritan interventions.
Instead, what ended the attacks was simply the fact that at least two of the targets appeared nearly comatose. So their assailants apparently concluded that their agenda of beating whites into unconsciousness was mostly complete.
Four, oddly few of the usual black spokespeople who habitually comment on interracial violence were to be seen.
Fox viewers will know about the Cincinnati brawl, but the three major broadcast networks did not cover it.
And now for some non-violent, good news.
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel writes this morning “The Rise of the Climate Right.” The headline is a big misleading. You imagine RINOs protesting in favor of stringent net zero regulations. But that’s not what it is:
Something important happened this week, if the fuming response is anything to go by. The country is witnessing the rise—finally—of a scientifically armed and debate-ready climate right. The “consensus” gatekeepers don’t like it one bit.
The Energy Department issued a report whose title might glaze eyes: “A Critical Review of Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Emissions on the U.S. Climate.” The New York Times, foaming with indignation, rolled out every shame word to denounce the report’s authors as “skeptics” who “misrepresent” and “cherry-pick” as they “undermine” and “attack” the “consensus.” This fury was at striking odds with the smug “we’ve won” tone of recent climate journalism.
First Democrats said President Trump would crash the economy and when that didn’t happen, they said the Trump economy is a mirage, according to a column by Examiner Chief Political Correspondent Byron York. Byron writes:
First of all, there’s no doubt that an annual GDP growth of 3.0% is a good report. But, just as the first quarter figure was low because of tariff-related increased imports, so the second quarter figure was high because of tariff-related decreased imports. So you can mentally take a little off the top. But remember that, even taking into account a drop in imports, the prediction for second quarter GDP was 2.3% — and then it came in at 3.0%. So it is good news.
And it is not a mirage. And it is not crashing the economy. Obviously, Democrats want to diminish President Trump’s accomplishments in any way they can. That includes talking down the economy. But when they say the president is crashing the economy, or that economic growth is a mirage, they only make themselves look less credible.
President Trump unleashed new tariffs yesterday and that and the new jobs report brought the market futures down early this morning. The Canada deal is in jeopardy because Canada backs a Palestinian State. You know what a Palestinian State is (to go back to a Byronic word)? A mirage. It doesn’t currently exist.
Canada is not the only country given to fantasy. “Diplomatic Terrorism?: France’s Recognition of an Imaginary Palestinian State” is a Gatestone headline. You can read the definition of a state. A Jerusalem Post editorial asks, “Why Is Europe Rewarding Hamas Terror with a Palestinian State?”
And closing with some good, clean fun—Don’t miss Jeffrey Blehar’s delightful “Jasmine Crockett, Genuine Counterfeit.”
While we’re learning about the innocent victims of Monday’s shooting rampage in Midtown Manhattan (here, here, and here), mayoral candidate Zohran Mamdani’s anti-police rhetoric is coming back to haunt him.
“NYC Shooting Puts Mamdani on Spot over Policing” is the headline of a Wall Street Journal news story. Mamdani knows this:
The Queens state assemblyman was in Uganda for his wedding at the time of the shooting. When Mamdani returned to New York on Wednesday, he went to the home of the officer’s family. He said at a press conference later in the day that he had held the officer’s sobbing father in his arms.
“This is a time to lead this city in coming together,” he said. “Not a moment to try and score the very points that turn so many New Yorkers away from politics.”
What Mamdani describes condescendingly as “scoring points,” others would describe as hashing out an important issue—public safety—before it is too late.
“What Officer Islam’s Sacrifice Reminds Us” is the title of a City Journal piece. Officer Didarul Islam was the NYPC officer who was gunned down Monday. His sacrifice reminds us that “No city can thrive unless it honors the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect it.” City Journal notes:
As for those who gain notoriety by deriding the NYPD and the work that it does, I hope this tragedy will make them stop and consider something: the calls coming from those Park Avenue offices on Monday evening were not asking for mediators, social workers, or unarmed safety agents. They were asking for armed police officers.
Mamdani has called for the replacement of police with social workers in many instances. Mamdani is attempting to backtrack on previously stated opinions. Grieving widows and mothers of NYPD’s fallen heroes aren’t buying it.
