ConWebBlog: The Weblog of ConWebWatch

your New Media watchdog

ConWebWatch: home | archive/search | about | primer | shop

Tuesday, August 29, 2023
MRC's DeSantis Defense Brigade Watch, Casey DeSantis Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has spent the past few decades heaping attacks and scorn on Hillary Clinton, so it's more than a little hypocritical for it to suddenly get the vapors over the spouse of a Republican presidential candidate getting what might be called the Hillary treatment. Tim Graham called up the DeSantis Defense Brigade in a May 21 post:

Everyone should remember upfront before the Republican primaries really begin that Politico is a Democrat outlet. Look no further than Michael Kruse's nasty piece on "The Casey DeSantis Problem." Just read this and think of Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama, and know how much liberals would freak out: 

She is and always has been by far his most important adviser, they say, because she is hesitant to cede that space to nearly anybody else. The DeSantis inner circle is too small and remains so, they say, not only because he constitutionally doesn’t trust people but because she doesn’t either.

Especially forthright are the people who are granted anonymity on account of their fear of retribution given their power — not just his but hers. “She’s the power behind the throne,” a Republican lobbyist told me. “The tip of the spear,” said a Republican consultant.

This is one of the most irresponsible uses of anonymous sources, just to make catty comments with no idea of the vicious anonymous source's motivations. Then Kruse turned to Trump stone-throwers: 

“Have you ever noticed,” Roger Stone, the notorious political mischief-maker who is both a DeSantis antagonist and a many-decades-long Trump loyalist, remarked in a Telegram post last fall, “how much Ron DeSantis’ wife Casey is like Lady Macbeth?” — an agent, in other words, of her husband’s undoing.

As reporters like Fox's oseph Wulfsohnreminded, just last year Politico derided "The return of the Lady Macbeth trope" during the 2022 midterms when it was used against First Lady Jill Biden, Hillary Clinton, and Gisele Fetterman.

We don't recall Graham complaining about those attacks -- in fact, Graham and the rest of the MRC appear to have a case of Jill Biden Derangement Syndrome.Graham went on to tout how "Conservatives slammed the piece on Twitter," continuing to be oblivious to the hypocrisy.

When another piece critical of Casey DeSantis appeared, it was Curtis Houck to go into defense moce in a June 5 post:

Daily Beast executive editor Katie Baker took to her supposedly serious journalistic outfit Sunday with a Mean Girls hit piece on Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis that bordered on infantile in its imbecilic language and proof that, if the person at the top feels this way, it’s a farce for the liberal media to view them as a sober purveyor of real journalism.

Baker’s piece consisted of throwing a conniption over Mrs. DeSantis’s decision to wear “a ghastly black leather jacket” — with an alligator and the phrase “Where Woke Goes to Die” on the back — to Senator Joni Ernst’s (R-IA) Roast and Ride on Saturday as something you’d find in “the racks of a Red State big-bin store where it would be retailing for $24.99.”

Baker argued it was snugly tied into her husband Ron’s 2024 presidential campaign: “Crude. Grasping. Saying the ugly part out loud.”

She added that DeSantis was “even more explicit [than Trump] about who he intends to target” (i.e. minorities, in the fictitious world of liberals) with Florida being where not only “woke go[es] to [die],” but “a lot of other people die as well.”

Not having to fear fact-checkers, Baker provided no evidence other than the liberal media’s talking point (echoed by the Trump campaign) that “Florida under DeSantis has had one of the highest COVID death rates in the nation”.

Houck couldn't be bothered to a fact-check either, so we will. Wait, we already did: Florida's COVID death rate is the 18th highest in the country. And, of course, the MRC has no problem going all Mean Girls on women it hates for being insufficiently right-wing, like Alyssa Farah Griffin.

Houck went on to whine that Baker "needs to go outside and touch some grass instead of whine about how Republican women use fashion “to stick it to political enemies” and “a bored, nihilistic shrug,” concluding:

Baker’s puerile bile (dressed up as a supposedly edgy takedown) ended with her lament claiming Mrs. DeSantis’s jacket proved “she is cheering on a spouse who gets his kicks off targeting his fellow Americans,” “down with his message of division and dehumanization,”and “ready for far more power.”

All the while, Baker seethes, the DeSantis are “seething with hate.”

Houck might have a compelling argument if he and his MRC co-workers didn't have a record of doing to women they don't like what he accuses Baker of doing.

Alex Christy spent a July 7 post complaining that Casey DeSantis got fact-checked:

CNN Tonight host Alisyn Camerota tried and failed to fact-check an ad featuring Casey DeSantis where she touted her husband Ron’s record of banning “child mutilation.” As Camerota tells it, DeSantis’s team admits they have no proof of such events ever happening, but that is not true.

[...]

After the clip, Camerota singled out one issue in particular. Addressing The Atlantic’s James Surowiecki, she claimed, “Okay. James? Child mutilation, illegal? It's illegal everywhere, by the way. I mean, obviously, they're referring to, you know, reassignment surgery, but that, it was fact checked by PolitiFact that actually, the governor's office could not provide PolitiFact any examples of this happening to a child.”

The PolitiFact article in question came out in August 2022. In that article, author Yacob Reyes wrote, “The governor's office sent PolitiFact two examples of people who received transition-related surgeries in their mid to late teenage years  — one at 15 and one at 17.”

However, to justify a “mostly false,” rating Reyes got hyperliteral, “DeSantis' Florida Department of Health differentiates between children (under 10) and adolescents (10-18).”

By speaking of children, Casey DeSantis was clearly using “children” as a synonym for “minors” and Reyes notes that such operations do exist:

When one commentator pointed out that such gender-reassignment surgeries are rate, Christy huffed that the post "has an agenda to push, but even if that is accurate, 'not common' is not 'never.'" Talk about being hyperliteral.

Mark Finkelstein took on more criticism of Casey DeSantis the next day:

This could be the ugliest liberal-media attack on a candidate's wife in recent memory. On Jonathan Capehart's MSNBC show on Saturday two guests competed to see which one could smear the wife of a Republican candidate with the ugliest epithet.

The two contestants in the mudslinging match were Tara Setmayer of the disgraced Lincoln Project, and ex-Republican David Jolly. Their target was Casey DeSantis, wife of Ron.

Jolly described Casey as "America's Karen." That led a hooting Capehart to tell Setmayer, "Tara, I think David's beaten you in terms of taking my breath away during a segment." Capehart virtually congratulated Jolly on his insult, saying, "'America's Karen:' David Jolly, you went for it!"

