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The Battle Over Free Speech

In a free society, why should only one political side dominate the media? Yet social media, the networks, the cable channels, newspapers, and satellite programming are all completely dominated by the left. Recently, we saw quite a kerfuffle when DirecTV, owned by giant AT&T, decided to ignominiously drop Newsmax-TV from their lineup.

AT&T did the same a year ago to a much smaller conservative outlet, One America News (OAN). Why does it seem that the corporate decisions of companies like AT&T always push in only one political direction?

Numerous leaders have spoken against this censorship by the left against Newsmax, including:

Many are calling for a boycott of DirectTV. Others are calling for Congressional hearings because of the potential impact on our political debate.

My big question is: Why must the left strangle what few conservative voices are heard on the other side?

When the founders of America produced the Constitution, a frequent criticism was that it did not spell out specific rights. So the founders agreed that if the Constitution were to be ratified, they would attach a Bill of Rights. These were the first Ten Amendments to the Constitution.

The First Amendment deals, first and foremost, with freedom of religion. But other rights enumerated there include the freedom of the press and free speech.

AT&T is a corporation. It is not a part of the government. But these companies wield a great deal of political power. Why are they using it to essentially stifle free speech?

There is no question that the mainstream media, the legacy media, the major networks, and so on present news from a skewed and biased perspective. National Public Radio (NPR), which receives government funding, has a program called “All Things Considered.” I remember whenever I would hear that title, I would think to myself—“Yeah, All Things Considered, from a leftist perspective.”

The founders envisioned a free society with a robust and free press. But today’s mainstream media is dominated by the leftist perspective, with only Fox News offering a significant counterweight.

Thankfully, even under dire conditions, there is always an alternative media. In the days of the American War for Independence, there were Committees of Correspondence, disseminating information to the 13 colonies contrary to royal-controlled sources.

There are different skirmishes in the battle over free speech, and some speech of more eternal significance than others. But let me use an analogy from the history of Christianity.

When the Apostles of Jesus set out to proclaim His saving message in first century Rome, the overwhelming power of the state was dead set against them. But God used them to eventually win over many converts. One of the ways was through letters that were written largely in prison.

Ultimately, there is a battle between good and evil, and the proclamation of the truth is often at the heart of that battle.

As the hymn “Once to Every Man and Nation” puts it, “Though the cause of evil prosper, yet the truth alone is strong. Though [truth’s] portion be the scaffold, and upon the throne be wrong, yet that scaffold sways the future.” God is watching and making sure that truth will prevail, which it will—even if for a time, times, and a half a time, it suffers setbacks.

Of course, this is not to equate a commercial network like Newsmax with the Gospel. But it’s beyond question that elite interests often suppress truth wherever it comes from. I’m grateful to live at a time where there is readily available an alternative media. I’m sure if some elitists in our culture had their way, they would over-regulate the Internet, talk radio, satellite programming, Christian broadcasting, and so on, to make them essentially toothless—as sometimes happens in other countries.

When Elon Musk bought Twitter late last year, he suffered the ire of many on the left, as he opened up the Twitter files and exposed a great deal of censorship against conservative speech. Musk tweeted in late November: “This is a battle for the future of civilization. If free speech is lost even in America, tyranny is all that lies ahead.”

Dr. Richard Land, president emeritus of the Southern Evangelical Seminary, said of the left’s censorship of conservative speech in general: “They want to enforce conformity, they do not want to hear viewpoints, they want to stifle viewpoints that they disagree with. They’re acting like fascist Blackshirts….They can only get away with taking away our rights if we let them.”

Indeed, must the left strangle the flow of information? As the Bible notes: “The one who states his case first seems right, until the other comes and examines him.”


This article was originally published at Jerrynewcombe.com.




The “Trans” Cult Marches On Even As Its Harms Are Exposed

A 25-year-old man who pretends to be a woman was kicked off a community college campus in Texas and charged with a class C misdemeanor for allegedly choking a 17-year-old female student. Like the teen victim, the strange adult man who goes by the name Averie Chanel Medlock was a member of the women’s cheerleading team. Medlock complained that the teen girl said he is a man—which he is—and that he has a penis—which he presumably does.

While Medlock may be the first female impersonator to choke a female cheerleader, he is not the first female impersonator to be a member of a women’s cheer team. A man who goes by the name “Justine” Lindsay became a member of the NFL’s Carolina Panthers female cheerleading squad—the TopCats—last March, usurping a spot from an actual woman.

TopCats entertainment director, Chandalae Lanouette, offers this sorry justification for her decision to choose a man over a woman for a coveted spot on a female cheer squad:

My goal is to create a team of individuals that are absolute fire on the field but are incredible human beings in the locker room, good friends, good people, and at the end of the day, you have to walk through the door first to get to that spot.

I’m sure a male cheerleader is “absolute fire on the field” relative to female cheerleaders, what with all that lung capacity and all those bulging muscles. I’m not sure, however, how Lanouette defines “good people,” in that a man who sashays through a women’s locker room—undressed or dressed—is not engaging in good behavior. He’s doing something profoundly unjust, immoral, insensitive, and selfish.

“Justine” Lindsay continues the trend of men replacing women in women’s sports, thereby making a mockery of Title IX which is being abused to allow “transwomen”—formerly known as men—in women’s sports and locker rooms.

Ironically, as the “trans” cult continues its long march through our institutions, the harm being done by it and its sycophantic bootlickers continues to be exposed.

Detransitioners and their parents are telling their tragic stories on websites like Parents with Inconvenient Truths about Trans (PITT) and subreddits.

Men who claim to be women are being moved to women’s prisons where they’re raping women.

England’s National Health Service is shutting down its only child “gender” clinic, the (in)famous Tavistock clinic, which saw a 4,000 percent increase in children and teens being referred for treatment for gender dysphoria between 2009-2019. An independent review of Tavistock’s “Gender Identity Services for Children and Young People” concluded that there are “significant knowledge gaps … in relation to treatment with puberty blockers.”

On July 19, 2022, the chair of the review committee, Dr. Hilary Cass, acknowledged what critics of the quack use of puberty blockers for the “treatment” of gender dysphoria in children have been saying for years:

We do not fully understand the role of adolescent sex hormones in driving the development of both sexuality and gender identity through the early teen years, so by extension we cannot be sure about the impact of stopping these hormone surges on psychosexual and gender maturation. We therefore have no way of knowing whether, rather than buying time to make a decision, puberty blockers may disrupt that decision-making process.

A further concern is that adolescent sex hormone surges may trigger the opening of a critical period for experience-dependent rewiring of neural circuits underlying executive function (i.e., maturation of the part of the brain concerned with planning, decision making and judgement). If this is the case, brain maturation may be temporarily or permanently disrupted by puberty blockers, which could have significant impact on the ability to make complex risk-laden decisions, as well as possible longer-term neuropsychological consequences. To date, there has been very limited research on the short-, medium- or longer-term impact of puberty blockers on neurocognitive development.

Deep-pocketed activists—like the corrupt Pritzker family—and medical profiteers, all of whom pretend to care about children as they experiment on them for their own selfish ends surely know there is no science to support the deceitful and fearmongering claims they make. But who needs science when leftists have been winning the culture through name-calling, stigmatization, de facto censorship, and good old-fashioned propaganda.

Leftist propaganda in the service of normalizing disordered feelings and deviant behaviors is ubiquitous. It poisons not just the professional medical and mental health industries but also the arts, social media, “news” media, businesses big and small, religious institutions, and the many-tentacled education monster. And that is where Florida’s remarkable governor comes in.

In April 2022, under Gov. Ron DeSantis’ leadership, the Florida Department of Health provided guidance based on evidence on the treatment of gender dysphoria for children and adolescents:

Due to the lack of conclusive evidence, and the potential for long-term, irreversible effects, the Department’s guidelines are as follows:

    • Social gender transition should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents.
    • Anyone under 18 should not be prescribed puberty blockers or hormone therapy.
    • Gender reassignment surgery should not be a treatment option for children or adolescents. Based on the currently available evidence, “encouraging mastectomy, ovariectomy, uterine extirpation, penile disablement, tracheal shave, the prescription of hormones which are out of line with the genetic make-up of the child, or puberty blockers, are all clinical practices which run an unacceptably high risk of doing harm.”

Then in June 2022, under Gov. DeSantis’ leadership, “The Secretary of the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration requested that the Division of Florida Medicaid review the treatment of gender dysphoria for a coverage determination.” The review set forth that “As a condition of coverage, sex reassignment treatment must be ‘consistent with generally accepted professional medical standards (GAPMS) and not experimental or investigational.’”

The review concluded the following:

Following a review of available literature, clinical guidelines, and coverage by other insurers and nations, Florida Medicaid has determined that the research supporting sex reassignment treatment is insufficient to demonstrate efficacy and safety. In addition, numerous studies, including the reports provided by the clinical and technical experts listed above, identify poor methods and the certainty of irreversible physical changes. Considering the weak evidence supporting the use of puberty suppression, cross-sex hormones, and surgical procedures when compared to the stronger research demonstrating the permanent effects they cause, these treatments do not conform to GAPMS and are experimental and investigational.

But Gov. DeSantis wasn’t done protecting children. Following the Biden administration’s extortion attempt to force schools to treat “trans” kids as if they are the sex they aren’t or lose federal money to feed impoverished students, DeSantis took action.

On July 28, Florida’s Commissioner of Education, Manny Diaz Jr., sent a letter to all public schools and private schools in Florida clarifying Biden’s extortion effort:

The purpose of this memorandum is to make you aware that the sub-regulatory “guidance” documents issued by the USDOE and USDA are not binding law, do not create any new legal obligations, and should not be treated as governing law. Indeed, the USDOE has even acknowledged in litigation that its guidance document is not binding or enforceable. …

As such, you should not treat the USDOE and USDA guidance documents as binding or otherwise modify your practices or procedures based on these documents. Specifically, for example, nothing in these guidance documents requires you to give biological males [aka boys] who identify as a female access to female bathrooms, locker rooms, or dorms; to assign biological males who identify as female to female rooms on school field trips; or to allow biological males who identify as female to compete on female sports teams. …

The department will not stand idly by as federal agencies attempt to impose a sexual ideology on Florida schools that risk the health, safety, and welfare of Florida students.

