The Collapse of Reading in America.
July 9, 2026 from Atlantic Magazine @TheAtlantic: Americans were once members of a proudly literate society, but today, reading has declined across age groups, gender, and education levels. @rosehorowitch explores the reading collapse—and its effects on civilization: Click here for link to full July 8, 2026 Atlantic Magazine @TheAtlantic article: https://www.theatlantic.com/press-releases/2026/07/atlantics-august-cover-the-age-of-reading-is-over/687836/?utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share
SETH GROSSMAN: Civilization began with reading and writing and it ends when reading stops. We have the same DNA as Ice Age cavemen. They could not live comfortable, peaceful lives until they created a way for elders to efficiently transmit to their children, the elders’ wisdom and experiences. Swapping stories around the campfire did not transmit nearly enough. Radio, videos, and memes today are like swapping stories around the campfire then.
A culture of reading brought success to many Americans. For more than 2,000 years, Jews embraced a culture of reading and study. Many believe that this is why so many Jews succeeded in America. A culture of reading a study also brought success to many Chinese and Japanese immigrants to America.
My book, 1676 Project, explains how 350 years ago, Quakers in England and Huguenots, Protestants in France, also embraced a culture that promoted reading and scholarship. They also enjoyed wealth and influence, and were also hated and persecuted because of it.
Are Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey, and Saudi Arabia Helping America in the Middle East? Or do they benefit from our “Forever Wars” there?
On July 12, 2026, we asked Elon Musk’s GROK AI this question, and got this response: 
(Full response contains several more paragraphs of details.)
America went to war against Iraq in 1991 and 2003 to protect Qatar and Saudi Arabia, from the secular “National Socialist” regime of Saddam Hussein. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan were our key advisors in our war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Pakistan, Qatar, and Turkey are our key advisors and “mediators in our current war against Islamic Republic of Iran. The regime that now runs Iran follows a “12th Imam” Shiah (Shia) interpretation of Islam. Although they agree with the leaders of Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia on most teachings of Muhammad, they disagree who should rule the Islamic World and later the entire world. The leaders of Iran believe that ruler should be “the Twelfth Imam” who went into hiding roughly 1,300 years ago. The leaders of Iran claim that the “Twelfth Imam” will come out of hiding and rule the world when they destroy the “Great Satan” of the United States and the “Little Satan” of Israel. Pakistan, Qatar, Turkey and Saudi Arabia need America’s help because they are afraid on a “Twelfth Imam” Iran with nuclear bombs. However, they are also afraid of a powerful, prosperous, democratic Iran that rejects Islam. They benefit when America fights “forever wars” against Iran without changing it into a democracy.
Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic” that was once part of British India. It broke away from India after in 1947 because its leaders refused to be part of an independent country that did not have a large Muslim majority. They followed the aggressive and intolerant “Wahhabi” version of Islam taught by the Deoband school in India. Students of that school are commonly known as “Taliban.” Pakistan kept Osama Bin Ladin safe and comfortable for 15 years after he masterminded the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed more than 3,000 Americans. Pakistan has an atomic bomb and supports terrorist attacks against Hindus in India and Bangladesh. It gets massive financial support from Saudi Arabia and Communist China.
Qatar has actively supported the Muslim Brotherhood since the 1950s. Its Muslim Brotherhood chapter dissolved in 1975 because the Qatar government was doing its job. The Muslim Brotherhood was formed in Egypt in the 1920s to promote the aggressive and intolerant “Wahhabi” version of Islam that began with Wahhab and the Saudi family in Arabia during the 1700s. Hamas began as a “wing” of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood. According to Grok, Qatar supports the Muslim Brotherhood movement with money, a safe haven, and an international media network that includes Al Jazeera. Qatar has given $6.6 to $7.7 billion to colleges and universities in the United States since the late 1980s.
Above Image: Monument in Somers Point, New Jersey states that in 1804, Richard Somers “perished in an attempt to destroy the Turkish flotilla in Tripoli.”
Turkey was ruled by a Sultan of the Ottoman family and was known as the Ottoman Empire until 1922. In 1517, the Ottomans conquered Egypt and most of the Arab Middle East. The Sultan of the Ottoman Empire then ruled the entire Islamic World as its Caliph (Kalif). However, in 1922, the Sultan was deposed by “Young Turks” who hated Islam. However, Turkey has been ruled by Recep Erdogan since 2003. Erdogan has promoted aggressive, militant Islam in Turkey ever since. Many believe he wants Turkey to restore the Ottoman Empire and again take make its ruler the Caliph (Kalif) of the entire Islamic World (Ummah). Osama Bin Ladin often said that one of his most important goals was making Turkey a militant Islamic nation again.
