Why is America's largest teachers' union encouraging students to skip school?



Why is the National Education Association encouraging students to skip school?

Yesterday was May 1 — May Day — and across the country, activists staged coordinated demonstrations under the banner of “no work, no school, no shopping.”

These are sweeping political claims, touching on immigration policy, cultural debates, and national partisan conflicts.

The National Education Association — with roughly 3 million members, making it the largest labor union in the United States — was among the organizations supporting the effort. On its website, the NEA offers organizational resources for participants, including a “solidarity toolkit.”

May Day? Mayday!

The union frames May Day as part of a long tradition of labor activism, tracing its roots to the late 19th-century movement for the eight-hour workday.

Broadly speaking, that’s true.

But May Day also carries a more complicated legacy. Over the course of the 20th century, it became closely associated with socialist and communist movements worldwide, and in the United States it has often re-emerged as a vehicle for broader political protest.

That broader agenda is evident in some of the demands the NEA highlights.

Among them:

  • “Stop the billionaire takeover and rampant corruption of the Trump administration.”
  • “Stop the attacks on our communities, including policies targeting immigrants, people of color, Native people, people with disabilities, and those who identify as LGBTQ+.”

These are not narrowly labor-oriented concerns. They are sweeping political claims, touching on immigration policy, cultural debates, and national partisan conflicts.

Mission creep

Which raises a more basic question: What does this have to do with the NEA’s stated purpose?

The organization describes its mission as “to advocate for education professionals and to unite our members and the nation to fulfill the promise of public education to prepare every student to succeed in a diverse and interdependent world.”

Encouraging participation in a day of protest framed explicitly around “no school” sits uneasily alongside that mission. And May Day is just the tip of the iceberg

According to a new report from watchdog group Defending Education, teachers’ unions have spent more than $1 billion on political activity since 2015 — including roughly $669 million at the federal level and $336 million at the state and local levels.

Some of that spending aligns with what most people would expect. In California, for example, unions spent more than $20 million backing Proposition 15, a 2020 ballot initiative that would have raised taxes on commercial properties to increase funding for public schools and community colleges. The measure ultimately failed.

But much of it extends far beyond that.

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Defending Education | Robert Gauthier/Getty Images

PAC mentality

Defending Education's report highlights tens of millions directed toward major Democrat-aligned groups, including:

  • $32 million to Senate Majority PAC.
  • $25 million to House Majority PAC.
  • $60 million to the State Engagement Fund, a progressive funding hub that supports state-level campaigns and advocacy.
  • $44 million to For Our Future, a Democrat-aligned organizing group focused on voter turnout and elections.

At the state level, unions have also poured money into targeted political fights — opposing school choice initiatives, backing candidates, and influencing local school board races.

In California, union spending has extended into high-profile contests as well. The California Teachers Association’s PACs spent $1.8 million opposing the 2021 recall of Gavin Newsom and committed millions more to a 2025 ballot measure related to election policy.

The same report also points to funding for organizing groups like the Midwest Academy, which describes itself as "committed to providing organizers with the practical skills needed to address the challenges of forging change in a system rooted in white supremacy."

It has received $1.7 million from the NEA since 2015 and has helped produce activist training materials tied to sustained protest efforts.

Out of school

Teachers’ unions have always played a role in politics. When that role is tied directly to classrooms — teacher pay, school funding, working conditions — the connection is clear.

But as their spending and activities expand into broader political organizing, electoral campaigns, and now protest mobilization, that connection becomes harder to define.

Unlike most political organizations, teachers’ unions are funded by member dues — payments that many educators make as a practical requirement of their profession. That makes their political activity qualitatively different from a typical advocacy group or PAC.

The question isn’t whether unions should — or can — be entirely "apolitical." It is whether their current scope reflects the priorities of the educators who fund them — and the students they have pledged to serve.

'Bye': Seattle mayor laughs off wealth exodus from her flagging, crime-ridden city



Katie Wilson, the 43-year-old leftist blogger elected mayor of Seattle last year, apparently finds it amusing that deep-pocketed residents and businesses are fleeing her crime-ridden city.

During a recent event at Seattle University, lecturer Joni Balter raised the matter of downtown Seattle's apparent inability to "grow job these days," noting that "the city has lost 25,000 jobs over four years, and the thinking is — the data folks say — that if you extend that out five years, it could be as high as 37,000 jobs."

'We still have the very regressive tax system.'