The obsession of leftists with all things sexually deviant matters because truth matters. Their obsession with promoting evil as good is destroying the foundations of civilized societies. In their ignorance, leftists (and an increasing number of “Republicans”) believe that cultural approval of homosexuality, cross-sex impersonation, and sexually undifferentiated “marriage” has no bearing on the health of a country. And because of their ignorance, things are falling apart, the centre is not holding, and anarchy is loosed upon the world.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/Trans-Cult-Marches-On-Even-As-Its-Harms-Are-Exposed.mp3





A Profile in Wisdom vs. A Profile in Ignorance

As Americans awaken to the tyrannical aspirations of leftists who seek to impose their socially constructed metaphysical, moral, and political beliefs about sexuality on everyone—including other people’s children—by any means available, Americans are fighting back. This is a war for freedom, the family, America, and our souls. And wars need leaders. In Joe Biden and Ron DeSantis, we have an anti-leader and a leader, respectively.

While parents are mustering the courage to confront arrogant, ignorant school boards; feminists are challenging “gender theory” and the erasure of woman; liberal writers are moving to Substack to expose the totalitarian diktats of former employers; and Hispanic and black voters are fleeing the Democrat Party, anti-leader and crime family boss Joe “Bananas” Biden is getting  out his well-worn shovel and digging his hole deeper.

In honor of sodomy/cross-dressing pride month, President Joe Biden has issued yet another Royal Proclamation Executive Order that he calls “historic.”

While it is symbolically historic in its comprehensiveness, it is more historical in that it’s in keeping with Biden’s long history of ineffectuality. In his Proclamation, Biden expresses his DEEP FEELINGS and shallow thoughts about sexuality—all of which contradict his DEEP CLAIMS about and shallow commitments to Catholicism.

In his Proclamation, Biden “speaks up” about stuff, “releases” stuff, claims that he will “increase awareness” of stuff, and “charges” departments with “issuing guidance” about stuff. Biden is also going to launch, lead, promote, study, support, direct, encourage, expand, explore, research, strengthen, coordinate, identify, seek, establish, address, lead on, and fight back against stuff. Since none of this involves Biden actually doing anything, he’ll have plenty of time for, biking, bilking Americans, and sending money to Hunter.

All of this frenetic activity is in the service of imposing his beliefs about identity, homoeroticism, marriage, cross-dressing, and parental rights on all Americans—beliefs that many Americans find bigoted, hateful, and dangerous.

In contrast, there is Florida Governor Ron DeSantis—a leader and hero.

In the past year, DeSantis signed into law multiple excellent bills to restore integrity to public education. Most of the country heard about the bill about which leftists misinformed the public, calling it the “Don’t Say Gay” bill. The law

… requires [school] procedures to reinforce fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding upbringing & control of their children; prohibits school district from adopting procedures or student support forms that prohibit school district personnel from notifying parent about specified information or that encourage student to withhold from parent such information; prohibits school district personnel from discouraging or prohibiting parental notification & involvement in critical decisions affecting student’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being; [and] prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels [K-3].

This sane bill drives the loons among us to their fainting couches. Creepy adults who want to discuss sexuality with other people’s very young children are incensed that the job they took with the intention of indoctrinating kids has been neutered.

Many people also heard about Florida’s ban on boys playing on girls’ sport teams—another manifestly sane law to which only delusional or cowardly adults object. Contrary to the bigoted claims of leftists, laws like this are not attacks on boys who pretend to be girls. They are protections of and for girls.

But DeSantis also signed into law two other bills of paramount importance: HB 5 and HB 233.

HB 233 applies to state colleges and universities and takes effect September 1, 2022. The law requires,

[T]the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors, respectively, to annually assess intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at certain institutions; providing requirements for the assessment; authorizing the State Board of Education to adopt rules; [and] prohibiting the State Board of Education and the Board of Governors, respectively, from shielding certain students, faculty, or staff from certain speech.

Further,

The State Board of Education may not shield students, faculty, or staff at Florida College System institutions from free speech protected under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution [or] Art. I of the State Constitution, or s. 72 1004.097 .

The law makes clear that it is unlawful to “limit students’, faculty members’, or staff members’ access to, or observation of, ideas and opinions that they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.”

This law should be unnecessary in a country founded on a commitment to free speech. Uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive speech is precisely the kind of speech the First Amendment was intended to protect. There is no need for guarantees to speak publicly on topics on which everyone agrees.

Moreover, leftist teachers have no objections to conservative students or colleagues being exposed to speech they find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.

Equally if not more important, DeSantis signed HB 5 into law (titled the Civic Education Curriculum, which amends an existing law pertaining to requirements for high school graduation. The amendment requires that courses about American government,

include a comparative discussion of political ideologies, such as communism and totalitarianism, that conflict with the principles of freedom and democracy essential to the founding principles of the United States.

This amendment is intended to “help families, civic institutions, local communities, district school boards, and charter schools prepare students to be civically responsible and knowledgeable adults.”

In the service of that goal,

the Department of Education shall: (a) Develop or approve an integrated civic education curriculum that school districts and charter schools must incorporate as part of regular school work in kindergarten through grade 12.

The civic education curriculum must assist students in developing:

  1. An understanding of their shared rights and responsibilities as residents of the state and of the founding principles of the United States as described in s. 47 1003.42(2)(a)-(c).

  2. A sense of civic pride and desire to participate regularly with government at the local, state, and federal levels.

  3. An understanding of the process for effectively advocating before government bodies and officials.

  4. An understanding of the civic-minded expectations, developed by the State Board of Education, of an upright and desirable citizenry that recognizes and accepts responsibility for preserving and defending the blessings of liberty inherited from prior generations and secured by the United States Constitution.

The existing Florida statute mentioned (s. 47 1003.42(2)(a)-(c)) requires the following be taught:

(a) The history and content of the Declaration of Independence, including national sovereignty, natural law, self-evident truth, equality of all persons, limited government, popular sovereignty, and inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property, and how they form the philosophical foundation of our government.

(b) The history, meaning, significance, and effect of the provisions of the Constitution of the United States and amendments thereto, with emphasis on each of the 10 amendments that make up the Bill of Rights and how the constitution provides the structure of our government.

(c) The arguments in support of adopting our republican form of government, as they are embodied in the most important of the Federalist Papers.

Such goals for public education would have been unremarkable and non-controversial sixty years ago, before leftist Boomers began taking over colleges and universities and then mainlining poisonous ideas into the hearts and minds of school children. Now the ideas of national sovereignty, self-evident truth, inalienable right to life, and patriotism are loathed by the left who hope to bequeath their loathing to future generations of Americans.

At last, increasing numbers of conservatives are beginning to understand that the “social issues” matter. In fact, the social issues that RINOs and libertarian-leaning Republicans dismiss as trivial are the most important issues facing Americans today in that addressing them threatens our essential First Amendment protections of free speech and religious free exercise. Speaking freely today—particularly on the morality of homoerotic acts, sexually undifferentiated pseudo-marriage, cross-dressing, and the sexual integration of women’s private spaces and sports will get Americans fired.

While leftists are able to freely express—even shriek—their nonsensical and destructive beliefs about “LGBTQ+” issues with no fear of professional repercussions, conservatives can get fired for tweeting theirs. If the ability to earn a living is threatened if Americans express moral views the left hates, the First Amendment is meaningless.

In the fight to preserve liberty, we must have wise, courageous leaders. There are none in the Democrat Party.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/A-Profile-in-Wisdom-vs-A-Profile-in-Ignorance.mp3





It’s a Queer, Queer, Queer, Queer World

It’s a queer, queer, queer, queer world, becoming systemically queerer every day that “progressives” control big government, big tech, big business, big education, big entertainment, and big medicine. As many have pointed out, the fact that we have a day to celebrate Martin Luther King Jr. but a month to celebrate sexual perversion illustrates just how queer America has already become. The aspirational, inspirational goal of judging people by the content of their character has been discarded to make a safe space for the dispiriting goal of judging people by the degree to which their sexual appetites deviate from the normal, healthy, good, and right.

So, let’s take a quick spin around the anti-culture of America.

Today, the new children’s Disney-Pixar movie Lightyear is being released. It includes a lesbian kiss between Buzz Lightyear’s close friend Commander Alisha Hawthorne and her “wife.” The kiss had been deleted, but then a group of petulant “LGBTQIAP+” activists at Disney demanded it be restored. This is the same group that stomped their feet and held their breaths after Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed into law a bill to make pro-perversion indoctrination of elementary school children illegal. Even without the kiss, however, the inclusion of a lesbian couple—faux-married or unmarried—in a children’s movie is reprehensible. Positive portrayals of egregious sin in children’s entertainment are deeply sinful.

Actor Chris Evans, who voices Buzz Lightyear, calls parents who don’t want their children exposed to positive portrayals of sin “idiots” who should be ignored until they “die off like dinosaurs.” Filled with the hot-air and pomposity of Hollywood, Evans pontificated,

Every time there’s been social advancement as we wake up, the American story, the human story is one of constant social awakening and growth and that’s what makes us good.

First, widespread cultural acceptance of homoeroticism constitutes neither “advancement” nor “growth.”

Second, widespread cultural acceptance of homoeroticism does not make us “good.”

Third, widespread cultural acceptance of homoeroticism does not constitute a “social awakening.” Rather, it constitutes a descent into cultural darkness that has recurred throughout history, including in Sodom and Gomorrah, ancient Greece, the Tokugawa period in Japan, and now in purportedly civilized societies. The human story is one of sin, sorrow, and suffering born of rebellion against God.

Evans also asserted that “There’s [sic] always going to be people who are afraid and unaware and trying to hold on to what was before.”

Since homoeroticism has gone before, and before, and before, perhaps it’s Evans who is trying to hold on to what was before. Perhaps he’s afraid of what he doesn’t understand. Perhaps he’s afraid of the Hollywood muckety-mucks who dole out big bucks only to ideological toadies, and Evans knows deep down he lacks the courage to stand for truth and risk losing fame and fortune.

