Flip-Flop: MRC Suddenly Trusts Polls Again (Now That They Show Biden Down)
Topic: Media Research Center

Last year, the Media Research Center proclaimed its distrust of media polls, declaring that polls showing Donald Trump badly losing the election were "intentionally" wrong -- a serious claim for which it has never presented any evidence to support. (This seems like an opening for a pollster to sue the MRC for libel and defamation.) But with polls showing President Biden down from his initial high favorability rates, the MRC is suddently trusting polls again -- despite them coming from many of the "liberal media" sources it was trashing last year.

The flip-flop started last spring, when Nicholas Fondacaro hyped a poll showing "President Biden’s approval rating was supposedly sitting at an anemic 52 percent. And according to their methodology, the margin of error for the poll was 3.5 percent. Now given how that meant Biden could be below 50 percent, it was understandable that the cast of characters on ABC’s Good Morning America were floored by the results." The next day, Kyle Drennen kept up the hype job under the headline "Here’s the Bad Biden Polling News Networks Are Hiding."

Neither Fondacaro nor Drennen mentioned that most mainstream polls didn't show Trump above 50 percent at any point during his presidency, nor did they mention their employer's insistence that polls are rigged.

In July, Drennen had another poll to hype: "With COVID cases, violent crime, inflation, and illegal immigration all on the rise after the first six months of Joe Biden’s presidency, it’s no surprise that pessimism about the country’s future has surged in a new ABC News/Ipsos poll released Sunday morning. However, rather than provide full coverage of this bad news for the Democrat in the White House, the liberal network only managed a paltry 91 seconds of air time divided among three broadcasts on Sunday and Monday." Again, it was not discussed why the MRC suddenly finds media polls credible again.

When the Afghanistan withdrawal in August didn't go well, the MRC pounced on polls expressing disapproval -- and said nothing about why those polls are suddenly trustworthy. Fondacaro was happy with a poll gotcha from a despised "liberal media" reporter in an Aug. 22 post:

During another White House press conference where he tried to gaslight Americans about his poor decision-making and planning in Afghanistan, President Biden was confronted by CBS senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe with a network poll that shows the public was questioning his competence and ability to be president.

After asking a question about whether or not he trusted the Taliban, O’Keefe prefaced “a new poll out today shows Americans wanted to withdraw from Afghanistan, but they disapprove of the way you've handled it.”

And given how harsh the poll was for the President, O’Keefe actually begged for Biden’s forgiveness: “The poll also found that based in part on what's transpired in the past week, a majority of Americans – forgive me, I'm just the messenger – no longer consider you to be competent, focused, or effective at the job.”

[...]

The poll definitely struck a nerve with Biden. When he got around to answering O’Keefe’s first question, he snapped at the journalist. “I don't trust anybody, including you. I love ya, but, you know, there's not a lot of people I trust,” he said.

Drennen whined the next day:

Despite Chuck Todd warning on Sunday’s Meet the Press that President Biden’s falling poll numbers amid the disaster in Afghanistan could signal a “forever stain” on his presidency, that evening’s Nightly News and Monday’s Today show completely ignored the negative findings in the network’s latest survey. While both broadcasts continued covering the Afghanistan debacle, reporters weren’t interested in talking about the American people giving Biden failing marks on his woeful mishandling of the crisis.

[...]

Despite having a full two hours, Monday’s Today show also lacked a single second on the poll – though it did manage to offer nearly three minutes on the ongoing search for a new Jeopardy host.

Tim Graham's Aug. 25 podcast similarly hyped bad polls: "On the latest NewsBusters Podcast, we discuss the media's temperamental use of polling results. They have a tendency to highlight polls that underline the narratives and candidates they like, but tend to bury poll results they don't like and don't match their talking points." We didn't listen to the podcast, but we're guessing that Graham didn't discuss his employer's flip-flop from denouncing polls last fall to demanding they be covered now.

Scott Whitlock picked up the hype baton in a Sept. 2 post:

Joe Biden hit record lows in two new polls on Thursday. Will the journalists at ABC, CBS and NBC bother to cover, or even notice, the cratering polling for the Democrat? They certainly enjoyed covering bad news for Donald Trump. In the new NPR/PBS survey, Biden’s approval has slipped to just 43 percent, a new low. In the new Rasmussen poll, the President has fallen to 42 percent, a tie for his record low.

[...]

The Biden White House is cratering in the polls. The Real Clear Politics average showed the approve/disapprove numbers intersect in late August as the Afghanistan disaster worsened.

Whitlock went on to complain about "the 'Republicans pounce'-esque tone" of an article that pointed out how Republicans are trying to exploit Biden's low poll numbers for political gain ... in an article in whcih the Republican Whitlock is pouncing on Biden's low poll numbers in order to exploit them for political gain.

What Whitlock didn't mention: Biden's numbers were still higher than Trump's at the same point in his presidency.

Whitlock pounced again the next day:

Another day, another record low poll for Joe Biden. But the media are still doing their best to hide the implosion of the Democrat’s presidency. ABC’s Good Morning America on Friday buried a survey the network did with The Washington Post finding Biden cratering to 44 percent. On Thursday, new polls showed Biden at 43 and 42 percent, also record lows. 

[...]

There’s no indication that Biden’s numbers show any hint of improving. But journalists will do their best to hide the bad news for Democrats.

Just like Whitlock is doing his best to hide the fact that his employer vehemently distrusted media polls just a few short months ago.

Fondacaro came back on Sept 5 in full pounce mode:

The deadly incompetence in Afghanistan, the summer of skyrocketing prices, and sluggish job growth all stemming from massive spending that’s driven up inflation had woke up Americans to the liberal media’s lies about President Biden being a world-class leader. With pollsters now showing Biden as a largely unpopular president, ABC was suddenly shocked during Sunday’s Good Morning America as they finally gave their polling some daylight and analysis.

ABC couldn’t even be honest about when the poll came out. According to co-anchor Dan Harris, the ABC News/Washington Post poll was “released overnight.” But in reality, the poll was released on September 3, Friday.

But, of course, ABC would lie about when their poll of released because this may have been the first time their viewers had really heard about it. As NewsBusters’ Scott Whitlock reported on Friday, that morning’s GMA only gave the findings 30 seconds=. The Sunday segment was just over two minutes (2:05).

