Cross-Examination

• Will Georgia fall for ranked-choice voting? Following the Peach State’s second consecutive Senate seat runoff election, Georgia Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger offered some ideas to avoid having to hold future runoff elections. Georgia is one of only two states that require runoffs for both primary and general elections if a candidate fails to gain more than 50% of the vote. Hoping to mitigate the substantial cost of having to hold a runoff, Raffensperger proposed possible changes to Georgia’s election law, including lowering the needed victory threshold to 45% of the vote or adopting the controversial ranked-choice voting system. RCV advocates tout this system as effectively acting as an immediate runoff election because those who voted for a candidate who ended up in third place would have their second-choice votes tallied and applied to either of the two leading candidates. One obvious problem with such a system is that it effectively gives extra votes to some voters while affording just one to those who vote for either of the top two candidates. In other words, despite the claims otherwise, RCV does not equate to a true runoff election. Furthermore, the objection that a candidate could win with less than 50% of the vote is relevant only if there are only two individuals running. Since there are almost always several candidates running for the seat, the winning candidate gaining a plurality of the votes is less of a problem than giving some voters extra votes. RCV is a deceptively unfair and unequal election system that should be rejected. Hopefully, Georgians don’t buy into this canard.

Update: Raffensperger’s office pushed back on reports that he advocated ranked-choice voting. “Secretary Raffensperger has not endorsed any specific proposal or suggested otherwise,” said Raffensperger spokesman Robert Sinners.

• DOE’s nine million student loan “correction” letters: Last month, upwards of nine million people received letters from the Department of Education with a subject line that erroneously claimed their application for student loan debt relief had been approved. Despite appellate courts putting a hold on the implementation of Joe Biden’s executive order to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in federal student loan debt, the DOE sent letters to inform borrowers that their requests for debt forgiveness had been received. The DOE blamed the error on “a vendor” and is now sending out nine million “correction” letters. After blaming the vendor, a DOE spokesman asserted, “Communicating clearly and accurately with borrowers is a top priority of the department.” If the U.S. Supreme Court, which has taken up the case, sides with Biden, it will cost American taxpayers at least $240 billion over the next decade, and probably two or three times that much. Thus far, the DOE reports that it has approved 16 million out of 26 million applications for student debt cancellation.

• AAP CEO opposes parental rights: Recent comments made by American Academy of Pediatrics CEO Mark Del Monte came to light that should send a chill down the spine of every parent. Speaking at a virtual Child Health Advocacy forum hosted by the Oregon Pediatric Society this past April, Del Monte contended that parental rights were dangerous to children. “If you look at efforts to seek individualized permission … about curriculum decisions in school … or efforts to rollback child abuse protection or deny that there’s such a thing as abusive head trauma … or opt-out of public health approaches, from vaccines to masking to fluoride, you add up all of these things, even though they seem like different topics, what I worry about … is that it is a consistent and steady diminution of the rights of a child as a child,” Del Monte argued. He then asserted the false dichotomy that efforts to promote parental rights effectively turned back “100 years of legal developments around the rights of children.” He then equated the concept of parental rights to child abuse. Parental rights advocate Megan Brock warned: “For me, these words are chilling. Even suggesting the idea that the parental authority of loving, caring parents, a longstanding cultural bedrock, is not fundamentally beneficial to children but rather can jeopardize a child’s rights, is very shaky ground.” It’s the latest example of a leftist attack on the family as they seek to destroy America’s traditional value system.

Headlines

• Tillis-Sinema amnesty deal is dead (Townhall)

• Congress averts partial government shutdown with short-term funding bill lasting one week (Fox News)

• Fed raises interest rates half a point to highest level in 15 years (CNBC)

• Body cam footage of Paul Pelosi attack shown in court (Daily Wire)

• Gavin Newsom says California about to “break” amid flood of illegal migrants when Title 42 expires (Fox News)

• Biden admin weighs asylum ban in preparation for flood of illegal immigrants (Daily Caller)

• The curious timing of Sam Bankman-Fried’s crypto-bust (NY Post)

• FBI may have violated First Amendment with Twitter moderation requests (Fox News)

• Secret Service, ICE secretly coordinated with FBI to strip gun rights, emails show (Washington Examiner)

• Ron DeSantis unveils the first steps in his COVID-19 accountability plan (PJ Media)

• Dictionary.com’s word of the year is “woman,” though site is unsure of actual definition (Fox News)

• Teacher sues Ohio school district after being fired for refusing to use preferred pronouns (Daily Signal)

• Conservative women are happier than liberal women (Campus Reform)

• Iranian soccer player sentenced to death after protesting (NY Post)

• Policy: Senate Republicans shouldn’t cave and pass massive spending bill (Daily Signal)

• Humor: Government warns that with Elon owning Twitter, it will only control 97% of the media (Babylon Bee)

For more editors’ choice headlines, click here.