There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true. —Soren Kierkegaard. "…truth is true even if nobody believes it, and falsehood is false even if everybody believes it. That is why truth does not yield to opinion, fashion, numbers, office, or sincerity–it is simply true and that is the end of it" – Os Guinness, Time for Truth, pg.39. “He that takes truth for his guide, and duty for his end, may safely trust to God’s providence to lead him aright.” – Blaise Pascal. "There is but one straight course, and that is to seek truth and pursue it steadily" – George Washington letter to Edmund Randolph — 1795. We live in a “post-truth” world. According to the dictionary, “post-truth” means, “relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief.” Simply put, we now live in a culture that seems to value experience and emotion more than truth. Truth will never go away no matter how hard one might wish. Going beyond the MSM idealogical opinion/bias and their low information tabloid reality show news with a distractional superficial focus on entertainment, sensationalism, emotionalism and activist reporting – this blogs goal is to, in some small way, put a plug in the broken dam of truth and save as many as possible from the consequences—temporal and eternal. "The further a society drifts from truth, the more it will hate those who speak it." – George Orwell “There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true; the other is to refuse to believe what is true.” ― Soren Kierkegaard
Screenshot of Michelle Obama during her latest podcast appearance.
Former First Lady Michelle Obama has urged people to be “mindful” when buying from white-owned clothing brands.
During a recent interview clip circulating on social media, Obama says she actively tries to buy clothes from people of “color” in order to “make it a point.”
“If I hear of someone whose fashion that I like, and I know that they’re a person of color, I try to make it a point, but the clothes have to be available.”
“You know, I think we can all do some work to think about that balance in our wardrobes, you know.”
“What does our closet look like and who’s in it? Who are we supporting in it? You know, and I think if you have the money to buy Chanel, then you have the money to buy everybody.”
“And so let us be mindful, I think would be my advice.”
Michelle Obama says she is mindful to try to avoid white-owned brands and others also should be pic.twitter.com/5MqY5gaxUv
The suggestion is just one of numerous racially charged comments by Michelle Obama over recent years.
Last year, she claimed that Americans did not show her and her family “grace” because of their skin color, despite the fact her husband was elected in a landslide.
“You can’t afford to get anything wrong because you didn’t get the—at least until the country came to know us,” she said in an interview with NBC last October.
“We didn’t get the grace that I think some other families have gotten.”
Michelle Obama complains: “We didn’t get the grace that I think some other (first) families have gotten.” pic.twitter.com/wgLY3TZqFD
Despite being repeatedly touted as a future presidential candidate, Obama recently put an end to that speculation on the grounds that Americans simply aren’t ready for a woman to lead the country.
“As we saw in this past election, sadly, we ain’t ready,” she said during an appearance at Brooklyn Academy of Music.
“That’s why I’m like, don’t even look at me about running, because you all are lying. You’re not ready for a woman. You are not.”
“You know, we’ve got a lot of growing up to do,” she continued. “And there’s still, sadly, a lot of men who do not feel like they can be led by a woman, and we saw it.”
California’s educational outcomes rank among the worst in the nation when compared with other large states.
Blue states spend far more time on DEI-related lessons than red states, experience more student walkouts and protests, and have seen more strike activity in recent years, resulting in lost instructional days.
Large amounts of classroom time are wasted on ideological nonsense instead of academics.
Approved curricula in blue states prioritize many courses that conservative parents would view as a waste of time.
These programs also exist in red states, largely because cities in red states tend to be blue, but they are far more common and entrenched in blue states.
Social-emotional learning exists in both red and blue states, but blue states impose formal frameworks and statewide standards, while red states apply it more loosely or locally.
Climate change education shows a clear divide, with blue states mandating strong standards and providing state funding, while red states vary widely and mostly offer limited courses.
Ethnic studies is largely unique to California, with no comparable statewide equivalent in red states.
