California Assemblyman Wants Schools to Teach ‘Russian Hacking’ of US Election
from Sputnik News:
A California assemblyman, introducing legislation to mandate that public schools teach students that Russia hacked the 2016 election, was humiliated by Fox News host Tucker Carlson for his stance.
Marc Levine, a Democrat, is calling the bizarre legislation the “Pravda Act of 2017.”
Appearing on Carlson’s show on Monday, Levine demanded that students “need to understand Russian interference in the 2016 election and its impacts on foreign policy.” The assemblyman compared the unproven claims to the War of 1812, the Monroe Doctrine, and the Marshall Plan, arguing that these events help children in America to “understand where American leadership has come from.”
His argument was swiftly taken apart by Carlson, however, who pointed out that Levine is seeking to insert propaganda into history books.
“The War of 1812 was 200 years ago, the Marshall Plan was 70 years ago, we have an advantage. We sort of get it now. We have perspective,” Carlson countered. “We have no perspective on what happened (in 2016), and basically what you’re suggesting is adding propaganda from a politician into textbooks, and why should I be in favor of that?”
Levine shot back that the “winners” typically write the history books, and that he wants to make sure “the truth” is not “papered over by the president.”
“No, what you’re doing is trying to get losers to write the history books,” Carlson responded. “I just want the historians to write the history books.”
There is no conclusive publicly-available evidence to validate the claims that Russia, or third-party agents acting under orders from the Kremlin, hacked the US election.
Following a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the issue, Republican Senator Ted Cruz dismissed the claims of Russian interference, telling a scrum of reporters that the Democratic Party is trying to delegitimize election results by blaming Russia for their heavy losses. He stated that there is no evidence that Russian interference impacted the election.
Two separate bills have also been introduced by Democratic lawmakers in California to fight “fake news,” in a move indicating that the legislators do not trust constituents to be able to discern truth on their own.
The first, introduced by Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez, would require schools to teach students how to differentiate between “real” and “fake” news.
“Recently, we have seen the corrupting effects of a deliberate propaganda campaign driven by fake news,” Gomez said in a statement. “When fake news is repeated, it becomes difficult for the public to discern what’s real. These attempts to mislead readers pose a direct threat to our democracy.”
