Tuesday, March 14, 2023
Leave Them Kids Alone
'Stolen Youth: How Radicals Are Erasing Innocence and Indoctrinating a Generation'
A teacher testified before the Arizona state Senate education committee earlier this month and claimed that she and her colleagues knew better than parents what books belonged on school library shelves. "I have a master's degree," she said. "What do the parents have?" In the video, now widely circulated on Twitter, she continued, "The purpose of public education is not to teach only what parents want [students] to be taught. It is to teach them what society needs them to be taught."
Parents were sidelined when, at the onset of the pandemic, they began raising concerns about the long-term impacts of school closures and mask mandates. After being branded as racist bigots for wanting schools to reopen—most infamously by the Chicago Teachers Union—we now know that half of American students are one grade level behind in at least one subject area because of school closures.
The silver lining of virtual learning was that it gave parents unprecedented access to their kids' classrooms. Parents began seeing just how far divisive race ideology had permeated, through "antiracist" math lessons, discussions on "whiteness" and race-based privilege and oppression, and history teachers telling students that America was founded on racism. Parents sounded the alarm bells, and they were again mocked for doing so. Such concepts, according to "the experts," are only taught in graduate school.
We know, to a much greater extent than in March 2020, that divisive ideas about race and gender are pervasive across our institutions—K-12 and higher education, medicine, the media. And in the face of endless pushback, three years later, moms and dads are still fighting because they know what's at stake: their children.
While parents were told to "listen to the science," racial justice protesters were applauded for gathering en masse because medical experts deemed that systemic racism posed a greater threat to public health than the coronavirus pandemic. Hypocritically, the authors note, the national focus on racial disparities completely excluded the challenges that students, including minority students, faced during pandemic lockdowns. Black and Hispanic students remained online for longer periods of time and sustained greater academic setbacks in math and reading early on in the pandemic. The push for "equity," even in schools, overlooked these students. Further, the "equitable" practices implemented in schools often hurt the very students they claimed to serve. Markowicz (who, in full disclosure, is a board member of my employer, Parents Defending Education) notes a case in Seattle Public Schools where a shift toward ethnic-studies-focused math education actually reduced performance rates for black students in the district. But those who wanted to reopen schools—and preserve quality education for all students—were the bad guys.
After witnessing what was happening in schools, parents and some reporters outside of the mainstream began uncovering divisive race and gender ideology in other institutions. The Disney corporation is a prime example. Last year, its executives admonished the passage of Florida's Parental Rights in Education bill, which banned classroom discussions about sexual orientation and "gender identity" in kindergarten through third grade. More disturbing was a subsequently released video in which a producer touted her "not-at-all-secret gay agenda," which included "adding queerness" in children's movies wherever she wanted, "and no one was trying to stop [her]."
Even worse, activists have embedded race and gender ideology into the field of medicine: Medical schools now require applicants to submit essays about their experiences with "implicit bias" or their dedication to social justice-focused political activities and "equitable patient care." America's future doctors are being selected because of their commitment to "equity," not for their academic abilities.
Throughout these chapters, Markowicz and Mandel draw numerous parallels between American leftists and the "thought police" under Hitler, Mao, and Stalin. But the shifts from divisive race ideology in schools to Hitler Youth, and from Scholastic's books to Mao's and Stalin's culture ministers, can be a bit abrupt. Noting relevant points in American history may have better served the reader than drawing broad parallels to history. Conservatives rightly hate when the left throws around terms like "Nazi" and "genocide." While this book doesn't go nearly as far, it's worth approaching historical comparisons with caution.
Rounding out Stolen Youth, Markowicz and Mandel lead the reader to the next frontier in the parental rights battle: transgender medicine. As recent revelations about the gender clinic at the St. Louis Children's Hospital indicate, the authors were right on target. Last month, Jamie Reed, a former staffer at the St. Louis gender clinic, blew the whistle on the untested and unsound treatments the transgender clinic provides for children—including puberty-blocking drugs and hormones. As Reed reported, and Markowicz echoes in the chapter, the experts entrusted to the care of children admit that, when it comes to pediatric transgender medicine, they "are building the plane while [they] are flying it." This is no way to...