Meanwhile, Fondacaro and the rest of the MRC have given zero seconds to explaining the MRC's polling flip-flop.

AIM Is Mad Media Bias Chart Doesn't Reflect Its Own Bias
Topic: Accuracy in Media

An anonymously written Sept. 14 Accuracy in Media article complains about the latest Ad Fontes media bias chart:

Despite claims by Ad Fontes Media that its analysts are some of the chart’s findings are dubious at best. For instance, it lists Reuters as a centrist, fact-reporting outlet. However, just this past summer, Reuters displayed a blatant double-standard about what types of protests were at risk of spreading Covid-19. Reuters claimed that Black Lives Matter protests would not lead to spikes in Covid-19 cases but that protests in favor of Cuban liberation risked exacerbating the Covid-19 spike. How is an outlet that acts as a lobbyist for the socialist dictatorship of Cuba a “centrist, fact-reporting” source?

In addition to Reuters, other outlets such as NowThis, Teen Vogue, and Vice are categorized as only “skews left” and are a mix of fact reporting and analysis when in reality, these outlets put out extremist content frequently. Just recently, NowThis put out climate propaganda on behalf of the Biden administration. Vice insisted that Marines were actually neo-nazis while also advocating for controversial vaccine passports and downplaying valid arguments against them.

Well, vaccine passports are a health issue, not a political issue. Similarly, climate change is also not a political issues much as AIM has been indoctrinated by its fellow right-wingers to portray it as one. And Ad Fontes likely didn't rush to a snap judgment on Reuters' alleged bias based on three cherry-picked articles out of the thousands it publishes each year, like AIM did. Indeed, as the anonymous AIM writer goes on to quote from the group's website, “Ad Fontes Media has a team of over 40 paid analysts who rate individual articles, episodes, and shows of news sources. They are politically balanced left, right, and center, and come from a range of personal and professional backgrounds.”

AIM wasn't done complaining:

When it comes to right-wing media sources, the chart plays fast and loose in terms of who they list as “extreme.” According to Ad Fontes Media, conservative outlets and personalities such as Tucker Carlson, Sean Hannity, Ben Shapiro and Fox News as a whole are all borderline propaganda sources that are nearly on par with Alex Jones of InfoWars. 

Unlike with the outlets it complained weren't placed left enough, AIM offered no evidence to support its claims that Carlson, Hannity, et al, aren't "borderline propaganda."

Based on these faulty complaints, the anonymous AIM writer concluded by whining:

The trouble with this is that the Media Bias Chart is taught in classrooms across the country. In fact, its website has an entire section dedicated to resources teachers can use for their curriculum.

[...]

How can a company that has so failed at identifying its own bias teach America’s youth about how to identify it themselves?

How can an organization like AIM credibly analyze "media bias" when it has trouble admitting there's any in right-wing media?

WND Columnist Keeps Up False COVID Vaccine Fearmongering
Topic: WorldNetDaily

One of WorldNetDaily's most prolific COVID misinformers, Marilyn Singleton -- who's linked with the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- is not stopping. She gaslighted in a July 23 column:

Breathless headlines featuring "the Virus" are beginning to fade into a chronic undercurrent of "fear thy neighbor," for he might be bearing the gift of COVID. What you won't see in the headlines are stories about a more pervasive and ultimately more lethal virus: a growing disregard for others and devaluation of life. Rampant homicides are disheartening enough, but more shocking is the shifting morality in medicine.

News headlines gave the impression that the newly instituted COVID rules were designed to save lives, yet we soon learned the lockdowns, masking and school closures did more harm than good. Meanwhile – in plain sight – government-sanctioned sacrifice of the elderly was taking place. 

[...]

Sadly, physicians have become willing participants in the government's borderline coercion by not informing themselves about early treatments for COVID or the side effects of the experimental vaccine. Federal and state governments are bribing, cajoling and subjecting us to door-to-door pressure to take an injection of a product that could be killing us in numbers not seen before. Serious reactions include miscarriages, Bell's palsy, Guillain-Barre Syndrome, blood clotting disorders (including brain clots) and anaphylaxis. Bizarrely, the White House is challenging colleges to vaccinate entire campuses, despite sometimes fatal heart inflammation after vaccinations in young adults (who have infinitesimal risk of significant COVID illness).

It appears we are guinea pigs in a grand experiment. The elderly were the casualties of Phase I. As the post-vaccine bodies pile up, the Nuremberg Code's principle is being ignored: The experiment must be stopped if continuation would result in injury and death.

It's not too late. Physicians must remember their Oath of Hippocrates and speak up and act for the benefit of their patients, even in the face of conflicting government dictates.

Singleton is lying of course -- the COVID vaccines aren't killing anyone.

Singleton repeated her fearmongering and gaslighting in her Aug. 23 column:

COVID-19 is the latest justification for government overreach in the name of public health. There is little reason for confidence given the CDC's faulty COVID-19 tests, the conflicting information on the usefulness of wearing masks and censoring of effective treatments that were not on the infallible Dr. Fauci's personal favorite list. (Note: The World Health Organization recommended against the use of his favored drug, remdesivir). Adding to the erosion of trust is the change in definition of a COVID-19 "case." Prior to the vaccination rollout, any positive COVID-19 test – with or without symptoms – was a "case." Now, a positive test in a vaccinated person is only considered a "case" if the patient was hospitalized or died.

The federal health bureaucracy is encouraging businesses and local governments to mandate vaccines, despite the growing list of adverse effects, their modest effectiveness against the predominant Delta variant and the imminent need for booster shots. According to data gathered from the Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System, as of Aug. 23, 2021, there have been 13,068 deaths, 154,142 hospitalizations, 5,617 cases of anaphylaxis, 4,681 cases of Bell's Palsy, 1,607 miscarriages, 4,861 cases of myocarditis/pericarditis, 13,812 life-threatening reactions and 17,228 permanently disabled, among other issues. On one hand, it is arguable that this is a pittance given that 360,634,287 doses of Pfizer, Moderna, or Johnson & Johnson/Janssen (J&J) vaccines have been given.

She's lying here too, deliberately misinterpreting VAERS data, which was never meant to documnent proven connections between vaccines and side effects. Indeed, the VAERS database itself clearly states that "the inclusion of events in VAERS data does not imply causality." Yet she continued to fearmonger and gaslight:

We do not know all the risks of the current COVID-19 vaccines available in the United States. Yet the vaccines are given in drive-through parking lots with little to no discussion.

