Quotes of the week
“The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.”
– Frederick Douglass
The theft of a presidential election followed by a willful effort by people in power to cover up that theft, exposes those involved as anything but honest, truthful, and virtuous.
NOTE: Any Soap Box material written by Buddy may be copied and forwarded to family and friends. Material from other sources is usually copyrighted but likely can be shared so long as it is not changed or abridged and the publisher is properly credited, including a link to their site.
Buddy’s Soap Box
Preamble:
A quick thank you to those of you who email me expressing your support for Soap Box. However, I had hoped a bit of back-and-forth dialogue would have developed by now, back and forth between those who share a similar perspective to ours, and those of an opposite or near opposite perspective. Two things seen to be impeding such a development.
Many people, regardless of their perspective, fear they might be cancelled in some way. If you feel so, simply comment under a “secret identity.” Super heroes have such. So can you.
We hope those with a different perspective aren’t commenting because they think we will cancel them. We won’t. We welcome arguments favoring such things as critical race theory or open borders. Let’s argue merits.
And now patriotic Texas howdy from Buddy,
We begin with a tip of the Stetson to our brother state of Florida which has sent its own police officers to assist Texas in securing the Texas border. Here is an excellent example of how states work together when the federal government fails due to corrupt leadership.
As reported on One America News, a site ten time more reliable than Fox, and a thousand times more so than MSNBC and CNN, Mark Zuckerberg spent more Zuck bucks in the battleground states than did Donald Trump. Think about that!
The foregoing is just one example of how elections are stolen. In this case, your little vote standing against Mark Zuckerberg.
It is not enough that we complain, not enough that we gripe, not enough that we write and inform as I write and inform here. We MUST act in opposition to the forces that are dead set on destroying this, the greatest nation on earth. Citizens, parents, teachers, government officials, the ordinary guy and gal working hard to put food on the table, the business man on Main Street, even some in the media and in great corporations, we stand together fighting what may be the greatest evil ever faced by America, and certainly the greatest ever home-grown. Our enemy looks like us. But he sure doesn’t think like us. His only weapons are division and hate. He is at heart a coward, an easy pushover for the truly strong.
We must not lose this fight. We cannot, for should we lose, we will lose everything we cherish and honor.
Take heart! We are winning already, and will win the war if we stay steadfast in the battle already begun.
The following bit of good news comes from Washington, but remember, most change will come as a consequence of what you and I do as concerned citizens. Without our involvement and effort, our nation has no future.
Senate Republicans successfully killed the elections takeover bill, S. 1. This bill was designed to destroy voter protections nationwide and federalize local and state elections, making them more vulnerable to fraud.
“The U.S. Constitution empowers state legislatures to organize elections to meet local conditions,” says The Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Chuck DeVore. “S. 1 would have bulldozed state control over election rules by imposing California-style election standards on the entire nation—if by standards one means no standards at all. Its defeat is a victory for fair and honest elections.”
Election fraud takes many forms. The Democrats baked it all into their S.1. The absurdity of voting without I.D. is just one example of what the wokies wanted to put over on the people. Proving voter fraud against an unidentifiable voter would be impossible. Just what the Democrat Party wants.
But the people don’t want voter fraud. That’s why 80% want voter I.D.
Soap Box is very encouraged. While it is a truism that political parties are less honest than the citizens they represent, and that a party may be genuinely corrupt—as is the case with today’s Democrat Party—it remains that the public is of better character, including many Democrat voters.
Look at the border, or what remains of it. Look at the chaos in blue cities and states. Biden destroys thousands of jobs with the stroke of a pen. Inflation spreads virus-like across the nation.
The Democrats seem not to care who they hurt or who they offend. They act as if they don’t care if they have your support, your vote. They act as though no one’s vote counts anymore.
But they have aroused a sleeping giant.
I’ll close with a couple of examples of what that giant can do.
One of Soap Box’s readers, in a comment he posted to our blog, told us that, on our recommendation, he had discontinued his too-wokish local newspaper and had switched to the Epoch Times. Another reader, as well as a friend of Buddy’s, no longer buys Woke Coke products.