Next on our journey to Sex-finity and beyond, we come to Bros, the first homosexual romantic comedy produced by a major Hollywood studio. Homosexual actor Billy Eichner wrote and stars in Bros, which is produced by Universal studios and will be released in theaters on September 10. All cast members are either homosexual or cross-sex impersonators. You can watch the trailer for this rip-snorting comedy about homoeroticism, which includes a family with young children dancing and singing about “bottom” sex:

As all sentient beings know, it’s not just the entertainment industry that seeks to impose disordered socially constructed beliefs about sexuality on the world. Case in point: Postmates, a food delivery service akin to Doordash or UberEats. Postmates decided that what the world needs now from them is information on what to eat prior to having anal sex so that it will less “messy.” What better time to celebrate “bottom” sex than “pride” month, and what better way to celebrate sodomy than have an eggplant in kink gear talk to a “taco,” which is slang for a woman’s vulva. Here’s what “growth” and “advancement” looks like in Sex-finity and beyond:

Sex-finity—like toddler story hours—wouldn’t be nearly as advanced and inclusive if any form of sexual deviance were excluded, so of course cross-sex impersonators are ubiquitous. The New York Post recently exposed that since 2018, New York City has paid an organization called Drag Story Hour NYC $207,000 to provide drag queens to enculturate children with the drag ideology:

Last month alone, Drag Story Hour NYC—a nonprofit whose outrageously cross-dressed performers interact with kids as young as 3—earned $46,000 from city contracts for appearances at public schools, street festivals, and libraries. …

Since January, the group has organized 49 drag programs in 34 public elementary, middle, and high schools, it boasted on its website, with appearances in all five boroughs.

This is why all government bureaucracies need to trimmed to the bone, first with an axe, then with a scalpel. No one who played even a small role in approving such expenditures deserves to be anywhere near public funds—or children.

Colonizing the minds of other people’s children with evil ideas takes a lot of money, parental acquiescence, and institutional control. And that explains why several days ago, eleven de facto Democrats who self-identify as Republicans sent a letter to U.S. House and Senate leaders, urging them to pass legislation like the “Equality Act,” which has nothing to do with equality and everything to do with sexual predilections.

The Equality Act would strip Americans of religious liberty and speech rights, essentially forcing all Americans to treat homoeroticism and cross-sex impersonation as if those conditions are akin to biological sex or race.

This effort is being spearheaded by former Florida Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen mother of a 36-year-old daughter—born Amanda Michelle Ros-Lehtinen—who now masquerades as a man named Roderigo. Ros-Lehtinen—a supporter of all things “LGBTQ+”—is joined by ten other pseudo-Republicans: Barbara Comstock (R-VA), Carlos Curbelo (R-FL), Susan Brooks (R-IN), Charlie Dent (R-PA), Jim Kolbe (R-AZ), Claudine Schneider (R-RI), Bob Dold (R-IL), Jim Greenwood (R-PA), Chris Shays (R-CN) and Steve Gunderson (R-WI).

This foolish group believes that the United States should “pass legislation that protects all Americans from discrimination no matter their gender identity or who they love.” Translated into plain, honest language, they are saying that Americans should be prohibited from disapproving of cross-dressing, homoerotic acts, or homoerotic relationships. According to the Equality Act and its supporters, religious liberty—our first liberty—should be subordinated to disordered, subjective sexual feelings.

Ileana Ros-Lehtinen calls this push to limit religious liberty “freedom for all,” saying “That’s a bedrock principle of the Republican Party.”

This effort also constitutes yet another power grab. These wolfish Dems in red clothing want the federal government to usurp more control from states:

The Hill reports that Ros-Lehtinen believes the “‘patchwork’ of state-by-state protections” is unfair to “LGBTQ+” Americans.

In other words, if leftists are not successful at the ballot box in every state, they will use federal power to impose their will on intransigent states. Ros-Lehtinen and her collaborators believe that no state should have the right to prohibit cross-dressing boys from using girls’ bathrooms and locker rooms. No state should be allowed to prohibit cross-dressing boys from participating in girls’ sports. And no state should be allowed to prohibit quack doctors from chemically stopping puberty or lopping off the healthy breasts of confused 14-year-old girls.

We must look at the tangled rotting trees in order to better see the tangled, rotting forest that America is becoming. No gaze-averting when so much is at stake.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Queer-Queer-Queer-Queer-World.mp3





To Stupidity and Beyond

Written by Dr. Richard D. Kocur

“To infinity and beyond!” In November of 1995, the first of four blockbuster animated films in the Toy Story franchise was released by Walt Disney Pictures to both audience and critical acclaim. With Toy Story, astute businesspeople at the Walt Disney Company created a cash-cow franchise capable of producing revenue for years to come by creating and delivering a product that appealed to their target audience of parents and children. Unfortunately, the Walt Disney Company’s leap from a business focused on producing broadly appealing content to a business exemplifying the latest version of woke corporate activism, redefining the nature and use of a company’s products, has taken the company to the height of stupidity and beyond.

Disney is a long-time part of the landscape, literally and figuratively, in the state of Florida. The company’s 2020 annual report indicates that of Disney’s 203,000 global employees, nearly 40% are in the state of Florida; and a small but vocal minority of those Florida cast-members are not happy.

On March 28, 2022, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed House Bill (HB) 1557, Parental Rights in Education. According to the governor’s website, the bill, “reenforces parents’ fundamental rights to make decisions regarding the upbringing of their children.” The bill also, “prohibits classroom instruction on sexual orientation or gender identity in kindergarten through 3rd grade and prohibits instruction that is not age appropriate for students.” The Walt Disney Company disagrees.

Let that sink in.

Disney, a company whose legacy was built on producing entertainment for parents and their children, disagrees. After a small group of employees threw a tantrum normally akin to an exhausted six-year-old waiting in line for a turn to ride Dumbo the Flying Elephant, Disney’s CEO Bob Chapek surrendered. The company issued a statement on Twitter stating, “Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts.”

While the drift of companies towards activism in social causes is not new, Disney’s stated goal for this piece of legislation not only runs counter to what should be the goal of any publicly traded business—i.e., to create value for its shareholders—but crosses a line into territory that runs counter to rational business thought.

Organizations like Coca-Cola, Delta Airlines, Meta, and Major League Baseball have all taken public stances on social issues. These stances have alienated wide segments of their customers based solely on differences in political viewpoint. Through it all, the products or services of these companies remained neutral. The ingredients of Coca-Cola were not altered in an effort to promote the company’s social agenda. In Disney’s case, however, its stance on the Florida bill has the potential to alienate many of the organization’s core customers (parents) precisely because the product will no longer be neutral. Vocal Disney employees indicated in leaked internal meeting videos that the portrayal of Disney characters in television and film will be a vehicle for the promotion of LGBTQ+ lifestyles and identities. In other words, Disney’s products will no longer be neutral but will be directed to serve a social agenda.

Disney’s activism is a bridge too far even in the current day of woke corporations. Making donations to activist groups or voicing support for social justice or climate change is one thing, but using platforms designed to provide entertainment for children—children—to promote alternative lifestyles is a new layer of the woke stratosphere.

What are the potential consequences? Maybe nothing. But maybe a substantial number of parents will see Disney’s actions for what they are, an attempt to supplant parental control over what values are taught to their children and by whom. Maybe the forces of the free market will spring into action and new entertainment options will emerge to fill the market void left by Disney. And maybe, like Buzz Lightyear who mistakenly believed his wings would carry him to infinity and beyond, Disney will realize that forcing extremist values and ideals upon its customers simply will not fly.


This article was originally published at The Institute for Faith & Freedom at Grove City College, where Dr. Richard D. Kocur is an assistant professor of business. Dr. Kocur specializes in marketing and business strategy and has over 25 years of experience in the healthcare industry. 




DeSantis Leads, Leftists Lie

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis is a man for such a time as this. He has a titanium spine, a precisely tuned moral compass, and an intellect that makes him a worthy foe of leftist sophists and dissemblers in the legacy media. His tenacious willingness to challenge destructive ideas through word and deed terrifies and enrages leftists who fear he may one day be president of the United States. Their response to truth and courage is—as usual—lies and epithets.

The latest act of DeSantis to cause conniptions among the brittle leftist masses was his signing a bill into law to protect the parental rights of children, focusing primarily on ages 5-9. This is the summary of the “Parental Rights in Education” law that leftists have deceitfully renamed the “Don’t Say Gay” law:

Requires district school boards to adopt procedures that comport with certain provisions of law for notifying student’s parent of specified information; requires such procedures to reinforce fundamental right of parents to make decisions regarding upbringing & control of their children; prohibits school district from adopting procedures or student support forms that prohibit school district personnel from notifying parent about specified information or that encourage student to withhold from parent such information; prohibits school district personnel from discouraging or prohibiting parental notification & involvement in critical decisions affecting student’s mental, emotional, or physical well-being; [and] prohibits classroom discussion about sexual orientation or gender identity in certain grade levels [K-3].

This new law is intended to stop or prevent leftist activists/re-educators from interfering in the relationship between parents and their children.

In addition to prohibiting classroom discussions of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in kindergarten through third grade, the law also prohibits age or developmentally inappropriate discussions of those topics in older grades. This section of the law really enrages the worker bees who want to use their publicly subsidized jobs to gather the minds of other people’s children into the regressive hive mind. Leftists are buzzing cacophonously because in Florida they will no longer be free to colonize the minds of young children.

The Walt Disney Company released a statement condemning the law and declaring war on all Floridians whose elected representatives passed it, saying,

Our goal as a company is for this law to be repealed by the legislature or struck down in the courts, and we remain committed to supporting the national and state organizations working to achieve that. 

So, Disney—purveyor of “entertainment” for young children—wants to ensure the indoctrination of young children in government schools.

If huge corporations with bulging bank accounts can repeal duly enacted state laws, are we any longer a government of the people, by the people, and for the people?

Ryan Thoreson writing for the leftist Human Rights Watch bemoans the requirement that in grades 4-12, discussions of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” must be “age appropriate.” He ironically complains,

[The law] does not specify what would be considered age-appropriate, or who decides.

