The term derives from the spectacular implosion of Bud Light in the wake of its decision in March to enlist transgender social media influencer Dylan Mulvaney to promote the brand. Bud Light’s sales have plummeted, averaging weekly declines of around 25%. Parent company Anheuser-Busch InBev has lost more than $15 billion in value. Sales of rival brands have soared, even as many retailers have slashed prices for Bud Light. Some stores are even giving Bud Light away for free, or trying to.

I am very skeptical that the Bud Light example can be replicated over the long haul, but I’m convinced that we are entering a new era of Bud Lighting on the right and left.

First, some background. The most remarkable thing about the Bud Light boycott is that it worked, because boycotts usually don’t — if your definition of success is actually affecting sales and stock price in a significant way. PETA’s been boycotting KFC for 20 years to little or no effect. KFC’s biggest challenge hasn’t been from boycotters, but from rivals like Chick-fil-A, which has been going gangbusters despite facing plenty of boycotts of its own.

Why are there boycotts if they don’t work? Because the definition has changed. The goal is rarely to affect the bottom line but to hurt the reputation of the company and create headaches for management.

But even that is secondary. Most boycotts are what historian Daniel J. Boorstin called “pseudo-events,” also known as media events, which are, in Boorstin’s words, “produced by a communicator with the sole purpose of generating media attention and publicity.” A successful boycott is one that raises awareness or donations for the organizers. As Northwestern University professor Brayden King told the website Tasting Table, “The No. 1 predictor of what makes a boycott effective is how much media attention it creates, not how many people sign onto a petition or how many consumers it mobilizes.”

In other words, boycotts work for the boycotters even if they don’t work against their targets. Activist groups, on the left and right, have known this for years. The media attention provides fundraisers some evidence to donors that the group is doing something tangible.

My skepticism that the Bud Light example can be replicated stems from the particulars of the product and its market. Generic, cheap, low-calorie beer is a commodity easily replaced by competitors. What Bud Light sells is the brand. Whether you care about trans issues or not, if you’re even moderately concerned about getting grief from friends at a party, all you need to do is buy essentially the same product that’s social statement free and available right next to Bud Light at the store.

Moreover, unlike many other products, you display the brand when you consume it — it’s a visible choice. If you bought your shirt at Target, a recent focus of Bud Lighting for selling trans-friendly products, no one will be able to tell at the tailgate party. Replacing a Target shirt involves a lot more hassle and cost than replacing Bud Light.

Still, I think we’re going to see a lot more of this. In the short term, the Bud Light example is too exciting for “anti-woke” crusaders who have become rabidly anti-corporate. Once you develop a taste for takedowns, only more can satisfy. More broadly, the rise of the attention economy makes the incentives for these pseudo-events too attractive to ignore.

Besides, in a culture where everything is politicized, everything is, well, politicized. Bud Lighting is here to stay because boycotting has become a kind of reverse Veblen good. In economics, Veblen goods are things you buy not for their intrinsic worth but to display how much disposable income you have. A Marxist might call that “vice signaling.” Bud Lighting is a way to telegraph to the world the kind of person you are by what you won’t spend money on.

The lesson for corporations should be to become more conservative, not ideologically but fiduciarily. Although I don’t like some of the excesses already on display in the era of Bud Lighting, if it results in corporations retreating from politics in favor of their core mission — shareholder value — America will be better for it.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

What if there is no will, is there still a way? It doesn’t seem likely.

In Washington, will has come to die to paraphrase Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida and now Republican presidential candidate. Rarely is anything significant ever accomplished. That’s because for too many politicians solving a problem means they no longer have an issue with which to bash the other side. At a time when almost no form of behavior is considered a disgrace, the long, drawn-out scenario over the debt ceiling vs. cuts in spending is disgraceful. The debt alone is a disgrace. The battle over it is worse.

Everyone with an intellect lower than Einstein’s knows what should be done. A good accountant could come to Washington and fix everything, but the accountant would not be seeking re-election or in need of contributors and the support of his or her base. If you’ve never seen the movie “Dave,” watch it and see what I mean. The fake president invites his friend to the White House and in one 24-hour period they rid the government of unnecessary programs and balance the budget. Every member of Congress should be required to see the film and then to act in a similar fashion.