Discipline policies also differ sharply. Blue states emphasize restorative justice and reduced suspensions, while red states retain traditional discipline approaches.
Some blue districts have adopted “equitable grading” that deemphasizes tests, deadlines, and penalties, while red states rely on traditional grading systems.
To illustrate the difference between red and blue states, this article compares California with Florida and Indiana.
Florida was selected because both Florida and California have large Latino populations, yet conservative Florida scores significantly higher across many educational outcomes while spending less money.
This demonstrates that outcomes are not determined by race or funding, but by focus and hard work.
The data reflects this gap clearly. In the 2024 NAEP assessments, only 31 percent of California fourth graders achieved reading proficiency, a lower rate than both Florida and Indiana.
In eighth-grade math, California recorded just 23 percent proficiency, compared with 27 percent in Indiana and 26 percent in Florida.
California’s high school graduation rate stands at 84.8 percent, the lowest among the three states, while its dropout rate of 8.9 percent is nearly triple Florida’s 3.1 percent.
California students lose a massive amount of instructional time to nonacademic coursework. Ethnic studies alone consumes approximately 90 to 180 hours, the equivalent of a full semester to a year-long course.
When combined with formal social-emotional learning programs at roughly 30 to 40 hours per year, enhanced climate education beyond basic science instruction at 15 to 20 hours, and restorative justice practices consuming another 20 to 30 hours, the total reaches approximately 200 to 250 or more hours annually.
This is instructional time that students in red states spend on traditional academics.
That loss is equivalent to one to one-and-a-half full-year courses not spent on mathematics, reading, science depth, history, or foreign languages.
This displacement is especially damaging for California’s English Learner population, which makes up roughly 19 percent of the state’s students and urgently needs maximum time devoted to core academics and English language development, not ethnic studies and ideological coursework.
This instructional imbalance helps explain why red states such as Mississippi and Alabama recovered more effectively from pandemic learning loss and are now outperforming blue states like California and Oregon on NAEP assessments.
Students in red states receive more actual academic instruction time, while California diverts hundreds of hours away from core subjects that students, especially English Learners, need most.
As bad as California’s official numbers are, the reality is worse. California uses accountability exclusions that affect how student scores are counted in public reporting.
Under federal accountability rules in ESSA, students must be enrolled in a school for at least one full year, from Census Day in October through testing in May, for their scores to count toward that school’s or district’s performance rating.
Migrant and some newcomer students move frequently and often remain in a school for only three to six months, which means their scores are often excluded from School Dashboard ratings. Those scores still exist in the state database, but they do not count toward a school’s public performance grade.
Under California’s Assembly Bill 714, passed in 2024, newcomer pupils who have been in the United States for less than three years are eligible for exemptions from certain local graduation requirements and may be granted a fifth year of high school.
As a result, students who take longer to complete graduation requirements are not immediately counted as dropouts.
Even when it comes to migrants, California fails. California’s migrant students perform significantly worse than migrant students in other states.
Migrant students are children whose families move for agricultural or fishing work and represent a small subset of the total student population. Among migrant students, California achieves only 12.1 percent math proficiency, compared with 18.5 percent in Florida and 15.2 percent in Indiana.
California’s migrant students also have higher dropout rates at 17.8 percent, compared with 10.2 percent in Florida and 11.1 percent in Indiana.
Chronic absenteeism among California’s migrant students reaches 34.2 percent, compared with 29.1 percent in Florida and 26.5 percent in Indiana. These comparisons reflect migrant student populations only, not overall statewide performance.
In California, students are often placed in grades based on chronological age rather than prior academic completion. Research from the Public Policy Institute of California confirms that many immigrant students enter the system with interrupted formal education.
Because of federal and state laws, a 15-year-old who may have only completed fourth grade in their home country is often placed directly into ninth or tenth grade in a U.S. high school.
This results in lower scores because students are tested on high-school-level material such as Algebra or Biology without having completed foundational fifth through eighth grade coursework.