This complaint is ironic in that leftists continually assert that every piece of deviant and obscene material to which they expose children is “age” and “developmentally appropriate.” And they rarely if ever specify what would be considered age-appropriate and who decides.

As I have urged for over a decade, parents should be asking those questions and demanding specificity in the answers. If schools say an external organization established the criteria used to determine age and developmental- appropriateness, parents should ask for the name of the organization. Parents should find out whether the organization has an ideological bias or if its members are evenly balanced between “progressive” and conservative views. And parents should demand to know what the specific criteria are.

If an in-district committee was formed to establish criteria for determining appropriateness of material, parents should ask who specifically formed it and how was it formed? What are the names of the members? Is the committee evenly balanced between “progressive” and conservative members? What are the specific criteria used to determine the appropriateness of material?

Thoreson, like countless other sexual deviance advocates, frets that school staff will no longer be free to keep secrets from parents:

It would significantly limit the ability of counselors and teachers to be a confidential resource for students, including LGBT students who may not feel safe or comfortable asking questions about sexual orientation or gender identity to family members. 

It is astonishing that any faculty members or administrators ever arrogated to themselves the right to keep secrets from parents.

Take a look at the contrast between “progressive” and conservative beliefs pertaining to sexuality. You decide which set of beliefs are taught and promoted in public schools and which are banned:

  • Leftists believe there is no child too young to expose to ontological and moral beliefs about “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” and that public school teachers should do the exposing. Conservatives believe that children ages 5-9 are too young to expose to complex ideas about homosexuality and gender dysphoria and that parents—not teachers—should be addressing these issues or not with their own young children.
  • Leftists think conservative views make people “unsafe,” by which they mean uncomfortable. Conservatives think leftist beliefs lead to suffering.
  • Leftists believe that homosexuality is analogous to race, while never identifying any points of correspondence between homoerotic desire per se and race/skin color per se. In contrast, conservatives believe homosexuality is analogous to other phenomena constituted by disordered erotic desires and volitional acts, like close-kin “love,” polyamory, and zoophilia.
  • Leftists believe that homoerotic acts are as morally acceptable as heterosexual acts. Conservatives believe homoerotic acts are intrinsically immoral.
  • Leftists believe any numerical and sexual configuration of parental relationships are equally respectable and equally good for children. Conservatives believe that homosexual (and poly) family structures harm children and society.
  • Leftists believe the desire to be the opposite sex is a good and properly ordered desire and that chemically and surgically altering one’s body to appear to be the opposite sex are ethically justifiable acts. Conservatives believe such desires are disordered and that such acts are exercises in futility that deny reality and jeopardize physical, emotional, and mental health.
  • Leftists believe that if there is a mismatch between one’s thoughts/desires about one’s maleness or femaleness and one’s healthy properly functioning body, the error is in the body. Conservatives believe the error is in the mind.

Leftists are not angry that discussions of homoeroticism and gender dysphoria can no longer take place in K-3 classrooms in Florida. Leftists have long supported censorship of conservative views of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” in the classroom.

Rather, devotees of diversity, equity, and inclusion are angry that their assumptions about “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” can no longer be promoted in early elementary school.

Leftists defend their de facto censorship of conservative views of homoerotic acts and cross-sex identification by claiming that such views are signs of conservative hatred of persons. But the belief that conservatives hate those who identify as “LGBTQ” is a leftist, socially constructed and imposed belief. Most people are fully capable of loving those who hold different beliefs and who live in accordance with those beliefs. Most people do that every day. It is leftists who hate those who hold different beliefs and make life choices consistent with those beliefs.

What conservatives hate is leftists using government schools to impose their beliefs on the children of conservatives. Governor DeSantis and Florida lawmakers hope to stop the scourge of leftists using schools and taxpayer funds to ideologically groom other people’s children.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/DeSantis-Leads.mp3





Border Crisis Leading to Human Trafficking and Other Disasters

The crisis along the U.S.-Mexican  border continues with little effort from the Biden administration to stop the flood. In September, Del Rio, Texas, was nearly overrun when 30,000 illegal immigrants poured over the border into the town. This action meant illegal immigrants almost outnumbered actual citizens and, as a result, Del Rio’s public areas and living conditions deteriorated noticeably.

In 2021, approximately 1.7 million illegal immigrants have been arrested along our border. However, our federal government has done little to pro-actively intervene or address the primary issues that cause immigrants to leave their country. President Joe Biden met with Mexico’s President André Manuel López Obrador on November 18th. The two only briefly discussed the border. Obrador has stated that the U.S. should grant amnesty to the 11 million illegal immigrants in the U.S. and did not promise any help in stemming the tide of illegal crossings.

While the problems incurred along the border are overwhelming, the individuals coming here are far too often the victims. According to Pew Research, we have seen the highest levels of illegal crossings this year compared to the last several decades. However, despite the high level of crossings, the number of individuals crossing is down. This decrease is because an estimated 27% of individuals make multiple crossings across the border. One explanation for multiple crossings is that some illegal immigrants are caught, returned to their country of their origin, and then make other attempts to cross. Another explanation is that coyotes, the colloquial term for smugglers, are going back and forth smuggling victims of human trafficking across the border.

Kevin Lilly, Chairman of the Texas Alcohol Beverage Commission, has closely followed the tragedy of human trafficking at the border. In an interview with Fox News Channel’s Tucker Carlson, Lilly claimed that 60% of Latin American children crossing the US-Mexican border are victims of trafficking. Approximately 80,000 children are currently being trafficked in the state of Texas alone. The crisis along the border is further facilitating and funding the $200 billion industry of human trafficking.

President Biden’s response to the border crisis and human trafficking has been a complete debacle. The administration’s policy requires U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents to release families and unaccompanied minors 72 hours after being detained. Agents then serve them a notice to report to court for a hearing. Most immigrants do not comply with the notice to return, and minors and vulnerable adults are often quickly sold to traffickers.

The lack of intervention by the Biden administration means officials in border states are left on their own to manage the immigrant problem. Governor Greg Abbott (R-Texas) declared disaster areas in 47 Texas counties and deployed the National Guard to assist with border patrol and with the growing humanitarian crisis. Texas will likely see even more problems as a caravan of 2,000 migrants are currently making their way from Central American and Haiti to the US-Mexican border.

Recently, after discovering that the federal government was secretly flying illegal immigrants to Florida, Governor Ron DeSantis (R) stated, “If they’re going to come here, we’ll provide buses. I will send them to Delaware and do that. If he’s [Biden] not going to support the border being secured, then he should be able to have everyone there.” DeSantis has also filed suit against the Biden administration for continuing the catch and release program.

U.S. Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas) also responded to the problem with the introduction of S. 3002, the Stop the Surge Act of 2021. The Committee on the Judiciary is reviewing the act which was introduced to Congress on October 19th. This bill would establish twelve new ports of entry that Homeland Security would maintain. Any illegal immigrant detained at our border would be sent to one of the twelve ports and processed to determine if they were qualified for entry or deportation. Additionally, the act would eliminate temporary asylum and the catch and release program. As proposed by U.S. Senator Cruz, the bill would help tighten border control and perhaps prevent traffickers from using the open border to victimize vulnerable children and adults.

To stop the inhumane treatment of illegal immigrants and the human trafficking at our borders, we must stop the influx of migrants. This crisis will only end if we tighten border control and make it clear to all individuals that there is an established, legal process for immigrating to our country. The federal government should not automatically grant amnesty if they are serious about stopping the tide of migrants breaching our border. If you believe the border crisis is a humanitarian disaster, do not hesitate to get in touch with your Congressional representatives and demand that the Stop the Surge Act 2021 be moved to the U.S. Senate floor for a vote.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to contact U.S. Senators Dick Durbin and Tammy Duckworth plus your own U.S. Representatives and voice your concerns regarding the border crisis and express your support for S. 3002, the Stop the Surge Act.

Ask them to secure our national borders! You can also call the Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 and ask to speak to your federal lawmaker by name. If the staff doesn’t pick up, be sure to leave your name, phone number, and your message that you want S. 3002 passed, the border secure, women and children protected and the border wall finished immediately. Please ask your friends to do the same!

More ACTION: If you suspect someone you know is a victim of human trafficking, whether an immigrant or a legal citizen, don’t hesitate to call the National Human Trafficking Resource Center hotline at: (888) 373-7888.

Learn MORE:

[VIDEO] Texas mother, daughter killed as human smuggler crashes into them (Tucker Carlson)





Pushing Parents Out, Biden Administration Further Weaponizes ‘Education’

When it comes to education policy, the Biden administration is making the radicalism of the Obama years look mild by comparison.

The goal is to ultimately replace parents with bureaucrats and “experts” to facilitate the indoctrination of America’s youth. That transformation is accelerating.

Not only are the education system and America’s children being weaponized against America, federal law enforcement is now being weaponized against parents who speak out about it.

If left unchecked, catastrophe awaits. However, the more monstrous the federally directed abuses in schools become, the more outraged Americans join the fight.

The future of the nation is literally on the line in this issue. The outcome of the battle between who will raise children—government or parents—will determine the fate of America.

Parents, Get Out of the Way

The attitude toward parents in Washington has long been hostile. Hillary Clinton famously claimed in 1996 that it “takes a village” to raise children. What she really meant, of course, was a government village.

In fact, during the Obama years, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan publicly called for some children to be in government “boarding schools” 24 hours per day, seven days a week. Others should remain in school, including “after school programming,” for 12 to 14 hours each day, he declared.

A policy document (pdf) drafted by the Department of Education and the Department of Health and Human Services called for home visits by government officials and argued that parents could be “equal partners” with government in the rearing of their children.

But as fringe as those totalitarian views may sound to normal people, the extremism has now been taken to a whole new level under the current administration.

When Republican U.S. Senator Mike Braun of Indiana asked Education Secretary Miguel Cardona if parents should be the “primary stakeholder” in the education of their children, it would have been easy to spit one’s coffee on the floor.

“Stakeholder”?! What?

Of course, parents should never be viewed as mere “stakeholders” in the education of their children, “primary” or otherwise. According to Merriam-Webster dictionary, “stakeholder” is defined as “one that has a stake in an enterprise” or “one who is involved in or affected by a course of action.”