President Biden wants us to believe that cutting anything will mean the end of Social Security checks and benefits to veterans. It’s a lie. The waste, fraud and abuse over government spending is a scandal that has gone on too long. The problem is that too many people are addicted to government and at least the liberal politicians like it that way because they are the party of government and dependency is good for their careers, even if it is bad for those hooked on this subtle but powerful addiction.

As I noted in one of my previous books (“America’s Expiration Date”), no nation in history has ever been able to sustain itself with the amount of debt our government has incurred. It is approaching $32 trillion with interest greater than the GDP of other nations. Along with uncontrolled immigration and the destruction of what were once considered moral norms, we are rapidly headed for the same destination as great nations and empires of the past that failed to pay attention to foundational economic and moral principles.

There is no one to blame except the people who keep electing the politicians who have burdened us with this debt problem.

In the publication Foreign Policy, Daron Acemoglu and James A. Robinson write about the causes of decline and collapse of other nations: “What’s tragic is that this failure is by design. These states collapse because they are ruled by what we call ‘extractive’ economic institutions, which destroy incentives, discourage innovation, and sap the talent of their citizens by creating a tilted playing field and robbing them of opportunities.”

We destroy incentives by overtaxing the successful and subsidizing the unsuccessful, instead of helping the unsuccessful to become successful.

Then there is rampant crime which can be seen played out (along with homelessness) on some cable tv channels. Clearly this is evidence of an unraveling social structure. And let’s not forget – as President Biden has forgotten, or more accurately ignores – the fentanyl crisis, which has killed tens of thousands of Americans and counting.

If we have lost our will as a nation to define what’s right and to do it, then we have lost our way in a world that is increasingly being dominated by China, whose president, Xi Jinping, may have correctly diagnosed us as a nation in “decline.”

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).

However, if schools do cover that topic, you also kind of wonder if a lot of students didn’t pay attention during the lesson or forgot what was taught.

We raise that point after reviewing the results of a survey focusing on Memorial Day that was conducted in 2020 by OnePoll for the University of Phoenix.

The survey of 2,000 Americans revealed that just 43 percent were aware Memorial Day is a holiday honoring those who died in service while in the U.S. Armed Forces.

Twenty-eight percent mistakenly believed Memorial Day was a holiday honoring all military veterans who have served in the U.S. Armed Forces — which is actually Veterans Day.

A third of respondents — 36 percent — also admitted to being unsure of the difference between Memorial Day and Veterans Day.

Granted, the OnePoll survey was conducted three years ago. But we don’t think public awareness about Memorial Day has increased dramatically since that time.

Unfortunately, the true purpose of Memorial Day seems to be overlooked every year, as many people focus more on the occasion being a holiday that marks the unofficial start of the summer season.

Plenty of people look forward to Memorial Day because they get a paid holiday from work, and can use their free time for having cookouts or heading to the beach or an amusement park for recreation.

Sadly, many of these same people never carve out time on Memorial Day to attend a community observance, where they could pay tribute to American military members who have died in service to the United States during peace and war.

Here are some of the Memorial Day ceremonies slated for May 29 in Lake, Geauga and eastern Cuyahoga counties:

• Eastlake will be hosting a service at 11 a.m. at the Boulevard of 500 Flags, located at 35150 Lakeshore Blvd.

• Perry area activities will take place at several times and locations. An initial program will be held at 9 a.m. in North Perry Village at Townline Park. Next, there will be a ceremony at 9:30 a.m. at Perry Cemetery on Center Road in Perry Township. Then at 11 a.m., the parade in Perry Village steps off at Harper Street, and marches along Main Street to the Perry Historical Museum. Finally, at 11:40 a.m., there will be a veterans recognition ceremony outside the museum.

