Thursday, October 28, 2021

Teaching Children to Recognize Propaganda

Regardless of whether our children go to public, private, or homeschool, they will inevitably be exposed to propaganda. So how do we educate our children—and our own selves in the process—to think and wield the sword against this enemy? A few ideas come to mind.

Annie Holmquist Intellectual Takeout  "When the pandemic hit, school went online and learning seemed to be thrown to the wind. As the pandemic stretched on, many teachers were loath to return to the classroom because of apparent COVID fears. Parents began to question whether teachers were really concerned about or eager to foster their children’s learning, especially as they could see the learning loss that was happening … or rather, the learning that often wasn’t happening at all.

" 'Such fears were groundless, according to Cecily Myart-Cruz, head of the powerful United Teachers Los Angeles union. Myart-Cruz scoffed at the idea of learning loss in a recent interview with Los Angeles Magazine, claiming:

It’s OK that our babies may not have learned all their times tables. They learned resilience. They learned survival. They learned critical-thinking skills. They know the difference between a riot and a protest. They know the words insurrection and coup."

"To the discerning reader, it’s apparent that Myart-Cruz could have stated the above much more succinctly by saying, “Our babies learned propaganda.”

"And in fact, they have been learning that propaganda for many years. Unfortunately, we looked away, convincing ourselves that such propaganda was only in big districts such as Los Angeles, or New York, or Chicago, not in our own local, Middle American neighborhoods. For years we kept our children in those schools, convincing ourselves they were safe, that their teachers and the curriculum they were studying were teaching them good things. That those good things would prepare them for living in the free world, able to embrace truth and recognize error immediately." . . .

I'm gender dysphoric and my pronouns are...

Abigail Shrier in Imprimus    "In 2007, America had one pediatric gender clinic; today there are hundreds. Testosterone is readily available to adolescents from places like Planned Parenthood and Kaiser, often on a first visit—without even a therapist’s note. 

"How did we get to this point? How is it that we are all supposed to pretend that the only way you can know I’m a woman is if I tell you my pronouns? How did we get to an America in which a 13-year-old in the State of Washington can begin “gender affirming” therapy without her parents’ consent? How did we get to an America in which a 15-year-old in Oregon can undergo “top surgery”—elective double mastectomy—without her parents’ permission? And what can we do about it?". . .

. . ."The Court examined the medical protocols applied to Keira Bell—protocols identical to the ones we have in the United States—and was horrified that a young girl had been allowed to consent to begin a process of eliminating her future fertility and sexual function at an age, 15, when she could not possibly have gauged that loss.

"Hailed as a “landmark case” by The Times of London, The Economist, and even The Guardian, Bell’s victory was widely viewed as a serious condemnation of the effort to fast-track teen girls to gender transition. One of the appalling things the Court noted was that the national gender clinic had been unable to show any psychological improvement in the adolescents it had treated with transitioning hormones." . . . 

Is Jill Biden asking about a 'process' for removing Kamala Harris?

Monica Showalter  "It's been known for awhile that the honeymoon between Joe Biden and Kamala Harris has pretty much congealed.

"In August, Kamala Harris was reportedly asking about how to get rid of failing old Joe:

Jill Biden Inquiring How to Remove Sitting Vice President: Jack Posobiec Reports


. . . "Not only is Harris not doing her job, she's not even been appearing with Joe at his major speeches anymore. She's refused to appear at several critical ones --- see the tweets on this item here. What's more, Joe's copious praise of her hasn't been heard for months. No more talk about a 'co-presidency.' No more talk about Kamala being the last person in the room -- seems she's not in the room at all." . . .

. . ."Last September, she announced a high-level meeting of U.S. and Mexican officials, which presumably, she'd either lead or be a part of. Somehow, she didn't go, even though the issues she'd put forward as border czar -- such as root causes of illegal immigration -- were on the table. It might have been a matter of her own laziness in not wanting to do her job, which we've seen repeatedly from her. But it also may have been that the Bidenites didn't want her going there. . . "

Still want to name your dog "Tony"?

 

https://www.terrellaftermath.com/

PETA is down on Doc Fauch!

