RACINE, Wis. – Al Levie must be proud of himself.

The Racine teacher had his fifteen minutes of fame this month when he refused to accept an award from Congressman Paul Ryan at a Martin Luther King, Jr. event at a local college. A video of Levie’s antics, accompanied by a lame explanation for his defiance, is circulating online.

“Paul Ryan is a lackey for the one percent,” Levie contends in a video interview after the event.
The video made Levie an instant folk hero for leftists.

But our research shows that silly antics are nothing new for Levie, an ends-justify-the-means type who routinely uses his students to promote his personal political agenda.

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WASHINGTON, Va. – If you want to mesmerize small children and make them believe everything you’re saying, just grab a guitar and deliver your philosophy in the form of music.

Soft sounds and attractive rhymes ring true with kids, regardless of the content or message. And with musicians being so glorified by popular culture, kids have a tendency to believe that if it comes in a song, the message must be profound and correct.

What a brilliant strategy for left-wing educators across the nation who have openly declared their intent to convert public school students into young liberals.

The indoctrination-through-music effort comes courtesy of a Washington, Virginia-based non-profit called “Kid Pan Alley.”

Musicians who belong to the group visit elementary schools for a reported $1,200 per day, supposedly helping children learn to write their own musical lyrics. The fee comes from school budgets, of course, and schools are encouraged to seek government grants to cover the cost.

When the “workshop” is finished, they help the kids perform “their” songs for classmates in school assemblies.

The lyrics these kids come up with are amazingly adult in their political content, and startlingly liberal for very small children who generally have little coherent understanding of politics at all.

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Why is a Hamas-linked Muslim Brotherhood organization given entrée in public schools? In the American Thinker December 19, I asked: “Why is a representative of a terror-linked organization, a defender of jihad terror groups and an apologist for Islamic supremacism welcome to speak in public schools?”

I was referring to Hassan Shibly, a representative of the Hamas-linked Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), who spoke at Tampa’s Steinbrenner High School in November. After I broke the story at my website Atlas Shrugs on December 4, giving specifics of where and when the CAIR rep spoke, and then published the article in the Thinker, “Hamas High School in Florida?,” patriots made hundreds of calls and sent hundreds of letters, emails, Tweets and Facebook messages in protest to Steinbrenner school officials.

The main person responsible was Kelly R. Miliziano, a teacher in the Social Studies Department at Steinbrenner. And she announced Wednesday that the school has scheduled additional religious speakers to balance the CAIR operative — a Hindu priest or a Christian pastor.

The problem with that is that Shibly is a political speaker. A Hindu priest or Christian pastor won’t counter the poisonous propaganda that Shibly spews to our impressionable young minds. An informed counter-jihad speaker such as Robert Spencer, Nonie Darwish, Wafa Sultan or I myself must be given a chance to speak, so as to counter the lies of Hamas-tied CAIR.

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Recently, an aggressive media campaign has been launched by Let’s Move, a government-funded fitness initiative led by Michelle Obama.

As you will see in this TV spot that’s airing, one of many, the message of the Let’s Move campaign is quite simple: Lying to your children is fine because it’s good for them.

Let’s Move should be relabeled Let’s Lie.

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MUSKEGON, Mich. – We’ve always known that teachers unions are very political organizations, and many of their more radical members are active in left-wing causes.

That’s their right, as long as they pursue their activities after school.

But more and more American K-12 teachers are bringing their politics into the classroom, brazenly acknowledging their effort to indoctrinate and recruit a new generation of radical, anti-American students.

“The long period of self-censorship among educators regarding class and labor issues may no longer hold,” wrote radical educator Rob Linne in his book “Organizing the Curriculum.”

“We cannot claim to be teaching for social justice if we ignore the class warfare being waged all around us. Bringing labor into the arena of K-12 education will undoubtedly meet political resistance, but an increasing number of educators are motivated to take up the challenge.”

That frightening approach to teaching is what motivated Education Action Group to publish a new book titled “Indoctrination: How ‘Useful Idiots’ are Using Our Schools to Subvert American Exceptionalism.”

You can watch a short promotional video for the book by clicking here.

The book, authored by EAG Chief Executive Officer Kyle Olson, with assistance from staffers Ben Velderman and Steve Gunn, is available on Amazon.com.