But Setmayer was not to be bested in the slander stakes. She promptly riposted, seeking to demonstrate that she could be even nastier than Jolly: "Well, I called her a Serena Waterford wannabe."

Waterford is the character from The Handmaid's Tale who has been described, in a website about screen villains, as "the cruel, fanatically religious wife of Fred Waterford, the dictator of Gilead."

[...]

Try to imagine how the MSNBC regulars would get the vapors if you called Jill Biden or Kamala Harris or Michelle Obama "America's Karen."

Finkelstein might want to look through the MRC archives to see exactly how it treated those women before he goes any farther with that defense.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:28 PM EDT
WND Tries To Condense Election Conspiracy Theories Into A Bumper Sticker
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Bumper stickers really aren't much of a thing these days, and it's telling of of just how out of step WorldNetDaily is with reality that it seems to think it is. Joseph Farah spent his June 30 column touting how WND condensed election-fraud conspiracy theories into a bumper sticker, rehashing them all in the process in his June 30 column:

It's the hottest bumper sticker on the planet! And you can get your very own – starting today – from WND exclusively. We think it says it all.

"Thou Shalt Not Steal Elections."

We're calling the bluff on "Election Integrity!" Here, in a nutshell, is what we know:

  • Joe Biden didn't get 81 million "votes" in the 2020 election. No way! Impossible! He couldn't have received the biggest number of "votes" in American electoral history. It's a sick joke. Donald Trump got the most votes of any sitting American president in history – at least 74 million, probably far more. We'll probably never know for sure.
  • We all saw "2000 Mules," probably the most heavily censored film of all time.
  • We all know about Hunter Biden's "laptop from hell," the pre-election suppression of which constituted the worst case of election fraud ever. Fifty-one former "intelligence agents" claimed it was "Russian disinformation." Remember?
  • In 2020, Joe Biden didn't even show up. He spent the campaign is his basement.
  • Right now, the hottest song on the charts in the nation featuring Kari Lake commemorates the 2020 election farce.
  • And we think we've coined the absolute hottest bumper sticker.

A few years ago, we realized that our elections were being stolen. When we tried to alert the nation to the horror of it, the government came after us and accused us of lying. Then they accused Trump supporters of formulating an "insurrection." They started arresting people, so far about 2,000. They locked many up in solitary confinement – some for years.

It was never really an "insurrection," however. It was a "Fed-surrection." And the nightmare continues today.

Now there's a way for everyone to protest this atrocity – with dignity.

You can get the perfect bumper sticker for our time – which expresses the undeniable truth, commemorates the reality we all lived through and will never forget, and boldly points the only way forward.

Of course, "2000 Mules" has been roundly discredited, and the only person who's on record trying to steal an election is Donald Trump. Also, claiming to be "the hottest bumper sticker on the planet" is a meaningless boast when few poeple care about bumper stickers (and he offers no metrics to back up his boast). And there is no such thing as dignity when you're promoting discredited conspracy theories. Speaking of lack of dignity, Farah continued by defending Trump:

Even as we speak today, the Deep State is persecuting President Donald J. Trump. He's been indicted in two different jurisdictions with more reportedly coming. The Justice Department – or Injustice Department under Merrick Garland – wants to lock him up for 400 years under the charges, a simple paper chase over "classified documents," papers that only the president could declassify.

America has never encountered anything like this, and it's never before suffered a catastrophe like the Joe Biden administration.

They are trying to bury Trump with phony charges – just as they spent four years trying to destroy him while he was our president: impeaching him twice, spying on his campaign, lying about him for spreading "Russian disinformation," etc., etc., etc.

This, too, is nothing but "election interference" of the worst kind. Every waking hour they commit election interference against the Trump campaign, but he just gets stronger and stronger. Can he beat Joe Biden in another campaign? Yes, he can. That's why the Democrats are freaking out.

And it wouldn't be complete without a sales pitch: "You can get one "Thou Shalt Not Steal Elections" bumper sticker for $5.95, two for $10.95, five for $25 or 10 for $49." Farah concluded by stating, "We answer to a Higher Authority." Never mind, of course, that he and WND repeatedly violate that Higher Authority's admonition about bearing false witness.

An anonymously written July 4 article promoted the bumper sticker again while peddling more election-fraud conspiracytheories:

The theft of elections in America by Democrats has a long history.

In fact, WND reported two decades ago how a lawyer who worked for Democrats described his history of stealing elections that dated back two MORE decades.

[...]

Whether it was "stealing" or not during the 2020 election can be left to semantics.

But the facts are that Mark Zuckerberg handed out some $400-plus million like candy to local elections officials who often used it to recruit voters specifically from Democrat districts.

Further, the FBI influenced the election by telling media organizations – falsely – that the details about the Biden family schemes and scandals found on Hunter Biden's abandoned laptop likely were Russian disinformation.

It knew at the time the details were accurate and the schemes were real.

But its campaign against the truth convinced media outlets to suppress that information, depriving American voters of key information about one candidate.

A Media Research Center poll after the election found that many Democrats would have dropped their support for Joe Biden had they known of his actual involvement in Hunter Biden's various operations. And Joe Biden likely would have lost the election.

As we documented, those MRC polls were bought from Trump's own 2020 pollster and a company founded by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, so there's good reason to suspect they're more than a little biased.

The anonymous writer went on to repeat a good chunk of Farah's column while plugging the bumper sticker. It's another sign of WND's increasing lack of grip on reality that it seems to believe that a bumper sticker will save it.


Posted by Terry K. at 6:42 PM EDT
Newsmax Defends Trump Yet Again After (Fourth) Indictment
Topic: Newsmax

Newsmax spent the days after Donald Trump's third indictment preparing for his fourth indictment, this one out of Georgia. The foreshadowing began as early as Aug. 9:

But when a draft indictment document was posted on the Georgia court's website (then quickly taken down), that opened up the floodgates for complaining. Eric Mack parroted the Trump camp's whining in an Aug. 14 article:

Attorneys for former President Donald Trump fired back at Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis' office for leaking the charges being put before the grand jury targeting Trump this week.

"The Fulton County District Attorney's Office has once again shown that they have no respect for the integrity of the grand jury process," attorneys Drew Findling and Jennifer Little wrote in a statement to Newsmax.

The statement came just hours after reporters picked up a grand jury court docket outlining the case and charges against Trump. The document was on the court's website briefly – apparently mistakenly – before it was deleted.

[...]

"This was not a simple administrative mistake," the Trump attorneys' statement continued. "A proposed indictment should only be in the hands of the District Attorney's Office, yet it somehow made its way to the clerk's office and was assigned a case number and a judge before the grand jury even deliberated.