• Kirtland will host a parade and ceremony at 11 a.m. in conjunction with Barber-Williams American Legion Post 609. The parade will march from Kirtland High School, 9150 Chillicothe Road, to City Hall, 9301 Chillicothe Road. A service will follow at the adjacent Kirtland Area Veterans Memorial.

• Euclid will start its events at 7:45 a.m. with a graveside service led by Euclid Joint Veterans Council at Euclid Cemetery, 20239 Concordia St., the city’s oldest cemetery. A parade, featuring more than 30 community groups, will start at 10 a.m. and go from Lakeshore Boulevard near Sims Park to Euclid City Hall on East 222nd Street.

• Mayfield Heights will hold a service at 10 a.m. in the City Hall East Parking lot, located at 6154 Mayfield Road. The event’s keynote speaker will be Tim Coffey, a combat airborne corporal of the 20th Engineer Brigade.

• Chardon Veterans of Foreign War Post 6519 will hold a ceremony at 11 a.m. at Chardon Municipal Cemetery, located at 201 Park Ave.

• Painesville will host a parade and ceremony in conjunction with American Legion Post 336. The parade will begin at 10 a.m. at Riverside Cemetery, 385 Riverside Drive, and march to Evergreen Cemetery, 501 E. Main St. After the parade, the American Legion will conduct a service at Evergreen Cemetery.

• In Munson Township, there will be a service at 8:30 a.m. at Maple Hill Cemetery, 13480 Auburn Road. The speaker will be Brigadier Gen. James R. Parry.

Make no mistake: Memorial Day is intended to honor those Americans who died in military service to our nation. Please take time to salute these people, who made the ultimate sacrifice to defend the freedoms that we enjoy today.

It was, in a word, bleak. It included “beating” China, Japan, and Mexico, the latter of which was sending drugs, crime and rapists to our borders, according to him. We should have taken Iraqi oil, he said. “Our nuclear arsenal doesn’t work,” he said. “Free trade is terrible,” unless you have a good negotiator, he said. “I would build a great, great wall on our southern border. And I will have Mexico pay for that wall,” he said.

He’d go on to say and do much worse. But even back then, it was clear that Trump didn’t care about the Republican Party, and he really didn’t care about conservatism.

That’s why early on Never-Trumpers like me were bearish on his candidacy — we knew he’d be really, really bad for the right. I used to say he wore the Republican Party like a rented tuxedo to get elected — and that afterward it would end up crumpled in the corner, wrinkled, soiled, stained, and full of cigarette burns.

We were right. In the four years that Trump was president, Democrats took the House, the Senate and the White House, and the Republican Party is now irrevocably tainted by Trump’s ugliest misdeeds: kids in cages, a rise in right-wing extremism, the spread of conspiracy theories and junk science, impeachments, an insurrection, election denialism, investigations, indictments.

Many Republicans don’t seem at all bothered by either the party’s continued losing or the reputation Trump has gained them, happy to double and triple down on unpopular MAGA policies and the cheap calorie culture wars.

And those who say they want to win again — like Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis — still don’t seem willing to dump the Trump detritus and return to conservative ideas and principles.

DeSantis has made being anti-woke his entire personality, and apparently hopes to coast through a primary touting very unpopular bans on abortion, books, curriculum, diversity programs, and more. Great plan, governor.

Former Ambassador Nikki Haley also talks about the future, and putting a fresh face on the Republican Party. That sounds good, but we’ve yet to hear exactly what parts of Trumpism she’s willing to jettison.

Even South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, the most likable and arguably the most principled of the bunch, plans to target evangelicals and Trump voters with his optimism, but those are two groups Trump has conditioned to ignore moral and intellectual conservatism and traffic increasingly in a politics of revenge.

Most analysts — and plenty of Republicans — seem to know that Trump can no longer win a national election. President Biden and DeSantis are banking on it. Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy recently pointed to the 2022 midterms as proof.

“The president’s kind of high profile endorsement of those candidates actually hurt those candidates, at least in the general election,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper. “So if past is prologue, that means President Trump is going to have a hard time in those swing states, which means that he cannot win a general election.”

And, according to sports betting sites, Biden still has the best odds in 2024.