This is happening all across the nation as millions upon millions of us talk, compare notes, and make decisions that undermine the overweening woke agenda.
Other Items of Interest
The goal of the Arizona election audit isn’t to undermine the public’s trust in election integrity. To the contrary, the goal is to restore public trust with regard to future elections. Based on a recent Rasmussen poll regarding the Arizona ongoing audit, 55% of likely voters support such audits, including 71% of Republicans, 57% of independents, and even 38% of Democrats. The Arizona audit, assuming it yields the outcome Soap Box anticipates, will be the first of more to come.
“One of the most prophetic literary works of our time is, without question, ‘If You Give A Mouse A Cookie,’” says Matt Walsh at the Matt Walsh Report. “The novel, first published in 1985, tells the dark and harrowing tale of a young child who attempts to appease a rodent by offering it a cookie. Next thing you know, the intruder is demanding milk, then a straw, then a napkin, then the heads of his enemies on a silver platter, and so on, until finally the child has given everything to the mouse, including his very soul, and he is left trembling and alone in the cold and the dark, for all eternity. That may not be a totally accurate synopsis. It’s been a while since I’ve read it.
“In any case, the point is that appeasement gets you nowhere. This is especially true of the modern Left, which has many of the same characteristics of the mouse in the story, most notably its insatiability, self-centeredness, greed, and penchant for carrying disease. If you give them a cookie, soon they will have your soul. They will not be satisfied. There will never be a time when they say, ‘Well, thanks for that. Have a nice day.’ They will always want more.”
The rest of this column is well worth the read as it provides a wonderful look into the woke mind.
Here we have chicken little at his best in Jeff Goodell writing for the Rolling Stone with
Can We Survive Extreme Heat? tag-lined, “Humans have never lived on a planet this hot, and we’re totally unprepared for what’s to come.” This sort of article tends to be very long, this one at 6,000 words, but it can be summed up in a single sentence, “We are all gonna die because of fossil fuels!!!!!!!” This article is perfect for the type of thinker who believes electricity is the power source used to generate electricity. Or those who imagine wind and solar can replace fossil fuels. Good luck with that!
We, the sane can win. We are winning! To win, all we need to do is act. This fromthe Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform: “Weaponizing White Womanhood.” That’s the title of an overtly leftist course advertised by Florida State University earlier this year. This course intended to deliver one message: white women are racist and dangerous to others. The course poster showed grotesque images of women in Ku Klux Klan garb, and featured this outrageous quote: “The activation of white terror is a white woman’s soft power. We like to masculinize white supremacy, to presume it reeks of testosterone, when in fact, it is just as likely to be spritzed by perfume.”
Leftist professors peddle full-fledged Marxist propaganda like this to young Americans today.
These radicals teach students to hate America. They also drive racial separatism and segregation on campus—all in the name of “anti-racism.” Welcome to the weird world of woke!
On March 27, the Leadership Institute’s Campus Reform website published a story exposing this leftist propaganda. Campus Reform’s reporting created public pressure against Florida State. And on April 6, the university announced that the course was canceled.
This from the American Family Association (AFA): As part of its effort to push homosexuality to children, Kellogg’s is going “all out” by partnering with the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) by making its cereal characters a main focus of promotion. Kellogg’s is marketing Together With Pride cereal, an exclusive, limited-time offer in which the cereal brand’s famous mascots are celebrating the gay rainbow. The cereal was previously only available online, but is now being sold in select stores nationwide.
To attract children, the Together With Pride limited-edition box features beloved characters including Mini (from Frosted Mini Wheats), Toucan Sam, Tony the Tiger, Sunny (from Raisin Bran), Honey Smacks Dig’em Frog, Snap, Crackle & Pop, and Cornelius (from Corn Flakes)––all supporting “gay pride.”
But the most disturbing feature is the box top that has a special spot for children to add their own pronouns of choice which encourages children to pick their pronouns. “Now your kids can write their pronouns on their cereal box! So fun! Affirm their gender, with Kellogg’s!” one user on Twitter captioned it.
