The Media Research Center repeatedly attacked a proposed "disinformation governance board" by the Department of Homeland Security with falsehoods and smears, declaring it to be an Orwellian "ministry of truth" despite the fact that it would have been no such thing. It also lashed out at the woman who would have headed the board, Nina Jankowicz, for calling out those lies and trying to fight back -- then continued to attack her well after it was clear that the right-wing smear campaign had succeeded in killing the board. Another example of that is a May 11 post by Autumn Johnson complaining that Jankowicz sued Fox News for lying about her:

Self-proclaimed “Mary Poppins of disinformation” Nina Jankowicz has hopped on the bandwagon and is trying to sic the legal system on Fox News.

In a lawsuit filed in the Superior Court of the State of Delaware, Jankowicz claimed that Fox News “defamed” her character despite her beloved Disinformation Governance Board being rightfully accused of seeking to censor Americans' speech online. The suit takes particular issue with the network’s labeling of Jankowicz as "unhinged” and a "Minister of Truth" in a reference to George Orwell's dystopian world in his book 1984.  Apparently, Jankowicz doesn’t consider “Mary Poppins of disinformation” and “Minister of Truth” to be synonymous.

[...]

Jankowicz’s attorneys claim that Fox is supposedly responsible for the purported death threats she received after her address was released online.

The lawsuit further alleges that Fox’s coverage of her anti-free speech views created a "completely false reputation concerning government censorship.”

"[B]ased on verifiable falsehoods, Fox has made Jankowicz radioactive and deterred others from working with her as they otherwise would," her attorneys argued. Jankowicz registered as a foreign agent in 2022 after the DGB went kaput so she could work with the U.K.-based Centre for Information Resilience as an “ambassador” to fight so-called disinformation. 

Of course, the lawsuit dismissed Jankwociz’s own history of spreading “disinformation.” But don’t worry, MRC Free Speech America has receipts.

Johnson is lying about Jankowicz as well. The DGB was never about censorship; its goal was to coordinate anti-disinformation efforts within the DHS and wouldn't be policing speech. Therefore, Jankowicz could not possibly have been the "Minister of Truth" Johnson insists she was to be, and her attempt to play whaboutism by accusingher of spreading "disinformation" doesn't change that fact.

A July 10 post by Gabriela Pariseau raged at Jankowicz for pointing out the factual deficiency of the right-wing "censorship" narrative, since the government isn't actually censoring anyone and doesn't have the last word on whether social media does so:

The former leader of the defunct Disinformation Governance Board argued Saturday that the government doesn’t censor users it just makes it easier for social media companies to censor them.

MSNBC host Ali Velshi brought Nina Jankowicz his show Velshi to critique the Missouri v. Biden case. The case came out with a momentous pro free speech ruling ordering that the Biden administration no longer encourage Big Tech companies to censor constitutionally protected speech. Jankowicz, however, was not too thrilled. She even argued that flagging posts somehow helps generate more speech.

Velshi claimed that the ruling implies that “the government was trying to influence social media companies in violation of the First Amendment which sort of prevents the government from stifling speech. That's not really the story.”

[...]

In case that was clear as mud, Jankowicz later explained that the government doesn’t censor it merely flags content that violates Big Tech companies' policies. “In more than 70% of the instances,” the platforms do nothing,” she added defending her position.

She further explained. “It's a flag saying [to Big Tech companies] hey, you may not have seen this… but here's some election disinformation. Here's something that could threaten public health that already goes against your policies. We thought you might want to know about it.”

Jankowicz failed to explain, however, how flagging content is different from trying to influence social media companies to remove speech. What does she expect the companies to do about the so-called disinformation the government is pointing out to them if not take it down?

Pariseau offered no evidence that anyone in the government demanded "censorship" -- indeed, she later admitted that "government agencies had no power to censor users directly" -- and didn't explain why it was bad if all that was being done was flagging of violations of the social media sites' own policies, which tend to censor on prohibiting the spread of hate, lies and misinformation. Pariseau didn't explain why stopping hate, lies and misinformation is a bad thing.

