More than 40 percent of Democrats said they believe the party should replace President Joe Biden as the nominee, a new poll after the first presidential debate found. The survey of 1,000 registered voters, which was conducted by Suffolk University on behalf of USA Today, found that 41 percent of Democrats believe another candidate should step in as the Democratic Party’s nominee. Only 14 percent of Republicans say that the GOP should replace Trump, the Republicans’ presumed choice. The poll was taken in the days following last week’s debate between Biden and former President Donald Trump. The contest was widely viewed as disastrous for Biden. “There’s no question the debate sent out shockwaves across the political landscape,” David Paleologos, the director of the Suffolk Political Research Center, stated. “Democrats in the poll are offering tough love to President Biden by saying to him, ‘You’ve served us well, but try to see yourself last Thursday night through our eyes. Hold your head up high, it’s time to go.'” The poll also found that voters overwhelmingly believe that Trump won the debate. While just 11 percent of respondents said that Biden won, 50 percent said that Trump was the victor. Twenty-eight percent of Biden supporters said their candidate won the debate, as opposed to 86 percent of Trump supporters who said the former president won. The polling figures are just the latest survey results that could spell trouble for the 81-year-old incumbent. Another post-debate poll found that 72 percent of voters believe Biden does not have the mental and physical fitness to serve as the president. The figure surged by seven points from June 9th before the debate, when 65 percent of voters said Biden was unfit for the job. There is widespread speculation that the Democratic Party might attempt to replace Biden with a new presidential nominee to face off against Trump in the November election. Democratic governors reportedly held a private meeting to discuss their concerns about Biden. “On the call Dem. governors expressed concern about what’s going on with the president,” CNN’s Jake Tapper reported in a post on X. “They know if they come forward publicly with concern that likely will cause Biden to dig in more.” “They are trying to set up a meeting at the WH …or via Zoom for those who can’t come…nothing is on the books yet….but WH knows of request,” Tapper added. “Dem Govs are not coming in with any specific message– but they feel they need to hear from President Biden.”

On Monday, Tennessee became the second state to officially allow child rapists to be executed. Tennessee GOP Gov. Bill Lee signed a bill into law in mid-May that went into effect Monday. It authorized the state to implement one of three penalties for the aggravated rape of a child: death, imprisonment for life without possibility of parole, or imprisonment for life. In May 2023, Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill allowing child rapists to be executed. In 2008, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision in Kennedy v. Louisiana in which it declared it unconstitutional to execute a convicted offender in child sexual battery cases. But supporters of the death penalty for child rapists hope the conservative majority on the Supreme Court will reverse the 2008 decision. “Maybe the atmosphere is different on the Supreme Court,” Tennessee GOP state Sen. Janice Bowling said. “We’re simply challenging a ruling.” In the Kennedy decision, Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for the 5-4 majority, stated: We have explained that capital punishment must “be limited to those offenders who commit ‘a narrow category of the most serious crimes’ and whose extreme culpability makes them ‘the most deserving of execution.’” Yet, here is how Anthony Kennedy described the act that had taken place which led to the conviction of Patrick Kennedy for raping his eight-year-old stepdaughter: When police arrived at petitioner’s (home between 9:20 and 9:30 a.m., they found L. H. on her bed, wearing a T-shirt and wrapped in a bloody blanket. She was bleeding profusely from the vaginal area. Petitioner told police he had carried her from the yard to the bathtub and then to the bed. Consistent with this explanation, police found a thin line of blood drops in the garage on the way to the house and then up the stairs. Once in the bedroom, petitioner had used a basin of water and a cloth to wipe blood from the victim. This later prevented medical personnel from collecting a reliable DNA sample. L. H. was transported to the Children’s Hospital. An expert in pediatric forensic medicine testified that L. H.’s injuries were the most severe he had seen from a sexual assault in his four years of practice. A laceration to the left wall of the vagina had separated her cervix from the back of her vagina, causing her rectum to protrude into the vaginal structure. Her entire perineum was torn from the posterior fourchette to the anus. The injuries required emergency surgery. Police also found that petitioner made two telephone calls on the morning of the rape. Sometime before 6:15 a.m., petitioner called his employer and left a message that he was unavailable to work that day. Petitioner called back between 6:30 and 7:30 a.m. to ask a colleague how to get blood out of a white carpet because his daughter had “‘just become a young lady.’”