"This is emblematic of the pervasive and glaring constitutional violations which have plagued this case from its very inception."

Newsmax's focus on the Georgia happenings intensified after that:

When Trump's indictment was made official later on Aug. 14, Newsmax began with a wire article on the charges, then quickly moved to its usual defend-and-attack mode throughout the rest of the day:

Just a single article of non-Trump rah-rah appeared in that time: "Hillary Clinton: Ga. Indictments 'Terrible Moment' for US."

Unsurprisngly, Newsmax ramped things up the next day, Aug. 15:

As usual, there was only a small smattering of articles that told a fuller story:

In the midst of all this apparent criminality, an Aug. 14 column by Larry Bell argued that it was somehoe worth it for people to donate money to Trump:

Democrats are bound and determined to bury their leading political adversary, Donald Trump, in debt through publicly funded lawsuits to redirect money, media attention, and surging momentum away from his 2024 election campaign.

John Lauro, a Trump attorney, said on Fox News within minutes of a third indictment being made public, that the former president is "being forced to spend money on legal defense, which should be spent on the discussion of critical ideas and critical issues."

Recent financial reports gleefully released by a gloating New York Times analysis of federal records show that about 30 cents of every dollar raised by Trump’s various political committees and super PAC this year have been spent on legal-related costs.

[...]

Any good news in this it is that the strategy to bleed Donald Trump’s campaign and personal finances dry with transparently political legal charges energizes his online donor support at a rate that dwarfs all rivals: nearly $46 million in the first half of the year, with an average donation of under $35.

Trump spokesman Steven Cheung accused President Biden and the Justice Department’s special counsel, Jack Smith, of using the government’s "unlimited resources" to try "to force the Trump campaign to spend, spend, spend to defend innocent Americans who have been targeted."

Nevertheless, Cheung added, "As President Trump has said, he will spend whatever it takes to defeat the Deep State and Crooked Joe Biden."

I’ll add that whatever this cost, it will be money well spent.

Bell did not raise the question of why a self-proclaimed billionaire is not spending his own money to defend himself but instead begging for money from others.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:16 PM EDT
Updated: Wednesday, August 30, 2023 6:24 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE: The Death Of CNS
Topic: CNSNews.com
The Media Research Center fully turned its back on journalism by quietly blowing up its "news" operation (and firing several longtime employees) to turn CNSNews.com into a right-wing blog not bound by journalistic standards. Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 1:19 AM EDT
Monday, August 28, 2023
MRC Now Baselessly Accusing Secret Service Of Covering Up For Bidens On White House Cocaine
Topic: Media Research Center

We've shown how the Media Research Center exploited the discovery of a small amount of cocaine in the White House to promote claims -- for which it had no evidence -- that Hunter Biden was responsible. When the Secret Service stated it couldn't find the culprit and closed the investigation, the MRC's Kevin Tober invented a new conspiracy theory in a July 13 post -- that the Secret Service is covering up for the Biden White House:

On Thursday, the Secret Service announced that their investigation into the cocaine that was found in the West Wing of the White House had conveniently come up empty. Just like with the leaker of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, our so-called investigative agencies have failed us and proved once again that there’s a two-tiered system of justice in the United States. 

Later Thursday evening, it appeared that ABC’s World News Tonight was unconcerned with the dual justice system in America since they were the only one of the three networks to ignore the news. Instead, anchor David Muir thought a report on an alligator attack in Florida was more newsworthy.

[...]

Meanwhile, over on NBC Nightly News, White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell reported: “Officials said they used video and entrance logs to compile a list of more than 500 individuals who had access to the entrance in the days before it was found July 2nd. But without physical or video evidence officials could not connect the drug to any suspect.”

Was Hunter Biden one of the 500 listed? Did the Secret Service talk to him? Nobody in the leftist media wants to ask the question. 

Not only did Tober not offer any evidence that Hunter Biden is involved in any of this, he offered no evidence that the Secret Service is on the take from the Bidens. He continued his conspiracy theory in another post later that day:

How bad did the United States Secret Service bungle their investigation into the bag of cocaine left in the West Wing? All you need to know is that even disgraced FBI bureaucrat and Russiagate hoaxer Andrew Weissmann is critical. During a Thursday night appearance on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, Weissmann told host Stephanie Ruhle that “this is really just not a sufficient investigation.”

When asked for his thoughts on the results of the investigation into the bag of cocaine, Weissmann remarked: “To me, the Secret Service here looks like they can’t find a dead cow in a closet,” which credit where it’s due, is a funny line.

Again, Tober provided absolutely no evidence that anything was "bungled."

By contrast, Nicholas Fondacaro called out what he considered another conspiracy theory (while being mad that GOP exploitation of the story was also called out):

Those stealthy Republican ninjas were at it again! Earlier this year, the Cackling Coven of ABC’s The View claimed Republicans were “behind” the classified documents found in President Biden’s Delaware garage. Now, on Friday, they were claimed Republicans infiltrated the White House and “planted” cocaine in the West Wing to “advance the Hunter Biden narrative.” At least that’s what Joy Behar and Ana Navarro wanted people to believe.

In an attempt to deflect attention away from the possibility that someone in the administration or the Biden family was the perpetrator, co-host Sunny Hostin claimed, without evidence, that the cocaine came from “a tourist, a stupid tourist, a guest, somebody like that.”

But while Hostin was quipping about how the person “left their stash,” Behar was busy wondering: ldquo;Maybe it was planted, or do I sound paranoid?”

At least she had a ting of self-awareness.

But after playing a clip of Congresswoman Nancy Mace (R-SC) pointing out the two-tiered justice system that benefits the Bidens, Behar whined that Cocainegate was just “more fodder for the Republican conspiracy machine.”

Helping Behar drive their own conspiracy machine, faux conservative Ana Navarro claimed, without evidence, that Republicans “planted” the cocaine so they could keep talking about Hunter Biden:

How ironic that Fondacaro complained that Hostin made a claim "without evidence" while he and his colleagues have been pushing conspiracy theories about the cocaine with a similar lack of evidence.

Tim Graham rehashed this in his July 14 podcast:

The Secret Service concluded on Thursday that they couldn’t locate a suspect for this baggy of illegal white powder -- it was cocaine, an illegal drug. MSNBC pundit Andrew Weissman colorfully remarked, the Secret Service looks like it "can't find a dead cow in a closet' – yes, that’s it! This doesn't have to be a Biden scandal story. It's a story of Secret Service incompetence.

