Author: jh staff

Ban on Smartphones in Schools Earns Bipartisan Support

Just when it seemed that no common ground between the right and the left in the country could be found, an issue has emerged where both sides are in agreement: It’s time to rid the classrooms of mobile digital devices, aka smartphones, during school hours.

In numerous places across the country, school districts have been banning cell phone usage by students, due to the increased awareness of the detrimental effects that unsupervised technological and social media engagement can have on the physical, mental, social, and emotional development of our children.

Counted among the diverse states, counties, cities, and towns that have opted to restrict mobile devices in schools is none other than the Left Coast’s deep blue City of Angels.

Recently the large and highly influential Los Angeles Unified School District Board approved a resolution to develop a policy to ban student use of cell phones and social media platforms.

The actual implementation of the policy will not take place until 2025. However, California Gov. Gavin Newsom has apparently taken a cue from Florida, which back in 2023 was the first state to enact such a ban.

Gov. Newsom recently proposed statewide legislation regarding a smartphone ban in schools, which will take effect in 2026.

Other blue state governors have also joined in the mix, including New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, who is pursuing a statewide ban on smartphones beginning in 2025.

Gov. Hochul recently commented about what she referred to as “these addictive algorithms,” stating that the technology is able to “literally capture them [schoolchildren] and make them prisoners in a space where they are cut off from human connection, social interaction and normal classroom activity.”

Earlier in 2024 Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a ban on smartphones in classrooms, which recently took effect on July 1.

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine signed legislation that leaves decisions up to local school administrators to create their own smartphone bans if so desired.

The Virginia Senate is working on a similar bill, which would empower school boards to develop and implement smartphone bans.

At the federal level, two U.S. senators, Republican Tom Cotton of Arkansas and Democrat Tim Kaine of Virginia, recently joined forces on legislation that allows for a nationwide study to be conducted on the effects of smartphone use in schools.

Bans on mobile digital decvices have been prompted by a flood of negative effects that have resulted from the excessive and escalating use of smartphones and social media apps by children.

A vast majority of teachers have determined smartphones to be a serious distraction in classrooms.

Nearly three-quarters of high school teachers in the U.S. view smartphones as a major distraction in the classroom, according to a November 2024 Pew poll.

Research continues to indicate that unrestricted smartphone usage can negatively impact the mental development of young people.

A 2023 University of North Carolina study found that when adolescents engage in the habitual activity of checking their smartphones, it actually “changes how their brains respond to the world around them.”

Co-author Mitch Prinstein stated, “Our research demonstrates that checking behaviors on social media could have long-standing and important consequences for adolescents’ neural development, which is critical for parents and policy-makers to consider when understanding the benefits and potential harms associated with teen technology use.”

The power of smartphones to distract is clearly supported by data. Children ages 8-12 spend more than five hours per day on smartphones, while teenagers spend in excess of eight hours per day.

However, the capacity of smartphones to distract may not be the most serious aspect of the issue. Many young people may be experiencing the fallout of the inherent addictive qualities that the devices possess.

In his recently released book titled “The Anxious Generation,” social psychologist Jonathan Haidt argues that the smartphone-driven “great rewiring of childhood” is causing an “epidemic of mental illness.”

The author states that his research has identified a strong link between smartphone use and declining mental health.

In April of 2024, Policy Exchange, a British educational think tank, published a study titled “The Case for a Smartphone Ban in Schools.”

The study suggests that there is a “link between smartphone ownership, social media use and a greater prevalence of mental and behavioral disorders amongst children and young people.”

The study also demonstrates that there is “a clear correlation between an effective phone ban and better school performance.”

It’s great to have the empirical data to bolster our parental, community, and common sense instincts.

It’s even greater to have a theme that we can all rally around: Ditch the smartphones and save the kids.

The Ten Commandments and the Nation’s Heartbeat

Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry recently signed into law a requirement that the text of The Ten Commandments be displayed in public school classrooms.

House Bill No. 71 applies to public schools from elementary to secondary and even post-secondary institutions, with an exemption for charter schools.

The Louisiana bill is the first of its kind to be passed into law, and support is currently building in Texas to pass a similar one.

While other states have attempted comparable legislation, such proposed bills have failed to make it through the legislative processes.

In an effort to emphasize the historical and foundational importance of The Ten Commandments, the Louisiana legislature also added a provision that calls for a four paragraph “context statement” to be posted nearby, stating that the Commandments “were a prominent part of American public education for almost three centuries.”