For every “gay-branded” box sold, Kellogg is donating $3 in support of GLAAD’s dangerous agenda to promote the unhealthy LGBTQ+ lifestyle among our youth.
American families are dealing with rising prices. Inflation is even harder on small businesses. “Inflation is a tax, pure and simple, but not an explicit tax. Instead, it robs you of your purchasing power subtly and silently so that most people are none the wiser,” says Texas Public Policy Foundation’s E.J. Antoni. “It is not accomplished expressly through legislation, but through the sophisticated maneuvers of the Fed, giving inflation an air of mystery. In reality, there is nothing mysterious about inflation. When the Fed creates money faster than the economy grows, then prices will tend to rise. That is why there is also no end in sight to this inflationary wave.” Watch for inflation to hit 20% or more this year, predicts Soap Box.
Professor Says Blacks Commit Hate Crime Against Asian Americans Because of ‘White Supremacy’ so says Larry Elder. While the woke media in its reporting makes every effort to leave the impression that anti-Asian hate crimes are coming from white people, that isn’t at all the case. The attackers are invariably black. That this is so is no more a bad reflection on black people in general than it would be on white people. Every race has a few bad apples. What is signal, here, thinks Soap Box, is that certain voices—primarily in academia and the media—have succeeded in arousing our culture’s bad actors to unnatural and unreasonable hatred—something Martin Luther King would never condone.
This week’s Aesop’s Fable: The Dog and the Hare
Big Guy, a hound, having started a hare on the hillside pursued her for some distance, at one time biting her with his teeth as if he would take her life, and at another sniffing her fur, as if in play with another dog. The hare said to him, “I wish you would act sincerely by me, and show yourself in your true colors. If you are a friend, why do you bite me so hard? If an enemy, why do you fawn on me?’
Moral of the story: No one can be a friend if you know not whether to trust or distrust him. Keep that in mind when selecting a president.
Highly Recommended
The following are excellent resources for those of us (way more than 75 million strong) who want full and honest news reporting. We’ll be adding to this list as we go along. Those who prefer filtered news—only the news deemed safe for them to know—can stay with the legacy media, such as it is.
New to list!
Need a free nonpartisan site that can make you a well-informed voter in elections at the local level as well as state and national? We recommend Ballotpedia.
Here’s a great way to join thousands—and eventually millions—of others who are letting their government representatives know their thoughts on pending legislation. Heritage Action for America from the Heritage Foundation makes doing so super EASY! They do the research. They inform you. Then in almost the blink of an eye, you contact your federal or state representatives regarding pending legislation expressing your support or opposition.
Association of Mature American Citizens (AMAC) AARP is a shill for big government, AMAC isn’t.
Fox News and One America News (OAN) Cable channel
The Epoch Times print newspaper and web site/email updates
Dennis Prager This man will help you find the mainstream conservative hiding inside you.
President Donald Trump’s Great America PAC is now up and running. Give to this PAC or to individual candidates you know to be truly conservative. Money given to the Republican Party is money down a RINO hole. https://texasscorecard.com/state/legislative-priorities-tracker/
Texas Score Card https://texasscorecard.com/state/legislative-priorities-tracker/
Morton Blackwell’s Leadership Institute.
Project Veritas, Fun and informative hidden camera videos exposing the secret agendas of the left in their own words.
Columns worth reading
Each week under this heading, Soap Box will feature columns or intros to columns you can read in full elsewhere on the internet. Each of these columns pretty much express Soap Box’s views, else we’d not be sharing them with you.
Two columns this week.
GUEST COLUMN #1: “Leftwing Billionaires and Foundations Are Not Just Trying to Buy Our Elections, They’re Trying to Buy Our Public Schools, Too,” details how big business/tech is now working behind the scenes to produce election results AND educational outcomes that best serve their globalist agenda. We will enjoy neither personal freedom nor a free nation if business interest and government are allowed to combine their power to make themselves richer at the expense of the individual and Main Street America.