ABC and NPR couldn't bother to care about the Secret Service when they could devote time to flooding in Vermont or an actors' strike in Hollywood. PBS did a bland 20 seconds....and then devoted 10 minutes and 43 seconds to  The networks just can't find any energy on stories that could go south for Team Biden.

Meanwhile, Curtis Houck appeared on Fox News on July 16 to tout Tober's writeup of Weismann criticizing what Houck calle "the so-called probe by the Secret Service into cocaine found in the West Wing.

One gets the feeling that any outcome that did not point the finger at Hunter would be seen by the MRC as Secret Service "incompetence" or failure -- never mind that, again, no MRC writer has provided even a smidgen of proof of anything that would prove the Secret Service wrong.


Posted by Terry K. at 9:24 PM EDT
Updated: Sunday, September 10, 2023 5:30 PM EDT
WND Whines At Possibility That Minor Historical Character Might Have Been Gay
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Peter LaBarbera ranted in a July 10 WorldNetDaily "news" article:

How far will Hollywood "progressives" go to advance their agenda of celebrating all things LGBT?

Evidently, as far as taking a real historical figure and making him homosexual – with zero evidence – as a tool to inject "queer" history into the storyline.

Tony Phelan and Joan Rater are the husband-and-wife creators of the popular historical mini-series "A Small Light," about Miep Gies, a Dutch woman who famously helped hide Anne Frank's family and other Jews from Nazi occupiers carrying out Hitler's "Final Solution" in World War 2-era Amsterdam.

The Hollywood couple takes "artistic license" to a whole new dimension by turning Gies' adoptive older brother, identified as Casmir ("Cas") Nieuwenburg, into a homosexual so they could highlight a Dutch gay man's role in the country's anti-Hitler resistance. Phelan then expanded on the deception in an interview by rationalizing that since Miep Gies had five adoptive siblings, "statistically, one of them had to be gay" – an assertion that is both historically and statistically reckless.

[...]

In the series, Cas and Miep share the secret of his homosexuality, and his parents do not know. All of this is historical fiction.

Phelan explained his rationale for concocting an aberrant sexual identity for a long-deceased relative of the series' hero, Miep, and using that as a vehicle to tell the story of Arondeus' role in the Dutch resistance.

"[Y]ou come upon a story like [the Amsterdam gay bar] Café 't Mandje and Willem Arondéus, and the fact that the first gay bar in Europe was this hotbed of the Resistance. In your research, you read that, and you're like, 'Well, we have to tell that story,'" he told Digital Spy in a May 23 interview with him, his wife and the show's writer/director, Susanna Fogel.

LaBarbera went on to huff that "The creators' artificial injection of homosexuality into a retelling of the story of a heroic woman who, with her husband, risked their lives to save Jews, outraged critics who said it detracts from the Gieses' noble and sacrificial work" -- but the "critics" he cites are all virulent homophobes. The first is Artyhur Goldberg, described as "the former director of Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, or JONAH"; his group was a huge promoter of anti-LGBT conversion therapy, and it was forced to shut down and pay millions of dollars in fines and legal fees after its fraudulent activities were exposed. The second is Brian Camenker of the virulently anti-LGBT group MassResistance. LaBarbera also quoted right-wing commentator Matt Barber, who ranted that "This kind of propaganda would've made Joseph Goebbels proud. ... People are getting fed up with the alphabet soup lobby and their ramrodding of sexual deviancy down the throat of the public at large."

LaBarbera went on to complain about the idea that there may be more gay people than he would like to admit:

Statistically speaking, Phelan's claim regarding the strong likelihood that of one of Miep's siblings was "gay" is deeply problematic, as even today in the U.S. – after decades of pro-homosexual and pro-LGBT media and educational advocacy – a Gallup poll puts the number of Americans identifying in 2021 as LGBT or "something other than heterosexual" at 7.1 percent. That is the highest number ever polled by Gallup, but still it is not close to one in five.

He went on to call the creators "woke" (whatever that means).


Posted by Terry K. at 5:53 PM EDT
MRC Falsely Accuses Buttigieg Of Lying
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Kevin Tober complained in a July 2 post:

CNN’s State of the Union co-moderator Dana Bash is always quick to interrupt and correct her Republican or conservative guests when they make claims she believes are false or misleading. Yet, on Sunday when Bash brought up the Supreme Court case 303 Creative LLC v. Elenis had no interest in doing the same to Biden’s Department of Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg when he made the pants-on-fire claim that there’s “no evidence” wedding website maker Lorie Smith was requested to design a website for a same-sex wedding. He then went a step forward and lied through his teeth that Smith went into the “wedding business” to provoke this recent Supreme Court case. 

These outright lies would never be allowed to go unchallenged if they were uttered by a Republican cabinet official. Sadly, that’s exactly what happened. Bash turned to Buttigieg and asked her long winded question:

[...]

After reading Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch’s well thought out legal reasoning, Bash asked if there’s “any merit to that argument.

Buttigieg claimed there wasn’t and then began smearing Smith and her business 303 Creative LLC: “I think it's very revealing that there's no evidence that this web designer was ever even approached by anyone asking for a website for a same-sex wedding.”

“As a matter of fact, it appears this web designer only went into the wedding business for the purpose of provoking a case like this,” Buttigieg falsely claimed.

Bash let Buttigieg say these unproven claims without any pushback or clarification. Instead of following up, she proceeded to move onto another topic and let the smears stand.

Ytober curiously omitted that Buttigieg's claim really does have a basis in fact. In her lawsuit, Smith claimed that a man named Stewart had previously requested that she make a website for his wedding to a man named Mike. But Stewart came forward a few days before Tober's post and explained that not only did he never ask Smith to make a website for him, he has been married to a woman for the past 15 years. (Smith's attorneys at the right-wing Alliance Defending Freedom later insisted that the allegation was not only false but irrelevant.) 

Strange that Tober would not only hide that information from his readers but also falsely accuse Buttigieg of lying. It appears that, once again, narratives are more important than facts at the MRC.

Tober's post seems to be part of the MRC's overall derangement about Buttigieg and his husband.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:33 PM EDT
NEW ARTICLE -- Out There, Exhibit 86: Standing Athwart Modern Art
Topic: Newsmax
Columnists for WorldNetDaily and Newsmax complain about art being to abstract and non-representational, with one arguing that art is only "good" if it advances "Western heritage." Read more >>

Posted by Terry K. at 2:10 AM EDT
Sunday, August 27, 2023
MRC Helps Musk Attack Group For Exposing Hate On Twitter
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Cener made sure to ignore evem more bad news about Elon Musk and Twitter. For instance:

  • Twitter reinstated the account of right-wing influencer Dom Lucre after he was banned for posting a video of a toddler being tortured.
  • Twitter also reinstated the account of Kanye West, also know as Ye,  months after it was banned for postin an image of a swastika inside a Star of David.