[...]

Drunk with power and preying on our fears, the federal government is having corporations do its bidding. Mandates unsupported by medical science could be the greatest threat to our lives and liberty.

And Singleton is not drunk with right-wing notoriety and preying upon people's fears by spreading lies about the COVID vaccines? She apparently believes she's exempt from scrutiny... and libel law.

CNS Keeps Up The Weird (And Anti-LGBT) Attacks on Schumer
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com hates Chuck Schumer as much as it does Nancy Pelosi -- and, as with Pelosi, it loves to write weird articles about Schumer to make him look buffoonish or, conversely, insufficiently hateful of the LGBT community.

In March, some poor anonymous CNS staff writer was actually tasked to crank out an article about Schumer sharing ice cream with someone described in the headline only as a "2-year-old kid -- but is actually his grandson:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) sent out a tweet on Sunday that featured a video of himself eating ice cream off the spoon of Noah Melvin Schumer-Shapiro, his two-year-old grandson.

In the tweet, Schumer says: “Noah and his grandpa having ice cream!”

Nowhere was it explained why this article exists. Two days later, Schumer got another anonymous article, this time headlined "Chuck Schumer: ‘I’m Praying…I Continue to Pray’" -- just like it does for Pelosi.

A month later, that same anonymous CNS writer (or perhaps a different one) got tasked to write about this:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) sent out a tweet on Sunday that included a photo of himself within a few feet of a television set—with a bottle of beer in his right hand.

“Excited to be watching the Oscars with an ice-cold plant-based beer,” Schumer said in his tweet.

“Thanks Joe Biden,” he said.

The reference to a “plant-based beer” was presumably a reference to a statement that Larry Kudlow made on his Fox Business show on Friday.

So it was a joke -- which nobody at CNS apparently found funny, ;east of all the anonymous writer.

In May, another anonymously written article weirdly attacking Schumer popped up:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) gave a speech Saturday at New York’s Cannabis Parade and Rally and sent out tweets marking the celebration.

New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo signed legislation in April that legalized possessing, using and selling marijuana in New York.

“It’s the Cannabis Parade and Rally in New York City,” Schumer said in one tweet. “This year, we finally equitably legalized marijuana in New York.

“And I won’t stop working to end the federal prohibition on marijuana and undo the harms of the War on Drugs,” he said.

“The War on Drugs has been a war on people,” Schumer said in a following tweet.

CNS was obviously offended by this, but the anonymous writer can't be bothered to tell his (or her) readers why this is so bothersome.

On July 22, a writer --  Craig Bannister -- not only surprisingly committed an actual byline to a Schumer hit piece but also appeared to admit that the point was to mock Schumer and his grandson:

“Noah’s first visit to the Capitol!” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) boasted in a Thursday Twitter post of his two year-old grandson sitting next to him – both without coronavirus masks – at the U.S. Capitol.

Social media was quick to chide Schumer and Noah for brazenly rejecting the COVID precaution at the Capitol – and Schumer for having the audacity to publicly post the photo of the two doing it. “They don’t have masks. Masks are for peasants,” one tweet highlighted by Twitchy mocks.

On Sept. 15, another reporter -- this time Susan Jones -- put her name to a Schumer hit piece:

At the start of a Democrat [sic] leaders' news conference on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) sneezed, prompting Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.)--who was standing right next to him and in the direction that he sneezed--to ask him, "Where's your mask?"

“It's here in my pocket," Schumer said, explaining that he doesn’t have a cold (or COVID!): "It's sneezing from eating," he said.

[...]

For the record, here's another little-known fact:

According to the< Healthline website, Schumer's condition is known as "Snatiation," which is a combination of the words "sneeze" and "satiation."

"It refers to a relatively common but poorly understood condition that causes people to sneeze uncontrollably after a large meal...Snatiation is likely genetic and doesn’t cause any health problems. If you notice that you sneeze more after large meals, try eating smaller meals or eating slowly."

So, after mocking him and portraying him as a insensitive dolt, Jones waited until the end of her article to admitt he may be right about his condition. Thanks for demonstrating how CNS puts its agenda before the facts, Susan.

CNS kept up its anti-LGBT shots at Schumer as well. In April, an anonymous writer grumbled that Schumer "gave a speech on the floor of the U.S. Senate on March 24 in which he applauded President Joe Biden for nominating the 'first openly transgender official ever confirmed by the U.S. Senate,'” Rachel Levine. In keeping with CNS' history of attacking Biden's LGBT nominees, the anonymous writer made sure to add: "Levine grew up in Massachusetts as Richard Levine. He married a woman and had two children. According to a 2016 report in the Washington Post, Levine “publicly announced herself as a transgender woman” in about 2011."

Another writer hiding behind anonymity whined in June:

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D.-N.Y.) sent out a tweet on Sunday boasting that although he has personally marched in the New York City Pride Parade for more than two decades this was the first time a Senate Majority Leader has done so.

[...]

In yet another tweet, he provided a video of himself marching in the parade, waving a rainbow flag and saying: “Happy Pride, everybody!”

In still another tweet, he said: “I’ve marched with #NYCPride for over 20 years. It might look a little different this year, but that couldn’t stop us from celebrating because the LGBTQ+ community is strong!”

In one other tweet, Schumer showed images of himself from previous Pride Parades. “Happy #Pride!,” he said. “Taking a look back at marching with #NYCPRide through the years.”

As usual, there was no explanation for why this bothered CNS so much it made a reporter who wouldn't put a name to the work write about it.

MRC Embraces Woodward Book ... To Accuse Milley of Treason
Topic: Media Research Center

A new year, a new Bob Woodward book exposing the highly dysfunctional inner workings of the Trump White House -- and, just like last year, another round of tirades and ranting from the Media Research Center over said book.

This time, though, Woodward and co-writer Robert Costa (a former writer for the conservative National Review) served up a tidbit the MRC could work with, one that kept it from attacking them, at least at first: In the midst of Trump's increasingly unstable mental state following his election defeat and out of fear that he might provoke a war with China, Joint Chiefs of Staff head Gen. Mark Milley that he secretly contacted Chinese officials to assure them that the U.S. wouldn't attack. But instead of focusing on the instability of their favorite president that forced such extraordinary measures, the MRC decided to accuse Milley of treason, like Nicholas Fondacaro did in a Sept. 14 post:

If a military general tried to insert himself into the chain of command in an attempt to usurp power from a civilian Democratic president and promised America’s chief adversary they would warn them if we were going to attack, the liberal media would be screaming and calling it what it was: treason. But since Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley did those exact things to President Trump, CBS and NBC came out in strong support of it during their Tuesday evening newscasts, suggesting he was protecting the nation.