GUEST COLUMN #2: New Law Requires Florida Students to Be Taught About ‘The Evils of Communism’ by Mimi Nguyen Ly June 23, 2021, writing for The Epoch Times. Gov. Ron DeSantis signs trio of bills on civics education in K-12 schools, and freedom of speech in postsecondary education. In doing so, Gov. DeSantis and his state take a stand again the education establishment’s efforts to turn education into indoctrination.
GUEST COLUMN #1: Leftwing Billionaires and Foundations Are Not Just Trying to Buy Our Elections, They’re Trying to Buy Our Public Schools, Too
By AMAC Newsline, Posted Thursday, June 24, 2021
Conservative leaders across America like Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and Texas Governor Greg Abbott are cracking down on so-called Zuckerbucks, the potential malign influence of private money on the conduct of our public elections. But there is an even bigger threat from private money that could deform classrooms and communities right under our noses—Civicsbucks.
Readers will remember that the term Zuckerbucks refers to the more than $400 million dollars that was donated by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, to local election boards across America during the 2020 election, distorting the outcome of the presidential election in Georgia, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Arizona, and elsewhere. The Zuckerbergs spent as much money as the U.S. Congress did in the CARES Act to build election infrastructure with a disproportionate amount of the funding going to Democrat areas.
In Pennsylvania’s Democrat Delaware County, for example, this Zuckerbucks funding was used to install 1 drop box every 4 miles for every 4,000 voters, whereas in the 59 counties that Trump had won in 2016, 1 drop box was placed every 1,100 miles for every 72,000 voters. In Wisconsin, Zuckerbucks allowed areas of the state that had previously voted Democrat in the 2016 election to spend $47 per voter, while Republican areas had only $4 to $7 to spend per voter.
It is hard to imagine anything that could erode trust in our nation’s public institutions more quickly than leftwing billionaires and foundations using private money to fund the administration of our elections.
But there is one thing—a growing movement to use private money to inject woke ideology into public schools. Call it Civicsbucks. Its purpose is to put the most radical Democrat organizations and billionaires in the driver’s seat of our education system. Instead of altering the manner of an election, Civicsbucks help critical race theory proponents and leftwing activists alter the minds of our young people. Illinois is blazing a path to this nightmarish future. In 2015, the legislature there passed a bill to allow local school districts to “utilize private funding available for the purposes of offering civics education.”
Innocent enough, right?
Wrong. Like Zuckerbucks, when private money flows into public schools, pernicious partisan goals trump public needs. The change in Illinois law allowed for leftwing organizations like iCivics and the Robert R. McCormick Foundation to spend over $1 million in private funding to design and implement a new woke agenda for Illinois public schools.
In 2021, with the aid and direction of the McCormick Foundation, Illinois went even more woke and passed new “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards” that mandates that teachers acknowledge “the wide spectrum and fluidity of identities.” The Illinois State Board of Education now recommends as part of their reading list for teachers an article advocating white fragility training to help teachers “move past their whiteness.”
Allowing for private funding of civics education has given leftwing activists de facto control of the civics curriculum and teacher trainings statewide to infuse them with leftist orthodoxy on race and gender. Illinois civics materials are now steeped in critical race theory polemics such as White Fragility by Robin DeAngelo and Ibram Kendi’s textbook that asserts: “The only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination. The only remedy to present discrimination is future discrimination.”
The radical historical revisionism of the New York Times’ 1619 Project also features prominently in Illinois civics materials, and Shawn Healy, who is a leading figure behind the Illinois civics law and Senior Director of Policy and Advocacy at the leftwing group iCivics, says that parents who do not want their children to be indoctrinated with critical race theory should be refuted by teachers relying on “highly reputable sources” such as the 1619 Project. Healy maintains this position even though the 1619 Project has been roundly rejected as a “highly reputable source” by numerous prominent historians. In addition, Illinois civics materials exhibit a clear partisan bias. One lesson plan, for example, requires students to read former President Trump’s tweets and then answer the questions: “What characteristics would make someone a cyberbully?” and “[D]o you think he is perpetuating racist narratives?”
