“GIVE ME FOUR YEARS TO TEACH THE CHILDREN AND THE SEED I HAVE SOWN WILL NEVER BE UPROOTED”: A Tale of Two Experiments.

In 1973, 221 fifth-grade students in Pirkkala, Finland, became part of a quiet experiment. Their curriculum was rewritten to reflect Marxist-Leninist ideology. Capitalism was depicted as oppression, the Soviet Union as a moral compass, and the free market as a source of inequality.

Researchers compared them to a control group of students who received standard education. They tracked these individuals over decades, analyzing data on taxable income, months worked, job choices, educational attainment, and cognitive ability.

The study found that the students exposed to the special curriculum earned roughly 10% less as adults. This wasn’t due to differences in education or intelligence, but because they made different career choices: public-sector jobs, artistic paths, and professions that aligned with values they had been taught early on—solidarity over self-interest, ideology over income.

A similar pattern emerges from Poland, where a 1954 nationwide reform quietly removed political indoctrination from school curricula. Researchers Costa-Font, García-Hombrados, and Nicińska studied what happened next. Their natural experiment exploited school enrollment cut-off dates to compare students just slightly more or less exposed to the old Stalinist education. This included removing content explicitly praising the importance of obedience to the Soviet regime and adherence to Marxist-Leninist values, along with Stalin-themed recitation competitions.

Students who experienced one fewer year of Marxist-Leninist schooling were more likely to complete high school and college. Decades later, they were also more likely to be employed. When you stop rewarding obedience and start rewarding merit, students begin to believe that their choices matter. Ambition wakes up.

Both studies underscore a basic truth: early education fills students with information and perspectives that shape their values. School is one of the first places where we learn what kind of person is admired. Who the heroes are. What the system rewards.

Read the whole thing.

DAVID MANNEY: The Anniversary They Want You to Forget: TWA Flight 800 and the Deep State’s Deadliest Lie. “The people who peddled Russiagate, the Hunter laptop hoax, and the now-laughable myth of President Joe Biden’s cognitive abilities are the same types of bureaucrats who sterilized the truth in 1996 to protect their golden boy: President Bill Clinton.”

BIDEN’S LEGACY: Off-duty CBP officer shot in face during robbery at NYC park by suspect ID’d as illegal migrant, career criminal – who got freed after every bust.

An off-duty US Customs and Border Protection officer was shot in the face after being robbed by a moped-riding illegal immigrant in a New York City park — but he shot back and wounded his attacker, according to sources.

The suspect has been identified as Miguel Francisco Mora Nunez, a 21-year-old Dominican national with a lengthy rap sheet in New York according to sources — but he was let go each time he was busted, despite having a deportation order.

Mora entered the US illegally via the southern border under the Biden admin, the Department of Homeland Security said Sunday.

The 42-year-old federal agent and a female companion were sitting on a rock along the Hudson River in Fort Washington Park in Manhattan when they were ambushed by the two men on a moped around 11:50 p.m., according to police sources.

Had he been doxxed?

JUST HERE TO DO THE BEHEADINGS AMERICANS WON’T DO: ICE Catches Illegal Accused of Beheading Victim.

TIMES CHANGE:

Whenever a news headline says "Far-right protesters", you can usually interpret that as "Good, hard working people who want their country back".

— Kobie Thatcher (@KobieThatcher) July 18, 2025

Previously, from P.J. O’Rourke’s Parliament of Whores:

Not long after Andy [Ferguson] and I met, we were driving down Pennsylvania Avenue and encountered some or another noisy pinko demonstration.

“How come,” I asked Andy, “whenever something upsets the Left, you see immediate marches and parades and rallies with signs already printed and rhyming slogans already composed, whereas whenever something upsets the Right, you see two members of the Young Americans for Freedom waving a six-inch American flag?”

“We have jobs,” said Andy.

We still have jobs, but the Left finally pushed normies into activism. They had thought that was exclusively their turf.