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #1316
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #2021
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Monday, March 13, 2023
It’s Not Censorship When They Do It
Both sides agree that children should not be exposed to inappropriate materials.
The New York Times has run dozens of shrill and false stories accusing Florida of banning books. The paper has numerous stories about what it calls “book bans”: virtually all of them involve removing sexual content from schools at the behest of parental groups and conservatives.
And then it runs this.
Should Classic Children’s Books Be Updated for Today’s Young Readers? New York TimesThe Times largely links to an op-ed, ‘The Truth About the ‘Censorship’ of Roald Dahl’ arguing that it’s no big deal. “Making changes, even rather sweeping ones, to classic works of literature is not as controversial as some would like to imagine.”
The Left never censors or bans books even when it banishes Dr. Seuss’s books to oblivion and bans them from being resold on the platforms, like eBay, that it controls. Only the “right” censors books.
Both sides agree that children should not be exposed to inappropriate materials.
The Left and Right differ on what inappropriate materials look like.
To the Left, any negative comment about obesity or even implied comment is inappropriate.
To conservatives, books describing sex with 8-year-olds are inappropriate.
We’re in the throes of disagreement about the most basic things imaginable that define who we are. The Left could be honest that this is a debate about values and we no longer share common values, at least not with lefty elites, or its members could go on redefining censorship to mean things that...
DOJ Gets Hit With Huge Legal Motion After Merrick Garland Falsely Claims 5 Officers Were Killed On J6
In the aftermath of explosive new January 6 footage revealed by Fox News primetime host Tucker Carlson, there have been false claims made by Biden officials that police officers were killed by protesters during the Capitol riots.
Attorney General Merrick Garland in particular misrepresented the incident and implied that five police officers died due to the January 6 incident.
“I think all Americans saw what happened on January 6th, and most of it saw, most of us saw it,,, as it was happening,” Garland said. “It was a violent attack on a fundamental tenant of American democracy. That power is peacefully transferred from one administration to another. Over a hundred officers were assaulted on that day. Five officers died. We have charged more than a thousand people with their crimes on that day. And more than 500 have already been convicted. I think it’s very clear what happened on January 6th.”
Attorney General Garland fundamentally misrepresented the January 6 incident in his statement. No police officers died due to attacks by January 6 protesters.
U.S. Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick died a day after the attack, but his death was determined afterward to be of natural causes: two strokes at the base of his brain stem caused by an artery clot.
In the aftermath of the Capitol riots, four Capitol Police and Washington Metropolitan Police officers died by suicide. The Capitol Police officer’s union said about 140 officers were injured during the protests.
In March 2022, President Joe Biden knowingly and intentionally spread myths about the January 6 riot.
“Again, we’re not perfect — we’re not even close — but we never have walked away,” he said. “And Vladimir Putin was counting on being able to split up the United States.”
“Look, how would you feel if you saw crowds storm and break down the doors of the British Parliament, kill five cops, injure 145 — or the German Bundestag, or the Italian Parliament?” he added. “I think you’d wonder. Well, that’s what the rest of the world saw. It’s not who we are. And now, we’re proving, under pressure, that we are not that country. We’re united.”
Such misleading statements made by top Biden officials and U.S. attorneys have the potential to taint jury pools in January 6 cases, particularly on the D.C. Circuit.
Attorney Joseph D. McBride wants to put an end to it. He is now filing a motion to stop the U.S. government from defrauding the American people and thereby perpetrating injustice to J6 prisoners.
“We just filed a motion in USA v RYAN TAYLOR NICHOLS to prevent the Government from advancing the false narrative that police were killed by protestors on J6,” McBride wrote on Twitter.
McBride attached a copy of the motion, which said that his law firm representing Ryan Taylor Nichols was seeking an order to exclude the prosecution from “arguing, mentioning, or presenting claims by Government witnesses at trial, that are unduly prejudicial about the deaths of police officers wrongfully attributed to...
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