Before I pass along my Top 5 for this weekend, let me drop in a link to something of a quite different character. Indeed, it is a Vital Signs Blog post (“Let Vital Signs Help Inspire Your Holidays”) that gives a link to 4 seasonal ways that Vital Signs Ministries can help inform, inspire, and elevate your appreciation of this “most wonderful time of the year.” Okay, here’s the Top 5:
* “5 Policy Priorities for President Trump’s First 100 Days” (Southern Baptists ERLC Policy Staff)
From the article — 1. Reinforce policies that ensure the government does not fund abortion…2. Withhold government funding for abortion providers, domestically and abroad…3. Revoke President Biden’s executive order directing agencies to implement radical gender and sexuality policies…4. Rescind the anti-life, anti-religious liberty, and pro-gender ideology policies advanced by the Biden administration…5. Reverse the Biden administration’s actions that expanded “access” to the abortion pill.
* “Trump’s Masculine Appeal: For all his flaws, the president-elect demonstrates a kind of bravery that men ought to imitate.” (Aaron M. Renn, City Journal)
From the article — Something about Trump appeals to young men. This is a group with many widely reported pathologies: they are falling behind young women in collegiate attendance, and increasingly struggling economically, as documented by scholars such as Richard Reeves in his book Of Boys and Men. What is it that these men see in Trump?
Most of the president-elect’s critics focus on the ways in which he is not a “good man.” They say that he is crude and gratuitously offensive, selfish and egotistic, that he lies and is disloyal. His gaudy consumption style, braggadocio, and love of celebrity, they suggest, are an affront to traditional WASP values. Undoubtedly, Trump is no Teddy Roosevelt or Ward Cleaver. But his critics fail to see the ways in which he embodies a real archetype of masculinity.
* “Trump Should Revive His Pro-America 1776 Commission On Day One” (Robert Busek, Federalist)
From the article — Trump created the commission the day before Election Day in 2020 with the purpose of “[establishing] a clear historical record of an exceptional Nation dedicated to the ideas and ideals of its founding.” Its goal was to provide a much-needed corrective to anti-American propaganda masquerading as history such as the “1619 Project,” whose “radicalized view of American history lacks perspective, obscures virtues, twists motives, ignores or distorts facts, and magnifies flaws, resulting in the truth being concealed and history disfigured.” The commission’s report, published two days before Trump left office, sketched out a basic curriculum that balanced American exceptionalism as reflected in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution with the darker aspects of our history, such as slavery and Jim Crow.
Predictably, the usual suspects had a hissy fit. NBC News accused the commission of “whitewashing historical narratives,” while professional race-baiter Ibram X. Kendi called the report “the last great lie from a Trump administration of great lies.” The journal Foreign Policy published a hatchet job from a grad student “expert” likening the commission’s recommendations to the educational policies of authoritarian regimes like Russia and China.
The unkindest cut of all came from the American Historical Association, which abandoned all pretense of scholarly objectivity by slandering the report as a “call for a form of government indoctrination of American students [that would] elevate ignorance about the past to a civic virtue.”
The new administration heard the message loud and clear. A day after taking the oath of office, President Biden spiked the commission along with most of the other common-sense policies of his predecessor.
* “The Election’s Second-Biggest Loser? Legacy Media” (Mike Gonzalez, Daily Signal)
From the article — It’s not just that the voter has now said the press have no clothes. More importantly, President-elect Donald Trump was able to use an online ecosystem that now far outstrips anything the legacy media have to offer. Conservatives have a right to be excited about this brand-new development.
Part of the reason people have been flocking to nonlegacy media sources, including the many podcasts Trump went out of his way to appear on over the course of his campaign, is that the legacy media long ago shed all semblance of impartiality.
Newspapers such as The Washington Post and The New York Times, broadcasters such as NPR and the three major TV networks, as well as wire services such as The Associated Press and Reuters have behaved as though it were up to them to prevent a Trump victory. And they didn’t care if it was obvious.
The Media Research Center, a conservative outfit that has performed invaluable service studying the media for years, confirms that this year’s coverage, in particular, was the worst of any election in history.
* “Parents in Massachusetts School District Can’t Opt Out of ‘Sexuality,’ ‘Gender Identity’ Lessons” (Elizabeth Troutman Mitchell, Daily Signal)
From the article — “November 13th through November 19th is Transgender Awareness Week,” Angiers Elementary Principal Orla Higgins Averill said in an email obtained by The Daily Signal. “This week helps raise the visibility about transgender people and address issues members of the community face.” The link provided takes parents to the website of GLAAD, a radical LGBTQ activist group that claims so-called gender-affirming care is lifesaving for young people who believe they are transgender.
Angiers Elementary teaches kindergarten through fifth grade as part of Newton Public Schools in Newton, Massachusetts, a predominantly liberal area north of Boston.
Parents whose children are enrolled in Newton Public Schools can’t opt them out of lessons on sexual orientation or gender identity, according to guidance approved in October by the district’s school board, called the Newton School Committee. “While parents/guardians/caregivers may opt out of the health curriculum specifically related to sexual reproduction, our commitment to gender and sexuality education remains firm,” the document says.