Meanwhile, in Cincinnati a public official exults in the vicious beatdown of white citizens by a black mob:
A city councilwoman in Cincinnati is under fire for comments posted on Facebook in the wake of a brutal downtown beatdown last weekend.
Under a post from a Facebook user called Leohna Alia La JCannon that shows the vicious assault, an account that appears to belong to Councilwoman Victoria Parks commented, “They begged for that beat down!”
“I am grateful for the whole story,” the comment continues.
The beatings occurred on the corner of Fourth and Elm Street in Cincinnati’s downtown business district in the early morning hours on Saturday. Video that has been shared widely online shows a group of people savagely assaulting two others during a confrontation, with a woman being knocked out cold in the street.
In her official city biography page, Parks says she “led the charge in passing Racism as a Public Health Crisis” when working for the Hamilton County governor. It also says she “introduced, and passed, Juneteenth as a paid holiday for Hamilton County employees.”
Three suspects have been arrested. One was apparently seen on video chasing a victim until he fell—at which point the pursuer started kicking him. Here’s the kind of thing the Cincinnati Councilwoman celebrates:
Detectives also alleged that Matthews was seen on video chasing one of the victims into the street, and when the victim fell, Matthews allegedly started kicking him several times.
When he stopped kicking the suspect, the detectives claimed, Matthews appeared “visibly, just, enraged” before going to hit another person.
Ohio Republican Senator Bernie Merino posted a picture of one of the victims (with permission) and said that Cincinnati deserves a better political leadership.
We need a palate cleanser after that—and here is one: former Vice President Kamala Harris just announced that she will not run for Governor of California. “A grateful nation celebrates,” writes National Review’s Jeffrey Blehar. Mr. Blehar adds:
Improbably named California elections reporter Elex Michaelson explained Harris’s reasoning on Twitter/X: Apparently Harris was “tempted” to enter the race but decided against it because she “ultimately didn’t want to do the job.“ Normally I’m not one to credit anonymous sources too easily, but that definitely sounds like the Kamala Harris I know.
President Trump will not be pleased with the Fed’s decision to keep interest rates steady, though two members did peel off and dissent. Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is keeping his options open, hoping that “the economy will reveal its true self in the next few months,” according to a news report in the Wall Street Journal. An editorial in the Wall Street Journal argues that the GDP report that showed a healthy 3 percent growth is “weird.”
You know what else is weird? Senator Ted Cruz addressing the raging controversy over Sydney Sweeney and her jeans. From USA TODAY:
After an ad starring Sydney Sweeney outraged viewers, Sen. Ted Cruz is coming to her defense.
The Texas Republican took to X July 29 to blast the “crazy left” for criticizing Sweeney’s American Eagle denim jeans campaign as a dog whistle for eugenics and the glorification of whiteness.
Responding to a New York Post article, which detailed the controversy, Cruz wrote: “Wow. Now the crazy Left has come out against beautiful women. I’m sure that will poll well….”
USA TODAY columnist Ingrid Jaques weighs in succinctly on the triggering ad: “She looks good. They don’t.” Uh, oh: Townhall’s Derek Hunter says basically the same thing—but waaaay blunter.
Yesterday I mentioned the New York Times’ admitting that a photo of a child starving in Gaza was fake news. In a Wall Street Journal op-ed entitled “Gaza Starvation Photos Tell a Thousand Lies,” Eitan Fischberger, who was embedded with IDF soldiers, says that Hamas routinely exploits pictures of seriously sick children. The Western media goes along with it.
Veteran political journalist, who knows the landscape down to the precinct captains, Michael Barone writes that the usual midterm trend of the party in power loosing seats may not hold in 2026. Barone writes:
Why are these Democrats, some in states such as South Dakota and Nebraska that have reelected Democratic senators in recent years, shunning the Democratic label? Most likely because, in a country of increased straight-ticket voting, they believe the Democratic label is political poison. …
Barone also cites good economic news. Miranda Devine writes that Trump proved the naysayers wrong again with his latest trade deal. Meanwhile, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said that the “Trump accounts” may pave the way to privatizing Social Security. To the left this threatens a “safety-net,” never mind that the safety is facing solvency issues unless reforms are made. Speaking of safety nets, I am guessing even my lefty pals can’t justify this abuse.