As AMAC Newsline has reported, the new civics that is being hailed today has little to do with the teaching of civics in the traditional sense. It’s “action civics.” And it’s a bait-and-switch game. When action civics is the name, leftism is the game. And it’s an action civics curriculum in public schools that leftwing billionaires and foundations like the McCormick Foundation want to fund.
In the new civics curriculum, students are not taught how to be citizens. They’re taught how to be activists. And, like the name warns, they’re required to put their teachings into action.
Action civics projects have organized students—for school credit—to publicly push and protest to provide driver’s licenses for illegal immigrants, raise the minimum wage, and support unionization, among other leftist priorities.
Illinois was one of the first states to allow lefty organizations to infiltrate the teacher training operation and provide de facto management and direction to action civics as practiced in the state. But it’s unlikely to be the last. A broad leftwing controlled coalition led by iCivics recently pushed for similar legislation in Texas.
In Arlington, Virginia, billionaire Jeff Bezos’ company Amazon recently donated hundreds of copies of a book by critical race theory proponent Ibram Kendi to an Arlington County high school as part of a Black History Month initiative. Amazon also paid the book’s co-author $10,000 to indoctrinate faculty and students with divisive concepts that the book itself readily admits are “not history[.]” (The book literally starts with the words: “This is not a history book. I repeat, this is not a history book.”)
Considering how important schools are in shaping our culture, these examples of Civicsbucks represent a dramatic escalation and a fundamental change in tactics. Leftist activists now seek to use private funding to buy out public-school classrooms and impose their own radical notions on everything from marriage to religion, from abortion to the Second Amendment, and from free speech to critical race theory onto the very curriculum that is being taught to America’s children.
Schools are where we decide what kind of a people we become. In schools, an anti-American narrative put forward by teachers can be treated as gospel, to be worshipped and acted upon by students, but never questioned. This is what makes Civicsbucks so dangerous to the country and so appealing to the left.
It was precisely this danger that former Attorney General Bill Barr addressed in a recent speech in Naples, Florida. Barr noted that most of today’s public schools offer an “indoctrination into an affirmative belief and value system” so thoroughly that it “tak[es] the place of religion.” The former chief law enforcement officer of the United States said that “We are rapidly approaching the point—if we have not already reached the point—at which the heavy-handed enforcement of secular-progressive orthodoxy through government-run schools is totally incompatible with traditional Christianity and other major religious traditions in our country.”
Barr went on to acknowledge that a simple solution to the problem of the religion of secularism that so thoroughly pervades our public school system is to allow every parent the right to take their child’s share of public funding and use it to attend the school of their choice.
Ironically, if the leftwing “action civics” activists who are pushing to allow private financing of civics education were logically consistent, these same groups would support Barr’s call for universal school choice. After all, if private groups can decide what core civic values are best for public school students, then certainly their own parents can make such a choice.
If Civicsbucks continue to infiltrate America’s public schools, then there are only two outcomes for the future of education. Either big money leftwing donors will erode our children’s understanding of their own history, purpose, and very identity from within, or more conservatives will address this problem seriously, as a few including South Dakota Governor Kristi Noem have already pledged, and treat Civicsbucks like Zuckerbucks.
Just as states are working to ban Zuckerbucks from manipulating elections, states across the country also need to take action to ban Civicsbucks. At the same time, we need to take seriously the urgency of providing universal school choice in K-12 education. The question before each school district now should be whether parents or billionaires — and their partisan leftwing foundations flush with billions in private funding — will oversee what our children are taught in school about their country.
With the already-growing backlash against critical race theory underway, the kindling of the school-choice-for -all movement is slowly catching fire. The threat of Civicsbucks could very well be the spark that leads to a grassroots revolt that has even more energy and intensity —and impact—than the Tea Party and anti-Common Core movements did in their time.