Musk knew he had to change the narrative, so it was right-wing red-meat time. And the MRC's Luis Cornelio eagerly lapped it up in an Aug.1 post:

An anti-free speech group had a meltdown after Elon Musk took legal action against the group’s research targeting X, formerly known as Twitter.

Imran Ahmed, the CEO of the infamous Center for Countering Digital Hate, and its Democrat allies have hysterically responded to a legal threat from Musk, the owner of X. Ahmed lamented that Musk is pushing back against the CCDH’s efforts to destroy the platform after Musk pledged to stand up for free speech. Disgraced Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) chimed in, whining that mass censorship is no longer reining on Twitter.

In a fiery letter, Musk’s attorneys issued an ultimatum to the CCDH, slamming the far-left organization’s research against the X platform. Musk argued that the CCDH is falsely accusing X of allowing so-called hate speech on its platform. The letter, as reported by The New York Times, called the research “false, misleading or both.” Similarly, in a blog post dated July 31, X blasted the CCDH for “actively working to”: “assert false and misleading claims encouraging advertisers to pause investment,” “prevent public dialogue” and “prevent free expression” by targeting individuals it doesn’t agree with.

Once again, Cornelio is dishonestly framing content moderation to address lies and misinformation as "censorship" while refusing to explain why lies and misinformation must be allowed to spread unchecked (if they further right-wing narratives, at least). Also, at no point does Cornelio cite Twitter or Musk providing any evidence that proves false anything CCDH has reported. Instead, he complained that Ahmed is responding to Musk by pointing out that he's effectively demanding that CCDH be censored:

Ahmed wrote an opinion article for MSNBC, whining that Musk is bullying him.“[Musk] is trying to silence the independent researchers at CCDH who are shining a light on the situation,” Ahmed further bellyached, referring to his group’s dubious research that hate speech is on the rise on X. “Musk and his legal team have engaged in an aggressive campaign to intimidate, bully and silence CCDH.”

In a brazen bout of hypocrisy, Ahmed further accused Musk of censoring CCDH, the exact sort of punishment CCDH seeks when accusing those it disagrees with of having spread so-called hate speech. Specifically, Ahmed claimed, “X’s legal threat is a brazen attempt to silence honest criticism and independent research, perhaps in a desperate hope that it can stem the tide of negative stories and rebuild the company's relationship with advertisers.”

Cornelio offered no proof that any bit of CCDH research about Twitter is "dubious," nor did he respond to anything else Ahmed said. He then admitted that his employer's attacks on CCDH are personal: "Just what has CCDH done in the past? In 2022, CCDH classified the Media Research Center, among others, as one of the 'Toxic Ten' of alleged climate 'misinformation.'" As we documented at the time, the MRC never rebutted anything in the CCDH report, instead merely demonstrating just how thin-skinned it is about criticism, smearing CCDH as "digital brownshirts."

Catherine Salgado touted a Republican attack on CCDH in an Aug. 7 post:

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is requesting information from an anti-free speech nonprofit over potential censorship collusion with the federal government.

X (formerly known as Twitter) accused the UK- and U.S.-based Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) of hurting Twitter’s advertising through false claims of rising hate speech in a lawsuit last week. Now Jordan is asking for information on “the interactions between the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH) and the federal government in particular, as well as between CCDH and social media companies.”

Dated August 3, the letter called out leftist CCDH CEO Imran Ahmed and his group for “appear[ing] to have played a role”  in President Joe Biden’s “censorship regime by advising the government and social media companies on so-called ‘misinformation’ and other types of content— sometimes with direct or indirect support or approval from the federal government.”

The letter argued that anti-free speech efforts in coordination with the government, whether “directly or indirectly,” is “a grave threat to the First Amendment.” Jordan specifically zeroed in on CCDH’s COVID-19-era report on “The Disinformation Dozen,” which led to censorship of users like Robert F. Kennedy Jr. that CCDH labeled as prominent “anti-vaxxers.”

Salgado, like Cornelio, failed to explain why lies and misinformation -- especially about an important health issue like COVID -- must never be countered. Nor did she explain that  Kennedy is very much an anti-vaxxer, and he has indisputably spread lies and misinformation about vaccines. Salgado also showed no curiosity about why Jordan is working to weaponize government against a critic at the apparent request of a wealhy man like Musk.

And like Cornelio, Salgado whined that "CCDH included Media Research Center in its November 2021 'Toxic Ten' report of the top spreaders of supposed 'climate change denial'" without mentioning that her employer didn't dispute anything CCDH said about it. She also made sure to note that her boss, Brent Bozell, "previously called CCDH 'digital brownshirts.'" Gotta make sure to smear a critic while cheering how the government is targeting it.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:57 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, August 28, 2023 12:36 AM EDT
WND's Brown Ramps Up Anti-Transgender Hate
Topic: WorldNetDaily

As part of his campaign of anti-LGBTQ hate, Michael Brown unsurprisingly supported the Supreme Court ruling that allowed a Christian website designer to refuse to offer her services, trying to parse the ruling in his July 3 column:

That's why some of the Christians who have come under attack in recent years had served LGBTQ+ customers for years. Some of them even had LGBTQ+ employees. But when it came to creating artistic content that violated their beliefs (such as creating a wedding cake or designing a floral arrangement for a same-sex ceremony), they declined. And for that, they were dragged into court, with their lives turned upside down.

[...]

That's why the Supreme Court's decision should have been 9-0 and applauded by people from all backgrounds. The fact that it was 6-3, with many Americans outraged over the ruling, reminds us of just how confused our nation has become.

May truth and sanity prevail.

Brown was back to cheering a British TV personality's anti-transgender hate in his July 12 column:

Do you remember when Ann Coulter was laughed to scorn on Bill Maher's TV show when she stated that, out of the announced Republican candidates in 2015, Donald Trump was the most likely to become president? "Trump? No way! You're crazy!" Who knew she would be so accurate in her prediction?

Now, what if I told you several years ago that Piers Morgan, well-known as a strong ally of the gay community, would become one of the loudest, most persistent voices against trans-activism? I imagine I would have been laughed to scorn, just as Coulter was.

The difference is that I did not make any such prediction.