Fondacaro pressed the "treason" narrative again a few hours later:

For much of Tuesday, CNN was fixated on claims from Bob Woodward’s new book that Joint Chiefs Chairman General Mark Milley had committed treason by promising China that he would warn them if the United States planned to attack. It even weaseled into their California recall election coverage where special correspondent Jamie Gangel openly defended Milley, suggesting he was just trying to protect the country and critics were acting on politics.

Unsurprisingly, Fondacaro refused to address the issue of Trump's mental instability.

Mark Finkelstein complained that CNN had on Miles Taylor, who anonymously wrote a book criticizing the Trump administration while still working in the Trump White House, to talk about the accusation, huffing that Tayloer was "the most perfectly partisan source" -- never mind that, again, he worked in the Trump White House -- and weirdly adding that "There's something of the callow youth about the 33-year-old Taylor."

Kristine Marsh got back to the treason narrative and downplayed the mental instability angle:

The View’s Joy Behar emphatically defended General Mark Milley, after it was revealed in Bob Woodward’s book that he may have committed treason while President Trump was in office.

In the journalist’s book, he claims that the Joint Chiefs Chairman, and principal military adviser to the president, secretly called China to assure them he would warn in advance if President Trump planned an attack against their country. Some might call that treason. But Joy Behar was fine with that, even being at odds with her equally liberal co-hosts.

[...]

But Behar was thankful for the general’s alleged betrayal of our country, because Trump was a “lunatic” and a “certifiable nutcase” who should’ve been removed from office, she claimed[.]

Fondacaro ranted some more, nonsensically calling Milley "woke" as well as treasonous:

The broadcast networks doubled down Wednesday in their defense of the woke general, Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, going from beyond just circling the wagons to building out a fort backed by President Joe Biden. Each of the “big three” were out to paint him as a hero who single-handedly kept President Trump from destroying the world, a delusion they and Milley wished was true. They even tried to rationalize his promise to China to sell out America if we attacked.

Fondacaro insisted that there was "no evidence Trump was planning" an attack on China or Iran, but didn't mention that mentally unstable people are not known for their advance planning.

Finkelstein returned with a post that didn't mention Trump's mental instability but did lecture: "If substantiated, it means that behind the back of the President and Commander-in-Chief, Milley agreed to give a foreign adversary advance notice of an attack. That would constitute an egregious dereliction of duty, and a violation of the core constitutional principle of civilian control of the military."

Clay Waters decided that Milley was guilty of sedition instead of treason:

Wednesday’s New York Times ran a story on a new book by Washington Post reporters Bob Woodward and Robert Costa. “New Book Details Fears Trump Would Start War.”

But national security correspondent Michael Schmidt glossed over the book’s biggest alleged bombshell: That the nation’s top military officer, Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, supposedly promised to provide China, a foreign rival, a heads-up if any attack was coming.

Such a secret promise to undermine civilian control of the military sounds akin to sedition, and would if true help vindicate “Deep State” concerns from Trump supporters. Yet the Times didn’t even notice.

P.J. Gladnick finally acknowledged questions about Trump's mental health -- but he was more interested in a gotcha on a reporter on a minor side issue:

CBS News correspondent Ed O'Keefe attempted to defend the actions of General Mark Milley's secret unauthorized contact with his Chinese counterpart by claiming that national security officials cast aspersions on President Trump's mental health. He added Milley was embarrassed about walking across Lafayette Square with Trump to an Episcopal church on June 1, 2020, where the president allegedly held up an upside-down Bible. 

The problem? It was fake news. The "upside-down" Bible cited by O'Keefe was actually held right-side-up. A fact that O'Keefe should have known.

Finkelstein came back to whine:

You ignorant Americans! How "delusional" can you be to think there was anything wrong about the Chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff promising America's greatest adversary to tip them off to any impending attack!

As "delusional" as that might seem to patriotic Americans, that was exactly Nicolle Wallace's opinion on her MSNBC show Friday. Discussing Joint Chief Chairman Mark Milley's phone call with his ChiCom counterpart in which he promised to give advance warning of a US attack ordered by President Trump, Wallace whined:

"Over in delusional America, where disinformation rules the day, there are calls for his firing and worse."

[...]

Note: consider the implications of Milley's promise to the Communist Chinese military that he would tip them off to any coming American attack. Milley would be sending our military members into an ambush where the enemy would be waiting for them! How is that not a fireable offense, or much, much, worse?

It's apparently not a fireable offense at the MRC for Finkelstein to omit the important context of Trump's mental instability.

And in a Sept. 18 column, Jeffrey Lord blames concerns about Trump's derangement on ... Trump Derangement Syndrome:

But as with Joe Scarborough, other liberals in the media are quick to celebrate Milley’s blatantly unconstitutional actions because, as always, Trump Derangement Syndrome reigns.

[...]

An uncomfortable truth of this moment in American media history is that liberal media simply doesn’t believe in the very Constitution that gives themselves a guarantee of a free press. To them the Constitution and the democratic values it exemplifies are situational. 

And what happens if some future General - or a President - decides to take a page from Milley’s playbook and tries to suspend a network or a newspaper because they think the content aired or published is coming from network executives, editors and reporters the General or President believes are “unstable” or “unhinged”, as Milley was said to believe of Trump? Suddenly there would be self-righteous cries of indignant outrage from those in the media who are now General Milley’s cheerleaders.

All of which is to say, it is abundantly clear liberals in the media could care less about unelected Generals or bureaucrats violating the Constitution - as long as it’s the right unelected General and the right elected President. Got it.

Lord defends Trump no matter what, so perhaps he's not a reliable source of opinion on this.

CNS Promotes Sheriff's Wild Anti-Vaccine Rant
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com managing editor Michael W. Chapman touted in a Sept. 14 article:

Arkansas Sheriff Chris Brown, head of the Cleburne County Sheriff's Office, issued a statement on Sept. 10 declaring that his office "will not mandate the COVID vaccine" for its employees. He also stressed that he was "appalled" by some of the "absolute dictator-like things we are seeing from the Federal Government."