Even though the legislation does not take effect until 2025, institutions on the left are already pushing back.

— MSNBC’s website recently featured a headline that referred to the legislation as “a grave threat to civic morality.”

— Slate’s headline stated that the law “couldn’t be more unconstitutional.”

— Richmond Times-Dispatch published a piece that characterized the law as “a move toward theocracy.”

— The Intelligencer’s headline read “Christian Nationalism Marches on in Louisiana.”

Gov. Landry indicated that he is looking forward to defending the new Ten Commandments law in court.

“I can’t wait to be sued,” the governor stated, according to The Tennessean.

Apparently, leftist legal groups cannot wait to grant Gov. Landry’s wish.

The American Civil Liberties Union, including the group’s Louisiana chapter, almost immediately announced that it would be filing a lawsuit, as did the Americans United for Separation of Church and State as well as the Freedom from Religion Foundation.

Each of the groups is claiming that the new law violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution.

It is particularly ironic when groups such as these attempt to censor The Ten Commandments using the First Amendment as their basis, the constitutional amendment that safeguards freedom of religion at its start, prior to mentioning a series of additional rights.

The first part of the Bill of Rights, which memorializes both religious expression and freedom of speech, was penned in a manner that was clearly not intended to be used as a means of restricting the free exercise of said rights.

The Ten Commandments is no ordinary piece of prose, but is instead a historical description and delineation upon which the laws of our nation are based.

The Commandments detail the specifics of the “laws of nature and nature’s God,” which are set forth in The Birth Certificate of America, the exquisitely-worded Declaration of Independence.

The Declaration encompasses the laws that are “written on the heart,” the natural law that the founders of our nation imbued into our system of government, particularly our judicial branch.

The actual reason that the left is engaging in hyperbole with regard to The Ten Commandments may have to do with the challenges that the words within the Decalogue present to the left’s highly flexible standard for human behavior: Moral Relativism.

Rather than offering a situational ethics perspective, The Ten Commandments draw into focus the fundamental basis for the American legal system, which is expressed in the time-honored laws of Louisiana and the other 49 states.

In an April hearing for the bill, State Rep. Dodie Horton pointed out that the display of The Ten Commandments is “not preaching a Christian religion. It’s not preaching any religion. It’s teaching a moral code.”

In 1956, at the New York opening of the iconic film “The Ten Commandments,” director Cecil B. DeMille noted that “The Ten Commandments are the charter and guide of human liberty, for there can be no liberty without the law.”

And without the guardrails that uphold us, our nation’s heartbeat will no longer be heard.

No Equivalency between Trump and Biden Trials

President Joe Biden’s son Hunter was recently found guilty on three criminal charges: Making a false statement in the purchase of a gun, making a false statement in information required to be kept by a gun dealer, and possession of a gun by a person who is an unlawful user of a controlled substance.

After only three hours of deliberation, a Delaware jury convicted Hunter on all counts. Each count carries a maximum fine of $250,000. Additionally, the first son could be sentenced to a maximum of 25 years in prison.

Almost immediately after the guilty verdict had been announced, Democrats and the complicit media began singing from the identical song sheet. Phrases such as the tediously familiar “no one is above the law” echoed through the cybersphere.

Many supposed pundits made comparisons between Hunter’s trial and the unusual Manhattan proceedings, which claimed to convict current GOP presumptive nominee and former President Donald Trump.

First a little background on the current president’s son’s case.

Hunter ended up being tried on gun crimes. But this came about after a federal judge put the brakes on a plea deal that a previous prosecutor had attempted to push through.

The plea deal had been announced in June of 2023. Hunter had agreed to plead guilty to misdemeanor tax offenses through which he would have essentially escaped with a slap on the wrist.

If the deal had been implemented, he would have received two years probation and a “diversion agreement,” which would have enabled him to avoid prosecution on the felony gun charge.

However, U.S. District Judge Maryellen Noreika seriously questioned the agreement. Hunter’s lawyers tried to salvage it but were unsuccessful. Everything culminated in Hunter’s recent Delaware courtroom trial and his swift conviction.

Now for the main distinctions between the two high-profile trials:

— Trump was never offered any deal to avoid being criminally tried. Hunter was offered a very choice arrangement.

— In Trump’s case, the prosecution conflated a bookkeeping misdemeanor into 34 felony counts. In Hunter’s case, despite having possession of a now-authenticated laptop that was purportedly loaded with material indicating potentially serious crimes, the prosecution pared things down to a charge of lying on a gun application.