Fauci under fire from lawmakers after reports of US taxpayer money spent on cruel drug experiments on dogs  Even the masters of the Gulags think Fauci was cruel!  . . . "Dubbing the controversy ‘BeagleGate’, WCW said US-funded research at the Tunisia lab involved drugging puppies and locking their heads in mesh cages filled with hungry sand flies to infect them with disease-causing parasites. Researchers also locked beagles in cages overnight in the desert to use them as bait to attract sand flies.

"The aim was to test an experimental drug on the diseased beagles. The dogs were six to eight months old, and they were all killed and dissected upon completion of the tests, according to WCW. NIAID-backed research at the University of Georgia involved injecting beagles with experimental vaccines and infesting them with parasites, the group has said.". . .

Tony Branco

This brings up memories of NFL's Michael Vick raising  fighting dogs.



https://www.americanthinker.com/cartoons/

Are Vaccine Mandates For Kids Next?

 

Issues & Insights  "It goes without saying that parents almost always know what’s best for their kids. But the FDA and woke officials in the White House and Congress don’t agree. They intend to force COVID vaccines on your kids, whether you like it or not. Don’t let them. It’s politics, not science.

"In a desperate bid to find more COVID victims to save with experimental vaccines, the Federal Drug Administration just gave the Pfizer anti-COVID vaccine “emergency use” authorization for children aged 5-11. Get ready for a big propaganda push.

"The unanimous vote by the 17 members of the FDA’s Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee wasn’t without misgivings, though.

“ 'It is reassuring to me that we are giving a lower dose,” said Dr. Paul Offit, head of the Vaccine Education Center at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. The dose is a third of the full adult load.

“ 'I am just worried that if we say yes, then the states are going to mandate administration of this vaccine for children to go to school and I do not agree with that,” added Dr. Cody Meissner, a professor of pediatrics at Tufts University School of Medicine. “I think that would be an error at this time.” 

“ 'One big issue was the theoretical risk of myocarditis – an inflammatory heart condition,” a CNN news story noted. “It’s been seen in some people who got Pfizer and Moderna vaccines and is more common among young men, although it’s usually mild. Not enough young children were tested to show whether they’re also at risk.” (Emphasis ours.)". . . 

'Any man who takes six months of leave for a newborn is a loser': Silicon Valley tech entrepreneur slams Pete Buttigieg for taking paternity leave and says 'correct masculine response' is for men to 'work harder to provide for kids' future'

Hey, that guy said it; not me. Didn't someone comment that Pete was gone and nobody noticed? TD

 UK Daily Mail  "A Silicon Valley venture capitalist says that men who take six months of paternity leave are ‘losers’ and that ‘in the old days men had babies and worked harder to provide for their future’ which was ‘the correct masculine response.’

"Joe Lonsdale weighed into the raging debate sparked by Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s decision to take paternity leave after he and his husband, Chasten, welcomed adopted twins into their family.

"Buttigieg was criticized for taking paid time off while the country continues to suffer from the effects of a major logjam at ports that has exacerbated the supply chain crisis."...

"Buttigieg, 39, has been on paid leave since mid-August to spend time with his family. 

"Lonsdale, a co-founder of global software giant Palantir Technologies and current managing partner of 8VC, was reacting on Wednesday to a segment on Joe Rogan’s podcast, which is streamed daily on Spotify.

"Rogan agreed with Lonsdale’s view that men should not be entitled to paid time off to spend with their newborn children.". . . 

Give the Dog Narcan

Getty Images

 Ann Coulter  . . . "As he painstakingly documents, these new drugs, fentanyl and P2P meth, are produced almost entirely in Mexico, then distributed to every corner of the U.S. through a ready-made network of immigrants -- legal, illegal and anchor babies. But Quinones seems unable to mention that Mexico is drowning our country in these poisons -- without reminding us that legal pain pills paved the way! (I thought we were supposed to sneer at "gateway drugs" like marijuana, as a scare tactic out of "Reefer Madness."). . .

. . . "Step 1: Prevent Americans from getting addicted to drugs in the first place. Prosecute the Sacklers to the ends of the Earth -- but also build a wall, deploy DEA agents at every entry point and execute drug dealers, with alacrity and enthusiasm.". . . 