According to a recent report from the the Downtown Seattle Association, the Emerald City's downtown has seen a 14% decrease in brick-and-mortar retail jobs since 2010 and lost an estimated 13,000 jobs just last year, amounting to the biggest decrease in jobs since the pandemic.

The report noted further that Seattle's downtown office vacancy remained at a post-pandemic high of 25%; the central business district experienced an office vacancy rate of 32% last year, nearly double the previous high point during the Great Recession in 2009; and the combined taxable value of the 20 highest-valued properties in Seattle's downtown has declined from over $10 billion in 2021 to roughly $5.1 billion this year.

When asked about her plan to "turn that around," Wilson — who appeared on stage alongside fellow radical Girmay Zahilay, the newly elected King County executive — attributed Seattle's exodus of jobs and businesses to a number of factors including potential workers' apparent inability to afford living in or near the downtown; homelessness and public safety issues; and the "tax environment."

While apparently interested in tackling the affordability, homelessness, and public safety issues, Wilson signaled that her city's crushing taxes won't soon be changed.

RELATED: Mamdani finally admits what people knew about his candidacy from the start

David Ryder/Bloomberg/Getty Images

Wilson, who co-founded the Transit Riders Union in 2011 and endeavored in years past to "Trump-proof Seattle," was later asked about the "taxing climate" and whether progressive taxes were an "easy and promising solution."

After noting that she found it "very exciting" that state Democrats passed a 9.9% tax on annual taxable income exceeding $1 million for individuals or households and recalling her efforts to push similar taxes in Seattle, Wilson said that claims that wealthy residents will flee the state are "super overblown."

But to those beleaguered residents who have chosen to leave or might do so in the near future, the mayor waved, said, "Bye," and laughed in concert with fellow travelers in the sparsely populated audience.

"In general, we still have the very regressive tax system, and my office is doing a lot of work to look at what our options are in terms of progressive taxation," continued Wilson. "We do have more flexibility at the city than the county, in terms of our taxing authority."

Despite Wilson's casual dismissal, high taxes in Seattle appear to be chasing jobs to cities like Bellevue.

Jon Scholes, president of the Downtown Seattle Association, suggested that Amazon's decision to relocate thousands of employees from Seattle to other King County locations was the direct result of Seattle's overwhelming tax burden, reported the Center Square. Starbucks, which is headquartered in Seattle, also appears to be angling for greener pastures.

Among the taxes the city has implemented is the Social Housing Tax, a 5% levy on employee compensation exceeding $1 million, and the JumpStart Payroll Expense Tax, which the city slapped on companies with employees making more than $150,000 annually.

"What we need is more businesses in Seattle paying taxes," said Scholes. "That's how we strengthen the tax base."

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‘I could vomit’: Pat Gray torches Obama and Mamdani for using toddlers in cringey Marxist photo op



Earlier this month, New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani (D) and former President Barack Obama visited Learning Through Play Pre-K, an early childhood education center in the South Bronx. During this visit — their first in-person meeting — they read the children’s book “Alone & Together” to toddlers, joined a sing-along of “Wheels on the Bus,” joked about pizza, and highlighted the city’s push for universal child care.

BlazeTV host Pat Gray wasn’t buying the feel-good optics for a second. He interpreted the publicity stunt as proof that “these two Marxists” are “absolutely together now.”

“Are these free buses that the wheels are going around on?” co-host Keith Malinak joked, highlighting Mamdani’s high-profile campaign promise to make city bus fares free — a pledge that has already stalled due to budget realities and state control of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

“I could vomit,” Pat said in response to the entire PR stunt.

“You would think [Obama] would want to distance himself a bit from a guy who is essentially at least a socialist, if not a communist, because [Obama] spent his whole life denying he was one. And now here you are hanging out with [Mamdani] talking about the same things, and you got so much in common.”

This staged photo op comes as Mamdani marks his first 100 days in office, pushing an aggressive left-wing agenda on taxes, housing, and “free” services that prioritize ideology over practical governance.

Pat sees it as classic Democrat theater: using cute kids and sing-alongs to distract from failed policies and to cement a radical alliance between Obama and the new socialist mayor.

To see clips from Mamdani and Obama’s publicity stunt and hear more of the panel’s commentary, watch the video above.

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The California Primary Election Season Is Screaming A Warning For The Nation

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More than 76,000 Canadians have been killed through MAID. One province has had enough.



The Canadian federal government under former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau legalized medically assisted suicide nationwide in 2016.

As critics predicted, the state-facilitated suicide program — referred to as medical assistance in dying — was grossly liberalized in a short of period of time, maximizing both the number of accepted rationales and the number of those killed.