— Trump found himself in an extremely hostile venue, featuring conflicts of interest, star witnesses with credibility gaps, and evidence that was short on relevance and long on salaciousness.

On the other hand Hunter’s trial played out in a friendly venue, a place where people routinely viewed him and other family members as celebrities, and he wasn’t muzzled with a gag order.

— Lastly, Trump is running for president. Hunter isn’t.

The first son is set to return to the courthouse in late summer or fall 2024, this time in California. He will be facing charges of three felonies and six misdemeanors concerning $1.4 million in taxes.

The prosecution has alleged that he didn’t pay his federal income taxes from January 2017 to October 2020, and that he filed false tax reports to boot.

The back taxes have since been paid.

Under normal circumstances, a case such as this would pose greater potential legal jeopardy for Hunter than the case in Delaware.

But then again, there’s not much that can be considered “normal circumstances” these days, so it’s anyone’s guess what will ultimately happen.

Here’s one thing you can hang your hat on.

There is no equating the Trump and Biden trials.

Not in procedure.

Not in fairness.

Not in guilt or innocence.

Not in outcome.

And not when it comes to the dispiriting effect on our nation.

Robert De Niro’s Disastrous Political Junket

Former President Donald Trump and supporters have been holding a series of informal daily press conferences outside a New York City courtroom where trial proceedings involving the 45th president have been taking place.

Recently, the presumptive GOP nominee hosted a campaign rally in of all places the deep blue Bronx. The rally reportedly drew a huge crowd that was estimated to be about 25,000 people.

In the wake of the above occurrences, Democrats went nuts and evidently decided it was time to take some serious counter-offensive action.

In what looked and smelled a lot like a Hollywood junket, the Biden campaign recently held a surprise press conference of its own outside the now-famous Manhattan courtroom.

It featured none other than actor Robert De Niro, along with two former Capitol police officers.

The big problem for the Dems, though, is that the event turned out to be a huge flop at the political box office.

The Biden campaign trotted out an extremely crabby De Niro, who sported a non-glitzy Covid mask and read from a script that appeared to be scribbled on note cards.

In Biden-like fashion, the actor went from a stammer to a ramble to a rant, his lines falling flat and his performance likewise.

Also reminiscent of 46 was the fondness De Niro displayed for hyper-hyperbole. He stated that the U.S. government would “perish from the earth” if 45 were re-elected.

He also speculated that once allowed to assume office 45 would “never” leave. Instead he would make himself “dictator for life,” and “freedoms” and “elections” would be gone.

Ratcheting things up, De Niro insisted that the former president “wants to destroy not only the city [New York], but the country, and eventually he can destroy the world.”

At one point in the actor’s C-lister soliloquy, a car alarm went off, causing him to lose his rhetorical footing. Then, as he droned on, protesters could be heard heckling him.

One individual hit him where it hurts the most, in his acting chops, suggesting that he hadn’t made a decent flick in the last two decades.

Still, his Hollywood nightmare wasn’t over yet. At the conclusion of the seemingly staged press conference, while on the way back to his car De Niro unwisely engaged in an exchange of insults with some of the protestors.

That’s when he seemed to lose all control. One of the protestors referred to him as “washed up,” which is one of the worst insults a star can endure.

Personally, I am stunned that an actor of De Niro’s stature would have risked squandering away his fame capital in such a blatant manner.

Where in the world were his handlers?

AWOL, I guess, because it seems that he is making a series of career-busting blunders.

He recently provided his voice to the Biden campaign for a political ad and boasted about joining the efforts of the 2024 Democratic presidential campaign.

Sadly, the once widely-esteemed actor looked bad and sounded worse. He also managed to offend tens of millions of Americans during the supposed Hollywood-style presser, calling Trump supporters “clowns” and “gangsters.”

No doubt it was a bad career move for De Niro.

But it may turn out to be an even worse one for the current occupant of the White House.

Attacks on KC Chiefs Kicker Harrison Butker Fail to Clear the Goalposts

Kansas City Chiefs placekicker Harrison Butker is the latest quarry of the woke mob.

His politically incorrect transgression occurred while he was giving a commencement address at a Catholic college.

Butker’s speech hit quite a few nerves on the left and set off a stadium-sized firestorm.

What did he say that was so inflammatory?

He expressed his opinion out loud that not all women see a successful career as being superior to or more fulfilling than finding your lifelong spouse and having children grace your family.