Yes, California scores are lower as a result, but liberals believe diversity is our strength.
Former Vice President Kamala Harris has written a new book about her brief presidential campaign called 107 Days, and The Babylon Bee has obtained an advance copy.
The book won’t be released until next month, but here are some of the most fascinating quotes:
“A prologue is like an introduction. So, here’s my introduction. And this is my book. A book written by me. I am me. The writer of the book.”
“My publisher said this book should be 100,000 words, which is very, very, very, very […] very, very, very many words.”
“This is a chapter. And in this chapter, there will be several pages. Each page contains many words. And the words are the meaning of the chapter.”
“I was accused of covering up Joe Biden’s severe dementia. This is false. During his entire term, he always seemed just as sharp and intelligent as I was.”
“Of all the great political minds throughout history, the genius whose philosophy I admire most has to be Megan Thee Stallion.”
“A Moscow Mule is three parts ginger beer, one part lime juice, and the rest is vodka. If you don’t taste the vodka, you’re doing it wrong.”
“That was the day that I found out I’ve been pronouncing my first name wrong this whole time.”
“It is my fervent hope and wish that my story can prove an inspiration for young black girls across this country whose dream it is to attain wealth, fame, and status through no achievement of their own. It can be done, girls!”
“Am I right? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past. I wrote this.”
107 Days will be available on September 23. With quotes like the ones listed above, can you resist getting a copy of your own?
The Washington Commanders aren’t the only sports team in Trump’s crosshairs.
I will also meditate on all Your work,
And talk of Your deeds.
Oscar Wilde’s classic novel The Picture of Dorian Gray is a chilling exploration of what happens when a person refuses to deal with the sin inside his heart. In this fantasy tale, the handsome character Dorian commissions a portrait of himself that will capture his good looks. He is so captivated by this picture that he makes a wish—he wants to stay young forever and let the picture “grow old” in his place. Dorian gets his wish and then uses his youth and attractiveness to fulfill his desires. His motives are self-seeking, vain, and greedy in everything he does. As the years pass, Dorian periodically checks the picture in his back room. Not only is his face growing old; it becomes gnarled and vicious. Dorian is so ashamed that he covers the picture and refuses to let anyone look at it. The picture has become a horrifying portrait of his soul! Even though Oscar Wilde did not profess to be a Christian, he understood the effects of sin run rampant. Dorian’s picture was his sin revealer, even as God’s Word is the instrument of conviction in your life. When you meditate on Scripture and feel the tug of His Word on your heart, pay attention. God is urging you to confess your sin and experience the renewing power of forgiveness in Christ.
Reveal my sins, O Lord, so I can deal with them. Show me what is really in my heart.
Stanley, C. F. (2000). Into His presence (p. 27). Thomas Nelson Publishers.
I’m Bub Kuns, and today I’m talking about “cancel culture” again.
The best way believers can respond to “cancel culture” is by sharing God’s truth and supporting it with sound logic and evidence.
But HOW we respond, well, that matters, too.
Colossians 4 tells us, “Let your speech be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how to answer every man.”
In other words, we need to challenge those who disagree with us — and even those who try to cancel us — WITHOUT BEING HOSTILE OR UNREASONABLY ARGUMENTATIVE.
This doesn’t mean we compromise our message, but that we share biblical truth in a way that maintains a good testimony. 1 Peter 2 tells us, “For this is the will of God, that by DOING GOOD you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.”
Doing this will make a big impact.
And how else should we respond to “cancel culture?” We’ll discuss them another time.
Bub Kuns is (at heart) a storyteller. He is a director, producer, writer, performer and editor. Bub’s life mission is to help and guide people to love God with all their “heart, soul, mind and strength.” Part of how he does that is by providing truth-filled, accessible, captivating content that packs a little punch. Bub produces content that inspires, challenges and activates believers to use their talents and voices to make a difference in their communities and in the world for the cause of Christ.
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