The province of Alberta appears keen to rein in Canada's sick experiment and protect its would-be victims, especially ahead of the Carney government's planned MAID eligibility expansion next year.

Background

In its first year, MAID offed 1,108 Canadians. That number tripled the following year, and by 2021, the number of Canadians killed by their government had climbed to over 10,000 in a single year.

'MAID should not be a substitute for robust health care.'

The Canadian government revealed in its latest MAID report that a total of 16,499 people were euthanized under the program in 2024, accounting for over 5% of all deaths in Canada that year. Of those euthanized, at least 4.4% nationally were not terminally ill. In Alberta, the number was 4.6%.

By the end of 2024, the number of Canadians who have died through MAID crested 76,000.

Originally, MAID applicants had to be 18 or older and suffering from a "grievous and irremediable medical condition" causing "enduring physical or psychological suffering that is intolerable" to them.

Within years, the country's eugenicist-founded health care system had given the green light to effectively execute those struggling with anxiety, autism, depression, economic hardship, PTSD, and other survivable issues.

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Mininyx Doodle/Getty Images

Persons suffering solely from a mental illness will be eligible for MAID beginning March 17, 2027.

Alberta takes action

Alberta Attorney General Mickey Amery, who is also the justice minister of the ruling United Conservative government, introduced legislation last month — the Safeguards for Last Resort Termination of Life Act — that would "increase oversight, introduce necessary safeguards, and provide greater clarity around eligibility requirements for medical assistance in dying ... in the province."

The bill would, among other things, prohibit MAID in Alberta for: persons under 18; persons whose sole underlying medical condition is a mental illness; individuals lacking the capacity to make their own health care decisions; and advance requests.

It would also prohibit euthanasia for individuals whose natural death is not reasonably foreseeable; restrict the display of MAID propaganda; empower health practitioners and institutions to refuse participation in the euthanasia regime; and bar Alberta health professionals from referring individuals for MAID eligibility assessments outside the province.

The legislation would also introduce penalties for doctors and nurses who violate the proposed provincial rules.

"Canada has the fastest growing death rates in the world when it comes to MAID. Far from being an option of last resort, MAID is now the fifth leading cause of death in Canada," Amery told the Alberta Legislature last week. "The country is currently projected to reach its 100,000th death by MAID in June, becoming the first nation in the modern era to measure its total assisted deaths in the six figures, more than the totals of any other jurisdiction with some form of legal, doctor-assisted death."

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith said in a statement, "Those struggling with severe mental health challenges need treatment, compassion and support, not a path to end their life at what may be their lowest moment. In Alberta, a patient whose sole underlying condition is mental illness will not be eligible for MAID."

'The state refusing to fund and provide a killing service is the baseline.'

Rebecca Vachon, health program director for the Canadian think tank Cardus, said in a statement, "We support the adoption of these enhanced protections for Albertans and urge all legislators to work collaboratively to implement them."

While the Catholic Bishops of Alberta underscored that "the Church teaches that 'euthanasia and assisted suicide are always the wrong choice,'" they similarly characterized the bill as an important step in the right direction, stating, "A just society is one that protects the vulnerable, upholds the dignity of every person, and chooses to accompany them in times of illness and dying. The Alberta government is taking some significant steps that respect these necessary values."

Gabrielle Peters, a disabled writer and co-founder of Disability Filibuster, recently noted in a piece for the Macdonald-Laurier Institute,

The state refusing to fund and provide a killing service is the baseline we build from. Without that, there is simply no foundation. If disability — and only disability — makes one killable, then why would a state build the infrastructure, policies, and programs necessary to support disabled life? Particularly when one is an expense and the other represents considerable cost-saving?

Some euthanasia advocates have joined state media in framing the life-affirming legislation in negative terms.

The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, for instance, suggested that the legislation "would significantly restrict access to medical assistance in dying ... and undermine constitutionally protected rights."

Michael Trew, Alberta's former chief addiction and mental health officer, recently wrote that the bill "amounts to taking away choice from many who are fully competent" and that "this loss of choice INCREASES pain and suffering."

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Venezuela’s anthem pride put Team USA to shame



Anyone who watched the recent World Baseball Classic final in Miami — a thrilling matchup between the underdog Venezuelans and Team USA — saw a vivid display of national pride.

