Richard Cantillon

Abolish teachers unions.

Matt Yglesias (@mattyglesias) on Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Pritzker to me is just very much in the Gavin Newsom mold of a guy whose political experience is running a large blue state that most Americans don’t regard as a model of good governance. I get why a lot of highly partisan Democrats really enjoy Pritzker, but the whole point is to appeal to people who are not highly partisan Democrats. To be a solid candidate, he would need some kind of “Illinois Miracle” story to point to, where people and companies were moving to Chicago as a low-cost alternative to the overpriced coastal metropolises and Illinois public schools were leaping up the NAEP charts. But he doesn’t have a record as a visionary successful reformer or as a bipartisan “get things done” kind of guy.

"California has long depended on a small number of ultrawealthy taxpayers to fund a large share of its government. According to the Legislative Analyst’s Office, the top 1% of taxpayers generate roughly 40% of the state’s personal income-tax revenue." wsj.com/opinion/califo…

As a former progressive, this is absolutely accurate and caused me endless frustration with my co-partisans. They fundamentally don’t care if their ideas work. They hardly even have a concept of ideas working. Their entire evaluation function is based on social perception and emotionalism which is, in fact, profoundly selfish and unvirtuous. If you care more about feeling like/being seen as good than you do about results, you’re a selfish parasite. Hardly exclusive to the left, but it defines the leftist project in a way it doesn’t define any other political faction.

The moment the West decided evidence no longer mattered — if it got in the way of utopia. Melanie Phillips (former Guardian journalist): “Objective evidence was cast aside because it was too inconvenient. The very idea of reason and rationality was dismissed. All these ideologies — multiculturalism, lifestyle choice, deep green environmentalism, moral relativism — were utopian. They promised perfection. Anyone who brought facts against them wasn’t just wrong… they were evil.” Result? - Evidence became “right-wing” - Dissenters were bullied, ostracized, fired, threatened - The Guardian itself became the heart of this ideological machine… until she fell foul of it. When ideology is sacrosanct and the world must be perfected, facts become the enemy — and truth-tellers become heretics. Have you watched this shift in real time — where inconvenient evidence gets labeled “hate” or “misinformation”? Which sacred ideology do you think has done the most damage to open debate? Your honest take 👇

I care about Chicago's children. I've devoted my entire career to helping students, most of them Black, succeed through hard work and belief in themselves. Before every break, I tell them to enjoy their time off and stay safe. But I also tell many of them something no young person should ever have to hear: stay inside. Because in too many neighborhoods, stepping outside comes with real risk. And I'm tired of funerals. Tired of seeing young lives with so much promise cut short. I've lived this. One of my former students, Kevin Ambrose, went on to attend Columbia College Chicago. He was doing everything right. He was a beautiful soul. One day in 2013, while walking near a train, he was shot and killed. Not because he was involved in anything, but because we have monsters among us. I taught him. I taught his sister. I still think about them. Sheridan Gorman was a student. She wasn't my student. She wasn't Black. She wasn't living in a high crime area. And still, her life was taken. Somewhere, there are teachers who wish she had just stayed indoors too. That's not normal. That's not acceptable. Young people should not have to be afraid to go outside. It's not right that we continue to tolerate a system that prioritizes the rights of offenders over the safety of our students. Every young person deserves to feel safe in their own neighborhood. And as much as I've criticized the CTU, I would stand with them in protest if they demanded real accountability from our leaders and put student safety ahead of ideology. Governor Pritzker. Mayor Johnson. Do your jobs. Whatever it takes, fix this. No more excuses. No more lost lives.

“ Low-income students’ graduation rate rose by 12% between 2017 & 2025, for example, while their math scores declined by 5%” Lowering standards = fewer kids drop out That means more state funding The psyop these folks ran making this abt equity was masterful city-journal.org/article/boston…

@officer_Lew For everyone who doesn’t know, the reporter here who always asks Brandon Johnson exactly what citizens want to know, is the great @Williamjkelly.

@smithy05261244 Has been listed since as early as Jan 15, 2026, so not the portent that you may think it is. $ABVX

The plot thickens $abvx has very recently appeared as a client on the website of Image 7, France’s premier independent communications and public affairs firm specializing in M&A. As a key part of the H/Advisors network—ranked #1 in France for M&A communications by both deal count and value in Mergermarket’s 2025 rankings—they handle high-stakes financial comms, crisis management, and strategic ops for over 100 clients worldwide. Why would ABVX enlist these M&A heavyweights unless a takeover bid is looming? Abivax has long used Actifin as their primary PR agency in France for public relations and investor comms. So why switch or add these M&A heavyweights now unless a takeover bid is looming?

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

"One of the greatest threats to public education in Chicago is the union itself and its wrongheaded insistence that CPS focus on political activism over academics. Regular working people have to show up as a condition of employment — so should the CTU." "Reading, writing and math skills are what we’re guessing most parents would prefer their kids’ teachers to emphasize." As any reasonable CPS parent would, I expect my child to be in school on May 1st, learning reading, writing, and math skills.

The real story about Alysa Liu and Eileen Gu is not US vs China but wasians with Asian dads vs wasians with Asian moms

So Alyssa Liu has suddenly become a symbol of national unity for the US with the left seeing her as an immigrant/refugee success story and the right seeing her as a patriot for rejecting the CCP.

the teachers' union average salary is over $100,000 less than half the students are proficient in math

Mark Zuckerberg donated $100 million to Newark public schools. It was one of the largest philanthropic gifts to a school district in history. Of that $100 million, roughly $31 million, about 31%, had to go to the teachers union as essentially a payment to allow measures that would track teacher performance. Thirty-one percent of a gift meant for children went to the union as the price of being allowed to measure whether teachers were effective. That's not a bug in the system. That's the system working exactly as it's designed to work. Protecting itself from accountability is the primary function.

NEW: The Department of Justice has joined the Students for Fair Admissions lawsuit against UCLA medical school—and it managed to get its hands on UCLA’s MCAT scores broken out by race. In 2024, Hispanic matriculants only scored in 66th percentile. Asians scored in the 90th.

@Eric_Erins Even upright pianos are incredibly heavy and need at least four men to transport.

They don't want you to know this but Pianos are free

Because of @ChicagosMayor's "ideological decision," 74 people who otherwise may have received a CPD response have died. Where is @ChicagosMayor's "humanity?" chicagotribune.com/2026/01/23/edi…

I don't know how the fact the CTU essentially has two sets of financial books and may have committed crimes while being the biggest funder of progressive politicians and causes in Chicago is not a bigger story in "legacy media." The fact the CTU has hidden those figures from the public and their members should be front page news.

"Luxury beliefs are ideas or causes a genuinely privileged person espouses, safe in the knowledge that they’re insulated from their effects...America is awash with luxury beliefs: defund the police, legalise drugs, decriminalise shop-lifting etc." spectator.co.uk/article/the-lu…