To call a mother or father a “stakeholder” in one of the most important facets of their child’s life is like calling a pilot of a private plane a “stakeholder” in whether his plane will land successfully or not. Technically it’s true. But it’s an outrage nonetheless.

Mothers and fathers should be in charge of their children’s education—not bystanders or “stakeholders.” This has been the case in virtually every human society for millennia. It’s also what the Bible clearly prescribes.

But the Biden administration, by contrast, does not believe parents should have any say in the “education” of children.

Cardona could not even bring himself to concede that parents should be the “primary stakeholders” in their children’s education.

“I believe parents are important stakeholders,” Cardona responded to Braun’s question, adding that “educators” also “have a role in determining educational programming.”

Indeed. That’s a nice way of saying: Parents, get out of the way, the Biden administration and its “experts” know better what and how your child should learn. More on that later.

Democrat Virginia gubernatorial candidate Terry McAullife, who wisely sent his children to private school, famously put it this way in a debate in September: “I don’t think parents should be telling schools what they should teach.”

Targeting Concerned Parents as ‘Terrorists’

As if matters could not get any worse, U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland, responding to an outrageous letter from the National Association of School Boards (NASB) painting concerned parents as possible “domestic terrorists,” decided to sic the FBI on moms and dads.

Among other concerns, Garland cited (pdf) “harassment” and “intimidation” by parents against the people brainwashing their kids with critical race theory (CRT), Marxist ideology, gender confusion, hyper-sexualized propaganda, and more. No examples of actual, legitimate threats were cited.

One of the examples of the supposed “threat” cited by the NASB was Scott Smith. What sort of dangerous domestic terrorist was Smith? Well, he was arrested for “disorderly conduct” while trying to tell the school board about his daughter being allegedly sodomized by a male pretending to be a girl in the girls’ restroom under the federally supported “transgender” dictates on bathrooms.

The other examples are equally outlandish: a ticket for “trespassing,” a nasty letter, a “Nazi salute” to protest mandatory face masks, somebody describing the school board as “Marxist,” and similar horrors requiring the might of the federal beast.

This is, of course, not about actual threats or violence, however. It’s naked intimidation of parents who are struggling to make their voices heard.

It’s also the political weaponization of federal law-enforcement in a way that’s unprecedented in American history. In fact, most parallels involve totalitarian dictatorships rather than civilized and free societies.

Fortunately, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and other state and local leaders are working to protect children in their jurisdictions from this outrageous abuse by the Biden administration. But it’s not enough to stop the freight train of evil being pumped into local schools by Washington.

The irony of treating desperate moms and dads as terrorists after pretending not to see months on end of actual domestic terrorism from rioters and looters burning down major American cities and even police precincts defies belief. Welcome to the “new normal.”

Even the former assistant director of intelligence for the FBI, Kevin Brock, has warned that the FBI should ignore Garland’s Orwellian directive.

After sparking a firestorm of criticism and alarming Americans across the political spectrum—and after being rebuked by state and local school boards nationwide—the NASB reluctantly apologized.

But nobody with a brain believes for a second that the education establishment would not sic the FBI and Homeland Security on angry parents if it thought it could get away with it.

Targeting State and Local Leaders, Too

Not long before announcing that the FBI and the Department of Justice would be employed to bully and intimidate parents, the Biden administration announced “civil rights” investigations into state leaders that refused to force children to wear masks at school against their parents’ wishes.

The threat, made by Cardona, invoked the communist understanding of “rights” to claim that everyone has a “right” to a government “education.” As such, states that do not force all children to wear face masks are somehow violating the supposed “rights” of some children to an education.

Yes, seriously. This is the so-called logic of the people who have usurped control over “educating” your children for you.

When Florida and other states sought to limit the ability of local school boards to force masks on children against their parents’ wishes, the Biden administration also vowed to send COVID stimulus money to local officials who defied their state government and state law.

Before that, the Department of Justice (DOJ) released a video urging children confused about their gender to report their local communities to the feds if government schools did not fully bow down to the “transgenderism” madness being pushed on America from D.C. and Hollywood.

The video, which featured transgender Health and Human Services bigwig Dr. Rachel Levine and senior officials from the Department of Education and the DOJ, gave multiple websites for children to get the feds involved in protecting their “rights” to use opposite-sex bathrooms, play on opposite-sex sports teams, and more.

The message was clear: Trust Biden, not your family or your community. And if anyone interferes with your supposed “right” to shower or relieve yourself or wrestle with members of the opposite sex, team Biden will unleash the fury of the weaponized federal machine.

So far there has been no federal intervention to protect the rights of Scott Smith’s daughter, though.

The Biden Agenda: CRT

At the top of Biden’s “education” agenda is using the education system to further divide parents and children, as well as the nation, while weaponizing impressionable youngsters in the war against their own country and its institutions.

Earlier this year, for example, the Department of Education proposed a “regulation” to inject even more Marxist race-mongering and CRT into public schools nationwide.

Under the scheme, the feds are bribing schools with “grants” and “incentives” paid with U.S. taxpayer money.

Among other elements, the administrative edict creates “American History and Civics Education programs” designed to radically change the teaching of history and civics. Between statements on “systemic racism” and “anti-racist practices,” the nature of the changes being sought is easy to discern.

Indeed, the Department of Education actually cited the debunked “1619 Project,” a fake history narrative addressed in part 17 of this series, as one of the inspirations for the effort.

The New York Times’ propaganda version of history, which has been ridiculed even by left-wing historians for its errors, turns U.S. history on its head. It paints the first nation in history founded on the premise that all are created equal—the first nation where abolition of slavery took root—into a uniquely evil nation with racism and slavery supposedly in its very “DNA.”

Also cited by the Education Department for the proposed regulation was the work of Ibram X. Kendi, one of the premier proponents of CRT and author of books such as “Anti-Racist Baby.”

Among other ideas, Kendi advocates a “Department of Antiracism” that would serve as an unelected racial dictatorship with power to overturn any law or rule it dislikes.

To qualify for the Education Department funding, state and local “education” officials would have to incorporate the administration’s extremist ideologies into the classroom—evil ideologies that divide children by “race” for sinister purposes while teaching a twisted (and false) version of American history and government.

Almost 40 U.S. senators and tens of thousands of citizens in official comments blasted the scheme’s overtly anti-American extremism.

Only after that massive outcry did the administration backtrack even slightly and remove some of the most outrageous language and references. But the somewhat scaled-back rule was still implemented, and the vision remains clear despite the attempted obfuscation.

To illustrate just how committed the administration is to this poison, in early October they appointed political activist Precious McKesson to a senior post at the Education Department. McKesson is a strong advocate of CRT, and she even recently expressed her support for teaching all children about the alleged “systemic racism” of America.

Ironically, perhaps, Garland’s son-in-law’s company reportedly supports CRT teaching in government schools, sparking concerns about a potential conflict of interest in the decision to sic the feds on parents.

The O’Biden Agenda: Centralize and Get Them Young!

The proposed $3.5 trillion “Build Back Better” abomination that Biden and congressional Democrats are trying to ram through Congress without the support of a single Republican is packed with “education” gimmicks, too. If approved, the descent into collective madness will accelerate.

One of the major schemes Biden and his handlers are trying to get through, this time with the “Reconciliation” bill, is a $200 billion program for universal pre-kindergarten. The goal: Get all of America’s children into government indoctrination programs even earlier.

Under the proposed plan, which may be rammed through Congress on a partisan vote with no filibusters allowed, all children in America ages 3 and 4 would receive federally directed, tax-funded “pre-K” through government schools.

None of this should be surprising. During the Obama years, the same warped view of “education” and parents reigned in Washington and throughout the monstrosity improperly referred to as the nation’s “public education” system.

Common Core, for example, was used to cement national standards into place using bullying and bribes from the stimulus slush fund.

And lest anyone think this was actually about “improving” education, the federal government funded a study showing “significant negative effects” on grade 4 reading after the standards were put in place. Less than one third of the victims of government school at grade 8 are proficient in core subjects, the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) reveals.

But academic achievement was never really the goal. Under Obama and Common Core, parents and elected school boards were out, while D.C. bureaucrats and special-interest groups funded by billionaire profiteers were in.

The plan succeeded wildly, with parents nationwide unable to help their children with “Common Core” math while states and school districts struggle for breathing room in the straitjacket of the national standards.

Also under Obama, federally funded so-called Full-Service Community Schools revealed perhaps the most brazen attempt to sideline parents in American history. These federally backed institutions, which are now scattered across the nation, promise to handle the dental health, mental health, nutritional needs, and much more for every child in their “care.”

It would be more honest to refer to these institutions as “parental replacement centers,” but of course those behind the agenda would never be so honest.

As explored in part 10 of this series, this federal usurpation of authority over families and schools accelerated rapidly under Obama. It’s now reaching a climax under Biden. And it has resulted in the absolute decimation of whatever may have once been decent in America’s disastrous “education” system.

From the 1960s’ U.S. Supreme Court opinions imposing humanism and ousting Christianity to the federal funding that eventually paved the way for control over standards and so much else, Washington’s influence over schools has been toxic from the start.

Under Obama and now Biden, the globalization of the indoctrination system described in part 9 of this series also came out of the closet, with Obama’s Education Secretary referring to the U.N. education agency as his “global partner” in the process.

Indeed, Common Core’s own architects and proponents bragged that the controversial standards were aligned with “international standards” even as training for “global citizenship” became ubiquitous.

This is about more than the government simply brainwashing your children. This is about removing you from the picture almost entirely so that the forces of wickedness, perversion, and tyranny can poison your children’s minds and souls unimpeded by pesky parents.

As this series has documented extensively, this was always the goal of the “education” establishment going back to the Utopian and even socialist architects of the system: communist Robert Owencollectivist Utopian Horace Mann, and socialisthumanist luminary John Dewey.

Obviously, attending school board meetings to express concerns is not a viable strategy for protecting children. In fact, it may even lead to harassment and intimidation from the politicized and disgraced FBI. It may be worth doing, but it will not save your children.

