Re-posted from The Canada Free Press By Judi McLeod —— Bio and Archives—July 15, 2020

Abad idea whose time has come: It started when Black Lives Matter protesters began temporarily suspending their signature chants, screeches and wailings during protests to sing super talented Bill Wither’s song,’Lean on Me’—an idea that crash landed at the L.A. Times with a suggestion that the song should replace the National Anthem.

But Baby, It’s Gotta’ Be Cold Outside’ when a catchy, hand-clapping tune can replace the 206-year-old ‘Star-Spangled Banner!

“An op-ed from The Los Angeles Times raised eyebrows for calling on “The Star-Spangled Banner” to be canceled as the national anthem. (Fox News, July 14, 2020)

“imposing and fussy.”

“Contributing writer Jody Rosen began his column by slamming a San Francisco monument of Francis Scott Key, who famously wrote the lyrics to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” as “imposing and fussy.”

“After noting that the Key statue had been taken down by rioters, Rosen appeared to offer a justification for the vandalism as he, too, was a slaveowner.”

Rosen authored the book ‘White Christmas: The Story of an American Song’.  How long before the revisionist culture delists the song because of its first word?

“The wave of reckoning and revisionism that is sweeping the country may have to come for the national anthem,” Rosen wrote, pointing to viral claims that “The Star-Spangled Banner” is a “racist song” that stems from Key’s poem “Defence of Fort M’Henry,” which invokes slaves. (Fox News)

“Rosen listed several songs that have been floated around to become the next national anthem, including John Lennon’s “Imagine,” James Weldon Johnson’s “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” as well as other iconic American tunes like “God Bless America,” “America the Beautiful,” and “This Land is Your Land.”

“Nope, none of these songs will do,” Rosen argued. “At a moment when the United States is in the grip of multiple crises — convulsed by debates over racism and injustice, ravaged by a pandemic, with a crumbling economy and a faltering democracy — the very idea of a national anthem, a hymn to the glory of country, feels like a crude relic, another monument that may warrant tearing down. But if we must have an anthem, it should be far different than the one we’ve got now, positing another kind of patriotism, an alternative idea of America and Americanness. It would also be neat if it was, you know, a decent song, which a citizen could sing without crashing into an o’er or a thee, or being asked to pole vault across octaves.”

“The LA Times writer concluded that such a song should be Bill Withers’ “Lean on Me.”

“It’s a modest song that puts on no airs. It speaks in plain musical language, without a trace of bombast, in a tidy arrangement that unfolds over a few basic chords. It doesn’t march to a martial beat or rise to grand crescendos. The lyrics hold no pastoral images of fruited plains or oceans white with foam, no high-minded invocations of liberty or God. ‘Lean on Me’ is a deeply American song — but it’s not, explicitly at least, a song about America,” Rosen explained. “Yet it has long been a kind of national anthem. ‘Lean on Me’ is one of just a handful of songs to have reached No. 1 on the Billboard pop charts in two different versions… It is surely among the most widely sung American songs of the past half-century.”

“Rosen noted all the famous singers who have performed the hit song, like Stevie Wonder, Bon Jovi, Mary J. Blige, Garth Brooks, Shawn Mendes and Nick Jonas, and how the song was sung at Black Lives Matter protests across the country in recent weeks and was used as a tribute to first responders towards the beginning of the coronavirus outbreak.

“What do all of these singers hear in ‘Lean on Me’? They hear a message of friendship and fellow-feeling so straightforward it may at first appear banal,” Rosen continued.

“When you bolster that sentiment, as Withers does, with some handclaps and a funky bassline, the words ring even truer. It’s a message you could build something on, a pretty solid foundation for a decent society. It can bear the load.”

“Rosen’s suggestion, however, was widely panned on social media.

“It’s almost like they’re trying to reelect Trump,” Tom Bevan, RealClearPolitics president and co-founder, reacted.

“Let’s replace it with ‘Everybody’s Special’ from Barney and Friends,” Ben Shapiro joked.

“Let’s just Etch-a-Sketch everything and start the country from scratch, shall we? Saves time…” The Hill media reporter Joe Concha suggested.