That's because Morgan was known as a very strong ally of the LGBT community, not to mention a good friend of Elton John. If anything, I would have predicted that Morgan would also take up the trans cause, just as he had taken up the gay cause.

To my knowledge, he had not been on the record for separating the T from the LGB, nor, to my knowledge did he affirm the reality of gay identity while taking issue with the idea of trans identity.

[...]

To this moment, Morgan remains a passionate defender of same-sex relationships and, in his opinion, doesn't think most people really care to debate this anymore. Yet on broadcast after broadcast, he is challenging the madness of trans activism. (As always, when I speak of this "madness," I am not attacking individuals who truly and deeply struggle with gender dysphoria. I'm speaking about the societal madness of arguing that you are whatever sex and gender you perceive yourself to be. That idea is nothing less than madness.)

Ah, yes, the ol' "I'm not attacking people" claim he loves to take refuge in. But, again, he's framing a refusal to not not hate transgender people as "societal madness" demonstrates that he really is attacking people. Brown closed by cheering Morgan's hate: "You're on the right path, sir, step by step. We'll be waiting to greet you when you make it all the way home."

In his July 14 column, Brown cheered "influential gay blogger Andrew Sullivan" for complaining that LGBT activists tried to "reprogram children" into not hating LGBT people:

He hit the nail on the head. That is exactly what the "queers" did.

But where he was wrong was in saying that "we gays" never targeted children. That is patently false.

Who, then, were these "queers"? They were part and parcel of the larger gay-activist leadership, not least, in the realm of children's education. (And remember one of the best-known cries of early gay activists: "We're here, we're queer, get used to it.")

That's why, for well over a decade, this has been the official policy found in the Los Angeles Unified School District Reference Guide: "'Gender identity' refers to one's understanding, interests, outlook, and feelings about whether one is female or male, or both, or neither, regardless of one's biological sex."

This was not peripheral to the larger gay-activist agenda. It was right in the center of it, part of the radical war against heterosexual normativity and the hated gender binary.

[...]

Please don't tell me today that this was not part of the gay activist agenda from early on and that it was somehow hijacked by queer activists. All of this was mixed and mingled together. In fact, the pro-gay and pro-trans narratives were inextricably intertwined.

That's why, in my sarcastic poem, "Here At School the Slant Is Gay," I included these lines: "GLSEN will fill in for Granny and help kids find their inner-trannie."

Yes, Brown wrote an anti-LGBTQ poem. That's how much he hates these people.

Brown cocluded by touting how "my colleague at Focus on the Family, Jeff Johnston, has done the heavy lifting when it comes to documenting the gay indoctrination of children," then ranting: "It is now incumbent on us as parents, educators, ministry leaders, social media influences and activists to undo the damage that has been done and restore innocence and sanity to the kids of this world. It's the least that we can do." According to Brown, it's "innocence and santiy" to make sure chilren hate LGBT people and "indoctrination" to teach them not to.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:57 AM EDT
Updated: Sunday, August 27, 2023 11:58 AM EDT
Saturday, August 26, 2023
MRC Still Censoring That Swalwell Was Cleared In Chinese Spy Investigation
Topic: Media Research Center

We've documented the Media Research Center's weird obsession with Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell and his alleged relationship with a woman who turned out to be a Chinese spy -- and its refusal to tell readers that a Republican-led House ethics investigation found no wrongdoing on Swalwell's part. The MRC was at it again in a July 10 post by Curtis Houck immaturely headlined "Fang Fang, Bang Bang":

Former Washington Examiner Justice reporter Jerry Dunleavy revealed Sunday in a series of lengthy tweets that, per a source, senior FBI leadership meddled in and shuttered investigations into Fang Fang, the rumored ex-lover of Congressman Eric Swalwell (D-CA) as well as Russell Lowe, a Chinese-American who had been working for Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA). 

But most notable was something long the subject of speculation and giggles on Twitter, which was, as Dunleavy confirmed, “that there had been a sexual relationship between Swalwell & Fang.” Naturally, none of this was of interest to the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC on their flagship Sunday night and Monday morning newscasts.

[...]

Turning to Fang Fang, Dunleavy dropped the bomb after referring to a 2020 story in Axios:

One thing that was actually not in the Axios story but which my source has confirmed — the FBI firmly believed based on the evidence they collected on Fang that there had been a sexual relationship between Swalwell & Fang.

He added that said official told him “the FBI had FISA surveillance up & running on Fang...and  so many of her actions & communications were being intercepted & monitored.” This also drew in the CIA and the NSA.

Houck censored the fact that a bipartisan House committee found no wrongdoing on Swalwell's part, even as he complained that non-right-wing media covered other stories. It's as if the MRC is averse to doing "media research" that might not mesh with its preconceived partisan notions.


Posted by Terry K. at 11:08 AM EDT
WND Columnist Has Homophobic Language Meltdown
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Cambridge Dictionary lists the primary definition of "gay" as "sexually or romantically attracted to people of the same gender and not to people of a different gender." The traditional meaning of happy, fun, carefree, is listed only as a secondary meaning. In the late 1900s, homosexuals began referring to themselves as "gay," to describe their sexual orientation. It is important to understand that this didn't just spontaneously happen. The homosexuals knew that "homosexual" had a stigma and that to gain wide societal acceptance of their twisted lifestyle, they had to get the country to stop saying homosexual when referring to them or thinking about them. They needed to exchange the negatively charged 'homosexual' for a word with positive association in people's minds. Clever folks that they were, they understood the power of language and carefully selected the word "gay" with its sense of happiness and good feeling, as the new descriptor of choice for their perversion.

They sent out the memo to all sodomites and their sympathizers "never use 'homosexual' to refer to ourselves; say 'gay'" – and say it they did: gay, gay, gay, gay, gay, until with enough time and repetition the original meaning of the word was buried under the relentless barrage of weaponized rhetoric. It was a spectacular victory. So much so that if you ask anyone under 40 what "gay" means, they will probably say "homosexual." Paris, the capital of France, was traditionally referred to as "gay Paris." No more as people self-censor to avoid appearing to be calling "the city of light" the city of sodomites. Their success in changing America's speech led to changing America's moral values.

Ask the average person on the street if homosexuality is morally wrong and you'll probably hear something like, "Well, it's OK if that's what they want to do, as long as it isn't hurting anyone."

Ah, but it IS hurting people. The hijacking of "gay" was just the camel's nose under the flap of the tent. It opened the door to the pronoun tyranny and speech control of today. Professors are getting fired, their careers ended for insisting they have the right to decline to call a man a woman. Students are being kicked out of schools, destroying their education. Parents are investigated and harassed by the FBI for saying they don't agree with critical race theory at school board meetings. Those disobeying the speech police are physically swarmed and attacked in universities, those former bastions of free speech and thought. These Americans thought they still have freedom of speech in America. They are rapidly finding out otherwise. They didn't realize their freedom of speech was taken from them while the church slept.