It explores dozens of examples of radical public school teachers and their politically active unions taking liberty with our children by teaching left-wing philosophy as fact.

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OAKLAND, Calif. – We were dismayed a few weeks ago when hundreds of union teachers in Oakland, California skipped work and forced the shutdown of several schools, in observance of the Occupy movement’s national strike day.

We thought their commitment to their students should come before their outside political activities. We wondered how they could be so passionate about national tax issues, but fail to display the same type of concern about educational quality issues.

But now they’ve sunk to a new low, and it should not be tolerated.

Dozens (or perhaps hundreds) of teachers in the Oakland school district pledged to use taxpayer-funded class time to teach their students about the Occupy movement – from a positive viewpoint, of course. We can safely assume that critics of Occupy were not invited to participate in the lessons.

Here’s what the teachers pledged to do:

“During the week of 10/31 to 11/4, I pledge to teach about: the Occupy movement; the role of strikes in movement history; the systems and issues this movement is protesting against; the possibilities for change this movement is part of envisioning; what students need to know about how to stay safe during these protests.”

Unique lesson plans

Several teachers shared their ideas for lessons on the “Teach Occupy Oakland” website.

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Big Government has learned that Occupy Wall Street activists and supporters are circulating this blog post from the left-wing site Firedoglake, entitled: “What to Do When the Media Says a Protester Attacked a Cop.”

The plan is simple: find someone else to blame for Occupy violence against police.

The Firedoglake post was published on Saturday, October 22. By then, there had already been several incidents of violence and attacks on police at Occupy demonstrations throughout the country. Moreover, it had become clear that some Occupy activists were determined to initiate or provoke clashes with police, such as those witnessed on the streets of Oakland last night.

Once posted on Firedoglake, the proposed public relations strategy for dealing with accusations of anti-police violence was then circulated via email to organizers of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) demonstrations.

One activist suggested: “Might it be useful to put it out to the media that OWS is expecting infiltration and agent provocateur violence, and OWS is concerned about how it will play out, since OWS is peaceful?” (See below – email addresses redacted.)

OWS Media Strategy

The Occupy strategy outlined on Firedoglake consists of five steps:

1) Challenge the assumption that the violent protester(s) are actually Occupy Wall Street protesters…

2) Scour all the footage and photos you can find of the instigators of the violence at the protest…

3) Crowd-source the images and ask for help identifying them…

4) Write a post about it on a blog with info on the person(s) andtheir background…

5) Contact the media and point out who that protest was started by…

“That is what you do in this age of easy access to video, photos and social media,” the post continues.

The problem is that video, photos, and social media from the Occupy activists have often captured evidence of their own enthusiasm for violence and provocation. (more…)

Vladimir Lenin is popularly attributed with coining the term “useful idiots” – a description of Americans who were in effect doing the bidding of the communist Soviet Union – and subverting American exceptionalism – in the name of global humanity.

Lenin “has left the building,” but his leftist agenda lives on among progressives who are obsessed with trying to subvert our free market economy.  And it’s those progressives who control the nation’s teachers unions and the rest of the education blob which manipulates a naïve and sympathetic public to do their dirty work.

Many parents have come to believe that the red ink in public school budgets has been caused by politicians who have scaled back the increases in public education spending.  Parents have been duped into thinking that it’s the “evil” and miserly politicians who are to blame for government schools going broke.  Parents don’t want to confront the fact that it’s the pensions, benefits, and other perks for the adult school employees that have brought the system to the financial brink.  Worse, parents have fallen prey to the notion that spending must be increased or little Johnny’s art teacher will have taught his last finger painting lesson.

The teacher unions are fighting for their very survival, and have taken to creating a sense of panic among parents, in hopes the public will push the unions’ agenda.  As a result, some parents become desperate to do something – anything – to fix the problem.

That desperation seems to have motivated a group of California parents to create a music video that features a group of elementary children singing the following words:

“It’s my school, your school

Gotta get dough for our schools

This money won’t raise itself

But we can

“Unity! Community!

Funds, funds, funds, funds!