“First they wanted you to kneel, and now they want to replace the national anthem. This is an erasure of our history and tradition—plain and simple,” Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., warned.

“There has been a cultural shift following the May 25 death of George Floyd in Minneapolis. Floyd, a Black man, died after a White police officer held his knee on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes.

“The television shows “Cops” and “Live PD” were canceled, “Gone With the Wind” was temporarily pulled from HBO Max and re-added with historical context. White actors have withdrawn from voicing characters of color on animated TV shows, brands like Aunt Jemima and Uncle Ben’s have been retired, and episodes of sitcoms featuring blackface have been removed from streaming platforms. And the Washington Redskins will be retiring its longtime franchise name.”

But no one seems able to read ‘The End’ after any of the above.

‘Lean on Me’ is a beautiful, hand-clapping song.  ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’, America’s much revered National Anthem.

As for BLM’ adopting ‘Lean on Me’ as its own,  nothing American can lean on BLM which only wants an entire nation to kneel to them.

“Lean on Me” at Batavia Black Lives Matter protest

Re-posted from the Canada Free Press By Rev. Michael Bresciani —— Bio and Archives—July 15, 2020

Defending righteous causes is one thing, but becoming a moral hypocrite is quite another.

Roe V. Wade landed on  Planet Earth in 1973 and declared that it would be one small step for moral reprobates and liars, and one giant leap for hypocrites.

Planned Parenthood and an army of selfish women, indifferent men and politically twisted advocates of slaughter, have since stormed the congress for cash to keep the purge alive, while wasting  babies at a rate of almost 3,000 a day.

The “woke” are fast asleep and The BLM has no idea about what lives matter

Ideologues and activists have provided a plethora of slogans and a vast field of arguments to justify and perpetuate the lie that lazy, self-indulgent, and perfectly selfish women are practicing good health, by aborting their unborn babies.

The abortionists want to force the use and perpetuation of abortifacients on organizations like The Little Sisters of the Poor, but can’t seem to find enough personal control in their own moments of peak lust to get some prevention. The result is, many dead, perfectly healthy and possibly very useful and productive human beings.

There are always a few good causes left to die for, but no one would argue that self-indulgence is one of them. But then, it is not their lives the indulgent are paying with.

If all or any part of their redundant and ever so tiring argument fails, there is always the classic and thoroughly effective final volley of fire known as – It’s the law of the land.

There is no restoration in the midst of reprobation!

When any movement or part of society is unable to see or even note its own hypocrisy you have passed from pretty bad to full blown reprobation.

Reprobation cannot hide under the trend of the day because it is a great swollen and fully obvious insult to everything that is normal, much less sacred. Now is the time to recognize the hypocrisy, or perish in its inevitable product.

The “woke” are fast asleep.

The BLM has no idea about what lives matter.

The Cancel Culture has cancelled itself, even if those who are cutting off others don’t recognize that salient simple fact.

Antifa is just a step below Isis and its adherents should return to their parent’s basements and the video games.

Trump haters have long since dumped their cause under the heading of extreme, absurd and mostly useless. After the Russia hoax and half dozen other false starts – that too has become boring and idiotic.

Biden, Sanders, Pelosi, Ilhan Omar and AOC have tried to sell us a bag of rotten fruit (socialism) that has failed anywhere in this world where it was ever tried.

Pulling down a few statues, renaming sports teams and bending the knee is like trying to fix rotten wood with a coat of paint.

So what should we do?

Mother used to say it all the time – just cut it out.

Headlines that Betray the Hypocrites – You can judge a book by its cover after all!

After writing for over 35 years and publishing for 15 years, this writer has discovered some interesting facts. It is easy to tell what Americans are thinking by what they are reading.

I have tried to warn some writers, that their article titles are the hook for the rest of their work. Short titles like, How to Relax, get about 90 percent less reads than titles that are lengthy, challenging and informative. The title of the article is equivalent to the cover of the book.

A compendium of current titles can reveal the collective pathology of a rising or falling nation.

Here, in this cross section of titles and headlines you can see a serious fall. These are the headlines that should reveal and decry our hypocrisies rather than giving them fuel.