Northwestern Law School made faculty job offers to only three white men in the last three years, passing over intellectual giants in favor of less qualified black females, including one who graduated “near the bottom of her class” and another who plagiarized when writing an exam, according to a blistering lawsuit filed on Tuesday. Charging that “[f]aculty hiring at American universities is a cesspool of corruption and lawlessness,” the suit was filed by lawyers including Jonathan Mitchell, who was involved in the 2023 Supreme Court case on Harvard University admissions that blocked affirmative action, and signals that similar lawsuits could be in store against colleges across the country. The lawsuit delves into the details of Northwestern’s recent hiring to paint a picture of affirmative action that is not simply a tie-breaker between equals, but rather the near-total exclusion of highly qualified white males in favor of minorities with weak qualifications, and whose hiring typically ends in disaster. “For at least the last twelve years, since the installation of then-Dean Daniel Rodriguez, the leadership of Northwestern Law School has propagated and enforced a mandate to hire as many non-white and non-male faculty candidates as possible,” it said. The lawsuit says it was impossible for even the brightest legal minds to reach a classroom if they were white. Northwestern declined to even interview Eugene Volokh, a “prolific and internationally renowned legal scholar,” for a job, the suit said — adding that Vice Dean Emily Kadens “openly said that Professor Volokh would have been hired at Northwestern had he been anything other than a white man.” Meanwhile, it hired Destiny Peery, a black woman who graduated from Northwestern Law “near the bottom of her class,” something Northwestern’s faculty was well aware of, and which ordinarily would be an absolute roadblock to being hired as a law professor. By the time Peery came up for her three-year employment review, where the school decides to get rid of or promote junior faculty, Peery had published almost nothing, but fellow black professor Janice Nadler, who was in charge of the review, misled the committee by falsely claiming old dissertation chapters were actually new work. After that was exposed, Nadler shifted gears to complain that because of her race, the school had given Peery so many speaking opportunities that she had no time to write. The committee voted to retain Peery, despite being “incensed” by Nadler’s dishonesty, the suit said. At the five-year mark, when a final decision on tenure is made, Peery had still “failed to produce any scholarship that could warrant a tenured appointment,” and was warned not to seek tenure. Peery then accused “Northwestern of racism for denying her tenure, pretending that she was a victim of race and sex discrimination when racial preferences were the very reason she was hired in the first place,” the suit said. No other college would put her on its faculty — but Peery found employment at Harvard Law School in a non-teaching position at its “Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race & Justice.” Similarly, Northwestern hired “another unqualified black woman named Candice Player, who (like Peery) failed to obtain tenure after proving herself incapable of producing scholarship that could justify a tenured appointment. Player also struggled in the classroom, and admitted to colleagues that she did not understand the material she was teaching and couldn’t handle the students’ questions. In one of her classes, Player gave a final exam in which she had plagiarized an exam hypothetical from another source, because Player was too lazy to write her own exam question,” the suit continued. The plagiarism scandal led to her departure from Northwestern and “Player, like Peery, failed to obtain another academic appointment after leaving Northwestern.” She now works as Vice President of Advocacy, Public Policy and Street Outreach at Project HOME in Pennsylvania. Then-Dean Rodriguez had “ramrodded Player’s appointment through the faculty by threatening to withhold bonuses from any professor who had the temerity to question the wisdom or legality of the appointment. Player would never even have been considered for a faculty appointment at Northwestern if she had been white or a member of a different race, and Player was hired over white male candidates who were vastly more capable and qualified than she was,” the suit said. In 2018, Kimberly Yuracko was appointed dean of the law school at Northwestern in a process that was secret and focused on identity politics and the exclusion of men, with the white female Yuracko beating out a black female critical race theorist, who was runner-up, it added. In the 2019-2020 school year, Yuracko made a deal with a conservative professor that if the faculty greenlit her problematic appointments, she would see to it