Looking forward to the next year

“No more music, PE, drama,

Spanish and art class goin’ bye bye

Funds, Funds, thinkin’ about funds

You know what I mean …”

The video – which appears to have been filmed at a taxpayer-funded school – is as pathetic as it is absurd. At one point, the children take turns putting money in a donation box, only to have an actor portraying Uncle Sam take the money out of the box and stuff it inside his coat.

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From the UK’s Daily Mail:

Brussels is pouring nearly £20million a year from its human rights budget on lecturing the Americans on left-wing causes.

The EU Human Rights Fund is intended to help promote Western values in the developing world. But a shock report has found at least £17million of cash – around £2million from British taxpayers’ – has been ploughed into promoting the pet causes of Eurocrats in the U.S.

It is being spent on promoting abolition of the death penalty, discussion of climate change, green energy, and the International Criminal Court – all controversial subjects in the U.S.

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Last week, Drummond Pike took his FOX News fight to a whole new level, this time painting all of the right with a scarlet letter. Coincidentally, Salon.com’s Glenn Greenwald had also published a similar piece in much the same vein, only a week prior.

In his opinion contribution piece to Politico titled “Why Does the Right Hate Soros?”, the founder and CEO of Tides Foundation pondered aloud the imaginary reasons he’s fabricated in his mind for the animosity toward the Hungarian born billionaire.

His conclusion? Because we hate immigrants.

This is the typical left. When you don’t get the response you want, inject a new element of manufactured hate into the mix – when you can’t make it about race, make it about immigration. Drummond Pike even decided to step up the rhetoric, implying that George Soros is in danger because of right-wing media outlets and bloggers. But the sad truth behind this piece, behind all of these public letters, boycotts and petitions is that they are all coordinated, and they are all aimed at turning the public opinion against those who do not share the ideals of the leftist agenda.

Some highlights from Pike’s opinion piece:

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A stinging report was issued yesterday by Darrell Issa, ranking member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  The report, titled “Analysis of the First Year of the Obama Administration: Public Relations and Propaganda Initiatives,” outlines a host of propaganda activities conducted by the Obama administration at the direct expense of the American taxpayers.  It notes in part,

“The Obama Administration frequently used federal resources to promote the President’s agenda. In many cases, the Administration relied on the reach and resources of federal agencies and their personnel to promote certain of the President’s favorite programs. The White House also leveraged ties to the arts and entertainment community to embed propaganda in the content of television programming and artwork. These propaganda efforts violated appropriations riders and federal law prohibiting the use of appropriated funds for publicity or propaganda purposes.”

“The White House also used its inherent visibility advantages to multiply the effectiveness of websites containing misleading and controversial information. The White House used its resources to push visitors to websites that urge grassroots activism based on false and misleading information. The President’s right to sell his policy recommendations to Congress and the public is not disputed; however, using the resources of the federal government to activate a sophisticated propaganda and lobbying campaign is an abuse of office and a betrayal of the President’s pledge to create “an unprecedented level of openness in Government.”

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Congratulations, Tea Partiers!  You know you’ve become a genuine threat to the Progressive movement when they start making t-shirts about you.

The Agenda Project has launched “F*ck Tea”, an anti-Tea Party campaign that aims to “dismiss the tea party and promote the progressive cause.”  Check out their nifty little video promoting their positive cause:

As Agenda Project founder Erica Payne explained to Politico’s Ben Smith:

“We will be launching new products in the next several months to help people all over the country F*ck Tea.  Products like a Glenn Beck Bowl Buddy (Beck B Scrubbin) and others are perfect holiday gifts or just a great way to say, ‘I love you and our country’ to your spouse, friend or family.”

The website features a variety of t-shirts and mugs imprinted with the slogan “F*uck tea,” and Ms. Payne infers there will be more to come in the future.  It also splashes a host of unsourced “Tea Party Facts” across the left side of the page, in an attempt to demean and minimize those who belong to or support the Tea Party movement, and imply that those who don’t are somehow of superior intellect based solely upon said “facts.”  Meanwhile, the site dotingly highlights the word “progress” as “a movement toward a goal; advancement; growth; development; continuous improvement,” calling it “The Real American Party.”  Frankly, I see nothing “real” about this or about any of the progressive people involved in it.

