McGuffey Maxims: How Character Was Central in the Past's Curriculum

 Intellectual Takeout

"May we all have the wisdom and discernment to determine whether the schoolbooks used by our children today are training them to grow in courage and character … or grovel and creep for the rest of their days."

"I was online the other day when I stumbled upon a little maxim from “The New England Primer,” the first textbook used by thousands of children in the early days of the American colonies. The lines ran as follows:

Have communion with few,

Be intimate with one,

Deal justly with all,

Speak evil of none.

"That’s some great wisdom for life, and considering that its concise and versified nature was instilled in young children whose minds are sponges at that stage, it’s likely they remembered the advice long into adulthood.

"I began wondering what other life wisdom was imparted to America’s children through their textbooks in the early years of our nation, so I dug up the first three volumes of McGuffey readers, some of the most well-known reading textbooks used in America’s one-room schools. Looking solely at the few “script” sections scattered throughout the readers – which were likely portions of text the students were supposed to copy out in order to practice their handwriting – I found the following pieces.

From the First Reader:

When the stars at set of sun

Watch you from on high,

When the morning has begun,

Think the Lord is nigh.

All you do and all you say,

He can see and hear:

When you work and when you play,

Think the Lord is near.

All your joys and griefs He knows,

Counts each falling tear,

When to Him you tell your woes,

Know the Lord will hear.

"What kind of lessons does this simple verse drill into the hearts and minds of the children who read it? First, it establishes the fact that God is a real being, showing personal care toward those He has created. It demonstrates that He is ever present, rather than aloof, seeing all that His creatures do and say and think and experience. And finally, it recognizes the value of human life and the special role each of us plays on earth." . . . More.

Annie Holmquist served as the editor of Intellectual Takeout from 2018 to 2022. When not writing or editing, she enjoys reading, gardening, and time with family and friends.

How the Left’s ‘White Adjacent’ Tactic Was Manufactured: Creating a political weapon

 American Free News Network  

"The real inflection point came in 2020. The protests following George Floyd’s death produced a surge in demand for anti-racism training and literature. Books by DiAngelo and Kendi topped bestseller lists, and “white adjacent” migrated from internal training material into op-ed and cable news vocabulary as convenient shorthand."

"In the summer of 2021, as the fight over Harvard’s admission practices moved toward the Supreme Court, a peculiar new term began surfacing in op-eds, DEI training decks, and cable news panels: “white adjacent.”

"The phrase sounded almost clinical, like a term of art borrowed from sociology. In practice, it did something far more consequential; it gave the progressive racial justice apparatus a way to explain away an inconvenient fact. Asian Americans, by nearly every measure of educational and economic development, were outperforming the racial group that critical race theory holds up as the chief beneficiary of American structure power, i.e., white people themselves. Rather than treat that data as a complication for the theory, “white adjacent” absorbed it. Success itself was blithely recoded for political reasons as evidence of racial complicity.

"The below analysis traces where the term came from, what ideological work it is built to perform, how it moved from law school seminar rooms into the Democrat-media-academia mainstream, and – most useful to constitutional conservatives – how it can be effectively countered by anyone unwilling to let identity categories be assigned to them by people with a political agenda.

Origination and Ideological Heritage

“'White adjacent” has no single author and no known clean coining event. It is better understood as a derivative of Marxist critical race theory (CRT), the legal-academic movement that took shape in the mid-1970s among scholars such as Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw, and Richard Delgado, who argue that civil rights-era legislation had failed to dislodge racists embedded in American law and institutions. The theoretical scaffolding most directly beneath “white adjacent” is law professor Cheryl Harris’s 1993 Harvard Law Review article “Whiteness as Property,” which argued that whiteness itself functions as a legal protected asset – something one can possess, and something that confers material advantage on those who hold it.

"From that foundation, “white adjacency” as a specific phrase emerged gradually across three overlapping channels through the 2010s: academic CRT writing on race and privilege, corporate and university DEI training curricula, and – perhaps most importantly – online Black community discourse, where the phrase was used to distinguish Black Americans from the broader “person of color” umbrella, on the theory that non-Black minorities were nominally “of color” but functionally shielded by proximity to whiteness." . . .  More.

‘Unassimilated Immigrants Will Make a Failed State in the United States’

Victor Davis Hanson:  "Islamic Socialism is Headed for the US"

"Democrats are elevating fears over artificial intelligence just before the midterms to attack Trump’s push for American technological dominance. Victor Davis Hanson warns that binding the U.S. to international AI controls could amount to unilateral disarmament if China and Russia refuse to play by the same rules. "Victor argues that the problem with importing immigrants from failed states who lack a desire to assimilate is that they often recreate conditions for their original country’s decline. "He examines Abdul El-Sayed’s supporters in Dearborn, who mourned the death of Ayatollah Khomeini as a case study for this phenomenon. Victor also critiques the true legacy of Obama, the race divisions that led to the rise of wokeness and lack of value for personal accountability in the zeitgeist.

