Fear of Bud Light-Style Blowup Has Woke Publishing Giant Shook 

• The world’s largest education publisher, Pearson, started a clumsy purge of its digital footprint after a Heritage Foundation report exposed its obeisance to the ideas animating critical race theory.
• Pearson, like so many other corporate behemoths, rushed all-in on “equity” in 2021, with new editorial guidelines vowing to make woke concepts like “intersectionality” and “colonial discourse” part of everything it does.
• Thursday, Heritage researcher Jonathan Butcher let the larger world know about it. His report drew some media scrutiny — and poof!
• It’s always bunker mode as soon as these efforts get the tiniest bit of attention.
• Just remember: All it took to throw a huge scare into this $7.5 billion market-cap company was a brief white paper from a think-tank wonk and one online article.

Schedule an Interview: Jonathan Butcher

America’s Refugee Policy is Unrecognizable and It is Time to Course Correct

• America has prided itself on providing refuge to immigrants fleeing persecution for centuries. In the late 1960s, Congress formalized that commitment into law. Over 50 years later, however, our refugee policies are unrecognizable to the point of being almost meaningless. It is well-past time for a significant course correction.
• Today, the U.S. has needlessly made the administration of providing refugee protection confusing by creating two separate paths and processes: An alien overseas applies for refugee protection, while an alien at our border or inside the U.S. applies for asylum. 
• The fraud and abuse of America’s refugee and asylum protection systems have rendered our second most important immigration benefit — after U.S. citizenship — almost meaningless
• It is past time for Congress to end the fraud and decrease the backlogs so those who merit protection can receive it in an expeditious fashion, and those who are not eligible are quickly denied and removed.

Schedule an Interview: Lora Ries

By The Treasury Secretary’s Own Definition, We’re Back in Recession

• Last month, the Department of Commerce released troubling data on the anemic economy, showing that gross domestic income (GDI) shrank in the previous six months. 
• This is no surprise to half of Americans who believe we’re currently in a recession, but the data refute President Joe Biden’s claim that the economy is “strong as hell.”
• Shrinking government means shrinking spending, and the debt-ceiling negotiations were a missed opportunity to accomplish both. But Congress will have another chance to reduce spending this fall when it comes time to pass appropriations bills.
• Conservatives in Congress should keep their eye on the prize: cutting government spending.

Schedule an Interview: EJ Antoni