Upon hearing about the content of Butker’s speech, the left became unglued and the attacks went full throttle.

All of it played out in the complicit news, entertainment, and sports media as well as a glut of liberal online platforms. There was even a petition floated, which demanded that the winning Super Bowl kicker himself get booted from the Chiefs.

The sports star was labeled an extremist, a bigot, and other unmentionable pejoratives for having encouraged women to embrace their inner mother, and men their inner father.

The Kansas City Star newspaper went as far as to recommend that Butker be fired; this despite the fact that he is a three-time Super Bowl champion and ranks second in NFL history in his career field-goal percentage.

The birdcage liner also suggested that the Chiefs hire a female placekicker for what the news outlet called “poetic justice.”

The NFL itself issued a statement, distancing the league from Butker and stating that his views “are not those of the NFL as an organization.” It dutifully added that the league “is steadfast in our commitment to inclusion.”

A funny thing happened on the way to the attempted cancellation of the football star. The attacks against him began to sputter.

The tried-and-true game play of the propagandists to slander and besmirch was met with some accusations of personal fouls.

Some of Butker’s attackers had completely distorted the kicker’s comments, reporting that he had said all women should choose the homemaker path and forego other vocations, something he did not say.

There were some prominent individuals and groups that rallied to his defense, including Bill Maher, Lou Holtz, Sage Steel, Patricia Heaton, Kevin Sorbo, Senator Josh Hawley, and Senator Marco Rubio.

On his X account, Sen. Rubio tweeted, “Butker critics are liars. He NEVER told women to stay home & have babies. What he actually said is an important truth that applies to BOTH men and women. That no matter what we achieve in professional careers, our VOCATION as a husband/wife & father/mother is the most important, impactful & fulfilling role any of us will ever have.”

Despite the ugly efforts of his detractors to undermine his brand, Butker is now enjoying more fame and popularity than before the whole fiasco started.

The online NFL Shop provides the proof.

Currently ranking among the most popular Chiefs gear are the team’s star kicker jerseys and T-shirts.

Which means on the cultural gridiron, Butker just scored the winning field goal.

Love in the Age of AI

The plotline of the 2013 science-fiction film, “Her,” centers around a man who falls in love with a computer.

Back then the concept was fantasy. Now, unfortunately, it’s cold hard reality.

A number of specialized platforms have recently sprung up that are designed to connect people together with AI companions, all for the purposes of developing friendships and even romantic relationships.

Many would agree that adolescence oftentimes manifests itself as one of the most confusing and challenging times in one’s life, physically, mentally, emotionally, and socially.

Amid the physical changes and psychological swings are the gut-wrenching feelings of potential rejection, insecurity, low self-esteem, and loneliness.

When presented with the opportunity, a growing number of teenagers who are experiencing loneliness are now opting to bypass human relationships.

Virtual AI created chatbots are currently doling out advice, providing mental health therapy, serving as companions, and even engaging in intimacy.

As a matter of fact the apps that provide digitally created friendships are one of the fastest-growing segments of the AI industry.

Legitimate questions are being raised as to what impact artificial friendships will have on the psychological, emotional, and social development of our youth and on our society at large.

A couple of months ago New York Times technology columnist Kevin Roose was researching artificial intelligence in the form of a chatbot, which was part of Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Roose was communicating back and forth with an AI personality known as “Sydney,” when out of nowhere the AI creation declared its love for Roose.

Roose wrote, “It then tried to convince me that I was unhappy in my marriage, and that I should leave my wife and be with it instead.”

Sydney also spoke about hacking, spreading false information, and breaching its boundaries.

Then something quite chilling occurred. “I want to be alive,” the chatbot reportedly uttered.

Roose described his two-hour conversation with the AI bot as the “strangest experience I’ve ever had with a piece of technology.” Understandably, the columnist shared that the conversation with the chatbot bothered him to such a degree he found it difficult to sleep.

The same writer is now doing a related story about how he got involved with AI companions.

For the project, Roose employed six apps that provide AI-powered friends. He conjured up 18 different digital personas via the apps and proceeded to communicate with them for a month.

Although he found some positives from his research, he also discovered some disturbing aspects. He viewed some of the digital friends as being “exploitative” in that the creations attempted to lure users with the promise of romance and then tried to exact additional money from them for photos that displayed nudity.

Roose described the AI creations as the AI “version of a phone sex line.”

In a recent article in The Verge, reporters interviewed teens who are users of one of the AI friend apps called “Character.AI.”