Before the game, both teams stood for the Venezuelan and American national anthems. Miami is home to the world’s largest Venezuelan diaspora community. The cheers were thunderous. Every Venezuelan player stood with his cap over his heart and sang every word with conviction. This from a nation scarred by decades of unrest, corruption, and more recently, liberation at the hands of U.S. troops sent by President Donald Trump. Through all that turmoil, they held fast to love of country. “It means everything. This is for our country,” starting pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez said afterward through tears.

A nation cannot survive on procedure alone. It needs loyalty, memory, gratitude, and a shared sense of belonging.

The contrast with the American team was hard to miss. Our players all looked stoic. No one sang. I wondered if they even knew the words.

That scene unfolded as the U.S. Senate debated the SAVE America Act, a bill that would require proof of citizenship to register to vote and voter ID at the polls. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) framed the matter correctly. “Our republic was founded on a daring claim that free people could govern itself. Not that a free people could drift forever,” he said.

“Liberty is fragile and so it requires structure.”

America’s founders would have understood the point.

In his 1796 Farewell Address, George Washington urged Americans not only to respect the law but to love their country. “Citizens, by birth or choice, of a common country, that country has a right to concentrate your affections,” he said. “The name of American, which belongs to you in your national capacity, must always exalt the just pride of Patriotism.”

Benjamin Franklin believed immigrants should assimilate, learn the language, and adopt American customs if they wished to become good citizens. Thomas Jefferson tied citizenship to literacy, civic formation, and military readiness. “Every citizen should be a soldier,” he wrote. “This was the case with the Greeks and Romans and must be that of every free state.”

The SAVE Act may never reach President Trump’s desk. Common sense rarely enjoys smooth passage in Washington. But Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) has at least shown some backbone. “We’re going to stay on this bill until it damn well passes,” he said, even if that means “many, many weeks” of debate.

If the MAGA base roars loudly enough, maybe it will.

But the deeper problem runs beyond election law. It concerns whether Americans still understand citizenship as something more than legal status. A nation cannot survive on procedure alone. It needs loyalty, memory, gratitude, and a shared sense of belonging.

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Daniel Shirey/WBCI/MLB Photos via Getty Images

That is why the contrast on display in Miami matters. The Venezuelans played as men who still believed their country — mess that it may be — deserved their love. Too many Americans now act embarrassed by their own inheritance.

If we do not protect our elections from illegal votes, we weaken our sovereignty. If we do not insist that new citizens learn English, we weaken national cohesion. If we cannot teach our children to love their country, sing its anthem, and thank God for its blessings, we will hand the nation to elites whose only loyalty is to appetite, profit, and power.

I saw the alternative recently at a Hillsdale College seminar. Before each meal, a student led us in prayer. Then we stood together and recited the Pledge of Allegiance. I had not spoken those words aloud in years. The moment carried real force — 800 voices joined in gratitude, memory, and common purpose. It reminded me that patriotism is not an abstraction. It is a habit.

We should bring the pledge back to schools. We should teach the Bible again. We should teach Western history and literature without apology. We should make English the official language of the United States.

After Venezuela beat Italy in the semifinals, President Trump posted on Truth Social, “Wow ... statehood #51 anyone?” He understood something larger in the moment. America does not need another state. It needs more citizens with that kind of spirit.

These are the questions I explore in my new novel, “Trump’s Superpower: A Historical Novel About the Founding Fathers and One Founding Mother,” out in May. In it, the founders return for America’s 250th anniversary and confront what we have done with the republic they risked their lives to build.

Whether we still deserve it may depend on whether we are still willing to sing for it.

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Glenn Beck exposes commie Mamdani's 'free' day-care scam: $36K per kid — 55% more than private — and the socialist trap coming



New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani ran on the pledge to provide free universal child care, and now that promise is coming to fruition starting this fall with the K-2 program.

Except ... it’s more expensive than private day care, costing approximately $36,500 per child.

“That's $13,000 more per child than the private market! Let me repeat that. [The] program designed to make child care less expensive and cheaper is 55% more expensive than the system that already exists,” scoffs Glenn Beck.

On this episode of “The Glenn Beck Program,” Glenn debunks the socialist promise of “free," predicting that Mamdani's day-care debacle will dissolve in three stages.

“You can almost explain every socialist program in three steps,” he says.

“Step one, you got to declare something a right. Housing is a right. Health care is a right. Child care is a right ... because once you declare it a right, you never talk about the cost again. You talk about morality.”

Anyone who dares question the numbers — like why jump from $23,000 for private child care to $36,000 per child — "instantly becomes a villain," he says.