But the real question is, can any Republican win a national election in the era of Trump, when Trumpism still looms large and courting Trump voters is a necessary exercise?

Some seem to think so. Bloomberg analyst Jonathan Bernstein writes in the Washington Post that DeSantis’s path could follow that of another political upstart who had a rocky beginning: Barack Obama.

“Obama didn’t have to compete with a former president, but he did face two strong candidates, senator and former First Lady Hillary Clinton, and former Sen. John Edwards, the 2004 vice presidential nominee.”

Of course, none of them had Trump to contend with.

Trump’s former press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, agrees that DeSantis can win, but suggests he should do so by running to the right of Trump:

“If I’m on the DeSantis campaign, I’m looking at this, and I’m saying, ‘Where am I to the right of Trump? I’m to the right of him on Disney and corporate America and fighting for our children; I’m to the right of him on abortion; I’m to the right of him on vaccination mandates.’ ”

Again, this might help him win a primary, but all of this is unpopular with a majority of voters. It’s an odd strategy to try to run as Trump-on-steroids.

So the big question remains: Does Trumpism make it impossible just for Trump to win? Or for any Republican? We’re about to find out.

S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.

Usually, it is gloom and doom, racism, white supremacy, claims that Republicans want to eliminate Social Security and the rest of the left’s depressing litany.

Scott chose a different narrative. Instead of talking about overcoming, he overcame. He said he had gone “from cotton to Congress” and embraced “victory over victimhood.”

How’s this for inspiration: “We live in the land where it is possible for a kid raised in poverty by a single mother in a small apartment to one day serve in the People’s House and maybe even the White House.”

Echoing Ronald Reagan, Scott added: “America is the city on the hill. I’m living proof that God and a good family and the United States of America can do all things if we believe.”

Predictably, he took some rhetorical shots at President Biden: “America is not a nation in decline,” but under the president he said, it has become “a nation in retreat.”

In 2020, Scott introduced a serious police reform bill. Democrats opposed it. Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill) used a racially charged word when he claimed Scott’s bill was a “token, half-hearted approach.” It was nothing of the kind, but the partisanship is so deep in Washington that neither side will give credit to the other for anything reasonable and workable.

Scott has said he believes “racism is alive,” but doesn’t dwell on it. Again, from his announcement speech: “When I cut your taxes, they called me a prop. When I re-funded the police, they called me a token. When I pushed back on President Biden, they even called me the N-word. I disrupt their narrative. I threaten their control. The truth of my life disrupts their lies!”

Scott has an impressive $22 million in campaign cash and some early endorsements, including Senate Republican colleagues John Thune and Mike Rounds. Thune calls Scott “the real deal.” Scott quotes the Bible from memory and has the cadence of some Black preachers.

The problem for Scott and other current and future GOP presidential candidates can be summed up in two words: Donald Trump. The former president has an enormous lead in every poll, but circumstances can rapidly change in politics. Trump’s current and future legal troubles might result in a loss of support, but his loyalists have not abandoned him yet, so it seems unlikely they will switch to someone else no matter what happens.

Scott seems disinclined to indulge in personal attacks, unlike Trump who demeans anyone opposing him and makes everything about himself.

During a town hall meeting at St. Anselm College in New Hampshire earlier this month, a questioner asked Scott about President Biden’s age and what some critics have said is his “frailty” and “mental fitness.” Scott didn’t take the bait, preferring to criticize the president’s policies: “I think he’s failing his job because he’s incompetent. I refuse to say it’s because he’s too old or he’s too frail. I think the bottom line is he has been co-opted by the radical left in his party. He ran as a uniter, he’s become a divider.”

Scott will do well on a debate stage and good performances will inevitably boost his name recognition. One of his core issues – school choice – ought to appeal to those inner-city voters who want to get their kids out of failing public schools. The question is whether those voters, who have largely voted for Democrats in the past, try something and someone different?

I give you the words of Max Homa from The Golf Channel: “If you keep doing what you are doing, you will keep getting what you’re getting.” He was talking about the right way to grip a club, but his statement would fit in Scott’s campaign.