While it’s critical for parents to be involved and for state and local government to resist the Biden administration’s escalating attacks, the only true long-term solution is an exodus from the government’s indoctrination system.


This article was originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.




Freak Out as Conservatives Exit Public Schools

The totalitarian-minded education establishment and its extreme left-wing allies are starting to freak out as conservatives abandon futile efforts to “reform” government schools in favor of a mass-exodus strategy. Even powerful union bosses are starting to panic.

The trend has been building quietly for years. But it has accelerated rapidly in recent months as a trickle of families fleeing the system became a tidal wave amid face-mask edicts, vaccine mandates, Critical Race Theory, Marxist indoctrination, extreme “sex education,” and other controversies.

The first major shoe to drop in response came on September 30, when the fringe left-wing magazine New Republic released a major article claiming Republicans were now out to destroy the public-school system instead of “reform” it.

“Republicans Don’t Want to Reform Public Education. They Want to End It,” blared the headline in the far-left magazine, famous for lying about and even praising the mass-murdering Soviet dictatorship. “Florida’s recent struggles over masks in schools augur a terrifying shift in the right’s approach to education policy.”

According to the article, conservatives are increasingly abandoning the idea of “reforming” public schools. Instead, the article argues, the new approach is to get as many children as possible out of the system and into private schools or homeschooling.

The article begins by examining a speech by Florida Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran at Hillsdale College. Corcoran noted, correctly, that education will be the key to winning other issues, too. But Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, the article claims, is at the helm of pursuing the strategy to destroy government education.

“Trading in the decades-old, substantially bipartisan education reform agenda, a formula that was born in Florida, he is mustering a naked attack on the very existence of public schools,” the magazine claimed, arguing that this shift is taking place in the broader Republican Party in general as well.

And bigwigs of the trillion-dollar-per-year “education” regime are getting nervous. For instance, American Federation of Teachers (AFT) boss Randi Weingarten, who is quoted in the New Republic article, blurted out her concerns on Twitter.

“This isn’t just about masks or about Governor DeSantis’ political aspirations,” she said as state-level union bosses parroted her comments as well. “It’s about the complete destabilization of public education so that parents will choose private schools.”

And it is true: Conservative leaders nationwide are increasingly advocating an exit from government schools altogether. Just this weekend, conservative heavyweight Candace Owens urged parents to remove their children from government schools on Fox News.

“Pull your children out of public schools,” Owens told the cable network on Sunday. “The time is now, remove your children from these indoctrination camps, they’re not learning to be smart,  they’re not focused on hard academics, they are being brainwashed and and systematically controlled and what they want to produce, by the way, are failures.”

Before that, Evangelical leader Franklin Graham, conservative pundit Dennis Prager, talk-radio titan Rush Limbaugh, and many others also called for parents to remove their children in recent years.

Some have been sounding the alarm for decades. Exodus Mandate Director Lt. Col. Ray Moore (Ret.), the godfather of the exodus movement, was thrilled by the shift in the conversation. “After decades of futile efforts to reform government schools, conservatives and Christians are permanently opting out,” Moore told us by phone.

“The dam is about to break,” added Moore, who is also chairman of Public School Exit (where this writer serves as executive director) and the Christian Education Initiative (CEI). “When this happens, on a large scale, Christians and conservatives will become good neighbors again, by providing Christian education services for our nation. This is the great hope for renewal of our families, churches and our nation.”

Conservatives and Christians now have the momentum — the wind is in their sails when it comes to rescuing millions of children from the dumbing down, sexualization, and indoctrination in government schools. The exodus is already happening, and it will accelerate in the years ahead.

As the forces of liberty advance, the next challenge will be to keep the same “education” establishment from destroying homeschooling and private school by providing tax funding with strings attached or other subversive methods. The future of America depends on the outcome of this fight.


This article was originally published by FreedomProject Media.





Grinches on the Left Putting a Damper on Christmas

The Biden administration is warning of impending shortages at Christmas due to supply chain issues. A massive backup of container ships at the Port of Los Angeles is a major contributing factor to this severe problem. Not only are ships waiting long periods to dock, but, when they offload, the containers remain stacked, waiting for truck drivers to arrive to take the shipments to their destinations. Currently, there are approximately 250,000 containers on the docks and 500,000 shipping containers off the coast. President Joe Biden recently announced that the ports would move to 24-hour operations; however, most experts believe that the intervention has come too late and warns that shelves may be empty at Christmas time.

Governor Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) invited shipping companies to bring their goods to Florida in response to the problem. The governor has proposed that companies waiting to dock in California come to one of the 15 seaports in Florida to ease the bottleneck. Florida has invested $250 million in improving their ports and they are now ready to receive ships. Although this may help elevate pressure on the California ports, it may not prevent the shortages. Ports are only one part of the supply chain problem. Another broken link is due to the lack of truck drivers to transport the goods. Even before COVID-19, the country lacked an estimated 60,000 drivers. That deficit has only grown during the pandemic and will make on-time delivery of products for Christmas extremely difficult.

While problems with the supply chain are complex, the Biden administration’s response is most infuriating. White House Chief of Staff, Ronald Klain, retweeted economist Jason Furman who called the problems with the supply chain and inflation a “high class problem.” Additionally, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki defended Klain’s tweet and even went as far as saying that “we’ve made progress in the economy.” It seems the Biden administration is totally out of touch with how both supply problems and inflation impact all Americans. Not only are they out of touch, but they also do not understand the meaning of Christmas.

It is a bit reminiscent of the Dr. Seuss classic How the Grinch Stole Christmas. In the children’s story, the petulant Grinch is irritated that the Who of Whoville joyfully celebrate Christmas and he decides to steal their Christmas. He sneaks into Whoville, taking all their gifts and the food for their table. Like the infamous Grinch, the Biden administration tells us that we too will have no gifts or dinner feast. And like the Grinch, this administration also has missed the point of Christmas.

Instead of bemoaning their loss, the Who of Whoville gathered in unity and joyfully celebrated anyway. Believers should react much in the same way, even if the supply problems and inflation are tremendous. Christmas is not about gifts or food, and we, as Christians, must demonstrate a joyful celebration of everything that Jesus Christ represents. If the gifts under your tree are fewer and the food on the table lighter, do not despair. Start new traditions with your family, make homemade gifts, or donate your time to those in need. Find ways to share the gift of Jesus with family and friends. Christmas isn’t about the things under the tree, but the gift of salvation that God willingly gave two thousand years ago. Let us, even in our time of need, remember the gift of Christ and remind the leftist Grinches that “It came without ribbons! It came without tags! It came without packages, boxes, or bags…Maybe Christmas…doesn’t come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.” (Dr. Seuss)





Mask Mandates Should be the Last Straw

With the increasingly extreme attack on parental rights and medical freedom represented by Governor J.B. Pritzker’s COVID mask and vaccine mandates for schools, there has never been a better time for parents to sever all ties with the government’s “education” system.

As if the dumbing down, perverse sexualization and extreme indoctrination were not serious enough already for parents to make serious moves protecting their children, government officials in Illinois decided last month to double down on the extremism.

Among other deeply controversial policies, Gov. Pritzker decreed that all staff and even some eligible Illinois students must receive the experimental COVID injection. The Democrat governor also ordered all students over age 2, as well as all staff, to wear a face mask throughout the school day.

“This is a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” Pritzker claimed, falsely, during a press conference, citing debunked figures while ignoring the overwhelming evidence that fully vaccinated people are being hospitalized and dying in significant numbers. “People can slow the pandemic by masks and vaccinations.”

In reality, the latest data appear to show the COVID injections are practically worthless in protecting anyone from the virus — especially after some months have gone by. According to the latest government data out of the United Kingdom, (see p. 20) about two thirds of those who died from the so-called “Delta” variant were fully vaccinated at least two weeks earlier. Just 28 percent were unvaccinated.

On the mask mandate, Pritzker again appears to be ignoring actual science and data. For instance, as Florida Governor Ron DeSantis pointed out in his recent executive order banning mask mandates in public schools, a Brown University study found “no correlation” between masks and COVID in Florida schools.

DeSantis also pointed to studies showing an extremely low risk of children contracting a serious case of COVID. And he noted that there is no real evidence showing that counties with mask mandates fared any better than those with them during the previous school year. Even more concerning, the popular Florida governor warned of dangerous health consequences associated with face masks.

In any case, parents have the right to make medical decisions for their children, not bureaucrats and government officials, he said.

“Given the historical data on COVID-19 and the ongoing debate over whether masks are more harmful than beneficial to children and to school environments in general, we should protect the freedoms and statutory rights of students and parents by resting with the parents the decision whether their children should wear masks in school,” DeSantis said in his order.

Ironically, just two weeks before imposing his new mandates, Pritzker similarly argued that families should be involved in making decisions and that local policymakers should be making decisions for their jurisdictions.

But when not enough families and school districts bowed to the demands of the COVID totalitarians, Pritzker issued mandates and claimed to be merely following the “recommendations” of the disgraced CDC.

“Far too few school districts have chosen to follow the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention prescription for keeping students and staff safe,” Pritzker proclaimed. “Given the CDC’s strong recommendation, I had hoped that a state mask requirement in schools wouldn’t be necessary, but it is.”

Despite the media hysteria and the governor’s decrees, the non-profit group Illinois Policy pointed out that the number of daily deaths attributed to COVID in Illinois has been below 20 since mid-June, and COVID patients occupied just a small fraction of available ICU beds and ventilators.

Meanwhile, in Sweden, where authorities consistently advised against masks and shunned any sort of mandates at all, daily deaths have fallen to virtually zero.

Still, the threats from the governor and his supporters are already ramping up. The Illinois High School Association warned last month that any schools violating the governor’s decrees would have their student athletes banned from playoff games this fall.

Even private schools are being bullied. Christian Liberty Academy in Arlington Heights had its state recognition revoked for failing to comply with the mandates. Adding insult to injury, Pritzker even claimed he would deny students their diplomas if schools did not comply with his edicts.

Republicans in Illinois blasted the governor’s antics. State Senator Darren Bailey, who is himself running for governor, blasted Pritzker as a “tyrant” who has overstepped his authority by issuing “unilateral mandates.”

