RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://americanmind.org/features/florida-versus-davos/no-compromise-with-the-woke-revolution/

Conservatives must stop consenting to play the domesticated opposition.

The woke revolutionary assault on national heroes is occurring throughout the West. In Britain, even statues honoring Winston Churchill have come under attack. From France to Sweden, the woke Left seeks to denigrate national histories. Everywhere the goal is the same: to undermine national democratic traditions.

In America, the woke revolution advances.

Last year six former Secretaries of Education, including Republican Secretaries appointed by Bush 41 and Bush 43—Lamar Alexander, Rod Paige, and Margaret Spellings—endorsed a massive new Civic Education project. This project, “Educating for American Democracy,” provides guidance for legislation currently before Congress.

Educating for American Democracy seeks to “harmonize” a national consensus on civic education. The leaders recruited a few conservatives to provide cover for a “trans-partisan” project. But the executive committee is sacked 8-2 to the left, dominated by progressive academics from Harvard and Tufts and left-wing activists that promote so-called “Action Civics.” Of the 300 educators who participated, perhaps 10 are non-liberals.

Let us start with a rather basic question: what does this national “consensus” tell us American students should learn about George Washington? Well, the project laments that “students can make it into their teens without knowing that Washington was not only a foundational leader, but also enslaved people.”

Let that sink in. George Washington and other founders are defamed by establishment educators as “enslavers.” This is, of course, a blatant lie. Washington, Jefferson, and Madison were not, by definition, “enslavers”—they did not seize individuals who were free and put them in bondage. The three Virginians were slave owners who sought, in Lincoln’s words, the “ultimate extinction” of that institution. Washington freed his slaves and provided for their education and economic well-being in his will.

https://issuesinsights.com/2022/10/14/biden-flunks-another-inflation-exam/

You know things are bad when even the mainstream press is admitting that the latest inflation numbers “soared far above expectations last month” and that this is “wiping out pay gains.” But, according to President Joe Biden, Thursday’s report on inflation “shows some progress in the fight against higher prices.”

What progress? Inflation was up 8.2% in September, compared with the year before. And that’s on top of last September’s 6.2% increase.

Here’s another way to look at it.

In the 21 months since Biden took office, the Consumer Price Index has shot up 13.5%. That compares with 4% in the first 21 months of the Trump administration. (See the chart below.)

I&I Chart

The so-called “core inflation” number – which subtracts more volatile food and energy categories – shot up 6.6% on an annual basis this September, the biggest such jump in four decades.

As the Associated Press put it, the core inflation number was “far above expectations” and “a sign that the Fed’s five rate hikes this year have so far done little to cool inflation pressures.”

In other words, we are in for a world of hurt as prices keep climbing while the Fed’s continued rate hikes slash home prices, shrink retirement accounts, and kill jobs.

https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2022/10/the_war_for_internet_freedom_has_just_begun.html

I have heard it said many times over the years that President Bill Clinton and his inner circle were apprehensive about the rise of the internet right from its infancy.  While university clubs and lonely tech pioneers were generating public excitement by connecting people all over the planet, Clinton and his crew feared the internet for what it signified: an end to the government’s monopoly over information.

If just any old citizen could broadcast news to the world over cyberspace, none of the government’s traditional methods for regulating knowledge would continue to work.  Having a White House press corps, after all, has always had little to do with keeping government power in check and an awful lot to do with keeping potentially damaging information in house, supervised, and under control.  What better way to monitor and shape the news of tomorrow than to stuff all the White House correspondents into one small space for direct and easy manipulation?  Should CBS or NBC or The New York Times stumble upon a story too embarrassing for those in power, there is always some bargain to be made or some threat to be leveled that can keep that information bottled up.

The “free press,” in other words, has always been filled with information “gatekeepers” no less corruptible than any other humans and just as capable of intentionally keeping the public in the dark as they are of letting in some occasional light.  For what it’s worth, Clinton’s worries were warranted, and a complete unknown named Matt Drudge nearly took down his presidency with a story about a stained blue dress that several prestige news outlets had refused to cover.  The somewhat secret war over information would never be the same.

While we watch government-induced censorship increasingly squeeze the free flow of information today, it is easy to throw up our hands in despair and presume that the light of freedom will inexorably dim.  I encourage you instead to see government-engineered threats to free speech as further evidence that both totalitarianism and freedom are on the march.  Powerful institutions do not work this hard to silence voices unless they are deeply afraid.  The push for control is inextricably linked to the perception of fear.  The harder that authorities push to control what we say, the more clearly they reveal their own fear.  This is a sign of weakness.