"Quinones says walls won't work. I don't know. They work pretty well everywhere else, and a wall is sure better than what we have now, which is nothing. By contrast, lavishing gobs of resources on the rehab industrial-complex has been tried over and over again -- and failed over and over again."

"Whatever the solutions, anyone who wants a gripping account of the scourge that killed 93,331 Americans in 2020 alone has to read this book, out Nov. 2." . . .


Wednesday, October 27, 2021

Victor Davis Hanson Calls Higher Education the ‘Ground Zero of Woke’

“Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us.”  Victor Davis Hanson has written a new essay in which he diagnoses much of what’s wrong with higher education and how it is affecting the country.  From American Greatness:

Legal Insurrection

"Many of our once revered and most hallowed institutions are failing us. To mention only the most significant ones: our top-ranking military echelon, the leadership of our federal investigatory and intelligence agencies, the government medical establishment—and of course the universities.

"For too long American higher education’s reputation of global academic superiority has rested mostly on the sciences, mathematics, physics, technology, medicine, and engineering—in other words, not because of the humanities and social sciences, but despite them. The humanities have become too often anti-humanistic. And the social sciences are deductively anti-scientific. Both quasi-religious woke disciplines have eroded confidence in colleges and universities, infected even the STEM disciplines and professional schools, and torn apart the civic unity of the United States. Indeed, much of the current Jacobin revolution was birthed and fueled by American universities, despite their manifest hypocrisies and derelictions.

"Never in U.S. history have elite universities piled up such huge endowments, which soared during the lockdown. Harvard has $40 billion, Yale $30 billion, Stanford $28 billion, Princeton $25 billion and so on. The tax-free income from these huge sums ensures equally extravagant budgets that are somewhat insulated from market realities—at least in the sense that the larger endowments grew, the more likely university costs rose beyond the annual rate of inflation, and the greater aggregate student debt rose.

"Just as importantly, spending per pupil is rarely calibrated to whether graduating students leave better educated than when they arrived—the ostensible purpose of universities. ". . .   Read the whole thing.

Does Alec Baldwin Deserve Decency?

Does Baldwin deserve decency now? In the spirit of Christian charity or "shared humanity," yes. But armed with the memory of Baldwin's long record of indecency, that would be extremely kind and merciful.

Townhall  "It was probably the worst day of Alec Baldwin's life when he accidentally shot and killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie "Rust" on Oct. 21. It's a time to feel terrible about a 42-year-old woman with a husband and a young son.

"Then, CNN's Jake Tapper used it in one of his commentaries to denounce the entire


Republican Party for making this tragedy an occasion for jokes. "There's something about our politics right now that is driving people away from our shared humanity."

"Tapper was upset that Rep. Lauren Boebert recalled a tweet from Dec. 5, 2014, where Baldwin wrote, "I'm going to make bright, banana yellow t-shirts that read 'My hands are up. Please don't shoot me.' Who wants one?" This was about the false claim that Michael Brown said "Hands up, don't shoot" in Ferguson, Missouri in August 2014, when, in reality, Brown was reaching for a policeman's gun.

"But Baldwin's commentary on shootings is much worse than that. In a Feb. 17, 2006, blog post on The Huffington Post about Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shooting his friend (nonfatally) during a hunting trip, Baldwin had no decency. "Cheney is a terrorist. He terrorizes our enemies abroad and innocent citizens here at home indiscriminately. Who ever thought Harry Whittington would be the answer to America's prayers. (?) Finally, someone who might get that lying, thieving Cheney into a courtroom to answer some direct questions.". . .

CNN Host Angry Conservatives Don't Trust the Media, But Here's a Few Examples Why

 RedState   "It wasn’t that long ago that CNN was falsely trying to tell you that Joe Rogan was treating his COVID-19 sickness with horse de-wormer and now a host on the same network is complaining that the right is somehow in the wrong for not believing the media.

"This is, of course, right after they dedicated a segment advocating that the mainstream media should, indeed, discriminate against the right when it comes to reporting.