“Unless you are part of a powerful special interest group that can help his campaign, he will continue to try and control your life,” Bailey added, saying masking should be a personal choice and that parents must “let their voices be heard on this despicable tyranny.”

One powerful way for parents to make their voices heard on this issue — and to protect their children from a wide range of other evils — is to exit the public school system entirely.

These outrageous abuses of power by Pritzker represent an attack on parental rights, medical freedom, the well being of Illinois children, and common sense. A growing amount of research is also pointing to very serious health risks poses by face masks, not to mention the catastrophic psychological damage being done.

Add to all of that the fact that in recent weeks, Pritzker signed a radical “sex ed” bill that is among the most extreme in the nation. Under the scheme, government schools will more vigorously promote abortion, promiscuity, gender confusion, homosexuality, and more.

Parents who are sick of being bullied and terrorized by out-of-control officials do have options. Homeschooling is one excellent choice that is in line with the Bible and can protect children and families from this sort of abuse. The number of homeschooling families in the state has more than doubled over the past year already.

At this point, it should be clear that government schools are not safe for children or families — and the risks extend far beyond that. Only a mass exodus can neutralize the threat and protect Illinois’ future.





Echoes of Mao: Weaponizing Schools With ‘Critical Race Theory’

Long before California’s infamous “ethnic studies” curriculum made national headlines in March for literally suggesting children chant to the Aztec gods of cannibalism and human sacrifice, the insidious weaponization of “race” and “racism” had already overtaken the nation’s government school system.

The racist effort to divide and conquer Americans by “race,” all under the guise of examining everything through the “lens of racism” and fighting “structural” or “systemic” racism, has come to be known as critical race theory, or CRT.

Just think of it as half-baked pseudo-intellectual gobbledygook aimed at stirring up as much racial hatred, resentment, division, and conflict as possible.

Like cult leaders, the growing overpaid legions of tax-funded “experts” in CRT want the public to believe that this is some complicated and mysterious “epidemic” that only overpaid “experts” can understand. But the reality behind CRT is actually pretty simple.

The premise is basically this: All “white people” are racist oppressors with power and privilege, and all non-white people are oppressed victims.

From that flows the silly premise that America—among the least racist nations on earth, studies show—is a “systemically racist” abomination that must be “decolonized” and dismantled.

In fact, any institutions created by peoples or nations of mostly European heritage are evil and must be pulverized. And any people who lack sufficient melanin must repent for their collective guilt.

If all that sounds evil and unhinged, good—it is.

Unfortunately, it’s also now a staple in the diet of impressionable young victims of government schools across America.

The goal isn’t really fighting racism, as its proponents claim.

In fact, a number of studies show that “diversity training,” an offshoot of CRT aiming to put the cult’s views into practice, “can activate bias or spark a backlash,” the Harvard Business Review warned.

“Many participants actually report more animosity toward other groups afterward,” it said.

Duh!

The same is true for children: When they’re bombarded with racial division and hyper-racial extremism, they not only begin thinking in terms of race, they also begin resenting those supposedly in other “groups” alleged to be in conflict with them.

And that’s precisely the point. In the Soviet Union, like Karl Marx decades earlier, totalitarians divided people by “class,” driving a wedge between the “bourgeoisie” and the “proletariat.”

Similar divisions were created and exploited by Chairman Mao in communist China.

In America, where the poor live materially better than the rich in many nations, the “class conflict” narrative was not as effective.

And so, as in National Socialist (Nazi) Germany, socialist and communist agents from abroad and homegrown subversives turned to “race” as the key fault line to exploit.

It has been bubbling beneath the surface in America for years—even decades. But in recent months, it has exploded into the national consciousness as increasingly extreme examples of tax-funded CRT indoctrination spark outrage from parents and normal people.

There’s a long history behind this ideology of hate in America.

Part 6 of this series explored the enormous influence of the Marxist Frankfurt School and its “critical theory” schemes on American culture—and particularly in its government-controlled education system. CRT is an outgrowth of this deadly weapon, adapted to the American scene.

A big part of the lie depends on fraudulent history taught to children such as the almost universally discredited “1619 Project” and the debunked diatribes of communist Howard Zinn, as documented in this previous article in this series.

The end result is disaster.

Tax-Funded CRT at School

Naturally, adults of all “races” with even basic critical-thinking skills, common sense, and a rudimentary understanding of history could see right through the CRT propaganda.

But young children in government schools for five days a week? They make for easy victims. After all, mommy and daddy said to listen to the teacher.

That’s why the forces behind CRT are focusing so heavily on targeting children.

What do CRT and the race-mongering look like in practice?

In California, for example, the newly adopted “Ethnic Studies Model Curriculum,” approved by the state Board of Education on March 18, suggests children seek help from pagan Aztec gods for “a revolutionary spirit” in a chant.

“The chants have a clear implication: the displacement of the Christian god, which is said to be an extension of white supremacist oppression,” writes Christopher F. Rufo.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the largest district in the nation, has already indicated that it will be requiring “ethnic studies” for graduation starting in 2023. The whole state may eventually follow. And the cancers that begin in California often spread nationwide.

In one of the wealthiest districts in the nation, Silicon Valley’s Cupertino Union School District, third-grade students were reportedly ordered to “deconstruct” their racial, gender, religious, family structure, and sexual identities.

After that, they were told to create an “identity map” and rank themselves based on the “power and privilege” received from the “intersection” of their various “identities.”

“A white, cisgender man, who is able-bodied, heterosexual, considered handsome and speaks English has more privilege than a Black transgender woman,” offered the school materials in an example of how to understand the results.

In short, under this twisted worldview, your melanin content makes you either an oppressor to be destroyed, like the bourgeoisie, or a victim who must destroy others, like the proletariat.

This sort of madness is taking place all across “red” states, too.

North Carolina’s largest school district, Wake County, for instance, launched a campaign to eradicate “whiteness in educational spaces.” As part of that, teachers were ordered to “disrupt whiteness” and “override families,” according to Rufo.

It’s not new, either. In 2017, outraged parents fumed at a Rockingham County, North Carolina, Board of Education meeting after learning that a teacher forced children of European heritage to stand in front of the class and apologize for their “white privilege.”

In Ames, Iowa, and other cities and towns across America in recent years, the “Black Lives Matter Week of Action” has been peddling “diversity and globalism,” “the disruption of the Western nuclear family,” “transgender, queer affirming, and collective value,” and more.

To understand just how aggressive the peddlers of this Marxist narrative in schools have become, consider news reports from mid-March about government-school teachers who plotted to “infiltrate” parents’ groups opposed to the indoctrination, use “hackers” to mess with their communications, and even “expose these people publicly” for speaking out.

Similar Tactics in Communist China

Victims of these tactics who have lived through the horrors that stem from them recognize the same schemes clearly.

Prominent Chinese exile Lily Tang-Williams, who grew up under Mao but eventually fled to the United States, remembers those exact tactics being used in Mao’s government-indoctrination centers for children, masquerading as “public schools.”

“It creates hatred, guilt, and division in our country,” she said about CRT being peddled on children in school. “It is a tool used by the radical left to divide and conquer.”

Having grown up during Mao’s reign and experienced the entire 10-year Cultural Revolution, Williams sounded the alarm about what’s happening in America today.

“Let me tell you, this racist theory is nothing more than a tactic to separate citizens into ‘oppressed’ and ‘oppressor’ classes, and it is something I have heard before,” said Williams, who recently testified before the New Hampshire legislature on this issue.

Mao’s regime sought to destroy the “four olds,” she claimed, referring to the mass-murdering communist Chinese tyrant’s campaign to eradicate China’s old ideas, culture, habits, and customs.

“He and his regime used identity politics to divide people into 10 classes: five red and five black,” she explained. “The red classes included poor and lower-middle peasants, workers, revolutionary soldiers, revolutionary cadres, and revolutionary martyrs. The black classes were landlords, rich farmers, counter-revolutionaries, bad-influencers, and rightists.”

Every member of the “black classes” was considered guilty by association, simply for having been born into a family, and was said to have been “born black.”

“Mao urged Red Guards to publicly shame the black classes by raising their fists, making them do self-criticism, confess and denounce themselves, or they would get beat up, locked up in a room to write about their ‘blackness,’ apologize for their families or themselves, and be sent to re-education camps to do hard labor,” Williams continued, adding that some young members of the families would do anything to escape the shame and association, including reporting their own relatives to the Chinese Communist Party.

Tens of millions of Chinese died amid the Cultural Revolution “due to those murderous policies,” said Williams, who serves on the advisory board of U.S. Parents Involved in Education along with this writer and others in the field.

“What is happening in America today with CRT, in our schools, in our workplaces and governmental agencies, really reminds me of what happened during the Cultural Revolution,” she added.

Bad for Children

Aside from being destructive to society, the CRT madness is going to harm children of all types, too, experts say.

“It is horrendous and utterly harmful psychology to tell people, especially young children and teens, who do not believe that they are racists, and may actively despise racism, that there is nothing they can do to stop themselves from being racists,” explained Doctor of Clinical Psychology Gary Thompson with the Early Life Child Psychology and Education Center.

“Woke Supremacy is just as psychologically destructive on people as White Supremacy,” added Thompson, who happens to be a black American.

Thompson claims that many public schools are now teaching children as young as second and third grade that “whiteness is synonymous with evil, that the police systematically hunt down and murder black men deliberately, and all these other highly charged political convictions that they’re teaching as if they’re uncontested fact.”

How to Fight Back

Parents across the nation are scrambling for ways to fight back and protect their children.

Thompson, who also serves on the advisory board of U.S. Parents Involved in Education, said his personal opinion is that attempts by average parents to eliminate CRT from their children’s public school would be “futile.”

“If CRT does not fit your family values, the option of leaving public schools may be a viable option for parents,” he said, echoing a growing sentiment in America as enrollment in public schools continues to plummet.

Partly in response to CRT propaganda, millions of parents have fled government schools over the last year for homeschooling and private schools.

Unfortunately, the CRT madness is no longer confined just to government schools. Even many “woke” elite and self-styled “Christian” schools have been jumping on the bandwagon, so parents must do their due diligence.