"I am appalled at some of the absolute dictator-like things we are seeing from the Federal Government, and several of the State Governments," wrote Sheriff Brown. "It is absolute tyranny, and completely abhorrent."

"It flies in the face of everything our country has always stood for, and is only furthering the damage and division done to the people of this wonderful nation," he said. 

"I am not pro-vaccine, and I am not anti-vaccine," said Brown. "I am pro-freedom, and I am for each person’s ability and responsibility to decide for themselves (in conjunction with their doctor) whether or not to get the vaccine."

Chapman didn't mention, however, that Cleburne County has a low vaccination rate and a very high risk of its residents catching COVID -- which makes Brown irresponsible for refusing to do what he can to boost public health and safety in his county, which is supposed to be part of his job. (Also, if you are not pro-vaccine, it makes you effectively anti-vaccine.) It also makes Chapman irresponsible for hiding relevant facts that would demonstrate Brown's irresponsibility.

In other words, neither of these people are very good at their respective jobs.

Newsmax Columnist Is Sore Loser About Calif. Recall
Topic: Newsmax

The Media Research Center is not the only ConWeb entity to be a sore loser over the California recall atempt. Judd Dunning ranted in a Sept. 16 Newsmax column:

It’s a perfect day to fly California state flags at half-mast for lost liberty. America’s backwards national trendsetter, and my home the last 24 years, has spoken.

By a roughly 63.9% to 36.1% majority (*with 70% voting in at the time of this column), Californians support more vaccine mandates, free market business repression, and individual liberty infringements.

“Rules for me and not for thee” elites are, once again, accepted as our new normal.

Gavin Newsom raised $80,000,000 from local entertainment and eco-socialists. Newsom desperately called in mentally crisp Joe “Jimmy Carter” Biden fresh off his Afghanistan “victory lap.”

[...]

Gavin successfully spread fear. Many Newsom supporters are over-emotional, dreamy, often well-tanned, socialist-tolerant sheep.

There is little resistance amongst this well wooled ilk. And why should there be, for those who worship “The State”?

California is a nanny state still high on PPP, EDD, and THC. Little excitement exists for leaving beaches and couches to return to work.

A true majority of Californians love and trust big government.

Our populace obediently watches gobs of leftist news and social media propaganda. It’s a spectator sport here.

Despite all that, Dunning couldn't even be that excited about the Republicans' leading candidate. "Larry Elder has boldly ripped the heads off stupid locals since 1993; as result he is loved by many and hated by more. It was just a fact," adding, "Trump caught elites off guard. Elder is great, but he’s not Trump."

Dunning then played the bogus election-fraud card:

It is a sad state that in the background many still do not trust our elections. Even Tuesday night, on CNN 351,000 “Yes” votes disappeared in an instant during live coverage of the Newsom Recall Election in California.

It remains an unsolved issue and one not to be determined on the federal level. Just as in 2020 our exact recall numbers seem they too, may never be properly known.

Dunning's source for this claim was the notoriously unreliable Gateway Pundit. And, no, it's not true: the exra votes were mistakenly entered then deleted when the mistake was discovered.

Dunning concluded by serving up a familiar turn of phrase:

Here in California behind it all, our greatest issue is our pre-existing hard leftist Foucault-like social capital contracts where people feel a pressure to conform to wokeness, or face getting cancelled or lose freedom for thinking a certain way.

Many have become programmed forgetful robots – and that in essence is … the Newsom problem.

We remember when a Newsmax columnist referred to the "Obama problem," the solution for which, he believed, was a military coup.

NEW ARTICLE: WND Doubles Down On The Big Lie
Topic: WorldNetDaily
An issue of WorldNetDaily's Whistleblower magazine dedicated to insisting that the election was stolen from Trump might have been considered somewhat credible if it wasn't so filled with easily debunked and discredited claims. Read more >>

MRC Runs The Larry Elder Defense Committee, Part 3: Sore Losers
Topic: Media Research Center

We've documented how the Media Research Center went all in on advocating for and defending Larry Elder as the Republican candidate in the California recall election (while probably relieved that it was no longer forced to suppress its natural transphobia in order to defend an early GOP front-runner, Caitlyn Jenner). That continued the day before the Sept. 14 election. Curtis Houck attacked MSNBC's Joy Reid for criticizing Eider:

MSNBC’s The ReidOut host Joy Reid continued the liberal media’s meltdown over the possibility of Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) losing Tuesday’s recall election, warning Friday that Republican candidate Larry Elder would not only bring a far-right vision to California, but he will have exploited recall process with help from “right-wing activists” and “wealthy conservative donors” to infect Californians with deadly bouts of COVID.

Reid opened by bragging about improving polls for Newsom because of what The Los Angeles Times “a referendum on Trumpism,” adding she meant it translated into scaring voters that Elder “would turn the great state of California into another Texas or Florida.”

[...]

She also dismissed disapproval of Newsom in the Golden State as Astroturf, spitting on the face of millions of California by dubbing recall as “nothing more than a Republican power grab organized by right-wing activists and financed by wealthy conservative donors.”

Houck made no effort to disprove anything Reid said.

Meanwhile, Scott Whitlock was praising actress Rose McGowan -- whom the MRC was attacking just a few years ago as among the "wealthy celebrities" who showed "lack of empathy" by calling for new gun regulations after the Las Vegas massacre --  for her endorsement of Elder:

Normally if a movie/TV star endorsed a Democrat and made a blockbuster claim about a prominent Republican, journalists and network outlets would be anxious to repeat and promote the claim. But when actor and activist Rose McGowan endorsed Larry Elder and the recall effort against Gavin Newsom, there was a collective media yawn from ABC, CBS and NBC. 

In addition to the endorsement, McGowan also accused Newsom’s wife of being in on the effort to protect convicted sex rapist Harvey Weinstein. Yet there has been no network coverage of her Sunday appearance with Republican Elder. MSNBC on Monday allowed a scant 47 seconds with Hallie Jackson trying to “both sides” the blockbuster claim: “You've got both sides trying to bring out some star power and some last-minute allegations coming from some.”

In other words, Whitlock got mad at MSNBC for doing to McGowan what the MRC had done a few years earlier.