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).

The first thing you should know is that Scott is one of the nicest guys in Washington. Capitol Hill Republicans and just about anybody who knows him likes him. Sincerely patriotic and devoutly Christian, Scott is most comfortable preaching, but he manages to avoid being preachy.

He does this mostly by leaning heavily on his own autobiography as a way to celebrate traditional values and show his gratitude for a country that made it possible for the grandson of a Jim Crow-era cotton farmer to become a United States senator — and possibly president. If you haven’t heard him tell these stories, you will, particularly if you live in any of the early primary states.

Scott will do his best to convince Republican primary voters that he deserves their vote. The better question is whether many of those voters deserve him.

In 2016, the GOP primaries had a belling-the-cat problem. In this parable, it’s in the interest of all the mice for someone to put a bell around the cat’s neck, but it’s not in the individual interest of any mouse to be the one to do it. For months after Donald Trump came down the Trump Tower escalator in June 2015, Republican contenders spent time and money destroying each other in the hope that someone else would take care of Trump and they’d reap the benefits.

There’s a lot of déjà vu in conservative circles, with people worrying about a replay of 2016. But it’s a different cat now.

Trump is not an insurgent, he’s the frontrunner. Convincing voters that a Trump presidency would be a disaster was possible in 2016. Convincing them he’d lose to Hillary Clinton was plausible (Trump ended up picking the lock on the Electoral College even though he received a smaller share of the vote in 2016 than Romney had in 2012).

But such hypotheticals don’t work anymore. Trump won in 2016, and he’s even convinced a lot of people that he won in 2020. His biggest fans didn’t think his presidency was a disaster, they actually think he made America great for a brief shining moment. And even Trump’s less committed fans don’t like it when Republicans criticize him. They have no problem with Trump slanderously comparing his opponents to child molesters or pedophiles, but criticizing Trump is off-limits.

This is the dilemma his opponents face. When Nikki Haley, the former South Carolina governor, announced she was running for president, she said, “I don’t put up with bullies. And when you kick back, it hurts them more if you’re wearing heels.” But when asked about a civil jury verdict holding Trump guilty of sexual abuse, her response was, “I’m not going to get into that.”

The point isn’t that Haley and all the others, save for Chris Christie, former New Jersey governor, who relishes a fight, are cowards for not going after Trump. They’d all throw the kitchen sink at Trump if they thought it’d work. But after years of institutionalized cowardice with regard to Trump, the Republican Party now has a sizable number of voters who like the worst stuff about Trump. They want the entertainment, the policy stuff is incidental. They enjoy watching Trump take the low road, and even those voters who might wince at some of Trump’s antics, still recoil at anyone making hay of it. Voter miseducation is real.

I’m not saying all of Trump’s most loyal voters are bad or deplorable people. But what a lot of them want from politics is bad and deplorable. Tim Scott is too good for these voters because he’s a good guy.

Ron DeSantis, Florida’s governor, is too good in another way. He’s betting that enough Republican voters want Trumpian policies, without the drama and the “culture of losing” that has cost the GOP dearly in every election since 2018. DeSantis isn’t heartwarming and emotionally reassuring the way Scott is. He’s tough and ideologically reassuring. From a conservative and partisan perspective, he’s been wildly successful as governor. But for voters who thought Trump’s drama was a feature, not a bug, DeSantis’ stolidness is a poor substitute for Trump’s self-indulgent chaos.

What Scott, DeSantis, Haley and the rest need are primary voters who think the party should stand for something more than a cult of personality, and that the presidency is more than a tool for self-aggrandizement and retribution.

Unless they know where to find a bunch of new such voters, they’re going to have to start reeducating the ones they have. And it’s getting late.

Jonah Goldberg is editor-in-chief of The Dispatch and the host of The Remnant podcast. His Twitter handle is @JonahDispatch.

Not only must DeSantis effectively introduce himself in these and other states, he must overcome former president Donald Trump’s large lead in the polls. The Real Clear Politics average of polls shows GOP voters favoring Trump 36.1 percent to just 19.9 percent for DeSantis.