Above Image: God’s Terrorists by British-Indian historian Charles Allen how the intolerant and violent “Wahhabi” cult began in Arabia in the 1700s and quickly spread to British India and Pakistan. It also explains how it inspired violent “Muslim Brotherhood” movements in Egypt, Gaza, and throughout the world.
Saudi Arabia is ruled by the family that created the aggressive and intolerant “Wahhabi” cult of Islam. The Saudi dynasty began when the daughter of Muhammad Wahhab, founder of the cult, married the son of Muhammad Saud, a Arab warrior chief. The Saudi family and their Wahhabi followers fought against the Ottoman Turks for more than 250 years until they finally took control of Arabia after World War One. The Saudi family and their Wahhabi followers dominated the Islamic world after the Standard Oil (S.O. or Esso) Company of America discovered oil in Arabia in 1938. Although Erdogan and his Turks and the Saudi led Arabs and Pakistanis support the same Wahhabi interpretation of Islam, the Turks and the Arabs each believe they rule the Islamic world.
The Saudi royal family has another problem. Although the Saudi family publicly promotes aggressive and intolerant “Wahhabi” Islam, many of its members openly enjoy the pleasures of western society in Switzerland and elsewhere in Europe. So far, the Saudis have maintained control by lavishly funding Wahhabi clerics, and by ruthlessly arresting, torturing and murdering opponents. One example was when the staff of the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey murdered Jamal Khashoggi, a Muslim Brotherhood journalist there in 2018.
Click Here or Above Image for Link to Full Post in PressofAtlanticCity.com.
Big Hikes in Health Insurance Costs for NJ Government Employees.
Obamacare was enacted in 2010 by Democratic President Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress. Not a single Republican voted for it. It was dishonestly named the “Affordable Care Act.” It was deliberately designed to force most Americans to pay far more for health insurance and medical care. Obamacare forced most Americans to buy insurance they did not want or need to pay for. It forced every American to buy insurance policies that covered:
Free medical care for millions of illegal “migrants.”
Abortions, sex-change operations and other “gender-affirming” drugs and surgery.
Drug and alcohol rehab and mental health counseling, therapy and other “treatment.”
“Wellness” visits and “free” health club memberships.
Routine doctor visits for minor colds, coughs, and minor cuts and bruises.
Massive fraud. Politicians d0n’t care if people steal “other people’s money” as long they have the support of the people people doing the stealing supported them.
Obamacare, and additional laws in New Jersey, make it illegal for companies to offer, and for consumers to buy low cost “major medical” insurance to cover only major injuries, illnesses, and surgery.
Obamacare forces doctors and hospitals to spend enormous amounts of money on new equipment, interpreters, and paperwork. This greatly increases costs. It forced many doctors to retire or close their clinics in 2014 and 2015.
Obamacare cleverly included massive federal subsidies to hide the true cost of the program until it was too late to stop it. Many Americans saw massive increases in their health insurance in 2014 and again in 2016. However, big federal subsidies allowed most Americans to pay less and support ObamaCare. Those subsidies were continued and expanded during the COVID pandemic. They greatly increased the federal debt and caused higher prices for everything. The last of those subsidies expired this year. That is why most Americans, including state and local government employees, are paying big increases for the first time, 12 years later. More double-digit increases are planned for next year.
Above Image: History of the “Major Medical” Insurance Plans That Gave Americans the Best Medical Care in the World for 90 Years. Click Here or Abov e Image for link to full post.
THE SOLUTION? Allow insurance companies to again provide affordable “major medical” insurance to cover. However, also let consumers and employers buy and pay for only the coverage they want and need from companies anywhere in America–not just New Jersey companies!
Ciattarelli and Republican allowed Murphy and Democrats to avoid blame for high electric bills.
Above Image: New Jersey Democrats falsely blame data centers and opposition to wind and solar subsidies for high electric bills. Click here for link to full post: NJ bills hit data centers, boost nuclear, solar power
In 2025, Jack Ciattarelli was the Republican candidate for Governor. At that time, New Jersey electric rates increased by 20%. The cause of this was obvious. Governor Murphy and Democrats shut down 6 of New Jersey’s most productive power plants. They refused to build new power plants with nuclear or cheap natural gas. They forced New Jersey to buy expensive electricity from hundreds of miles away. Jack Ciattarelli and other Republicans didn’t mention this in their expensive radio and TV ads. This allowed Democrats to falsely blame the rate increases on “data centers” and failure to build ocean wind turbines and more solar panels.
As a result, Governor Mikie Sherrill and Democrats in Trenton are now “cracking down on data centers” and pushing for more solar power. The “woke media” is helping them.
