The Conservative Cave

The modern criminal no longer kicks down the front door. He logs onto a government website, steals someone else's identity — or even that of a deceased person — then creates a ghost student who never intends to attend class but collects thousands of dollars in federal financial aid, and disappears before the semester begins.

No shattered windows. No getaway car. No fingerprints. Just another transfer of taxpayer money from honest work to organized fraud.

The No Aid for Ghost Students Act of 2026, recently passed by the House of Representatives but awaiting final enactment, has received little public attention. That is unfortunate because it raises a far bigger question than student aid:

Does America still possess the moral confidence to defend what belongs to everyone?

Federal financial aid was created for a noble purpose. Pell Grants exist because Congress believed financial hardship should never prevent qualified students from receiving an education. That mission deserves defending.
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Organized criminal networks now exploit stolen and synthetic identities to create ghost students, siphoning millions of taxpayer dollars while legitimate students wait for aid, colleges drown in fraudulent enrollments, and innocent Americans spend years repairing stolen identities. In fact, the Department of Education reported 1 billion dollars stolen in Pell Grants in 2025.
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The No Aid for Ghost Students Act of 2026 does not presume every applicant is dishonest. It simply requires additional identity verification when applications display reasonable signs of fraud before taxpayer dollars are distributed.

Critics worry this could inconvenience legitimate students. That concern deserves thoughtful implementation. But prudence should never be mistaken for prejudice.

You saw it on CNN? You're a special kind of stupid

Celerity (55,659 posts)

Democratic Support for Israel Craters to Historic Low, New Poll Finds

https://www.algemeiner.com/2026/07/08/new-poll-reveals-support-for-israel-eroding-among-democrats/

Support for Israel among Democratic voters has fallen to its lowest level in years, according to a new Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research poll, underscoring a dramatic realignment within the Democratic Party as the aftermath of the war in Gaza continues to reshape US politics.

The survey found that a majority of Democrats now sympathize more with the Palestinians than with Israelis, while Republicans remain overwhelmingly supportive of Israel — one of the widest partisan divides over the US-Israel relationship in decades.

According to the poll, 56 percent of Democrats say they sympathize more with the Palestinian people, while just 14 percent say they sympathize more with Israelis. Among Republicans, by contrast, 71 percent say they are more sympathetic to Israel, compared with just 7 percent who identify more closely with the Palestinians.

The findings come nearly three years after the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on southern Israel by the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, in which approximately 1,200 people were killed and roughly 250 others taken hostage. Israel launched its military campaign in Gaza following the attack, saying its objective was to dismantle Hamas, free the hostages, and prevent another massacre.

The poll suggests Democratic voters have grown increasingly critical of Israel’s conduct during the war. Fifty-eight percent of Democrats now believe the United States is too supportive of Israel, up from 45 percent in an AP-NORC survey conducted in early 2024, while 53 percent say Washington is not supportive enough of the Palestinians — a continued shift away from the bipartisan consensus that defined US support for Israel for decades.

snip

Also:

Israel's favorability rating among Democrats fell from 59% in 2018 to 22% in May, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/skeptical-us-democrats-congress-urge-debate-israel-plans-2026-07-09/

MineralMan (152,194 posts)
1. I support the nationhood of Israel.
I do not necessarily support the actions of its government, though.

Two different things.

Stuckinthebush (11,230 posts)
4. Absolutely
The conflation of being anti-Israeli government at the moment with being antisemitic is troubling to me. I would say that many Democrats and Americans are anti-Netanyahu but pro Israel being a country and anti-antisemitic. Simply put:

I support the nationhood of Israel and their right to defend that nation
I support the people of Palestine having their right to exist as a separate nation without fear of slaughter by any other nation
I DO NOT support Hamas or their despicable actions
I DO NOT support any despicable actions toward civilians by the IDF in retaliation
I DO NOT support Netanyahu in his leadership of Israel and his actions in the region
I reject any action against Jewish people around the globe as either a response to Netanyahu's actions or as general hatred toward Jews
I reject any action against Palestinians around the globe as either a response to Hamas or general hatred toward Islam

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100221377522