Nicholas Fondacaro ranted: "The Monday night before California’s recall election, two of the broadcast networks were solidly backing embattled Governor Gavin Newsom as they downplayed his COVID hypocrisy and tried to stoke fear of Republican front runner and radio host, Larry Elder."

And that was it for the MRC's electioneering. But when the election results showed decisively supporting Newsom and rejecting the recall, the MRC went into sore-loser mode afterwards. Whitlock whined:

The media on Wednesday are cheering how Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom won his recall election, but that's not at all how some media liberals reacted when it was a Republican Governor, Wisconsin's Scott Walker, who won his recall back in 2012. Then, they grumbled about the defeat of a union-backed attempt to remove the conservative, lamenting all the money spent. 

All three networks trumpeted Newsom surviving California’s recall election as a “resounding affirmation” and “vindication” for the Democrat’s policies. CBS Mornings journalist Major Garrett touted the California results: “The Governor told me he'd made mistakes. But now he has something other elected officials don't have: vindication. This recall election in the end was a referendum on his pandemic policies and the result was a blowout.”

Garrett seemed to have no issue with the massive amount of money spent to save the Democrat. He matter-of-factly explained: “Newsom raised about $70 million to fight the recall, roughly six times the total of conservative radio talk show host and GOP front-runner Larry Elder.”

Whitlock served up some whataboutism as well:

This is a quite a contrast to the tantrum thrown by journalists when the people of Wisconsin rejected a recall of Walker. On the June 6, 2012 Nightly News, then-anchor Brian Williams contemptuously lectured that "money flowed into that state from all over the country, from people who had never been to Wisconsin, had no connection to Wisconsin.”

Unlike the lack of concern about money in 2021, Williams warned, “Part of the new and unlimited spending that is changing politics in a hurry.” Then-CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley complained, "The Wisconsin battle also was a preview of how much money is changing politics these days. Donations flooded into the state on both sides. The recall election may have cost more than $75 million, and about half of that came from outside Wisconsin. A lot of it from wealthy individuals." 

Wilmouth returned to serve up a different brand of whataboutism, this one of the Fox-fluffing kind:

As the California recall campaign closed, New Dayand other CNN shows ignored news reflecting unfavorably on Democrats while going negative against Republican candidate Larry Elder until the very end.

New Day and other CNN shows completely ignored liberal actress Rose McGowan's endorsement of Elder as she also accused Democratic Governor Newsom's ex-wife of trying to protect Democratic donor Harvey Weinstein from McGowan's charges of sexual assault.

As for the woman who made a racially-charged attack on Elder by throwing an egg at him while wearing a gorilla mask, Erin Burnett OutFront and Early Start were the only two CNN shows to give it any coverage, with Early Start burying it before 6:00 a.m. Kyung Lah even hinted that Elder was to blame for the attack as she asserted that he "draws out some hatred from people."

By contrast. New Day's competitor on Fox News Channel, Fox & Friends, covered both stories. On election day Tuesday, Fox showed a clip of McGowan being interviewed by Fox host Tucker Carlson discussing why a liberal like here would support Elder.

Wilmouth offered no evidence that the egg incident was "racially charged." Instead, he continued to praise Fox News for hyping the "racist egg attack," while complaining that CNN "jump[ed] on Elder for suggesting 'shenanigans' by Democrats might cost him the election, with CNN host Brianna Keilar calling it 'the little big lie' on Monday's show."

Given that no credible evidence has surfaced to back up Elder's pre-emptive claim of voter fraud, it can be argued that CNN was right to point that out. Strangely, Whitlock didn't question why Fox News chose to censor that.

Then again, the MRC knows what side its bread is buttered on. It has been publishing Elder's column since early this year. Elder suspended the column during his campaign, but he returned with two columns on Sept. 29 and Oct. 1 reflecting on his failed campaign -- and the MRC published those without comment.

Muslim-Hating WND Columnist: Islam Is A 'Comorbidity'
Topic: WorldNetDaily

The best way, then, to vet immigrants is by the faith they practice. As the data show, young, second-generation Muslims are well-represented among terrorists acting out against their hosts across the West. Second-generation Muslim-Americans are more prone to act out on their faith than their parents.

Omar Saddiqui Mateen shot up a Florida gay nightclub, in 2016. He was a second-generation Afghan-American. Although Mateen's father was an admirer of the Taliban, the moron media concluded that junior was no jihadist, only a latent, self-hating homosexual, fixated on phallic symbols like big guns.

[...]

The reason for second-generation terrorism is no mystery. More so than girls, boys need strong men in their lives – men who'll affirm their masculinity. Young men crave manly mentors with a strong moral message. But in contemporary American culture, men are sissified and feminized, and biological boundaries blurred. American boys, K-12, are mired in an estrogen-infused, cloistered world where strong men in authority are an endangered minority.

When a Muslim male, moreover, hears American preachers, parents, pedagogues and politicians pounding on about our country's Founding Fathers as the archetypal pale, patriarchal oppressors – he quickly learns to reject his adopted country's heritage and look elsewhere for masculine inspiration, maybe at Muhammad and his acolytes.

The fact that there are moderate Muslims doesn't mean there is a moderate Islam – or that these moderates won't sire sons who'll embrace the unreformed Islam.

As painful as it is to say, being Muslim is a predisposing characteristic, a risk factor, if you will, for eruptions associated with this religion.

By "risk factor," I mean that Islam predisposes its believers to aggression against The Other. For in Islam we have a religion that doubles up as a political system counseling conquest, not co-existence. "Islam's borders are bloody," cautioned famed historian Samuel Huntington. The data support his prescient and profound analysis.

[...]

It is a distraction to claim, as the moderates do, that jihadis are misinterpreting Islam, and that we must all do battle for the real Islam, a thing as elusive as Bigfoot or unicorns. Fact: A Muslim's actions, be they in accordance with the "real Islam" or not – sanctioned theologically or not – could be deadly to Americans.

Afghans are as tough as teak. America, however, is a soft, feminized, sentimental and self-hating society. It is dangerous to import men from such a militant manly culture into a country that teaches its immigrants to hate American history and heroes, and to despise and dominate our naive, eager-to-please people and their customs.

More so than countries-of-origin, religion is The Risk Factor in vetting Afghan immigrants. In the popular parlance, we might say that their Muslim faith puts Afghan Muslims in a security risk group and that Islam is a religious comorbidity.