Clay Waters served up his own anti-Jankowicz rant in a July 13 post, complete with the lie that the DGB would have been "Orwellian" and a complaint that Jankowicz pointed out that she faces "threats of physical violence" from the right-wing hate campaign:

On Amanpour & Co., which airs on CNN International and PBS, journalist Michel Martin commiserated with Nina Jankowicz, cringeworthy songbird and appointed director of the Biden administration’s Disinformation Governance Board before the Orwellian outfit was scuttled after outcry from conservatives and concerns from liberal groups like the ACLU. 

[...]

Liberal journalists love pounding that note of violent threats, as if conservatives never get those. It underlines that the conservatives are the kooky extremists.

Waters didn't denounce those threats or make any effort to distance his fellow right-wingers from them. Instead,he complained further that the right-wing extremism against her was pointed out:

Martin flattered her guest by painting her opposition as nonsensical.

Martin: So, they make you controversial and that becomes an excuse for people to make you untouchable, because you are controversial, even though controversy is invented to begin with.

Jankowicz: Yeah, yeah, that's exactly it….

Martin’s speech then slowed, as if it was painful for her to inject a few seconds of balance into this 20-minute fawnathon, then quickly scurrying away from providing the actual counter-argument. 

The former disinfo head claimed to be suing Fox News for defamation because the network lied “about statements that I was alleged to have made….And they lied about me being fired when, in fact, I resigned, and lied about my intention in joining the government.”

It sounded like an awfully thin reed on which to hang a lawsuit that impinges on the First Amendment rights of journalists, even as she claimed to be “standing up for democracy and standing up for the truth.”

Waters didn't disprove anything Jankowicz or Martin said about those right-wing attacks. He then claimed that she "misleadingly denied what the administration did was censorship, but merely 'law enforcement agencies speaking to social media platforms and saying, 'hey, we see a problem on your website here.'' Translation: Nice social media outlet you have here, shame if anything happened to it!" Like Pariseau, Waters ignored the fact that there were no orders to do anything and that the things being flagged were violations of the social media sites' own policies.

When Jankowicz made another TV appearance, it was Alex Christy's turn to rage about it in a July 15 post:

MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, best known for standing in front of a burning building and saying nothing “unruly” was going on, used his Saturday show to proclaim that his audience, unlike Fox’s, does not conspiracy theorists in it.

Speaking to Nika Jankowicz, formerly of DHS’s infamous Disinformation Governance Board, Velshi recounted, “I just did that intro to the segment, right? So that my audience would understand this conspiracy theory that I guarantee you, pretty much nobody in my audience knew that story because why would they?”

Velshi was referring to Ray Epps<, who recently sued Fox News for claims that he was an FBI agent who encouraged the rob to storm The Capitol on January 6. Velshi claimed he is not like that. Instead, viewers tune in to his show for egghead takes about economics, “Two segments ago I talked about red states and Bidenomics, again I’m not-- my audience doesn't have conspiracy theorists in, right?”

[...]

Proving that MSNBC’s concern about disinformation only goes one way, Jankowicz responded by hyping her own lawsuit against Fox, “I've decided to sue Fox, as well, for the conspiracy theories they spread about me. I think there needs to be consequences for people running people’s lives, lying for profit.”

Of course, the MRC's concern about disinformation only goes one way, as Christy failed to disclose the lies and misinformation his employer spread about Jankowicz and the DGB.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:45 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, January 4, 2024 1:00 AM EST

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Cheering right-wing efforts to use the courts to outlaw the abortion pill isn't the only thing the anti-abortion extremists at the Media Research Center have done this year -- they've been pushing the usual rhetoric as well. Chief extremist Tierin-Rose Mandelburg spent a Jan. 26 post serving up performative outrage about a proposal to reverse the Hyde amendment blocking federal funding from paying for abortions:

On January 26, House Democrats introduced a bill that would reverse the Hyde Amendment, the bill that banned federally funded abortions. The left wants to make abortion even more easily accessible, and use our hard earned money to do so. 

[...]

I’m still perplexed as to why abortion is called “care” when it ends the life of at least one human being. Actual care would help women receive prenatal care and hospital care when giving birth.

And why are Democrats trying to kill minorities?

Twitter abortion enthusiasts were thrilled at the prospect of more abortions.

Mandelburg similarly raged in a Feb. 2 post about a new law in Minnesota:

If you have the sudden urge to kill a child, head over to Minnesota because it just got THAT much easier. 