ACCOUNTABILITY IS MANDATORY:

Thanks to explosive new document releases, the Russiagate hoax is now exposed, commencing a new era that will be about accountability for the guilty
https://t.co/xF9MyfmTq1

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) July 18, 2025

More:

This corruption in this story dwarfs the worst Trump scandals. It’s unprecedented. It’s now in writing that the whole Trump-Russia thing was invented. But feel free to think it’s still a Fox fantasy. https://t.co/jICihVzV6P

— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) July 19, 2025

LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE:

Migrant punches a man holding a baby at a London underground station, baby falling to the floor.

The English team up and take him down.

The country has had more than enough of this shit!
pic.twitter.com/0aWk5cjRn9

— Tommy Robinson 🇬🇧 (@TRobinsonNewEra) July 18, 2025

(The original URL was to a community note and doesn’t automatically expand. This is to the original tweet now. — Charlie)

GRIFTING WILL WAIT: CA Bill creating LA fire rebuilding agency on hold over backlash.

A controversial California bill that would have created a powerful “Resilient Rebuilding Authority” for the Los Angeles fires was put on temporary hold by state Sen. Ben Allen, D-Santa Monica, in response to widespread community concerns.

“I appreciate the input of the folks who have weighed in about the bill, and along with legislative colleagues have decided that it would be best for us to pause the bill until next year to give us more time to see if we can get it right,” said Allen in a statement on SB 549.

At the Assembly Local Government Committee hearing on Wednesday night, Allen conceded the bill’s lack of clear path for community input into the RRA’s decision making, while hinting at future changes to the legislation in 2026.

“I’m not looking to jam this down people’s throats,” said Allen. “On the community input question, it doesn’t cut out community input. It just doesn’t specify one path or another, so we’re going to have to build significant community input into the governance structure in order for this to pass the smell test with the locals.”

Translation: Dems got caught with their hand so deep in the cookie jar that even the locals noticed

IT’S TIME FOR VICTORIA TAFT’S West Coast, Messed Coast™: Outraged Victims Stop Dems’ Palisades Land Grab at the Point of a Fire Hose. “Between the bizarre woke politicians, woke universities, and woke saboteurs, however, there was winning.”

SUSTAINABILITY: America’s Debt Situation Will Soon Be Worse Than Right After World War II.

The difference between then and now is, now there’s no end in sight.

WELL, GOOD: RFK Jr. Rejects Dystopian WHO Pandemic Amendments.

WAIT, WUT? Woman Who Helped Kamala Harris Demonize Brett Kavanaugh Now Works for Trump at DOD. “Samantha Goldstein, who gave more than $19,000 to Democrats in the past three years and called Trump ‘unfit to hold office,’ nonetheless works as an associate deputy general counsel in the DOD under him. She previously served as a special counsel for Harris in 2018.”

FLORIDA MAN FRIDAY [VIP]: He Did WHAT With His Prized Lamborghini? “It’s time for your much-needed break from the serious news, and this week, we’ll learn what not to do in the Dollar General arts and crafts aisle, why the chicken shouldn’t cross the road, and when France Man has had enough of that Palestine stuff.”

WELL, WHEN YOU PUT IT LIKE THAT…:

"Stephen Colbert's legacy will be this…

"He was a gerbil of a man, an establishment shill, a toadie to big government, a follower instead of a trailblazer, a self-involved statist, a moral coward in the face of Woke McCarthyism, and a divisive, self-regarding loser who killed…

— John Ocasio-Rodham Nolte (@NolteNC) July 18, 2025

Full text:

“Stephen Colbert’s legacy will be this…

“He was a gerbil of a man, an establishment shill, a toadie to big government, a follower instead of a trailblazer, a self-involved statist, a moral coward in the face of Woke McCarthyism, and a divisive, self-regarding loser who killed an entire late-night franchise because he sought applause from those who agreed with him instead of laughs from the rest of us.

“Most unforgivably, he sought only the approval of elites because he saw himself as too superior to entertain the rest of us.