that a gay professor, Ilan Wurman, was hired, even though he is white. After her candidates were approved, Wurman was blocked, with then-Associate Dean Sarah Lawsky saying “at a faculty meeting that she opposed Wurman’s appointment to the faculty because he is a white man,” the suit said. In 2022, the school hired Jamelia Morgan, a black woman from the low-ranked UC Irving with only four years of teaching, and gave her a $900,000 budget to start a “Center for Racial and Disability Justice.” The center’s website hasn’t published a journal article in a year and a blog post in six months, and the suit said it has hosted only two events. In all, in 2023-24 Northwestern Law made six offers of employment, none of which went to white men. The prior year, it made nine offers, only one of which went to a white man (whose scholarship focused on promoting affirmative action). In 2021-2022, it made six offers, two of which went to white men–but one offer was made to someone who had “zero chance” of accepting because he taught at a much higher-ranked school, perhaps a maneuver to make the statistics look less anti-white. The other worked in tax law, a specialty where there were few minority options, the suit said. Accomplished white men like Volokh and Ernie Young, a longtime Duke professor and Harvard Law grad, were “rejected in favor of candidates with mediocre and undistinguished records,” the suit said. The suit was filed on behalf of a group called Faculty, Alumni, and Students Opposed to Racial Preferences, which says it consists of people who have standing to sue because they may have lost out on faculty jobs, represented by lawyers from America First Legal and Stone Hilton in addition to Mitchell’s firm. It said that for years, administrators have thought they could “flout” laws preventing discrimination based on race, but “the jig is up” after the Supreme Court clamped down on race-based decision-making in a 2023 case on Harvard admissions. The Northwestern suit was filed in federal court in the Northern District of Illinois against the law school as well as its current dean Hari Osofsky. Related: ‘Schizophrenic’ Transgender Student Terrorized Top Law School, Ranted About ‘Gavel Dildos’ In His Law Journal

Democrat strategist James Carville, who served as the top political adviser for former President Bill Clinton’s 1992 campaign, said this week that President Joe Biden needs to “get out the way” and let someone else be the party’s nominee this fall. Carville made the remarks during a Monday interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper while discussing Biden’s disastrous debate performance last week against former President Donald Trump. “We have a country that 72 percent want something different,” he said. “If the Democratic Party can’t produce something different that 72 percent of people want, then why do we exist? What are we here for? I mean, the country is clamoring for change and what are we going to offer them? The same stuff? It doesn’t make any sense.” “I don’t take any pleasure in this,” he added. “I’m going to be 80 in October. You can’t fight this stuff. It’s just there.” When asked what Democrats should do, Carville responded: “Something different. I don’t know. It’ll be messy. It’ll be — it’ll be a mess. You know, that’s where change is. But if the Democratic Party is so committed to the status quo, and so committed to sticking with something that three-quarters of the country doesn’t want, then we have to say, ‘why do we exist? What are we here for?'” “If we can’t bring something that people want, I have to doubt our rationale for being here,” he said. “I really do.” He said Democrats should not be fighting the “inevitable desire” to replace Biden on the ticket: “Get out the way and let a thousand flowers bloom.” He said all the excuses Biden’s team made for his poor debate performance were “nonsense.” WATCH: JAKE TAPPER: What do you suggest Democrats should do? JANES CARVILLE: Something different. I don’t know. It will be messy. It’ll be a mess. That’s what change is. pic.twitter.com/KA3H8ndXsh — Breaking911 (@Breaking911) July 2, 2024

The Department of Homeland Security announced on Tuesday that it conducted a deportation of Chinese illegal immigrants over the weekend, flying them back home on the first large deportation charter flight to China since 2018. The DHS did not specify how many illegal immigrants were on the flight, saying that the removal of Chinese migrants was part of Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas’ “continued efforts to engage the [People’s Republic of China] on areas of mutual interest.” Mayorkas was impeached by the Republican-controlled House of Representatives earlier this year over his handling of the border as record numbers of encounters have been reported under his watch. The Democrat-controlled Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment against him. “We will continue to enforce our immigration laws and remove individuals without a legal basis to remain in the United States,” Mayorkas said in a press release announcing the deportation flight to China. “People should not believe the lies of smugglers.” According to the DHS, “Together, the United States and PRC are working to reduce and deter irregular migration and to disrupt illicit human smuggling through expanded law enforcement efforts.” While the exact number of Chinese migrants transported over the weekend remains unknown, one planeload of migrants pales in comparison to the number of Chinese nationals who Customs and Border Protection have apprehended under the Biden administration. CNN reported that in the first 11 months of 2023, 31,000 Chinese nationals were apprehended while attempting to unlawfully cross the U.S. southern border. That number was higher than the previous 10 years combined. A DHS press release touted an executive order signed by President Biden last month that temporarily suspended the entry of some migrants into the country if daily border encounters pass 2,500. “DHS enforces our immigration laws and delivers tough consequences for those who do not have a lawful basis to remain, consistent with international obligations,” the department added. Biden has been criticized for waiting until months before a presidential election to take executive action on the border, action that House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) called “window dressing.” “If he was concerned about the border, he would have done this a long time ago,” Johnson added. Citizens from U.S. nemesis China are not the only security concerns crossing the southern border. Last month, eight suspected terrorists with suspected links to ISIS were arrested after illegally entering the U.S. According to The New York Post, which cited “unnamed ICE sources,” the investigation into the suspected terrorists “featured a wiretap which revealed one of the now-arrested individuals was talking about bombs.” The Biden administration has also been blasted for its handling of the border crisis in the wake of multiple murders allegedly committed by illegal immigrants. During last week’s debate, former President Donald Trump mentioned the alleged rape and murder of 12-year-old Texas girl Jocelyn Nungaray, saying that he spoke to her mother before taking the stage in Atlanta. “This is horrible what’s taken place,” Trump said. “What’s taken place in our country, we’re literally an uncivilized country now.”

Singer Melissa Etheridge said her children’s sperm donor, the late musician David Crosby, also fathered many other children the same way. The 63-year-old recording artist discussed the situation with People magazine while promoting her upcoming docuseries, “Melissa Etheridge: I’m Not Broken,” which will air on Paramount+.   “The situation was special with my partner at the time because she had been adopted and she wanted her children to know who their biological father was,” Etheridge told People of deciding to have children with ex-girlfriend Julie Cypher. “So we weren’t going to go to a sperm bank because she wanted them to know.” She added, “To me, I didn’t want someone who wanted to be a father… I didn’t want all of a sudden my children to have…’Oh, there’s dad.’ And who am I? That sort of thing.” Etheridge said Crosby’s wife, Jan Dance, was the one who suggested he become their sperm donor. She had two children via Crosby’s donation: Bailey, age 27, and Beckett, who died of a drug overdose in 2020. “They had just had help having their son and they appreciated that. They wanted to pay it forward,” she told the outlet. “We’re still finding kids from David Crosby out in the world. My daughter’s like, ‘I have another half-sister.'”   “He did not need to be [a father]. And that’s what really made it clear for me, was that he was willing to say, ‘Yeah, I was the biological father.’ And my kids call him bio dad, so he’s the biological father, but they didn’t need a relationship with him,” Etheridge went on. Crosby died in January 2023 from complications related to COVID, per his family. Etheridge posted about it on social media, calling him, “the gift” of her family. “I am grieving the loss of my friend, and Bailey’s and Beckett’s biological father, David,” Etheridge wrote on Instagram. “He gave me the gift of family. I will forever be grateful to him, [son] Django, and [wife] Jan. His music and legacy will inspire many generations to come. A true treasure.” Crosby is known for being a member of the Byrds in the mid-1960s and later of the group Crosby, Stills & Nash, which became massively popular with their California rock music in the 1970s.

We have a huge teacher shortage and it is a problem, but the teachers who are going through the system right now, more often than not, have been taught from a social justice and systemic oppression angle.