Governor Tim Walz (D-Minn.) signed the PRO Act into law on Jan 31 legalizing, or at least not prohibiting, abortion at any point. This is the first state since Roe’s overturn in June to enshrine the abortion statutory and make s such an irrational and extreme pro-death law. 

“After last year’s landmark election across this country, we’re the first state to take legislative action to put these protections in place,” Walz said at the signing ceremony.

Here’s a video from the event. If you notice, there are two children clearly in attendance, jumping up and down in celebration of the signing. They’re being taught that life has so little meaning that a law that enables people to kill babies is something to jump for joy over.

[...]

When did we start saying that the legislators who support life are the ones who are “extreme?” Wouldn’t the “extremists” be the ones who want to promote innocent baby death? The world is all kinds of wack.

Propbably around the time people like Mandelburg endorse the creation of an Orwellian survelliance state to monitor pregnant women lest they choose to have an abortion in another state.

Mandelburg pretended to be a legal expert in a Feb. 7 post:

The left is desperate to keep killing babies.

A federal judge in Washington, D.C. suggested that abortion may still be a federal right baked into the 13th Amendment, the one that prohibited slavery. Throw it against the wall, and see if it sticks, Your Honor.

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly, appointee of former president Bill Clinton, turned heads this weekend with her suggestion. During an ongoing criminal case, Kollar-Kotelly proposed that the Dobbs ruling overturning Roe only concerned the 14th Amendment, and maybe there are "emanations" and "penumbras" elsewhere in the constitution. 

She suggested that the 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, could “cement abortion rights,” as The Hill noted. 

Essentially she thinks that abortion should be protected because slavery is prohibited and a woman carrying a baby in utero is apparently a form of slavery.

She pretended to be an expert on religion in a Feb. 27 post:

This pro-abort argument has never and will never work. Stop trying!

Yet another abortion supporter has tried pretending that abortion is in line with the Bible’s teachings. He told his congregation that their faith is “way too small” if they don’t support expansive abortion access. 

T. Michael Rock, co-pastor of Robbinsdale Parkway United Church of Christ in Minnesota, blatantly lied to his congregation. In a tweet from Alpha News MN, Rock explained how Christians that don’t support abortion, or in other words, those who follow the Lord’s teachings on the sanctity of life, are considered his “not so kind Christian colleagues.”

[...]

Actually, sir, faith in God means you trust His teachings. His teachings give us free will for our lives but a woman’s free will takes place when she decides to get pregnant. If she made her choice, had sex and got pregnant, then that was her decision. But, once she’s pregnant she’s no longer dealing with decisions that would only affect her, she’s also dealing with the life of her child, a separate entity from her.

Mandelburg offered no proof that a woman "chooses" to become pregnant simply by having sex. She also ignores that no woman "chooses" to be raped or be the victim of incest.

Mandelburg raged at the existence of a day to honor abortion providers in a March 10 post:

What a sick holiday to not only make up, but also to celebrate. These people are playing too close with the devil.

March 10 apparently marks one of those dumb holidays that people make up, like National Pet Your Dog Day, or National Eat a Waffle Day. This early March holiday, however, celebrates the people who conduct the murder of innocent babies: Abortion Provider Appreciation Day.

Celebrating the people who kill innocent children is like celebrating serial killers or terrorists. Do we have a day celebrating Adolf Hitler’s accomplishments of being responsible for slaughtering 6 million innocent people? No. Do we celebrate Osama bin Laden for the near-3,000 people he killed on 9/11? No. So why are we celebrating the people who professionally rip out babies limb-by-limb from their mothers' wombs?

Leave it to the left to send praises and appreciation for these domestic terrorists.

Likening abortion doctors to Hitler and "domestic terrorists"is another reason whynormal people consider Mandelburg to be "extreme."

Similarly, Mandelburg used a march 15 post to praise a speaker at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast who called abortion "lethal violence" done to advance a woman's "self-invented goals," declaring the speaker's words "a vision of hope for the pro-life movement moving forward in our post-Roe America."

Mandelburg endorsed one state's advancement toward her preferred Orwellian anti-abortion survelliance state in an April 6 post:

Idaho Governor Brad Little just signed a bill that makes it illegal for an adult to help a minor get an abortion without parental consent. The bill is known as the “Abortion Trafficking” ban.