Writing in The Washington Post, conservative columnist Ramesh Ponnuru says: “To convince Republican voters that Trump is a loser would thus require getting them to believe that the same argument everyone made (in 2016 that he was unelectable) and saw blow up in their faces is right this time. For many conservatives, Trump’s 2016 victory reinforced the idea that “electability” is a ploy used by the media and squishy Republicans to discredit candidates who are willing to fight for them.”

If DeSantis can withstand Trump’s attacks – pro-Trump PACs are already running ads saying as a congressman DeSantis tried to cut Social Security and Medicare (in fact he proposed, but didn’t vote for – raising the retirement age to 70 to help preserve Social Security) – he must convince Trump voters he can finish the job Trump started without the chaos that accompanies the former president.

How to do this? One way would be for DeSantis to follow the example of then-Texas Governor George W. Bush. After announcing in 1999 he would run for president, Bush invited experts in the field of foreign and domestic policy to come to Austin and school him in the things he believed he needed to know. This conveyed to voters he was a serious candidate and should not be judged solely as his father’s son.

I doubt any credible advisers would do the same for Donald Trump, much less work for him given the chaos surrounding his one term in office. Does anyone except his most ardent supporters think Trump should be left to his own devices without the advice and restraint from experienced advisers?

Second, DeSantis needs to up his game when it comes to communicating with people. I hate to use myself as an example, but I have tried for two years to get an interview with him and have been ignored by his communications office. They appear to be controlling his access to the media, preferring mostly the friendly atmosphere of Fox News. He needs to change that and face the predictable (for a Republican) hostile and biased questions from the national media to show he is more than a fighter (the reason many pro-Trump voters say they support him regardless of his numerous character flaws). If I am not alone in this complaint, DeSantis has a problem.

Third, DeSantis must figure out a way to respond to Trump’s name-calling and other attacks without descending to his level. If he gets in the mud with Trump he will not come out clean.

Finally, DeSantis must articulate a vision for the future. While Trump continues to wrongly obsess about the last election being “stolen” from him, DeSantis can say we should leave that behind and focus on tomorrow.

While Floridians know him well, the rest of the nation is just being introduced to him. As Will Rogers said, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.”

Readers may email Cal Thomas at tcaeditors@tribpub.com. Look for Cal Thomas’ latest book “A Watchman in the Night: What I’ve Seen Over 50 Years Reporting on America” (HumanixBooks).

Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Michael C. O’Malley announced May 17 that a Cuyahoga County grand jury returned an indictment charging 11 individuals on counts including engaging in a pattern of corrupt activity for allegedly breaking into 26 car dealerships and stealing vehicles in Northeast Ohio.

Makilin Wilson, 20; Rasheed Rountree, 21; Kyer Allen, 19; Dahmere Lymon, 19; Willie Hicks, 22; Ty’aun Williams, 20; Theon Avery, 20; Shaakir Maddox, 21; Arthur Robinson, 21; Laejuan Robinson, 18; and Cory Phillips, 18, are facing charges, according to a news release.

“These 11 men operated a criminal organization that targeted multiple dealerships in 11 counties across Northeast Ohio,” O’Malley said. “Their crime spree caused significant damage to the dealerships they hit, the people they affected, and the communities surrounding them. I would like to personally thank the great efforts of the 34 law enforcement agencies that took this group out of commission. They will be held responsible.”

From Nov. 2  to March 17, the men broke into 26 car dealerships and three apartment complexes in 27 cities in 11 counties and stole 86 vehicles with an estimated value of $5.1 million, according to the release.

A total of 32 incidents occurred at 26 dealerships — some dealerships were broken into multiple times — and three additional incidents occurred at three different residential complexes, the release said.

In some instances, the defendants used the stolen vehicles to commit violent crimes, including an assault on a peace officer Jan. 5, and a drive-by shooting Feb. 14, according to the release.

Additionally, in some instances, the police officers responded to the scene at the car dealerships and the defendants led the officers on high speed pursuits, the release said.