-- Ilana Mercer, Sept. 2 WND column

Newsmax Columnist: Biden Had 'No Business' Attending 9/11 Events
Topic: Newsmax

Thursday afternoon, White House press secretary Jen Psaki announced that President Joe Biden will not deliver a live speech on September 11.

"You will hear from him in the form of a video in advance — or that will be available that day, I should say," she said.

However, earlier Biden wormed his way into appearing at all three memorial services scheduled for Saturday, the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.

He has no business attending any of the events.

His actions in Afghanistan and at the U.S.-Mexican border have made the United States more vulnerable to terrorism today — than we were 20 years ago.

[...]

When it comes to future terror attacks against the U.S., terrorists only have to be successful once; the U.S. has to be successful every time in stopping those terrorists.

So far, Biden’s scorecard on COVID, the economy, border control, foreign policy, national security, crime, energy policy, and bringing America together, reads zero-for-eight.

Given that record, odds are good that his administration could also fail to avert a serious terror attack.

If he wants to start doing things right, he can begin by staying home on 9/11.

-- Michael Dorstewitz, Sept. 10 Newsmax column

CNS Weirdly Rushes To Defend Pat Buchanan, Censors Conflict of Interest
Topic: CNSNews.com

Susan Jones kicked off a Sept. 8 CNSNews.com "news" article with her usual biased editorializing:

Speaking about the Democrats' $3.5-trillion entitlement package on Wednesday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told a news conference, "I'm so excited as to how transformative it is," especially for mothers of young children who want to go back to work "to reach their fulfillment."

Pelosi said building back better means sending more moms to work and more children to federally subsidized daycare:

Jones then got weirdly defensive when Pelosi referenced President Nixon's veto of subsidized child care in 1971 in a statement written by his then-aide, Pat Buchanan:

Pelosi reached back fifty years to criticize President Nixon -- and his speechwriter Patrick J. Buchanan -- for vetoing a publicly funded child care bill in 1971.

‘So, again, just for your information, I remember -- now, some of you weren't born then,” Pelosi said:

I remember that we were on the brink of this when I was having my small little babies, my five children in six years. We saw that in the Congress of the United States when Richard Nixon was president.

In a bipartisan way, the Congress passed the child care bill. Look, in the history books, everybody thought the president would sign it. It was cause for great excitement and would make a big difference.

Somebody named Patrick Buchanan intervened, making it a cultural issue, like we're sending our children to a Soviet-style situation by having child care, and the president vetoed the bill 50 years ago, 1971.

So, it's long, long, long overdue that we recognize the importance of our children and their care, the value of women in the workplace, and the only way that we can truly Build Back Better is with women in the workplace.

So that's why this is my theme all along, with our members has been Build Back Better with women, remarkable, remarkable transformational initiatives in this legislation.

Nixon's 1971 veto message, written by Buchanan, criticized "communal approaches to child rearing" versus "the family-centered approach."

Jones followed that by declared, "Here, verbatim, are Nixon's nine objections to the 1971 attempt at having the federal government directly involved in child care," followed by, yes, a lengthy reproduction of said objections.

There was no mention, however of the reason Jones rushed to defend (or was ordered to rush to defend) the honor of Nixon and Buchanan: Her boss, Terry Jeffrey, worked for Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign and managed his 1996 presidential run. It says so right on his CNS bio.

Consider this yet another reminder that CNS isn't really about news, it's about advancing political narratives -- which is exactly what you should expect for an organization run by a political operative who won't disclose his conflicts of interest.

Alex Berenson Becomes A Useful Tool For The MRC's 'Censorship' Victimhood Narrative
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center loves misinformation about COVID and its vaccines, so it's no surprise that it has embraced longtime COVID misinformer Alex Berenson -- even invoking his status as a former New York Times reporter in a bizarre attempt to build his credibility (even though the MRC has a blogger devoted almost exclusively to trying to discredit the Times). So it was inevitable that he would be folded into the MRC's "censorship" victimization narrative -- despite the fact that the Atlantic has documented how Berenson has been wrong about much of the pandemic, going so far as to call him "the Secretariat of being wrong."

In June 2020, Alexander Hall hyped that Amazon briefly banned sale of a book Berenson wrote on the pandemic, making sure to call him a "former New York Times reporter." In December, Kayla Sargent gave Berenson full entry in the MRC's victimhood pantheon:

Conservatives have long bemoaned the lack of viewpoint diversity in the discussion surrounding COVID-19, but for one Wall Street Journal columnist, the issue is personal.  

Former New York Times reporter and author Alex Berenson claimed in a recent article for The Wall Street Journal that Amazon “has twice tried to suppress” several booklets that he wrote about COVID-19.

“Like the scientists who wrote the Great Barrington Declaration, I simply believe many measures to control the coronavirus have been damaging, counterproductive and unsupported by science,” wrote Berenson.

As we've noted, the Great Barrington Declaration pushed "herd immunity" to COVID -- something most virus experts disagreed with -- and it was so poorly vetted that the declaration includes fake names.

Joseph Vazquez touted Berenson echoing the MRC's victimhood narrative on Fox Business in a March post:

Author and former New York Times reporter Alex Berenson joined Fox Business to sound the alarm on the amount of power that Big Tech wields over the flow of information.

Berenson slammed Big Tech companies like Facebook for wanting it “both ways.” Specifically, if Big Tech companies were utilities, they would not be held liable for “every bit of speech” across their platforms, but at the same time that would mean they “can’t censor anything,” Berenson said. Regarding opinions and factually inaccurate information, Berenson asked on the March 25 edition of Mornings with Maria: “Do we want these companies in the business of deciding what’s factually accurate, what isn’t? Do we want them fact-checking, which Facebook increasingly does?” He continued: “Do we want [Big Tech] — you know — destroying large groups that come together for causes that some people may not like, or many people may not like? I think that’s a really bad idea.” 

Berenson said that the Big Tech behemoths needed to decide: “Are they publishers, where they’re responsible for everything, or are they utilities where essentially they’re not responsible for anything, unless it’s clearly illegal?”

It sounds like Berenson simply wants to get away with pushing misinformation -- not that Vazquez will tell his readers that misinformation is what he's known for.