The first one comes from the Internet’s noted satire and tongue in cheek site called ‘The Babylon Bee’.   It is a perfect example of how a title can carry rebuke or truth even though it is meant for comedy:

Nation That Kills 3,000 Babies A Day Feels Morally Superior To Slaveowners From 200 Years Ago

The rest are not meant for comedy and it is abundantly clear that there isn’t a stitch of humor in what they reveal.

How badly we are treating our children

Family of 1-year-old killed in Brooklyn slams ‘cowards’ who shot him: ‘What about baby lives?’
If Black Lives Matter, Defund Planned Parenthood, Not The Police

“LGBT education pack” features six-year-old engaging in sexual activity, as pedophilia becomes normalized

Since every one of these article titles has something to do with how badly we are treating our children, then here is an entire list of 29 titles on children wasted and disregarded for your perusal.

These titles are the tip of the spear or the blade of the sword. If they cut you to the heart then something good has been accomplished.

If you are offended by these titles consider this warning about offenses.

“But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” (Mt 18:6)

Re-posted from the Canada Free Press By Judi McLeod —— Bio and Archives—July 14, 2020

Already providing criminals a Get Out of Jail Free Card, the Democrat-exploited pandemic will turn Election 2020 into a 100% mail-in-vote.

On the basis of sparing prisoners from catching Covid-19, Democrat governors are setting rapists and murderers free, with California Governor Gavin Newsom planning to release some 8,000 prisoners next month alone.

“Resistance” leader former President Barack Obama is now calling on Americans to register to be able to vote by mail in Election 2020.

How “non-partisan” is that?!

Related:
How the Democrats are Well on Their Way To Stealing Election 2020
The Real Mob Behind The Street Mobs

“Former President Barack Obama on Monday urged Americans to register to be able to vote by mail amid a broad push from Democrats to get as many Americans as possible to use mail-in ballots for November’s presidential election and beyond. (Breitbart, July 13, 2020)

Obama’s 2008 ‘Hope and Change’ campaign slogan lives on in 2020.

Obama’s going all in on a Big Lie by saying “voting by mail shouldn’t be a partisan issue—especially during a pandemic.”

How can it help but be “a partisan issue” with his wife, Michelle being the driving force behind voting by mail through her ‘When We All Vote’ initiative with celebrity Tom Hanks?

Michelle Obama is non-partisan?

“Voting by mail shouldn’t be a partisan issue–especially during a pandemic. Everybody should be able to request an absentee ballot, and make their voice heard in every election,” Obama wrote on social media. The former president then shared a vote.org link to register to receive an absentee ballot. (Breitbart)

How “non-partisan” is that?!

“In late June, Obama sent out an email soliciting donations to combat “voter suppression” by advocating vote-by-mail. As Breitbart News reported: “The message was sent out by Obama on behalf of All On The Line, a campaign launched by the National Democratic Redistricting Committee (NDRC) which was formed after Obama’s political organization Organizing for Action (OFA) merged with his former Attorney General Eric Holder’s National Redistricting Action Fund (NRAF).” (Breitbart)

“President Donald Trump has repeatedly slammed Democrats for pushing vote-by-mail, warning it could “destroy this country.”

“We’re not going to destroy this country by allowing things like that to happen.

“We’re not destroying our country,” the president has said. “This has more to do with fairness and honesty and, really, our country itself.”

“Last month, Attorney General William Barr warned mass mail-in voting “absolutely opens the floodgates to fraud.”

“Those things are delivered into mailboxes. They can be taken out. There’s questions about whether or not it even denies a secret ballot, because a lot of the states have you signing the outside of the envelope,” Barr told Fox News Channel’s Sunday Morning Futures. “So, the person who opens — person who opens the envelope will know how people voted. There’s no — right now, a foreign country could print up tens of thousands of counterfeit ballots, and [it would] be very hard for us to detect which was the right and which was the wrong ballot. So, I think it can — it can upset and undercut the confidence in the integrity of our elections. If anything, we should tighten them up right now.”