The investigation was conducted by 34 local, state and federal law enforcement agencies including: Cleveland Division of Police; and police departments in Euclid; Parma; Strongsville; Bedford; Solon; Brooklyn; Middleburg Heights; Norton; Akron; Copley; Canton; Alliance; Ashland and Chardon.

Other agencies that were involved include police departments in Dalton; Wooster; Malvern; Willoughby; Mentor; Painesville; Medina Township; Brunswick; Ravenna; and county sheriff’s offices in Geauga; Medina; Lake; Carroll; and Ashland.

In addition, assistance was provided the Ohio Attorney General’s Bureau of Criminal Investigation; Federal Bureau of Investigation; and the U.S. Marshals Service.

Eleven counties were affected.

In Cuyahoga County, the nine cities were Cleveland, Parma, Mayfield Heights, Strongsville, North Olmsted, Bedford, Solon, Euclid and Brooklyn, according to the release.

At the seven dealerships and three residences, 32 cars were stolen with an estimated value of $1.56 million, the release said.

Two cars were stolen in Lorain County from an Amherst dealership with a value of over $71,980, according to the release.

In Lake County, thieves stole seven vehicles from dealerships in Willoughby, Mentor and Painesville for a total of $340,164, the release said.

In Geauga County, the culprits stole three vehicles from a Chardon dealership with a total value of $218,710, according to the release.

Medina, Wayne, Portage County, Ashland, Stark, Summit and Carroll counties also were listed with vehicle thefts, the release said.

The 86 vehicles that were stolen and led to charges in the indictment include four Dodge Chargers, 14 Dodge Challengers, one Cadillac, 12 BMWs, one Jeep Wrangler, two Ford Mustangs, 10 Jeep Grand Cherokees, five Land Rovers, one Range Rover, 14 Mercedes Benzes, four Audis, two Dodge Rams, one Jeep Compass, one Chevrolet Tahoe, one Ford Expedition, one Kia K5, seven Dodge Durangos, one Porsche, two Jaguars, one Lexus and one Volvo.

With cooperation from prosecutor’s offices in the counties of Lorain, Lake, Geauga, Medina, Wayne, Portage, Ashland, Stark, Summit and Carroll, the Cuyahoga County Prosecutor’s Office elected to proceed with jurisdiction, the release said.

In conclusion, The News-Herald applauds the law enforcement agencies and prosecutor’s offices for working diligently and cooperatively to help put the brakes on a crime spree that took a toll on many auto dealerships throughout the region.

Or maybe not.

Last week, the National Assessment of Educational Progress — the nation’s “report card” — released the results of standardized tests given last year to eighth graders across the country on civics and history. Turn away if you seek to avoid depressing news.

Just 13% of students met proficiency standards in history, meaning “they could explain major themes, periods, events, people, ideas and turning points in the country’s history,” according to The Wall Street Journal. About 20% reached proficiency in civics.

In other words, only a small percentage of American kids poised to enter high school probably would be able to identify more than two errors in this essay’s lead sentence, if they could identify any of the obvious mistakes at all.

The scores were the most miserable on record for a test that has been in existence for decades. In fact, students scored worse on these two subjects than in any other areas, including reading and math. “These data are a national concern,” Peggy Carr, commissioner of the National Center for Education Statistics, told reporters. “The health of our democracy depends on informed and engaged citizens.”

Various interests pointed fingers in an effort to place blame for this dismal development. The pandemic was an obvious culprit, and no doubt didn’t help. James Grossman of the American Historical Society cited “the falling quality of history and civics lessons taught in American schools, which has been fueled by political acrimony,” the Journal reported.

Fair enough. But acrimonious battles over curricula involving politically controversial issues such as race are meaningless to kids when they lack the basic facts upon which to build a foundation that supports critical thinking and leads to the examination of more complex — and even contentious — subject matter. The great failure of this nation’s public school system is that students aren’t learning even elementary skills when it comes to reading and mathematics or even the simplest of facts in terms of history and civics.

The current push to ensure students are exposed to a more complete and robust view of this nation’s history — warts and all — is wise and worthwhile. Yet it makes little sense if kids don’t first develop a grasp of the fundamentals before moving on to more challenging subject matter.