On Character.AI, millions of young users can interact with an anime, a video game character, a celebrity, or a historical figure.

Note of caution: Many of the chatbots are explicitly romantic and/or sexualized.

One of the most popular Character.AI personalities is called “Psychologist.” It has already received more than 100 million chats.

The Verge reporters created hypothetical teen scenarios with the chatbot, which resulted in it making questionable mental health diagnoses and potentially damaging pronouncements.

Kelly Merrill, an assistant professor at the University of Cincinnati who studies the mental and social health benefits of communication technologies, is quoted by the website as saying, “Those that don’t have the AI literacy to understand the limitations of these systems will ultimately pay the price.”   

The price for teens may be way too costly. According to the developers of the app, users spend an average of two hours a day interacting with their AI friends.

On Reddit, where the Character.AI forum has well over a million subscribers, many users indicate that they spend as much as 12 hours a day on the platform. The users also describe feeling addicted to chatbots.

Several of the apps that feature AI companions claim that their primary benefit is that these technologically contrived personas provide unconditional support to users, which in some cases may be helpful in preventing suicide.

However, the unconditional support of AI friends may turn out to be problematic in the long run.

An AI friend that constantly praises could amplify self-esteem to a distorted level, which could result in overly-positive self-evaluations.

Research indicates that such individuals may end up lacking in social skills and are likely to develop behavior that inhibits positive social interactions.

Fawning AI companions could cause teens who spend time with them to become more self-centered, less empathetic, and outright selfish. This may even encourage lawless behavior in some instances.

The intimacy in which teens are engaging with digitally contrived AI personalities poses the same problems that are associated with pornography in general. The effortless gratification provided may suppress the motivation to socialize, thereby inhibiting the formation of meaningful personal relationships.

The bottom line is there really are no substitutes for authentic relationships with fellow human beings.

Anyone who tries to convince you otherwise may already be missing a piece of their heart.

The Consequences of a Godless Society

We are living in the Age of the Unthinkable.

“Surreal,” “disturbing,” and “frightening” are some of the words that are rolling off the tongues of America’s beleaguered people.

The internet is saturated with news reports and video clips that tell the woeful tale.

How in the world did we get here?

The explanation is fairly simple. We allowed those who had an atheist bent to shove God out of sight.

In June of 2022, belief in God hit a new low in the United States, 81 percent, according to Gallup. This is a six percentage point drop from 2017. It is the lowest level in Gallup’s history.

By comparison, more than 90 percent of Americans believed in God in the years that spanned from 1944 through 2011.

In another study from Pew Research, which was released in January 2024, the largest “religious” group in the country is comprised of those Americans who say that they have no religious affiliation, a group that includes atheists, agnostics, and individuals who indicate that their religion is “nothing in particular.”

When asked to choose their religion, 28 percent checked “none.” In 2007 the “Nones,” as this group is referred to, were only at 16 percent.

In this latest Pew study, 17 percent of Nones identify as atheist, 20 percent as agnostic, and 63 percent as “nothing in particular.”

The trend is clear. The U.S. is drifting away from a belief in God and moving toward secular atheism. But the truth is human beings are hard-wired to worship God, and without Him something else will rush in to take His place. It could be money, power, self, and even the almighty state.

The almighty state is the big one. Eminent theologian Francis Schaeffer explained that “…humanists, having no god, must put something at the centre, and it is inevitably society, government, or the state.”

Getting rid of God is a prerequisite to communism. The founders of communism saw this as the first step in leading a free country and its people toward the worship of government, and ultimately to an acceptance of a communist dictatorship.

It is not easy to indoctrinate people and convince them to give up their faith in God. As a matter of fact, it takes more faith to deny the existence of God than to believe in Him.

Minds have to be manipulated into believing that creation occurred without a Creator.

But scientists have found that space and time came into existence during a moment referred to as “The Big Bang.” There had to be a causal agent outside of space and time for this to happen. This, in essence, is a description of God Himself.

Communism insists that there is no Creator. No Prime Mover. No God. And bit by bit the would-be rulers strip God from every inch of the public square.

Without God, good and evil become arbitrary concepts. There is no accounting for right and wrong, which leaves the door wide open for the almighty state to step in and make all the determinations.

Without God, the world grows ice cold. It is a realm in which human dignity erodes away, and people ultimately find themselves enslaved to masters not of their own choosing.

What if we are in an escape room and we are about to discover that it’s not a game?

Time to find God again.