Now, I’ll admit, I’m one conservative constitutionalist who embraces the “F” word as part of my regular vocabulary, as much of a shock as that may be to leftists who may have already stereotyped me otherwise.  But I was not aware that the word had become synonymous with positive development and improvement.  (What a relief!)  If brandishing the “F” word across my chest and gallivanting in public is a sign of intellect and the new symbol of the party of Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, then I’m more than happy to save my $22.50, thanks.  (Besides, if one’s cause were so important that such a word absolutely had to be used, the Libertarian in me wonders, why not just spell it out?)  Also somewhat amusing about the entire venture  is that the very people railing against the tea parties and against capitalism are shelling out over $20 a shirt for someone’s concocted-idea-turned-business-venture.  It’s the very Capitalist tale that so many of the progressive left heartily opposes.

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Thursday morning at 12:01 a.m. local time, Arizona’s well publicized anti-illegal-immigration law will  finally go into effect.  Or at least parts of it will.  U.S. District Judge Susan Bolton ruled today to block several provisions of the law that some consider controversial (even though these mimic federal law).   However, the judge has allowed the remainder of the law to move forward as planned while the case is being litigated.  This includes allowing the state of Arizona to stop rogue state officials from implementing “sanctuary city” policies, and allowing the state to pursue civil lawsuits over sanctuary cities.  In addition, Arizona will still be permitted to implement the portion of the law that makes it a crime to pick up day laborers, an issue that law enforcement and officials say has become a major problem in the state.

While yesterday’s ruling is being praised by opponents of the law, it won’t stop their protests, it will prolong them.  For years.  In fact, hordes of angry protesters are scheduled to descend upon the state first thing Thursday morning.  And the propaganda machine on the left continues to run at full speed, cranking out intentionally misleading statements, disinformation, and outright lies.  We’ve watched the boycotts.  We’ve watched as the protests have erupted into hate events, directed not from the right against illegal immigrants as the left portrays them, but from the left and illegal immigrants against peaceful people on the right (and many in the center!).

Meanwhile, as the left continues their manufactured barrage of anger at Andrew Breitbart for supposedly taking things out of context in the Shirley Sherrod story, they fabricate their own version of context propaganda on video in examples like this one from the SEIU:

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At a time when the American taxpayer is on the hook for trillions in current and future federal spending—when the Congressional Budget Office warns that the current rate of federal spending is “unsustainable”—liberal Democrats in Congress have earmarked over $68 million of taxpayer dollars for a Boston shrine to the late Senator Edward Kennedy.

In a detailed report, the Boston Herald describes the planned Edward M. Kennedy Institute as a “temple for Ted Kennedy built with pork.”

According to their account, congressional Democrats—especially Massachusetts senators John Kerry and Edward Markey—have been cramming earmarks for the project into various government funding bills. The Herald found that Kerry and Markey even intend to siphon $28.9 million of the institute’s funding from the Defense Department budget, with almost $19 million of that amount already signed into law.

Why do they think taxpayers should be paying for this shrine? A statement from a Kerry spokesman declared that the institute will bring “knowledge and good citizenship to thousands of young people.”

This has raised the ire of taxpayer watchdog groups. “If the Kennedy family wants to honor the senator, they should find a way to fund it themselves,” David E. Williams of Citizens Against Government Waste told the newspaper. Steve Ellis of Taxpayers for Common Sense agreed that “this could be independently funded and doesn’t need to be getting taxpayer dollars.”

Indeed.

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I don’t usually engage in snarky posts, but every once in a while, I need a little snark to put a ridiculous situation into perspective.  So please indulge me for the next three minutes…

It’s a good thing the government’s taken over the student loan industry.  Now our precious young college students will receive every opportunity to spend hours learning in the college classroom, enlightening their minds and enriching their lives.

Oh wait, no, that’s not how that “free money” is spent.  Why use our hard earned tax dollars for an education when you can waste our money and spend that time instead on becoming a pawn in someone else’s propaganda?  Why not abuse the money that’s been confiscated from our paychecks at a time when we so desperately need it and instead enjoy the benefits of union indoctrination on your college campus?

So let me get this straight.  Students all across the country have suddenly all taken a collective interest in the economic performance of their university’s cafeteria?  So, instead of attending classes like grateful students excited to learn, they’re sitting in the middle of a busy intersection at a red light, arm in arm, donning their SEIU-provided purple shirt, blocking traffic and taking cops away from important things – like responding to emergencies.  And last week, 20 were arrested for doing this at Ohio State University.