“Nonetheless, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) signed an executive order in May permitting all registered voters in the state to vote by mail in the upcoming presidential election due to concerns over the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. Earlier in July, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) also signed legislation allowing all eligible residents to vote early via mail for state primary and general election contests.”

Hillary Clinton: We Have to Be Ready if Trump Doesn’t ‘Go Quietly

“The U.S. Postal Service reported that hundreds of absentee ballots in Wisconsin’s April primary election never made it to voters or went uncounted because of postmark problems. Nearly 1 million people used mail voting because of the pandemic. Election officials stated that the problem occurred because of a computer glitch with the mailing labels. Safeguards have been put in place, election officials said, to ensure it won’t happen again. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, July 10, 2020)

In the midst of all this the 2016 Barack Obama endorsed Hillary Clinton is firing rockets from the sidelines in case the Mail-In vote fails: (Daily Beast, July 14, 2020)

‘Hillary Clinton: We Have to Be Ready if Trump Doesn’t ‘Go Quietly’

“WARNING SHOT

“Clinton also explained why Trump “had to” commute Roger Stone’s sentence in order to “cover up” his “illegitimate” 2016 victory.”

Meanwhile, the Coronavirus is providing the most effective election tool the Democrats ever had, proving that the pandemic is killing us in more ways than one.

Re-posted from the Canada Free Press By Dr. Sam Clovis —— Bio and Archives—July 14, 2020

It is not uncommon to see a couple of really clever bumper stickers around most any town in America that are timeless:

“If you can read this, Thank a Teacher. If you can read this in English, Thank A Soldier.” And, “If you think education is expensive, try paying for ignorance.”

Well, we may not always appreciate our freedoms, and we may balk at paying higher property taxes that support local schools. However, our failing (failed) public education system costs us a lot more than just what we expend in taxes.

In recent years, the cost of educating a child has risen around $14.4K a year (in 2019 dollars). Overall, we expend over $739 billion a year to support our public schools. Yet, because we still have over 3.4 million drop-outs a year, we must pay the social costs associated with the failures of our system that are not accounted for in any other calculations. Here are some of those annual costs:

• Out-of-Wedlock births. Most of the illegitimate births in the country are visited on those who do not graduate from high school (40% of all births, 77% of Black births, over 57% of Hispanic births). Annual cost—$300+ Billion.
• Healthcare. Those who do not graduate from high school create a negative impact on healthcare costs that other must support. Annual cost—$260 Billion.
• Illegal immigration. Americans are on the hook for educating at least 15 million children associated with those who are in the country illegally. The children of illegal immigrants drop out at rates significantly higher than those here legally. Annual cost—$218 Billion.
• Incarceration. Of the 2.2 million (down from 2.4 million in 2011) people in prison today, 68% are high school drop-outs. Annual cost—$124+ Billion.

In just these four areas, the annual unsupported cost is over $902 Billion annually. Reducing these costs by half would mean an additional $4-6K a year for each family. Eliminating these costs could mean a new car, a year’s tuition at a private school, a contribution of healthcare savings account or an additional $500 a month or so to one’s pension plan.

Reforming our public education system has a huge pay-off for the country. Criminal justice reform would help, as well. If we could fix one more thing, it would be mental health reform. Yes, this gives one a great deal to ponder.

There are three philosophical approaches to education reform, and there are four modern reform movements competing for dominance in altering public education in America today. In this section, I will provide a brief description of each. The three philosophies are as follows:

• Essentialism. This approach is characterized by a top-down, national standard structure that emphasizes core curricula (common core) and uniform educational outcomes. This approach is pushed by many in the national education establishment.
• Progressivism. This approach focuses on individual fulfillment and social justice. The social-justice movement is supposedly the main thrust of the woke movement going on in the country right now. As is typical of all things progressive, egalitarianism in outcomes is dominant as is teaching relativism in ethics. This approach, unfortunately, has dominated public education in America for the past two generations.
• Holism. This approach is traditional and idealistic in that the philosophy embraces transcendentalism. Our military academies and many private institutions advance the enrichment of mind-heart-body-spirit. This interdisciplinary approach to education focuses on personal development in all these areas. (I am partial to this approach)

The best of the modern k12 reform movements emphasizes different elements of the total educational experience for students. Those elements are:

• Core curricula (not Core Curriculum). English, Math, Science, Economics, Civics, History—Not social sciences
• Standards (not necessarily standardized testing).
• Accountability. (Students, teachers, administration, district, state)
• Choice. (The full spectrum of choice options)

Like a good energy strategy (“all the above”), education reform must follow the same path. We must take advantage of all possible solution sets to bring education back to the people. The survival of our nation depends on tackling education reform. One would hope for such an effort on the part of our informed citizenry.