Las Vegas Review-Journal./Tribune News Service

As Republicans venture further off into the extremes, pushing regressive and unpopular culture war policies, Democrats have made the most of the GOP’s missteps.

In three consecutive election cycles — 2018, 2020, and 2022 — Democrats have successfully cut into Republican legislative margins, taking back the House, the Senate and the White House, and making a pretty convincing argument that a majority of voters are turned off by the right-wing radicals and MAGA messiahs leading the GOP.

No issue better encapsulates the left’s political advantages than abortion, where a majority of Americans are with Democrats, not Republicans.

Thus far, Dems have played it smart, letting the right hang itself by pushing abortion bans and punitive prohibitions, even in states where those laws are not popular. But just as they’re racking up the wins, it seems as if Democrats might be getting greedy. And they’re in danger of blowing an important political opportunity.

A number of Democratic state lawmakers and abortion rights advocates are pushing to repeal laws that require minors to notify their parents if they are going to have an abortion, according to a new report in Politico. Nearly three-quarters of states, including where Democrats have majority control, have such laws requiring parental permission or notification.

Bills to repeal these laws are being introduced in Minnesota, Oregon, Michigan and elsewhere, and it’s creating a divide in the party. Some on the left believe that this idea is a good countermeasure to the right’s aggressive restrictions, merely another example of the Democrats’ commitment to expanding abortion access where Republicans are limiting it.

As Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker said in 2021 when he repealed the law: “With reproductive rights under attack across the nation, Illinois is once again establishing itself as a leader in ensuring access to health care services.” But others on the left worry that this is a political loser that will turn off voters who are otherwise sympathetic to the abortion rights position.

Abortion rights groups in several states told Politico they wouldn’t even try to repeal parental involvement laws, but focus on other efforts to expand reproductive rights. The latter group has every reason to be concerned.

Polling shows repealing these laws is very unpopular — a Pew Research poll from 2022 found there was 70% support for requiring parental notification, 57% among Democrats.

In Illinois, where Pritzker abolished the requirement, a whopping 78% of voters favor parental notification, begging the question, Who was this for?

Pushing unpopular laws on voters, including in your own party, is a political bridge to nowhere, an unforced error and totally unnecessary, especially when you have the wind at your back, as Democrats do on this issue.

They also risk running afoul of a parental rights movement that successfully galvanized new voters to the Republican Party in previous election cycles. When Democratic candidate for Virginia Governor Terry McAuliffe said in a debate in 2021 that parents shouldn’t have a role in setting public school curriculum, Republican Glenn Youngkin was all too happy to ride the serious misstep all the way to the state house.

Abortion advocacy groups like Planned Parenthood also risk sounding extreme on the issue, even telling girls how to legally attempt to bypass parental involvement laws.

Not surprisingly, the right is jumping on this obvious overreach. “[W]e’ve conducted polling and we know for a fact that this is something parents are concerned about,” Amy Natoce of Protect Women Ohio told Politico. “This isn’t a Republican or Democratic issue.”

Not only is repeal unpopular, it’s also an unnecessarily extreme version of an already-existing solution. In some states doctors can exempt minors from parental notification and consent if they believe that would jeopardize the patient’s physical or mental health.

While Republicans are seriously out of touch on abortion — passing a 12-week abortion ban in North Carolina in spite of the fact that most North Carolina voters oppose it — the far left is extreme too.

Since 1976, the first year Gallup started polling abortion in the United States, attitudes have remained practically fixed.

The majority position of Americans has always been that abortion should be legal, with some restrictions. Beliefs that abortion should either be legal or illegal in all circumstances have always been in the minority.

This should be a warning to both parties as they consider where to go in an era without Roe. Most Americans are firmly in the middle.

There’s such a thing as “too far,” a line Republicans have been crossing with increasing regularity — and paying the price. Democrats, on the issue of parental consent, shouldn’t risk making the same mistake.

S.E. Cupp is the host of “S.E. Cupp Unfiltered” on CNN.