Last July 3, the Press of Atlantic City described “data centers” as “power guzzling.” However, it never described electric cars that way. The Press also failed to mention that electric rates increased by 20% last year before a single data center was built.”
The Press of Atlantic City also failed to explain the two main reasons Democrats oppose data centers. #1. The Communist regime in China knows that Artificial Intelligence using data centers is the key to efficiency, economic progress, and military power in the future. They are rapidly building new data centers and new power plants. They are funding propaganda campaigns to stop Americans from keeping up with them. #2. Artificial Intelligence makes most colleges, libraries, and their academic elites obsolete. With AI a teenager with basic literacy skills can duplicate the work professors with PhD’s.
For further reading:
Click Here for Link: Musk says AI will erase most skills but college is optional
Click Here for Link: AI driving ‘largest infra buildout in history’, needs trillions in investment: Nvidia’s Jensen Huang – The HinduBusinessLine
Solar and Wind electricity are the cause of high electric rates—not the solution. They are too weak, intermittent, unpredictable, wasteful and expensive to power a modern society. Homeowners with solar panels are not producing useful electricity—they are part of a money laundering fraud.
Homeowners with solar panels are told they are getting lower electric bills from the value of energy they produce. The truth is that they are paid by state and federal taxes and forcing everybody else to pay higher rates!
Click here or above image for link to full post: The Worst $ 50 Million Atlantic City, NJ Will Ever Receive
The State Legislature approved spending $50 million on a study to see if building a $3 billion convention center in North Jersey would impact the empty Boardwalk Hall and Convention Center we now have in Atlantic City.
This is classic socialism and “systemic corruption.” It is a perfect example of why most young people are disgusted with our Boomer generation.
When our part of New Jersey was created in 1676, government was designed to have limited “just powers.” It was designed to equally protect people and their property, peacefully settle disputes. It did other things only when people consented to pay government to do things that were not practical for people to do on their own—like build roads and bridges that everyone could use.
Government was never designed or permitted to run businesses.
Hosting meetings and conventions is a business that should be paid for and run by private companies.
In Florida, Marriott’s Gaylord, a private company, built a spectacular convention center and hotel in Kissammee near Orlando. It is busy and profitable and did not cost taxpayers a dime. On the contrary, it pays roughly $10 to $12 million each year in county, local, and school property taxes.
Atlantic City’s first Convention Hall on the Boardwalk was an exception. Before 1924, conventions in Atlantic City were hosted in private hotels and the Million Dollar Pier. However in 1924, Mayor Ed Bader persuaded Atlantic City voters to approve a plan to have city government borrow $1.5 million to build and operate a new Convention Hall on the Boardwalk at Mississippi Avenue.
Atlantic City is not declining because the government is not spending enough on its convention centers. It is declining because it has too many criminals and drunks, drug addicts and mentally ill people who are now called “homeless.”. We need to spend public money on new jails and mental institutions to keep them away from tourists. We especially need a new jail for dangerous teenage criminals.
The state is paying Atlantic Cape Community College $1.5 million dollars “to grow New Jersey’s pipeline of aerospace professionals.” There is a national shortage of certified air traffic controllers that has led to mounting safety concerns and flight delays.” Apparently, students who want to be air traffic controllers need a college degree before they can go to air traffic control school. Why? Doesn’t the military routinely train soldiers without college degrees to be air traffic controllers. That is why Liberty and Prosperity’s 11th Key Issue for 2026 is: “11. DON’T REQUIRE COLLEGE DEGREES FOR OTHERWISE QUALIFIED APPLICANTS.”
Atlantic City is buying a $1.6 million mobile command center called the Megatron for its police Department
It is paid for by borrowing money against a new $2 per day tax on every hotel guest in Atlantic City. If voters had their say, would they rather use this money to build new jails and mental institutions get criminals, and mentally ill and drug and alcohol addicted “homeless” off Atlantic City’s beaches, streets and Boardwalk?
City Council of Atlantic City just designated the Claridge Hotel as a “Historic Landmark.” The Claridge Hotel was built in less than one year at the beginning of the Great Depression during 1929 and 1930. It is 24 stories high and originally had 400 rooms. It is the tallest building in Atlantic City and is known as “The Skyscraper by the Sea.” The Chalfonte, the first brick and steel “skyscraper hotel” in Atlantic City was built in less than a year in 1903. Meanwhile, Eustace Mita has been unable to even get a building permit for a five story hotel in Ocean City after four years! New Jersey did not have any zoning laws until 1929. Because of the Great Depression, Zoning Laws were not widely adopted or enforced until the 1950s. Were cities and towns in New Jersey better and more affordable before we had zoning laws?
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