The Impact of Progressivism on Education in America

Anyone who has read this or other newsletters I have published will know that I think progressives and progressivism are the greatest danger to liberty in America today. Where progressives have had the most impact and have done the most damage to this country has been in their gaining control of public education. Taking advantage of an evolving culture, progressives have used unionization and collective bargaining as tools for putting a stranglehold on education processes and outcomes. Add to this the intentional, deliberate erosion of the nuclear family, especially among minority populations, and we are faced with a nation dumbed down to the point that young Americans no longer recognize or acknowledge the exceptionality of this noble Constitutional experiment.

Progressives have influenced curricula in nearly every school district in the country. Their approach is insidious and sinister in that they influence how textbooks are written and then influence how textbooks are purchased. When progressive-leaning states like California with millions of children in their public school systems decide on textbooks to support progressive curricula, other states will be compelled to buy the mainstream books from the major publishers or look for less-available and more expensive textbooks from other publishers. Many of these books contain revised American history (Howard Zinn’s history book comes to mind) or have been written to advance particular agenda that are quite contrary to the mainstream values of the citizenry. In an exemplar that came into my possession, a grammar school reading book celebrates same-sex relationships and environmentalism. Add to this books that advance ideas about Darwinian evolution and are void of acknowledgement of all possible scientific theories explaining the development of the human species, and we have a perfect storm where indoctrination hip-checks education right out of the way.

The progressive agenda advanced in the current education establishment mutes any support of American exceptionality and embraces the notion that America is a super-power only because of exploitation of workers who do not get to share in profits of their labor. Further, progressives constantly inculcate the idea that man is the ultimate arbiter in life and that the perfection of man is the goal of government—a government that knows best and is best situated to direct the economy of a nation.

If one thinks back to the Great Society of LBJ, one can find the seeds of the current expansion of progressive thinking in public education. When prayer left our schools, progressivism was given an opening into which was poured the poison that has nearly crippled this nation.

As a professor, I was a witness to the products of our public education system. Many students, unfortunately, were adrift and easy pickings for progressives bent on taking down this nation. Be on guard.

Public Unions And Education

Beginning in 2012, education scholars like Terry Moe from Stanford and other scholars such as Paul Peterson and John Chubb exposed the pernicious effects teacher unions were having on public education (Moe’s research continues to excoriate public education). In the process of updating this newsletter, I found several other academics who have taken up the effort to raise warning flags about what is happening in our largest urban school systems. When the academic community turns on something as progressive as public unions might be, one has to raise one’s eyebrows. Where public unions are doing the most damage is exactly where the nation needs the most help in education reform—large urban school districts.

Teacher unions today have some 4.9 million members who contribute some $600M in dues each year. In 2016, nearly $37 Million was contributed to political candidates or lobbying activities annually. Of that $37M, some 99% went to Democrats or left leaning lobbying groups.

This is how teacher unions disrupt the educational environment across the country. Union members select candidates to run for school boards and then support their candidacies with a flood of funds. These union-supported candidacies are successful some 75% of the time in the larger urban districts. Once the union-selected board members are in place, the unions then collude with these bought-and-paid-for politicians, all at the expense of the district constituencies. Further, these board members then support the selection of textbooks, the design of curricula and the hiring and firing of administrators. Of all the money collected from union members, only 4% actually goes to support educational outcomes in the classroom. The nation is hardly getting its money’s worth when the game is so incredibly rigged against parents and students. BTW, some 40% of teachers in urban districts send their own children to private schools.

If one really wants to change the direction of the nation, one must be willing to find and support board members who will bring accountability back into the education system. Where are the governors and legislators in red states on this?