In 2008, Congress unanimously approved the Inspector General Reform Act to promote political independence of agency watchdogs and discourage outside interference with their duty to combat fraud, waste, abuse, and misconduct. This law followed a handful of cases that involved inspectors general pulling their punches when investigating George W. Bush administration officials and generally mismanaging their offices — issues that I investigated at the time.

Last fall, with everyone fully employed, our current mess was almost unimaginable. Yet today, with so many out of work again; the pandemic and related economic downturn; the stock market crash; George Floyd’s death and the resulting demonstrations and riots, our potential personal and national futures have come into clearer focus, and they aren’t pretty.

The battle on the national stage between the media and the president is not a new phenomenon. We’ve all seen the tense exchanges at press conferences which then spin off to tweets from each of the opposing sides: the reporter tweets that they’re attacked by the President and he tweets that they are “fake news.”

According to a poll conducted in April of this year, 64% of Americans support school choice, meaning the tax dollars designated for a child’s education should follow that child to a school of the family’s choice. And, in this unprecedented time, an interest in permanent homeschooling has soared, with 40% of families are more likely to homeschool their children or enroll them in virtual school after the end of the lockdown. Just this past week, USA Today released a poll showing 59% of families are more likely to homeschool.