Reading between the lines; An irreverent view of leftspeak.

J.A. Frascino 

"Fascism: Conservative leadership. Democracy: Government of the people, by the Democrat party, for the Democrat party."

"Insurgent leftists disingenuously use language to sway public opinion in support of their narrative, so as to gain populist support for the overthrow of the social order.  It is important that one look beyond the intended impact of their inflammatory rhetoric and unmask the true meaning of their verbal malfeasance.

"Reparations: Virtue-signaling with other people’s money.

"Going green: Growing moldy from inadequate electrical energy.

"Feminist: A female who rejects femininity.

"Socialism: A socioeconomic model incompatible with human nature.

"Misogyny: How women treat other women.

"White supremacy: The history of mankind.

"Death by A.I.: Fear-mongering for a new apocalypse that needs big government regulation.

"Freedom of speech: The right to censor opposing opinion.

"Freedom of the press: “All the news that’s fit to spin.”

"Racism: Herd instinct." . . . More.

Paramount’s Hollywood Exit Could Trigger an Avalanche in Los Angeles

The American Spectator 

"White House dreaming Governor Gavin Newsom has run the state since 2019 — into the ground, with the help of big city mayors." 

See the mountain in the middle of the city?

. . . Jesus said faith can move a mountain. But so can leftism. And the combination of California-Los Angeles-Hollywood Democratic ineptitude seems about to move the famous Paramount Pictures mountain out of the town and state where it has been for 100 years. Two weeks ago, I wrote an article here on how the imminent Paramount-Warner Bros. company might leave LA after the merger and desolate the entertainment industry. Now it appears Paramount will bolt if the merger is delayed.

"Last month, Paramount CEO David Ellison told his senior staff, LA Mayor Bass’s office, and state officials that he will transplant the studio to another (red) state if the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger is not settled by October 1st. California Attorney General Rob Bonta — who has worked to block the merger under liberal pressure — called the threat blackmail. Even though his maneuverings would force Paramount to start paying Warner Bros. $7 million per day beginning October 1st until the merger closes.

"Why the California AG is even involved in trying to block a corporate merger would make a great Hollywood picture — which will never be produced because it makes Hollywood and the Democratic city-state regime look like the left-wing clowns they are. As I wrote in my piece, the opposition to the Paramount-Warner Bros. merger has little to do with the stated objection — economics and jobs. Democratic control of the government and the Industry has resulted in total disaster for both.

"White House dreaming Governor Gavin Newsom has run the state since 2019 — into the ground, with the help of big city mayors. They spent $37 billion to reduce housing costs, yet fewer people can afford homes today, 44 percent, than six years ago, 57 percent. Of that sum, $28 billion supposedly went to alleviate homelessness, which increased 20 percent in five years from 151,000 vagrants (2019) to more than 187,000.

"Why the California AG is even involved in trying to block a corporate merger would make a great Hollywood picture — which will never be produced because it makes Hollywood and the Democratic city-state regime look like the left-wing clowns they are." . . .

Bonanza's True Filming Location & Paramount Studios Tour

"The Bonanza TV series was not truly shot at the Ponderosa Ranch nor Virginia City, Nevada but inside studios and Western Street of Paramount Studios in Hollywood. To check out that location Jeff and his son Bret visited Paramount Studios in Hollywood and learned much more about the movies and TV shows shot here. It was like drinking from a firehose!"

A Second Whistleblower Said Children Cried and Refused to Get in the Car After Xavier Becerra Sent Them to Strangers

Renewed Right   

"Whistleblowers have informed California governor candidate Steve Hilton (R) that his opponent Xavier Becerra (D) DISMANTLED policies that would've saved thousands of little kids from being trafficked and sexually exploited at the border."

"Former Biden secretary of health and human services Xavier Becerra called it an assembly line.

"Now a second whistleblower is confirming what that assembly line actually produced.

"And a whistleblower just revealed what Xavier Becerra did to unaccompanied migrant children who cried and refused to get in the car with strangers.

Children Cried While Agents Felt Like "Accomplices"

"Kadourah was a site supervisor for MVM in the summer of 2021, working directly with Health and Human Services and the White House as a liaison overseeing the transfer of unaccompanied migrant children to sponsors.