In a way, you have to admire these indefatigable warriors of debauchery, these ambassadors of degeneracy for their intense, unflagging public relations campaign to change America's moral values.

[...]

Never use the word "gay" to refer to homosexuals. If using it out of habit, break the habit. The push-back has to start somewhere, and refusing to say "gay" is a good starting point. Anyone can do it. Use the scientifically accurate and traditional words "homosexual" and "sodomite," rather than the wildly inaccurate "gay." Suicide rates among homosexuals are significantly higher than the general population. These people are anything but gay, and we only contribute to their sickness by going along with their speech-control program.

Language is power!

-- Paul Blanchfield, July 11 WorldNetDaily column


Posted by Terry K. at 9:36 AM EDT
Updated: Monday, August 28, 2023 11:00 AM EDT
MRC Flip-Flops On Simon Ateba To Rehash Old Grievances About Jim Acosta
Topic: Media Research Center

We've documented how the Media Research Center loves Simon Ateba, an obscure right-wing reporter for his own Africa-baesd media outlet, becuase he's their kind of jerk -- he loves to make a spectacle of himself during White House press briefings under Biden -- and even trying to liken him to CNN reporter Jim Acosta, whom the MRC repeatedly attacked for his attempts to get answers from the Trump White House. This happened again in Tim  Graham's July 28 podcast:

The New York Times and The Washington Post really demonstrated a double standard this month on confrontational White House reporters. CNN's screaming Jim Acosta was a heroic screamer in the briefing room, while screaming African reporter Simon Ateba should sit down and shut up.

Managing editor Curtis Houck -- our chronicler and video-tweeter of the White House Briefing -- joins the show to talk about press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre and the White House Correspondents Assocation taking a very hostile pose toward Ateba.

Graham and guest Curtis Houck, the MRC's designated hater of White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, cited examples of non-right-wing media praise for Acosta and compared them against criticism of Ateba. But then they oddly distance themselves from Ateba. Graham insisted that "he's not a hero to us," while Houck added:

You notice in a lot of these stories, the conservative media worships him and all these -- and they provide examples. NewsBusters is not included because, I mean -- you can go ahead and boo us, you can ratio us, but I think I've been pretty consistent on Twitter and you have as well in your columns that Simon Ateba is a gadfly, he's a carnival barker, like, you don't even know what Today News Africa is. It's like a complete ripoff of New York Post. There's nothing about how or where his site is funded, so there's a lot of questions about, you know, his site, like, what is the point of it? ... But the point is, though, that he did actual reporting in Africa, so that's admirable [crosstalk] But in terms of his U.S. career, I feel very strongly that -- you know, people are saying, well, he's being ignored, he's the only one who's punching back. We'll talk about this more as the show goes on, but that's not the way you go about this.

Houck went on to tout how right-wing reporters like Fox News' Peter Doocy (whose political affiliations he did not acknowlege) are allegedly able to "prosecute" the press secretary "without the snark and the condescension." He then insisted that "we should be consistent, we should be honest about this" -- despite the fact that Houck's criticism of Ateba had never made it into a NewsBusters post until now.

Throughout all this, though, neither Graham nor Houck cited any examples of Acosta that are directly parallel to anything Ateba has done -- they simply rehashed their old grievances that Acosta asked questions the Trump White House didn't like, and they certainly didn't accuse right-wing reporterslike Doocy, Steven Nelson and Philip Wegmann of having any sort of polical bias they the way they accused Acosta of being; instead, Graham praised them for their questions being "politely stated."

The complainets continued. Graham and Houck grumbled that some Trump-era reporters that the MRC hated went on  to other things -- "everybody screaming like Acosta got a gig," Graham huffed -- but don't expect them to comment negatively (if they comment at all)  should Doocy or Wegmann get, say, their own Fox News show as a reward for their anti-Biden reporting.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:31 AM EDT
Friday, August 25, 2023
As Newsmax Bashes Ramaswamy (Who Didn't Buy Airtime On Newsmax), Newsmax Hypes Perry Johnson (Who Did)
Topic: Newsmax

In contrast to its negative treatment of Vivek Ramaswamy after he revealed an alleged pay-for-play demand for better coverage, Newsmax has given much more positive coverage to Perry Johnson, a Republican presidential candidate who's doing worse in polling than Ramaswamy. John Gizzi hyped Johnson in a May 23 article:

With Donald Trump and Ron DeSantis presently sucking the wind out of the Republican presidential sweepstakes, it is difficult, and sometimes impossible, to distinguish others further back in the GOP field.

There's South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, who drew swatches of publicity with his announcement for president on Monday. Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley has been on the hustings for months. And entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy has been a fixture on Sunday talk shows of late.

Then there's another entrepreneur, who may break out of the pack. Widely known in Michigan as the "quality guru," Perry Johnson has blitzed Iowa and New Hampshire in recent weeks, and he has signed on a campaign team that includes operatives in both of those states that are so crucial to nomination.

Todd Cheewing, former political director of the New Hampshire Republican Party, is Johnson's top agent in the Granite State. And, in what is almost a nod to Trump and his decade-plus hosting "The Celebrity Apprentice," Johnson has begun the filming of his own reality show for cable TV as he commences on the campaign trail.

Gizzi didn't mention that Johnson is paying Newsmax for airtime to broadcast his reality show.

After Johnson finished a distant second behind Trump in a straw poll at a conference of the far right Turning Point USA,  Eric Mack wrote a July 17 resume-hyping article under the headline "Perry Johnson Is 2nd to Trump, but Who Is He?":

Johnson, 75, is a Michigan multimillionaire who self-styles himself a "quality guru."

The Republican presidential candidate boasts he helped save the auto manufacturing industry in the U.S. by "writing the book on the quality controls."

Johnson seems to click with grassroots conservatives, having placed third in a CPAC straw poll earlier this year.

Johnson is running on his "Two Cents to Save America" plan, which he outlined in a book that has become his campaign mantle.

"Two Cents" also bears a foreword from Art Laffer, the famed Reagan-era economist who is the father of supply-side tax cuts.

Unlike Gizzi, Mack did disclose the financial link between Johnson and Newsmax (though he turned it into a promotion):

In the presidential campaign, Johnson has been reaching out to younger voters in a Ross Perot-like campaign — albeit this one in the Republican Party. That strategy appears to be paying off with the strong support at the youth-oriented Turning Point.