“The second step is they promise you that it'll only cost the rich ... the millionaires — the people who aren't paying their fair share of taxes,” Glenn continues.

“Here's the problem. Millionaires, unlike most people, are very mobile, OK? They don't like something? They move.”

He brings up the mass exodus of wealthy people in France after the president implemented the wealth tax in 1982 to fund a bunch of "free" programs for lower socioeconomic classes.

“When [the rich] leave, what happens? The tax base collapses,” says Glenn.

He explains that socialists sell “tax the rich” initiatives by promising voters it will only hit the “top 10%,” but once that top 10% flees, the socioeconomic class right below them slides into the crosshairs and starts shouldering those same punishing taxes.

This pattern of exodus and replacement continues, eventually bringing about the final step: “The system becomes unsustainable.”

“Here's why it breaks,” says Glenn. “Because the government, Marxism, socialists, they don't respond to signals — the market signals. ... They respond to political incentives, so who cares if it’s $36,000 over [$23,000]?”

“When [socialism] doesn't work, they know all they have to do is just find a way to convince you that somebody else is screwing you, and you'll continue to vote for them. That's a lot easier than fixing things,” he continues. “So the costs rise, bureaucracy grows, fraud appears, and suddenly the system costs far more than the private system it replaced.”

This is almost certainly the Big Apple’s dark destiny, he argues, because “it started with [step one].”

To hear more of Glenn’s analysis, watch the video above.

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What ‘democratic socialism’ really means to young voters



Like a highly contagious mind virus, democratic socialism is spreading fast among young Americans. The numbers, the polls, and the election results all point in the same direction: A growing share of the next generation is not just flirting with socialism — it is warming to it.

One poll from late 2025 found that nearly 60% of Americans ages 18 to 24 — and well north of 50% ages 25 to 29 — said they would support a democratic socialist for president in 2028. That support even included about a quarter of self-identified Republicans and 42% of moderates.

America needs a return to proper free-market economic policies — and a cultural renewal that treats liberty not as a slogan, but as a birthright worth defending.

Recent local elections reinforce the point. Democratic socialist mayors on both coasts — Zohran Mamdani in New York City and Katie Wilson in Seattle — won close to 80% of the youth vote in their respective races.

Plenty of institutions deserve blame for this trend. Public schools. Teacher unions. Academia. Legacy media. Social media. Hollywood. Parents too. Each has played a role in shaping how young Americans see the country and what they think “fairness” requires.

But focusing on those inputs misses the deeper driver.

A troubling share of young Americans believes the economy is rigged against them.

In late 2025, the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports conducted polls on how young Americans view the U.S. economy and the American dream. The results were bleak. Only about 2 in 10 young Americans said they expect their economic future and personal happiness to be better than their parents’. Roughly three-quarters said housing costs have reached a “crisis level,” and they believe their odds of owning a home are shrinking by the day.

That despair didn’t come from nowhere.

This generation came of age in the aftermath of the Great Recession. They watched corporate bailouts become routine and “crony capitalism” harden into a feature of the system. They watched politicians arrive in Washington broke and leave rich, often by playing stock-market games that would end careers in the private sector.

They grew up under the shadow of foreign wars that burned trillions on “nation-building” while much of America decayed. They watched the dollar lose value as Washington normalized out-of-control spending, money printing, and debt accumulation. They watched manufacturing shrivel while leaders prioritized globalism over domestic production, dimming the prospects for secure, high-paying jobs.

RELATED: The party that made life more expensive wants credit for noticing

Photo by Andres Kudacki/Getty Images

Put it together, and you get a generation primed to reject the system — and open to any ideology that promises to punish the winners and rewrite the rules.

Layer on the post-9/11 surveillance state, and the picture darkens further. Many young Americans have never lived in a country where privacy and liberty felt secure. They’ve grown numb to constant monitoring and to platforms that decide what they see, share, and believe. It should not surprise anyone if their commitment to free speech, property rights, and personal liberty weakens under that pressure.

That is why diagnosing the rise of democratic socialism requires more than blaming schools or Hollywood. Those are symptoms and accelerants. The cause is deeper: America has drifted away from too many of the principles that made it a beacon of freedom and a land of opportunity.

If that is true, the remedy won’t come from scolding young Americans for their politics. It will come from proving, again, that free markets can build a stable life, that honest work can buy a home, and that the rules apply to the powerful as well as the weak.

To reduce the appeal of democratic socialism, America needs a return to proper free-market economic policies — and a cultural renewal that treats liberty not as a slogan, but as a birthright worth defending.