Month: July 2018

Over U.S. Intelligence, Donald Trump Accepts Putin’s Strong Denial of Russian Election Interference

Social media is ablaze with outrage over Donald Trump’s answer to a question about who he believes regarding Russian meddling in the 2016 election. In short, he said he has confidence in Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats but he believes Putin. Watch:

Let it sink in what Trump told the world. Russia mounted a cyberattack on the U.S. and he still sided with Putin. His rambling, tangential response deflected the question and yet still placed him in defense of Putin’s “strong denial.”

Ronald Reagan is dying many more deaths somewhere today. For an American president to cozy up to a former KGB agent, blame America for our poor relationship, and then to throw U.S. intelligence under the bus is collusion in real time. No need to prove anything covert. In my opinion, it just happened on the world stage.

Some readers may disagree. Let’s discuss.

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David Barton Again Uses Fake Abe Lincoln Quote on Education to Criticize Education

On Friday, David Barton tweeted a video of a talk he gave to legislators in 2017 about education. In it, he gave lots of statistics and what he claimed were historical facts. Much of what he said sounded either obvious or false but I can’t say for sure since I haven’t checked it all. However, at about 30 minutes into the talk, he said something that was vintage Barton. Watch:

He showed a picture of Abe Lincoln and claimed Lincoln said:

The philosophy of the schoolroom in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.

Veteran Barton watchers will know where I am going. The quote can’t be found in Lincoln’s writings or speeches. At one time (as late as 2012), Barton considered it an “unconfirmed” quote. Barton knows the quote can’t be sourced to Lincoln but he attributed it to Lincoln anyway.

This isn’t how actual historians behave. They don’t try to fool their audiences into believing something that isn’t true. And this isn’t the first time with this exact same quote.

How can an audience rely on Barton’s claims when he fudges a quote he knows can’t be found in Lincoln’s works? A fair questions is: what is he fudging on more important claims?

Student Follows Teacher

One of Barton’s warnings to legislators is about professors who have the wrong philosophy. He asserts that liberal professors will turn students liberal. The fake Lincoln quote was designed to put the exclamation point on that principle and warn that liberal professors today mean liberal politics tomorrow.

(As an aside, I have to ask if that’s true, then where did Trump come from?)

In any case, I also have to ask if that’s true, what do we have to look forward to from Barton’s students? Find a quote you like and attribute it to your favorite historical figure. Go out of your way to stretch the truth to create an impression that helps you politically. Deceive your audience for the sake of Jesus and his chosen nation, America?

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Howmuch.net Removes FAIR’s Biased Illegal Immigration Information

Recently I posted a rebuttal to Wayne Grudem’s attempt to theologically defend Donald Trump’s border wall. A commenter on that post cited a Howmuch.net article claiming that the costs of illegal immigration are far greater than building Trump’s wall.

The source for that Howmuch.net article was the Federation for American Immigration Reform’s (FAIR) widely quoted estimate about costs of illegal immigration. Howmuch.net had reconfigured those claims and included them in their article. FAIR claims illegal immigration costs the states over $100 billion per year.

Another reader then contacted Howmuch.net and expressed concerns about the source of the information in the article. Earlier this week, I learned that Howmuch.net reviewed FAIR’s website and information about the organization and has now deleted the page from their website.

FAIR’s estimates have been widely condemned as biased and flawed. Those who founded FAIR have a clear bias against immigrants of color and have consistently sought to limit all immigration, not just illegal immigration. FAIR is an organization has supported Donald Trump when he takes their hard line.

A representative of Howmuch.net sent this statement to me about their decision to remove the article.

HowMuch.net seeks to provide interesting data visualizations and articles to explore financial and economic topics for a broad audience of readers. We always strive to use fair and impartial sources for our data. It was recently brought to our attention that an article using data from the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR) did not meet our standards for impartiality. We immediately took down the article from our website. We do not subscribe to or advocate for any particular public policy position, and as a result, FAIR does not meet our requirements.

The founder of FAIR, John Tanton, once remarked to supporters that whites were losing their majority and challenged them:

As whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?

The history of FAIR is in nativism and resistance to immigration of any kind which isn’t white.  I commend the proactive reader and the folks at Howmuch.net for their speedy response to the legitimate concerns.

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A Wild Metaxas Appears!

We haven’t checked in with Eric Metaxas lately. Let’s see how he’s doing.

It appears he’s about the same, maybe a little worse.

It is sometimes hard to follow Twitter so here’s what happened. First, Metaxas retweeted Wayne Grudem’s biblical defense of Donald Trump’s wall (see my take down of that article here), calling it “A Sane View of the Border Wall Controversy.” Then law professor John Inazu responded:

I wonder at what point in the United States’s genocidal westward expansion Metaxas and Grudem would argue a wall would have been biblically justified.

Good question. What if the Bible had been the holy book of the Chickasaw people?

Then, Metaxas responded to Inazu:

When did you arrive?

Reaction was swift and negative to Metaxas’ insensitive tweet.

Here is a sampling.

Nate Pyle and Katelyn Beaty are Christian authors and Beaty is former editor of Christianity Today.

In contrast to Metaxas, Inazu did stay classy and gave Metaxas a little history lesson:

Since coming out for Donald Trump in the 2016 campaign, Metaxas has bewildered his supporters with his move toward nativism. Metaxas eventually removed the offensive tweet without apology.

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David Barton: The Founders Weren’t Racist Slave Owners

Again this summer, David Barton is separating students from their money. Last summer via Glenn Beck’s Mercury One charity, the historical document collector started a summer internship program designed to prepare students ages 18-25 to educate their professors in history. Round two is this summer and Barton carries on his war with professors via his students.

Barton: Racists? What Racists?

I feel sorry for the students but it is too late for those who have already gone through it. Last summer, some came away with some problems they had to unlearn. In this post, I want to focus on something Barton said in the OneNewsNow interview.

And contrary to reports from liberal media outlets and academics, the country was not founded by a bunch of slave-owning racists, he [Barton] argued. “Once we separated from Great Britain, then you find that three out of four Founding Fathers released slaves, freed slaves, started abolitionist societies, went on to crusade against slavery,” he offered as examples.

While I don’t trust his math, I don’t need to have an exact percentage to assess what happened at the founding of the United States. Whether most founders owned slaves or not (I believe they did), what matters is what they did when it counted.  In Christian America, the delegates to the Constitutional Convention decided that preserving the union was more important that ending slavery. We all know the history. Slavery didn’t end because noble founders “released slaves, freed slaves, started abolitionist societies, went on to crusade against slavery” or any such thing.

Some founders never owned slaves and were always opposed to slavery and in good conscience refused to support the union. Others condemned slavery, but owned slaves and held racist attitudes. Still others believed Africans were destined by God to serve whites. The situation is far more complex than Barton portrays it to be. No rationalization or math trick can change what happened or make it all better. It is only in the current white evangelical Republican echo chamber that such a whitewashing can be considered informed and wise commentary.

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