"To give you some background, the drama started when Florida Governor Ron DeSantis appeared on Fox News and told Maria Bartiromo that the corporate media lies its head off that it’s pretty much a given at this point to not believe much of what they say.

"This apparently upset the host of CNN’s ironically named “Reliable Sources,” Brian Stelter, who began ringing the alarm bell about the “GOP’s anti-media streak and made it seem as if people should be aghast that a leader of conservatives should be telling conservatives that the biased media controlled by the left lies about conservatives.". . . 

'Serious enough for you now, Barack?' Furious parents tell Obama to apologize to vindicated couple and their daughter, who judge finds WAS raped by a boy in a skirt in school bathroom, after he called it 'fake outrage'

 UK Daily Mail  "Furious parents and conservatives have told Barack Obama to apologize to a Loudoun County, Virginia, couple and their daughter who was raped by a skirt-wearing boy in a school bathroom in May, after the former President called the row encircling it 'fake outrage' and a 'phony trumped-up culture wars'.  

"On Monday, juvenile court judge Pamela Brooks ruled that the boy - who has not been named - did force himself on the 15-year-old girl on May 28 in the bathroom at Stone Ridge High School in Leesburg, Virginia. 

"Loudoun County Schools hasn't commented on the verdict. Students walked out of their classrooms on Tuesday in a show of 'solidarity' for the victim. 


"Some stood in front of their school, chanting: 'Loudoun County Protects Rapists!' 

"The case drew national attention because the boy was wearing a skirt at the time and the girls' parents - Scott and Jessica Smith - said it was what they feared might happen more if Loudoun County Schools starts allowing boys into girls' bathrooms frequently as part of a progressive transgender policy. 

"Republican Gubernatorial candidate Glenn Youngkin has harnessed part of his education platform in the case, saying: 'What tragedy next awaits our children?'

" 'We should be doing more to support people who are educating our kids.'  "

On Sunday, Obama was campaigning for Youngkin's opponent - Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe - when he attacked Youngkin's general position on education, the Capitol riot, and policing. 

He said, in part: 'We don't have time to be wasting on these phony, trumped up culture wars. This fake outrage that the right-wing media peddles to juice their ratings. 

'The fact he's willing to go along with it, instead if talk about serious problems that affect serious people, that's a shame. That's not what this election is about. That's not what you need, Virginia.

Why Democrats' Scheme to Tax Unrealized Capital Gains Should Terrify You

"If I didn't receive or earn that money, with what do you expect me to pay the tax?"  That, in a nutshell, is the entire problem.


 American Thinker  "Our current secretary of the Treasury, Janet Yellen, is busy trying to find a way to tax wealth without calling it taxing wealth.  She has eyes on taxing unrealized capital gains.  What this means simply is taxing people for money they have not earned or received.  That's it in a nutshell.  That definition should leave even those who have never had a course in accounting or finance shaken.

"Not only is Janet Yellen considering this, but the Democrat party is on board as well.  Democrats claim that it is needed in order to pay for their agenda.  You know — the one that President Biden says pays for itself.  The idea of taxing you for the income you have not made is also a policy speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi proposes.  Apparently, there is some confusion here.

"Looking at this from my point of view, I recalled a picture of Casey Stengel, nicknamed "the ol' Professor," when he was the manager of the New York Mets in 1962 — a team considered the worst team to ever play in the major leagues.  He had his hat off and scratched his head with the caption: "Can't anybody here play this game?"

"Think about how absurd this idea is.  Imagine if an Internal Revenue Agent showed up at your house and said, we decided that you have to pay tax on the money you never earned.  Aside from how insane that sounds on the surface, one need only ask: "If I didn't receive or earn that money, with what do you expect me to pay the tax?"  That, in a nutshell, is the entire problem.". . .


David Ennocenti, is a retired accountant and graduate of the State University of N.Y. at Buffalo, School of Management with a degree in accounting and finance.  He passed the CPA Examination in 1983.  His writing has appeared in  American Thinker,  USA Today, The New York Times, and several other publications.  His screenplay, Sniper Queen, was an official selection of The Artemis Women in Action Films Festival.  He is a past winner of the Writer's Digest Annual Competition.