"What he saw didn't look like a rescue operation.

"'The children always seemed to look like they were scared and uncomfortable and vulnerable, when they were supposed to be safe," Kadourah said. "To me, those kids looked like, there's no other way to say it, they were still being trafficked."

The agents working the transfers felt it too.

"'They were worried. Because, I mean, they felt like they were accomplices in a human trafficking operation," Kadourah said." . . .More.

It's OK since Trump's people didn't do it.   

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="es" dir="ltr">KTLA just ended Xavier Becerra  https://t.co/oMuWmbdm8n</p>&mdash; Kevin Dalton (@TheKevinDalton) <a href="https://x.com/TheKevinDalton/status/2054252885983260724?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">May 12, 2026</a></blockquote>

<script async src="https://platform.x.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Fear AI and vote Democrat!

 

AI safety concerns add urgency to Trump-Xi summit in Washington   

"But Bessent’s caution on AI and influence within the administration is likely to move forward talks with China. An important question is who Xi will assign as Bessent’s counterpart and what that will signal."

 Obama and the Dems are suspiciously sounding the ‘AI apocalypse’ alarm -- just in time for the midterms    "The “AI Apocalypse” scare campaign looks suspiciously like the climate hoax. How convenient that it’s come to a head right as the midterm election season kicks off this week.

"The campaign launch was when Jacob Coxon, a low-level 27-year-old AI researcher, trumpeted his resignation from AI company Anthropic in a Wall Street Journal exclusive last week followed by a viral X thread warning AI will “kill us all.”

"“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade . . . They are gambling with our lives,” he claimed." . . .

. . . Obama’s sly argument that AI Armageddon is way worse than a nuclear apocalypse may successfully blunt Donald Trump’s argument that he’s intervening in Iran to stop the regime developing nukes.

"The uncanny coordination of messages sure smells like an “election season psyop” designed to scare the electorate into voting Democrat. All that’s needed is an anti-AI Greta Thunberg.

"The top four stories on the Times homepage over the weekend were Anthropic’s AI alarmism, plus a cover story of Sunday’s print edition.

"It’s the same media game we’ve seen time and again, with the same deep-state bad actors who were behind the anti-Trump dirty tricks from the Russia hoax to the Dirty 51 letter that falsely claimed Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation." . . .

Former President Barack Obama urged Democrats to develop a plan to make AI a major political issue.    All for political power; they want America to be ruled by the likes of Mamdani, Warren, Cory Booker, MSNOW, the "Squad", Bernie Sanders, et al. To do this, they must promote hatred for President Trump, Republicans, and encourage any assassins who think like current Democrats. 

Dangers of AI

Boom: White House Drops a Mountain of Receipts After CNN, MS NOW, Politico Sue Over Press Ban –

RedState  

"And there's absolutely no doubt where Trump stands on this: "No President is required to host a hostile operation on the grounds. Access has always been a privilege — and President Trump is applying that rule."

"This White House isn't prone to backing down when the press throws a temper tantrum, and that's certainly the case after CNN, MS NOW, and Politico jointly sued the Trump administration Monday over President Trump's Friday decision to revoke their access to the White House.

"In fact, it's now doubling down on the president's decision and pointing to the long history of previous administrations restricting press access when it suited them. Curiously, the CNN/MS NOW/Politico types didn't have a problem with it when it was done to other outlets – and when it was Democrat administrations doing it.

"The White House issued an absolutely blistering response to the lawsuit Monday afternoon – titled "White House Access Is a Privilege — Not a Right" – and systematically laid out how both the Obama and Biden administrations had restricted, punished, or shut out certain reporters and outlets from having White House access.

"The First Amendment protects their right to publish; it does not entitle them to a hard pass, briefing room seat, or place in the press pool," the statement declared. "Access changes are nothing new. What is new, however, is the sudden claim that it becomes sacred only when the outlets are friendly to the Radical Left. The rule was never “every outlet gets in.” It was always “our side stays in.”"

"And then a mountain of receipts was dropped.

"The White House reached all the way back to the Obama years, citing that administration's feud with Fox News, including its efforts to exclude the network from pool interviews, the Justice Department's targeting of Fox News reporter James Rosen during a leak investigation, and its seizure of Associated Press phone records.

"It also pointed to the Boston Herald's claim that it was excluded from a 2011 Obama press pool after publishing a Mitt Romney op-ed.

"Oh, that." . . .  More.

Michigan’s El-Sayed Told Women He Didn’t Want To Work With ‘Anyone Over 40,’ According to Embarrassing Discrimination Lawsuit

 WFB

".Now El-Sayed thinks women who have breast cancer shouldn't get treatment or funding because of their "social power and privilege."

"Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who is running for the U.S. Senate in Michigan, is facing growing backlash for his insensitive and sexist comments over breast cancer funding. Last week, El-Sayed drew fire from Republican Mike Rogers after a 2012 essay resurfaced in which El-Sayed attacked the "Pink Ribbon Lobby" and wrote that breast cancer funding was prioritized because the disease affects people with "social power and privilege."

"Here's some of what El-Sayed wrote in that essay, during Breast Cancer Awareness Month in 2012 (emphasis added):

The article, which explored NIH (and Department of Defense) disease-specific funding patterns in relation to changes in the density and lobbying dollars of disease-specific interest groups, suggests that interest groups can successfully lobby the NIH to increase the amount of funding allocated to their diseases of interest.

The findings are at once reassuring and deeply unsettling.

For people suffering with certain diseases, the idea that their voices, along with others afflicted with similar ailments may be heard and listened to certainly has appeal. Even as the research horizon is long, and investments may not yield tenable improvements in disease outcomes within their lifetimes, it’s satisfying to know that their advocacy may have “made a difference.”

But here’s the catch. We all get sick, and everybody dies of something. And what’s to say that one person’s cause is more important than another’s?...

The breast cancer lobby has done an incredible job raising my “awareness” of Breast Cancer—if I weren’t an epidemiologist, it would have me believing that the women around me were in imminent danger. And perhaps they are—but the numbers suggest other diseases I should be far more worried about. In fact, women are twice as likely to die of lung cancer than breast cancer, and nearly six times as likely to die of heart disease." . . . 

Michigan’s El-Sayed Told Women He Didn’t Want To Work With ‘Anyone Over 40,’ According to Embarrassing Discrimination Lawsuit 

. . . "El-Sayed, a recipient of a Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship and graduate of Columbia’s medical school, ultimately spent little or no time in the Icahn School job, returning in 2015 to his native Detroit when he was named executive director of the Detroit Health Department. He would leave that role to launch an unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign in 2018, and later directed the Department of Health, Human, and Veterans Services in Wayne County, Mich. While El-Sayed has a medical degree, he never did a residency and has never been licensed to practice medicine.

"In 2015, in New York, Singh and El-Sayed were two ambitious young men with prestigious credentials and far-left views about health policy. The complaint alleges that El-Sayed, who was 30 at the time, told one female AIGH employee "that he was excited to not be working with ‘anyone over 40.’" That woman was 41 at the time of that conversation." . . .

CRAZY TOWN: Masked Woman at ‘Socialism 2026 Conference’ in Chicago Explains Why Fitness is Fascist (VIDEO)

Does the left even know what "fascist" is?

The Gateway Pundit   

"One of the fascinating things about both of these videos is that they show how obvious it is that this movement was born on liberal college campuses. Everything they say is drenched in academic newspeak gobbledy-gook." 

BREAKING: Hasan Piker was just gifted a “Satan’s School of Gay Communism” hat at Socialism 2026, drawing a huge round of applause. The hat came from a member of S.W.A.N., a pro-abortion activist group known for confrontational protests and harassing opponents. https://t.co/roLmjsZt0S

— Stu Smith (@thestustustudio) September 4, 2026*

"Socialists are currently attending the ‘Socialism 2026 Conference’ in Chicago and there are dozens of insane videos from the event that are already going viral on social media.

"In this one, a masked woman explains why socialists must reject the idea of fitness, because to do otherwise would play right into the hands of fascists. Is this some sort of bizarre reaction to RFK Jr. and MAHA? No one would be surprised.

"You will notice that this woman is masked. In 2026. In fact, it looks like almost everyone at this event is wearing masks. These are the people who loved the Covid-19 lockdowns. They’re pining for the return of those glory days." . . .

The More Dysgenic, the Better”: Beatrice Adler-Bolton Says the Left Must Give Up the “Fantasy of Being Fitter Than the Fascists”

"At Socialism 2026, Adler-Bolton argues that “fitness is a measure of relative disposability under capitalism” and says the goal should not be to become “more useful to the ruling order.”

"She says the left should not try to beat fascists “at their own game” by becoming “fitter, more eugenic.”

"“In fact, the more dysgenic, the better, I think."

"She closes by arguing that revolution is not “a contest between optimized and properly prepared bodies” and that the very idea is itself fascist." . . .More...