Johnson positions himself as a businessman with a reality TV show following his campaign bus tours in early primary states Iowa and New Hampshire.

The reality show airs on social media and he has purchased air time for it on Newsmax, typically broadcasting on Sundays at 9 p.m. EST.

Over the following month or so, Newsmax has published numerous positive articles promoting Johnson, largely focused on his claims of being eligible for the first Republican candidate debate:

When Johnson ended up not making the cut for the debate after all, Newsmax gave him space to complain: 

While two of these articles referenced Johnson's reality show and that it appears on Newsmax, neither disclosed that Johnson pays Newsmax to air it.


Posted by Terry K. at 4:05 PM EDT
Updated: Monday, August 28, 2023 2:51 PM EDT
WND's Lively Impresses Russian Media With Misinfo About Religious Conflict in Ukraine
Topic: WorldNetDaily

How much of a Putin stooge is Scott Lively? So much so that he's willing to appear in Russian media to do so. He began his April 7 column this way:

In is no secret to those who get their news outside the U.S./U.K. media propaganda bubble that the government of Ukraine has become a highly repressive military dictatorship under cultural Marxist President Zelensky, in which both opposition political parties and independent media are banned. But the very worst repression is being seen today in the grotesque holy week persecution of Orthodox monks and believers as showcased in this aptly titled article: "U.S./NATO-funded proxy war in Ukraine fueling hatred, persecution of ancient Christian community: Priests arrested, praying Christians mocked in public by ultra-nationalists and Satanists as standoff continues at holy site." Pay special attention to the accompanying photo.

In just that one paragraph, Lively managed to be even more dishonest about what was going on than fellow WND columnist Hanne Nabintu Herland. As we explained then, the issue here -- involving the expelling of the Ukranian Orthodox Church from a monastery -- is that the Ukranian Orthodox Church continues to have ties to the Russian Orthodox Church, which is headed by a staunch Putin ally, Patriarch Kirill, who has expressed enthusiastic support for Russia's war in Ukraine. (One Russian Orthodox priest appeared on Russian TV calling to "burn Ukrainians like pagans.") A breakaway sect, the Orthodox Church of Ukraine, has formed independent of Moscow, which Lively presumably doesn't like. That "aptly titled article" Lively is referring to was written by Leo Hohmann, a former WND reporter who has a history of writing articles so filled with false claims and fearmongering that WND had to stealth-correct months after the fact to presumably avoid getting sued.

Lively then wrote:

This week I gave an online interview on this topic to a Moscow-based Russian media outlet that featured me a few years ago as the primary English-speaking authority in the internationally popular documentary film "Sodom." I offer their questions and my preliminary answers here by way of educating my fellow American conservatives on this topic.

Yes, Lively is doing interviews with Russian media -- and you can bet he's not criticizing Russia's role in instigating the war during them. Indeed, his first answer is wildly divergent from reality in telling Russians what they want to hear:

Question. What provoked the religious conflict in Ukraine?

Answer. There is a worldwide assault on Christianity because it is the strongest force standing against the globalist plot for one-world government. The global elites intend to create this one-world government on a Utopian Cultural Marxist theme – which sets its highest priority on what they call "sexual freedom" but which is really sexual anarchy. The most powerful drivers of this agenda are the LGBTs, who now control the governments of the West, including the NATO alliance. Zelensky is their willing friend and ally in that goal. He is pretending that the current suppression of the church is about nationalistic patriotism, but it is really an effort to purge the church from the culture to make way for Marxism and the "great reset."

Lively continued to deceive as he willingly help his Russian media person (and, thus, Putin) advance bogus anti-Ukraine narratives:

Q. Criminal cases are initiated against clergy in Ukraine, some priests are deprived of Ukrainian citizenship, parishes are seized by schismatics – what will this lead to?

A. On my third trip to Russia in 2013, I toured Moscow and the Kremlin with a delegation from the World Congress of Families, which intended to hold an international conference defending biblical marriage and the natural family there in 2014 (which was canceled due to the outbreak of civil war in Ukraine). Part of that tour featured an overview of what the Soviet Communists did to the church during their control of Russia, which included tearing down beautiful churches and cathedrals, and turning others into storage warehouses for trucks and heavy equipment. That is always what Marxists do when they come to power, and I expect to see more of the same defilement of church properties in Ukraine and insults to the dignity of the believers, the stronger the Marxist powers grow.

For all the talk about religious schisms in the interview, there was no mention of the fact that this particular schism is driven by the fact that Orthodox Ukrainians would like to attend a church not affiliated with the government that's bombing their country and murdering thousands of its citizens. Instead, Lively continued to suck up to his Russian interviewer and the pro-Putin church:

Q. What can be the solution of the religious conflict in Ukraine?

A. I think the only solution to the religious conflict in Ukraine is for strong Christian believers with political skills to infiltrate the government and reform it from within, while Christian-influenced world governments and NGOs apply pressure from without to restore God's standards of ethics, morality and public service to the regime. I also think the Orthodox Church should directly appeal to the conservative Benjamin Netanyahu government in Israel for intervention, because it is experiencing the same Marxist vs. Religious power struggle in its country as is happening in Ukraine, and it also has a powerful role regarding U.S. policy.

Q. What role does the Russian Orthodox Church play in the world?

A. At the present time, the Russian Orthodox Church is the world's strongest defender of biblical marriage and the natural family, without which civilization itself will disintegrate. It's essential leadership in this matter is an encouragement to true Christian believers of every confession around the world, and even to those of other faiths who share the universal truths about normal sexuality and family. Preserving and unifying the people of the world around these foundational truths is, in my opinion, the only way to defeat godless globalism, and I urge the Russian Orthodox Church to be more assertive in its promotion of family-based unity around the world, using its resources to actively campaign for such unity internationally.

Note that Lively did not urge the Russian Orthodox Church to denounce the war or disassociate itself from Putin.


Posted by Terry K. at 1:00 PM EDT

Newer | Latest | Older

Bookmark and Share

Get the WorldNetDaily Lies sticker!

Find more neat stuff at the ConWebWatch store!

Buy through this Amazon link and support ConWebWatch!

Support This Site

« August 2023 »
S M T W T F S
1 2 3 4 5
6 7 8 9 10 11 12
13 14 15 16 17 18 19
20 21 22 23 24 25 26
27 28 29 30 31

Bloggers' Rights at EFF
Support Bloggers' Rights!

News Media Blog Network

Add to Google