The fertility crisis is becoming worldwide. Nicholas Eberstadt has a good piece on depopulation. Our friend Naomi Schaeffer Riley has a good take on why women are not having babies.
I’m sure you’ve heard about the Health and Human Services report on organ donation. It found “systemic disregard for the sanctity human life and” premature procurement of organs (i.e., the donor was still alive). This New York Times headline should at least make you a little nervous: “Donor Organs Are Too Rare. We Need a New Definition of Death.”
Something cheery is needed before bid farewell this morning, and this it—a heretofore undiscovered ecosystem 30,000 feet deep in the ocean. The pictures are beautiful (and apparently there are not plastics):
An international team of researchers has discovered the world’s deepest known ecosystem sustained by chemicals seeping from the seafloor, submerged in water and darkness. The discovery expands the limits of where we know life can live on Earth.
“It’s a unique ecosystem,” said Dominic Papineau, an exobiologist who co-wrote the study on the deep-sea discovery published Wednesday in the journal Nature. “It’s a totally new thing that has not been seen before.”
This article originally appeared in The Carolina Journal
A few years ago on a North Carolina high school volleyball court, Payton McNabb took a spike to the face. It wasn’t just any spike — it came from a trans-identified male competing on the opposing girls’ team. The hit left Payton with a concussion and longterm physical and cognitive issues. But perhaps the most lasting injury was the message she received from the adults in charge: that her safety was secondary to someone else’s identity.
North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein has joined a growing list of Democrat governors in rejecting basic basic biological reality and common-sense protections for women and girls. By vetoing HB 805 — a landmark bill that defines male and female in state law — Stein has chosen ideology over biology, and political posturing over public safety. The governor’s decision, cloaked in the usual fake rhetoric of empathy, ignores women’s safety, science, and the will of North Carolinians.
If not for the governor’s veto, North Carolina would have become the 18th state to define “man” and “woman” in state law.
Contrary to the governor’s misleading claims, HB 805 contained nothing radical to “stok[e] the culture wars.” Instead, the bill laid out legal backing for a basic proposition once considered apolitical: that men and women are biologically different. Polling shows this view is not extreme — it reflects not just the views of conservatives and Republicans, but those of independents and a not-small portion of Democrats. In fact, a New York Times/Ipsos poll earlier this year found that an overwhelming four out of five Americans support using this simple biological definition of sex to determine eligibility in sports.
In addition to enshrining the biological definition of sex, HB 805 would help protect the safety of students by prohibiting K-12 boys and girls from sharing the same sleeping quarters. Among other things, the bill also prevents taxpayer dollars from funding sex-trait modification procedures, puberty blockers, or cross-sex hormones for inmates.
These restrictions and protections are necessary because gender ideology activists have forced them to be so.
Payton McNabb’s injury wasn’t hypothetical; and it was entirely preventable. As a former decorated UNC Chapel Hill athlete, a two-time NCAA Champion, and now a mother to two young daughters who hope to attend school in North Carolina like their father and I did, I am appalled. Just a few years after I competed, girls are being forced to give up the very opportunities women fought so hard to secure. Why? Because too many leaders lack the courage to stand up for truth.
While he prefers to hide behind vague jabs about the “culture wars,” the sad truth is that our governor has joined too many Democrats in putting ideological extremism above basic truth, biology, and the safety of women and girls — not to mention the views of his own voters. By rejecting HB 805, the governor is prioritizing political posturing to a radical portion of his base and national activist groups over the practical needs of the people he was elected to serve.
Two years ago, the North Carolina legislature overrode a similar veto from then-Gov. Roy Cooper to protect fair competition in sports — protecting female athletes from being subjected to male competitors and teammates. They have another opportunity to do the right thing again.
Stein has chosen to let down the women and voters of North Carolina, but the legislature can still stand up — for safety, for fairness, and for the biological reality that makes protecting women’s rights possible in the first place.
Julie Gunlock hosts a powerful conversation with Nan Hayworth and Beth Parlato on the recent SCOTUS ruling on Tennessee’s ban of child mutilation surgeries – what it means legally, why the medical establishment is outraged, and what this means for protecting children nationwide.