Ignoring the voices of some of America’s most prominent black Christian leaders—Voddie Baucham and Bishop E.W. Jackson, for instance—many liberal churches and seminaries have taken the plunge, too.

Some critics have argued that indoctrinating children with CRT at taxpayer expense is already against the law.

Wu Wenyuan, executive director of the Californians for Equal Rights Foundation, has been fighting the battle in California and beyond for years. She argues that CRT in the classroom is “illegal and unconstitutional.”

“Teaching CRT that’s predicated on racial divisions and a social dichotomy of victim versus oppressor fundamentally violates the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution—which guarantees equal protection of the laws—Title VI/VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, California’s constitutional principle of equal treatment, and a plethora of anti-discrimination laws,” she warned.

In Florida, top officials are taking action. In fact, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis just promised the ideology would not be included in his state’s public schools.

“Let me be clear there is no room in our classrooms for things like critical race theory, teaching kids to hate their country and to hate each other is not worth one red cent of taxpayer money,” DeSantis said.

“They’re trying to make people view each other based on race, I want to do the opposite. I want to treat people as individuals,” he added. “I want to treat people based on character.”

But of course, dividing people is the goal—not an unintended side effect—and the constant appeals to “white supremacy” are simply a red herring designed to force critics to remain silent.

The stakes couldn’t be higher.

CRT’s leaders and cult-like adherents have labeled virtually everything the far-left and Marxists hate as “white supremacy”: the U.S. Constitution, Christianity, math, the rule of law, punctuality, individualism, Western civilization, the nuclear family, objective truth, and more.

Nothing and nobody is safe.

Adults largely recognize the evil and idiocy of this. However, America’s children—like children in other nations who have been indoctrinated to hate their parents and their compatriots before committing ghastly atrocities—do not know better.

It will be up to parents to protect their own children, and thereby the nation and its freedoms.


This article as originally published by The Epoch Times, and is one report in a series of articles examining the origins of government education in the United States.




Time to ABOLISH the Federal Gasoline Tax

Written by Daniel Horowitz

The way to make infrastructure great again is to make localism great again.

One need not be a flaming states’ rights advocate to understand that something as local in nature as surface transportation can be dealt with more efficiently and effectively on the state and local levels. Which is why, if Donald Trump wants to make America’s infrastructure great again, he should return the gas tax revenue and responsibility of transportation to the states rather than increasing the federal debt and pumping more money into the insane system that indirectly controls every pothole from Washington D.C., distorts proper planning and decision-making, and prevents local communities from debating their priorities.

The interstate highway system was completed over 25 years ago. Yet the political class in both parties believes that K Street lobbyists and federal bureaucrats should run the transportation policy of all 50 states, despite the fact that each state has a unique geography, topography, population density, and cultural differences in travel. The result is a failed cycle of bailouts for the Highway Trust Fund (HTF), thanks to states relying on the inefficient quicksand of federal transportation policy. The question going forward is: Will we double down on raising taxes and/or increasing debt to fund endless bailouts of an inefficient system? Or will we give states full control over their own transportation so they can plan ahead according to their needs and have a debate over taxes and spending priorities where the options can be weighed in the most transparent fashion?

The truth about highway spending

Much as the payroll tax was sold as a pay-as-you go supply for Social Security, the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal gasoline tax and the 24.4-cent federal diesel excise tax were promised to be used exclusively for highways and bridges. They collectively fund roughly 86 percent of the total HTF, while the remainder of revenue comes from excise and sales taxes on tires, tractors, and heavy trucks. And just as with Social Security, whereby 17 percent of the funds were later diverted to the disability program, roughly 20 percent of the highway funds have been diverted toward mass transit, due to urban pressure groups. Furthermore, according to the Heritage Foundation, Davis-Bacon Act age mandates jack up the cost of construction projects by 22 percent. The cost of our current environmental regulations is incalculable. This has created a dynamic where we spend about $55 billion a year from the highway trust fund while bringing in just $40 billion in revenue, resulting in a $15 billion annual shortfall every year.

The Chamber of Commerce and U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Bill Shuster complain that we have not raised the federal gas tax in 25 years and that it has endangered our roads and bridges. But the reality is that we have not gone without the extra spending because we have bailed out the trust fund from general revenue whenever there was a shortfall. Since 2008, Congress has transferred roughly $143 billion of general revenues to the HTF, $71 billion in 2015 alone when it last reauthorized federal surface transportation programs and the gas tax through 2020. At the time, 24 percent of the bailout funds were funneled toward mass transit!

Thus, the case for returning transportation spending to the states is even more compelling than for education spending.

If we were to turn over the gas tax system to the states, states could set their rates to the same levels as the current combined federal and state gas tax rates. They’d thus be able to cover all of their needs simply by cutting out mass transit and Davis-Bacon regulations. As the Competitive Enterprise Institute observed, we are spending up to 28 percent of the highway funds (combined federal and state) on a method of transportation that accounts for less than two percent of all trips. Accordingly, most of the entire projected shortfall in the Highway Trust Fund is the result of increased spending on mass transit.

If states want to spend more money on mass transit, then they should have a local debate over cutting other spending or raising the gas tax over and beyond the current federal level. But it must be done at a local level. The problem with the current system and the one Trump wants to expand is that is makes the states reliant on the unpredictable and inefficient federal sinkhole. This hampers long-term planning and a sense of prioritization. In their alacrity to gobble up the short-term money before it runs out, state and local governments tend to use the federal funds on small-time and indivisible projects, such as incessant road repaving, instead of better-planned long-term projects. Or they funnel the money to special interests, such as mass transit. Ever wonder why there are buses running through your neighborhood where everyone has two cars? You have no input because there is free money coming from the feds.

What crumbling infrastructure?

The inefficiency of relying on the federal government for highway spending has made it harder to properly plan projects without needlessly creating traffic jams. It prevents states from planning long-term maintenance, which is a much bigger need than new infrastructure. Yet it’s hard to conduct ribbon-cutting ceremonies for an existing road, which is why so much of the federal funding is steered towards projects that are not a priority but that make headlines for politicians. Localism would force a “sink or swim” debate of prioritizing maintenance over new construction. On the other hand, spending more money and raising the gas tax at a federal level, as Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao is calling for, would shield politicians from having this debate. And even if locals ultimate feel that it’s worthwhile to build a new road, they can choose from a range of options, from short-term gas tax increases and fees to cutting other projects. It’s called self-governance.

Once states are empowered with the revenue and responsibility to care for their own local needs, there should not be a need for a massive spending increase in most states above and beyond the current levels. The premise that our entire surface transportation system is crumbling across the board and in need of trillions more from the federal government is a myth and will only exacerbate the existing inefficiencies. We have spent more money on transportation in recent years, and according to the Government Accountability Office, the share of structurally deficient bridges has dropped dramatically over the past decade.

According to Reuters, fewer than 20 of our nation’s 1,200 busiest bridges are structurally deficient. And the way to target their repairs is not by giving states unaccountable handouts but by forcing them to stand before their voters and properly prioritize these needs over other projects to which they inevitably steer funds under an open-ended federal entitlement. Basic maintenance of the highways we already have should be the responsibility of the local governments.

The good and bad of Trump’s transportation proposal

President Trump has the right idea about streamlining the permitting process, cutting regulations, and eliminating judicial meddling from junk lawsuits. He is also right to pursue private investments and lifting caps on tax-exempt municipal bonds so that states can lure private investors into these projects at lower interest rates. He should pursue these policies as a standalone initiative, along with eliminating Davis-Bacon regulations, without a massive new entitlement. The problem is that this will only happen by getting the federal government out of the way, not by making the federal government, the Department of Commerce in particular, the gatekeeper for grant programs to hold over the states. States must be given independence – with the opportunities AND responsibilities to force them to make the right decisions on their own.

Throwing more federal money at states, with federal bureaucrats setting the terms, will exacerbate the fatal flaw of current policy, which is the distortion of sound decision-making and prioritization at a local level. President Trump has identified the correct end goal by trying to leverage public-private partnerships, but the only way to ensure that outcome is by cutting off the federal spigot while simultaneously giving states all of the gas tax revenue. Trump’s blueprint rightfully recognizes that “states and localities are best equipped to understand the infrastructure investments needs of their communities.” But a $100 billion grant program that is a hybrid between Medicaid expansion and Common Core in terms of federal dictates is moving in the opposite direction.

As for other infrastructure, such as waterways and drinking water, according to the CBO, we already spend $416 billion in combined federal, state, and local expenditures. States have already been ramping up spending in recent years and account for three-quarters of the total sum. Why not put all of it on the states and make them completely independent for highway and road maintenance? U.S. Senator Mike Lee (R-Utah) and U.S. Representative Ron DeSantis (R-Florida) have a bill doing just that, while maintaining a small portion of gas tax revenue to be used for the few projects that are national in scope.

A true compromise between the increased spending and the better elements of Trump’s plan would do the following:

  • The increase in spending would be the last federal bailout, thereafter putting all highway spending on the states within five years.
  • Condition the spending increase on his regulatory reform as a single In other words, no new spending without the reforms attached.
  • The new spending should be used for highways, not mass transit.
  • Trump should publicly tout some other good reforms in his bill, such as selling off public lands and privatizing some airports and electricity facilities. Don’t just talk about increased spending.
  • Scrap the plan for a $50 billon slush fund for rural communities. The federal government already has enough subsidies for rural programs, and if there is a need for new roads, that must be handled on a state level. Instead, states have issues maintaining the roads they already have rather than a need for new ones, particularly in rural areas.

We wouldn’t want garbage collection to be run by the federal government, so why do we continue to depend on a broken Washington for local road and highway issues?


Take ACTION:  Click HERE to send a message to President Trump and to your U.S. Representative asking them to abolish the federal gas tax and let the states lead on planning and decision-making regarding road, bridge and highway infrastructure.  Urge them to reject the idea of raising regressive federal gasoline taxes which hit middle class and poor families the hardest.  Ask them to stop feeding an inefficient and bloated federal bureaucracy and instead return control to the states.


This article was originally published at ConservativeReview.com