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Attention Santas:

This missive is directed at the guardians of, and donors to, tiny humans. If you fall into that category you likely are already familiar with Build-A-Bear, a world-wide corporation that provides the most innocent of services. They sell customizable stuffed animals. Make your own bear, dog…penguin. Cute concept.

So cute, in fact, that the Build-A-Bear empire sweeps across nearly every state and into 17 other countries. You’ll find their outlets in shopping malls everywhere and even some ballparks. The company also has a website called Build-A-Bearville.com where children can play an interactive video game that, on it’s surface, is unlikely to raise suspicion or sound alarms.

But when your unsuspecting tot logs on and hops a virtual train to the North Pole…you should know that he or she will be informed — by Santa Claus — that Christmas may be canceled this year due to Global Warming. Below is part two of the 3-part video.

How much access can a possible agent of influence for state sponsors of terrorism buy from President Barack Obama? For Jodie Evans, a progressive Hollywood activist, the going rate appears to be $30,400 for dinner and a conversation.

Last week in San Francisco, Obama headlined a three million dollar fundraiser at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. The San Francisco Chronicle reports about 160 people paid $30,400 or more per couple for a private dinner with Obama followed by a reception costing $500 to $1000 that drew over 900 attendees. Among those at the dinner was the leftist, so-called antiwar group Code Pink co-founder, Jodie Evans.

The Chronicle reports Jodie Evans had a several minutes long conversation with Obama at the fundraiser.

Why does Jodie Evans merit such face time with the president even though she acts as an agent of influence for the anti-American governments of Iran, Cuba and Venezuela, as well as Middle Eastern terrorists?

Over the life of the campaign, Jodie Evans became one of Obama’s top donors, giving the maximum $2300 to his respective primary and general election funds and tens of thousands of dollars more to the Obama Victory Fund, a joint Obama-Democratic National Committee fund.

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The participant list prepared for the White House/NEA/Ministry of Propaganda organizational conference call included autobiographical blurbs to apparently help the call’s organizers identify the participants since none of the “artists” involved could be considered a household name.  That is unless your household is comprised entirely of unemployed, surly twenty-somethings whose worldly possessions consist of an i phone, a Vaio, a skateboard and, perhaps a few cans of spray paint.

The conference call and other efforts now emerging were organized by the National Endowment for the Arts at the behest of the White House to try and coordinate and focus the existing pro-Obama passion of the artistic community to directly promote administration political objectives.

This effort is justifiably being criticized as a misuse of government resources and a creative example of adapting the Chicago pay-to-play style to the federal scene.  What is an alternative artists supposed to think when the largest artistic grant-dispensing agency of the federal government comes-a-calling asking for help?  It is only natural that one would expect a quid pro quo when it comes to doling out cash for all manner of non-traditional, (read: incomprehensible) art, while the chap who cleverly mocked up the Obama/Joker poster will probably not be in line to cash in at the federal trough.

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Color me unsurprised to find out that an employee of Winner and Associates — who you’ll recall we revealed were behind the astroturfing campaign to discredit Sarah Palin — was in on the National Endowment for the Arts phone call outlining how the Obama Administration would use that government organization to push its agenda.

From a list of those participating in the conference call:

After we uncovered the link between Winner and Associates, David Axelrod, and the smear campaign against Sarah Palin designed to look as though it was coming from the “grass roots” we begged — literally begged! — the MSM to look into whether the large campaign consulting firm was subcontracted by David Axelrod for work on the Obama campaign. As I noted at the time, I’m just a blogger and don’t really have the resources necessary to conduct a thorough investigation.

As Ace notes here, once Ethan Winner confessed that he was behind the video, the MSM concluded that there was nothing more to investigate. This despite the fact that I showed that at least two other Winner and Associate employees — a subdivision of the largest advertising agency in the world — participated in the astroturfing campaign during normal business hours.

Three employees, one of them the President of the subdivision and another a VP, claimed they were doing this on their own time — which we showed could not have been the case — and on their own dime. On their own dime? Maybe, but it still seems unlikely.

And now we have another Winner and Associates guy at the NEA conference call? He’s also listed as one of the founders of Generation Obama. (more…)