*Covid Masks, a “Gay Communism” Hat, and Hasan Piker: Inside the Socialism 2026 Conference  

"City Journal’s Stu Smith has highlighted some of the conference’s most controversial livestreamed moments: a Health Fascism panel that described GLP-1s as a “fat genocide” and being “dysgenic” as aspirational; abortion activists presenting Piker with a “Satan’s School of Gay Communism” hat; Weather Underground alumni Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn in attendance; and professors from Columbia, CUNY, NYU, and the University of Illinois, Chicago promoting radical activism."

CNN, MS NOW, Politico Announce Lawsuit Over Being Booted From WH Briefings, Trump Has Quick Response

Can We Remind Media When They Were Actually Cut Off From News? Hint: It Wasn't Under Trump – RedState   "We see the media are all in a lather about President Donald Trump barring Politico, CNN, and MS NOW from briefings at the White House. 

"Now this is sort of hilarious on a certain level, because no one has given the press more access than President Donald Trump. He's constantly giving personal briefings, not just leaving it to his press team, and talking to the media all the time." . . . 

Chat GPT

RedState   "President Donald Trump announced last week that CNN, MS NOW, and Politico were booted from White House briefings. Trump spoke against "fake news" in his announcement. 

"Then the outlets were relegated to the sidewalk, which left them very unhappy. CNN even had one passerby nail them, telling them they needed to "tell the truth." 

"So you knew a lawsuit would be in the offing.

"A joint statement was released by the outlets on Monday." . . .More.

WATCH: CNN Wanted Biden to Ban Fox News From the White House

"CNN once openly discussed whether Joe Biden should ban Fox News from the White House Press Pool.

"It was back in March 2021, mere weeks into Biden’s presidency, when Stelter (yes, him) asked, "There are, you know, these questions about Fox’s— as Fox radicalizes, and as it becomes even more and more of a political tool. Zurawik, you wrote a column recently for The [Baltimore] Sun about this, saying Fox should be viewed as a political tool, and that raises a question. Should it be a part of the White House Press Pool? You know, should it be afforded the privileges that come with news-gathering, even though they do have some "news" reporters at the White House, you're saying they're primarily a political tool, so should that be reassessed?'” . . .

Obama Accidentally Proves He Got Away With Attacking the Free Press

Does the Press Understand the First Amendment? | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics   

"Trump’s ban of CNN, MS NOW and Politico prompted calls for a full scale media boycott of the White House. Rep. Daniel Goldman (D-N.Y.), for example, posted the following on X: “Every single media outlet that believes in the “free press” should boycott the White House press room until Trump lifts his absurd ban on media outlets he doesn’t like. This is an attack on all of the press — not just those outlets — and it must be met with unity and solidarity from the rest.” It was in fact the result of the dishonest and malicious attacks by all three outlets on President Trump." 

 TV Networks Suspend Pool Coverage After CNN Ban; White House Teases What’s Next – RedState   

. . . "Um, Trump and the American people also have a "vital interest" in receiving accurate information. Yet, there have been years of inaccurate and/or biased information from the liberal media. So at what point are they going to stop that? 

"But now, the White House is also teasing something that seems like it might be related to this question, since they're showing a television and suggesting "something's coming.'" 

Caveman Issues Dire Warning That The Wheel Is Going To Eliminate Countless Jobs

Babylon Bee Parody  

At publishing time, Krag had filed for rock bankruptcy. "Me just don't think world is ready for wheel," he said. 

The invention of the wheel may lead to massive job loss, according to a caveman who sounded the alarm to warn the rest of caveman society.

Local caveman Gorg issued an urgent plea that the wheel wasn't the innovative time-saver it was touted to be. In fact, it may very well lead to complete and total economic collapse.

"Ugh!" Gorg warned, perfectly articulating that the wheel would cost many cavemen their jobs. "Oog!"

"Ironically, his warnings may have crippled the job market prematurely. Prominent hunters and gatherers said they were now taking a wait-and-see approach to the wheel to see if the invention shakes out before they invest hard-earned rocks into it.

"'Wheel! Ooo gug," said gatherer and local celebrity Moog. "Grug?"

"Protests against the wheel were already spreading across the valley, though they might be spreading faster if they'd make use of the wheel.

"The wheel's inventor, Krag, dismissed Gorg's warning as classic alarmism. "Gorg is Neanderthal. Wheel will create thousands of new jobs, which is big deal because there are only 100 people alive right now. We will have new jobs you've never even heard of — all existing to support wheel."

"Krag added, "Wheel doesn't spin on its own. Who will push carts full of rocks if not cavemen?"

"At publishing time, Krag had filed for rock bankruptcy. "Me just don't think world is ready for wheel," he said."