Guest Column #2: New Law Requires Florida Students to Be Taught About ‘The Evils of Communism’
Gov. Ron DeSantis signs trio of bills on civics education in K-12 schools, and freedom of speech in postsecondary education
By Mimi Nguyen Ly June 23, 2021, writing for The Epoch Times
High school students in Florida will be required to learn about “the evils of communism” under one of three bills Gov. Ron DeSantis signed on Tuesday.
DeSantis signed the bills at a news conference at Three Oaks Middle School in Fort Myers. Two of the bills—HB 5 and SB 1108—focus on civics education, and the third—HB 233—requires freedom of expression at state colleges and universities.
Specifically, HB 5 requires the Florida Department of Education to develop an integrated K-12 civic education curriculum that includes teaching students about citizens’ shared rights under the Constitution and Bill of Rights.
The measure also adds a requirement for public high schools to “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.”
In short, high schools must provide “instruction on the evils of communism and totalitarian ideology,” DeSantis said, noting that there are Florida residents who have escaped totalitarian regimes and communist dictatorships, such as from Cuba and Vietnam, to live in America.
“We want all students to understand the difference,” he said. “Why would somebody flee across shark-infested waters … why would people leave these countries and risk their lives to be able to come here? It’s important that students understand that.”
HB 5 will also provide a “Portraits in Patriotism” library with resources that include personal stories of “real patriots who came to this country after seeing the horrors of these communist regimes,” DeSantis said.
The Republican governor also signed SB 1108, which requires state college and university students to undergo both a civic literacy course and a civic literacy assessment in order to graduate. Prior to this bill, students were only required to do one—either the course or the assessment.
High school students will also be required to take a civic literacy assessment. If they pass the test, they will be exempted from taking a civics test in college or university.
The bill also expands a “character development curriculum” for high school juniors and seniors to include instructions on how to register to vote.
Students at Hillsborough High School wait in line to have their temperatures checked before entering the building in Tampa, Florida, on Aug. 31, 2020. (Octavio Jones/Getty Images)
In a statement, DeSantis said he was proud to sign the bills to prioritize civics education.
“The sad reality is that only two in five Americans can correctly name the three branches of government, and more than a third of Americans cannot name any of the rights guaranteed by the First Amendment,” he said. “It is abundantly clear that we need to do a much better job of educating our students in civics to prepare them for the rest of their lives.”
The third bill DeSantis signed, HB 233, seeks to protect “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” in postsecondary education.
It requires state colleges and universities to carry out annual assessments on intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity at these institutions. The bill defines “intellectual freedom and viewpoint diversity” as “the exposure of students to, and the encouragement of students’ exploration of, a variety of ideological and political perspectives.”
The new law will also prohibit postsecondary schools from limiting students and staff members from accessing or observing “ideas and opinions that they may find uncomfortable, unwelcome, disagreeable, or offensive.”
“We obviously want our universities to be focused on critical thinking, academic rigor,” DeSantis told the press conference. “We do not want them as basically hotbeds for stale ideology—that’s not worth tax dollars, and that’s not something we’re going to be supporting going forward.”
He noted, “It used to be thought that a university campus was a place where you’d be exposed to these sorts of ideas. Unfortunately, now the norm is really these are more intellectually repressive environments. You have orthodoxies that are promoted, and other viewpoints are shunned or even suppressed. We don’t want that in Florida. You need to have a true contest of ideas.”
“Students should not be shielded from ideas, and we want robust First Amendment speech on our college and university campuses.”
The trio of bills are the latest efforts by DeSantis’s administration focused on education in Florida.
In 2019, DeSantis signed an executive order that involved completely eliminating Common Core in Florida, a set of education standards for reading, writing, and math in the majority of states since 2010.
The same order directed Education Commissioner Richard Corcoran to develop recommendations for the state legislature, including ideas to improve testing, and to “identify ways to really make civics education a priority in Florida,” DeSantis said back in 2019.
More recently, the Floridian governor supported the Florida Board of Education’s decision to ban the teaching of critical race theory in public schools. Follow Mimi on Twitter: @MimiNguyenLy