When Twitter banned Berenson for his repeated COVID misinformation, Gabriela Periseau devoted an Aug. 30 post to inducting him into the "censorship" hall of fame, while also taking the MRC dodge by admitting only that he served up "alleged misinformation":

Former New York Times journalist and author, Alex Berenson, said in a recent statement that he “expected this day was coming.” Twitter “suspended” his account for alleged misinformation.

Fox News reported that Twitter “permanently suspended” Berenson, for his alleged “repeated violations of [Twitter’s] COVID-19 misinformation rules.” Twitter has temporarily restricted Berenson’s account on multiple occasions for his outspoken criticism of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been handled. In “the tweet that did it,” as Berenson described it, he claimed that the controversial COVID-19 vaccines should not be thought of as vaccines but rather as “therapeutic[s].”

Berenson posted a purported picture of his final tweet in his online Substack newsletter, Unreported Truths. “[The COVID-19 vaccine] doesn’t stop infection or transmission,” read the tweet. He added, “[d]on’t think of it as a vaccine. Think of it - at best - as a therapeutic with a limited window of efficacy and terrible side effect profile that must be dosed IN ADVANCE OF ILLNESS. And we want to mandate it?”

Pariseau did not mention Berenson's long history of pushing COVID misinformation.]

The next day, Hall returned to promote Fox News' Tucker Carlson encouraging Berenson to sue Twitter over his suspension (for, yes, "alleged misinformation"), adding that "Berenson has good reason to criticize Big Tech for being too quick to censor when stories are still developing." Like Pariseau, Hall didn't mention that much of what Berenson wrote in this "developing" story has been wrong; instead, Hall dishonestly framed the issue by claiming that "Twitter has temporarily restricted Berenson’s account on multiple occasions for his outspoken criticism of how the COVID-19 pandemic has been handled." Hall also oddly failed to mention that Carlson offered to fund a possible Berenson lawsuit against Twitter.

Needless to say, Berenson's suspension is such an alleged coup for the MRC's victimhood narrative that it made the list of August's "WORST Censorship," Like his MRC co-workers, author Casey Ryan made sure to identify Berenson as a "former New York Times journalist" and declined to mention Berenson's long history of misinformation.

CNS Thinks A Michael Moore Fat Joke Is 'News'
Topic: CNSNews.com

Michael Moore hasn't been a major player in American politics for years, but that doesn't keep conservatives from invoking him as a bogeyman of all things liberal or maklng jokes at his expense -- or CNSNews.com from promoting them.

Thus, we have a Sept. 3 article by Melanie Arter with the headline "Huckabee: Outsourcing Americans’ Protection to the Taliban Is Like ‘Outsourcing Your Diet Plan to Michael Moore’." It's about an appearance by Mike Huckabee on Fox News, where he mainly fretted that "the Biden administration might be able to change the focus from the Americans left behind in Afghanistan if the media doesn’t 'keep pressing the story'" -- basically a demand that Fox News continue to obsess about Afghanistan. t wasn't until the fourth paragraph that Arter brought up the headline money quote:

“It might,” Huckabee said, “because the press lacks the curiosity and the natural cynicism that we need in the press in order to keep pressing the story. The fact is, they let Joe just turn his back and walk away, but outsourcing the future of Americans stranded and held hostage in Afghanistan as Bill aptly said, but to outsource their protection to the Taliban is like outsourcing your diet plan to Michael Moore. 

Arter made sure not to mention Huckabee's own struggles with obesity.

Huckabee and Arter wasn't the only one at CNS who continues to be triggered by Moore after all these years. A Sept. 10 column by Bill Donohue complained that Moore "said that upon the evacuation of Americans from Afghanistan, it was time to defend our nation "against our own domestic Taliban." The left-wing activist previously identified them as Christians." He went on to grouse: "We at the Catholic League have also been called the Taliban, even though, to my knowledge, no one who has worked here has ever walked the streets with a machete or thrown a homosexual off a building."

Of course, given what we know about Donohue's hatred of the LGBTQ community, throwing homosexuals off buildings has likely crossed his mind if he thought he could get away with it.

WND's Brown Again Pretending He's Not Attacking Trangender People
Topic: WorldNetDaily

When Michael Brown began his Sept. 6 WorldNetDaily column by declaring, "This article is not meant to attack young people struggling with deep-seated gender confusion," that was a warning sign -- attacking transgender people, and the rest of the LGBTQ community, is his job. So he has decided to pretend those "young people struggling with deep-seated gender confusion" are the resl victims -- "To the contrary, it is meant to expose the attack on these young people" -- and anyone who helps them affirm their gender identify is the real evil ones. He went on to rant:

I have been warning against the trajectory of LGBTQ activism since 2004, and over these years, I have talked with countless parents and spouses and siblings, many of them weeping as they shared their stories. But recently, after speaking to several thousand Christians in Franklin, Tennessee, the accumulation of stories I heard was overwhelming.

A father came to me in tears, asking what to do for his 17-year-old daughter. Just two years ago, she was a committed Christian, telling her pastor that she stood with him in the fight for biblical sexuality.

One year later, she was identifying as male and threatening suicide if her father refused to authorize her treatments. Not only so, but her older sister had cut off communication with him because he had not capitulated.

A grandmother asked for advice for her grandson, who lived with her and her husband. His best friend, another little boy in the same building, was now wearing a dress. Should they still play together?

A mother broke down crying as she asked how she should relate to her daughter, now in her 20s. A few years ago, she came out as lesbian, then got "married" to her partner, but now has announced she is male and is in the process of transitioning. The daughter also professes to be a devoted Christian who never misses a church service and who opposes LGBTQ activism.

[...]

How on earth did this happen? How have so many people, especially young people, suddenly become so convinced that they are not what their biology and chromosomes say they are? (Again, I do not write this to criticize but to understand, not to hurt but to help.)

And how is it that, according to President Biden and others, "transgender equality" is the civil rights issue of our time?

Rather than consider the possibility that transgender people deserve respect as they try to figure out who they are and that they perhaps they deserve some dignity, Brown plays the "demon" card:

It's as if a horde of demons has been unleashed and our society has fallen into deep deception and delusion. And the ultimate victims, targeted for indoctrination from their earliest years, are the children. (If you think I'm exaggerating, take a minute to watch this "queer, non-binary" pre-school teacher celebrating her accomplishments or this toddler reading through a gay ABC book.)

Whatever the cause of this societal madness, the question that remains is simple: What are we going to do about it?

Nope, definitely not an attack on transgender people. No sirree.