“In short, Stephen Colbert will be remembered as a dick.”

Assuming he’s remembered at all.

CNN’S ALLISON MORROW ON THURSDAY MORNING: Trump may have broken Wall Street.

CNBC ON THURSDAY AFTERNOON: S&P 500 rises to new closing record, boosted by solid earnings and U.S. economic data. “The S&P 500 added 0.54% for a record close of 6,297.36 — its ninth this year. The tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite advanced 0.75% for its tenth record close of 2025, ending at 20,885.65. Both indexes also touched fresh intraday all-time highs. The Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 229.71 points, or 0.52%, and settled at 44,484.49.”

Please break it some more, Mr. President.

SURE, BUT THEY’D RATHER HAVE THE FREE MONEY: Dear PBS: Independence Can Be Glorious.

NO. NEXT QUESTION? Has Gavin Newsom Undergone a Miraculous Road to Damascus Gun Rights Conversion?

VICTORIA TAFT: BIG! BLOCKBUSTER! BAM! WSJ Epstein/Trump Exclusive Is a Big Dud. But Where Did It Come From?

SKYNET SMILES: Robot metabolism could help machines repair themselves without human intervention.

MEANWHILE, OVER AT VODKAPUNDIT: Dear Dems: PLEASE Keep Worshipping Barack Obama.

YOU MIGHT NEVER GUESS, BUT YOU’LL TOTALLY BELIEVE IT: You’ll Never Guess Who 1 of the WSJ Reporters Behind the Trump/Epstein ‘Scoop’ Is Connected to. “Well what do you know, another anti-Trump hit piece magically traces back to the Clinton-DNC-Fusion GPS slime trail.”

THEY COULD USE ANOTHER GOOD BOMBING FOR THIS ONE: Guess Which Crazy Place Just Criminalized WALKING THE DOG.

THE ART OF THE MEGA-DEAL: Trump discussing drone ‘mega deal’ with Ukraine — as US tech lags behind adversaries: ‘The people of America need this technology.’

Speaking exclusively with The Post on Wednesday, Zelensky revealed that his latest talks with Trump focused on a breakthrough deal that would see the US and Ukraine prop up each other’s aerial technology — with Kyiv offering to share everything it’s learned about modern warfare in the three-year conflict with Russia.

The deal could be transformative for the US military and national security, with officials and drone experts warning that America’s technology lags far behind Russia and China, and American soldiers are ill-equipped to use the UAVs or defend against the types of devices being produced by adversaries.

“The people of America need this technology, and you need to have it in your arsenal,” Zelensky told The Post of Ukraine’s latest drones, which have been able to penetrate Russia’s defenses to take out heavy bombers and strike as deep as 800 miles over the border.

I haven’t seen any confirmation from the White House on this yet, so maybe take Zelensky’s claim with a grain of salt.

But Trump hasn’t shied away from economic deals with Ukraine this year, signing a minerals agreement with Kyiv in May. Ironic, given that Putin feared Ukraine aligning with the EU three years ago, while the country moves increasingly into the US orbit, instead.

THE BULLY WILL CONTINUE BULLYING UNTIL PUNCHED IN THE FACE:

The origin of these is China

CCP-connected researchers just got caught smuggling wheat blight into the Upper Midwest, where most of our wheat is grown, in an act of agroterrorism

They’ve also released a bug that killed 95% of the Florida orange groves

This is what… https://t.co/hPWtHLxnWP pic.twitter.com/aOCtyrLD2u

— Will Tanner (@Will_Tanner_1) July 17, 2025

KRUISER’S MORNING BRIEFING: Colbert’s Tedious Reign as the Anti-Carson Is Coming to an End. “Contrary to the myth that has grown about Carson over the years, he actually did used to do political jokes. A lot of them, actually. He just spread them around both sides, and he never let on which party he preferred. He wanted to appeal to the entire country. Colbert wants to make sure that conservatives know that he hates us. He’s very good at that, by the way.”