At its core the bill makes it a crime for adults to obtain abortion pills and give them to a minor. The bill states that it is illegal for adults to be “recruiting, harboring or transporting the pregnant minor” without the consent of the minor's parent or guardian. 

The “Abortion Trafficking” part of the bill criminalizes bring minors to other states where abortions are legal to obtain the procedure.

[...]

Here’s the bottom line: every child has value that is not dependent on the age of his or her mother or how he or she was conceived. This bill helps point that out and will hopefully limit the number of abortions in Idaho.

Mandelburg spent a May 12 post whining that abortion and Mother's Day were referenced in the same article:

In celebration of the first Mother’s Day since the overturn of Roe v. Wade, Time magazine decided to yet again push mothers' apparent “need” to abort their kids. 

Yeah, this world is freaking sick. 

“​​This Sunday will be the first Mother’s Day since the Supreme Court decided Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization and struck down the constitutional right to abortion,” the Time author began.

It seems pretty twisted to promote murdering babies on the very day that women, the badasses who birth said children, are supposed to be celebrated. But, leave it to Time to do just that.

That's coming from the woman who doesn't think it's "twisted" to maliciously liken abortion doctors to Hitler. Meanwhile, she brought her similarly twisted extremist framing to a July 9 post:

It’s 2023 and people are upset that babies weren’t killed. WTF has our society turned into?

On Thursday July 6, CNN released a piece indicating that 10,000 children were born in Texas. Though all life should be celebrated, CNN was disappointed that these 10,000 children lived.  

The piece was titled, “Under strict abortion law, Texas had nearly 10,000 more births than expected in last nine months of 2022, research suggests.” Tell me you’re pro-death without telling me you're pro-death.

Mandelburg concluded by huffing: "Overall, it's disturbing that CNN thinks babies being saved is somehow a bad thing but then again, this is CNN we’re talking about. The expectation for a moral compass is low." No normal person looks to an extremist like Mandelburg for rulings on the moral compasses of other people.

A July 14 post by Mandelburg cheered a company pushing anti-abortion propaganda:

It’s a bummer that we have to say this occurrence is rare. 

While most companies this year have pledged their allegiance to the abortion flag, one company is taking the opposite approach. EveryLife is a baby product brand that spreads the mission that all children are miracles from God who deserve to be “loved, protected, and supported.” 

EveryLife released a video ad on July 13. In just one day, it reached over 1,000,000 views while garnering thousands of likes.

Mandelburg raged at Vice President Kamala Harris for talking about abortion in a July 31 post:

Kamala Harris has a tendency to say whatever she wants to support abortion … even if it’s not true! 

Vice President Harris recently visited Iowa, who’s governor just signed a six-week abortion ban. Following a pro-abort speech, Harris was interviewed by ABC News’ Linsey Davis for a post-event discussion. In both events, the VP blatantly lied about abortion bans, among other things. 

Harris used her favorite phrase while in the Hawkeye State. “One does not have to abandon their faith or deeply held beliefs to agree the government should not be telling her what to do.”

That’s right folks, this “baptist” thinks that you can support, believe and follow the teachings of the Holy Bible and still support murdering innocent babies. M'kay sureeee.

[...]

Finally, Harris claimed that states with abortion bans wont help women who are suffering from miscarriages. This is straight fear-mongering on Harris’ end. Abortion bans protect babies in the womb from being killed. Such laws do not interfere with miscarriages as a miscarriage is when a child dies in utero accidentally, spontaneously or unintentionally. To compare those who have a miscarriage to those who actively want to kill their babies is twisted logic.

It's not "twisted logic" at all -- strict anti-abortion laws like those in Texas do, in fact, inhibit care for miscarriages, ectopic pregnancies and other nonviable pregnancies.

Mandelburg whined in an Aug. 2 post that the fact that anti-abortion laws force women to have children they weren't prepared for was pointed out in a Washington Post article: "It’s shocking, but not surprising for The Post to allude to every issue that this couple has to deal with to be the result of not getting an abortion. The outlet has this disturbing idea that people’s lives will be ruined if they don’t abort their kids." Mandelburg offered no help for this couple and their children, of course, whcih tells us that she's all about making women are punished for having sex or being raped.

Mandelburg cheered the progression of an abaortion pill ban through the legal system in an Aug. 17 post:

Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF), a group of medical professionals condemned the negligence of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and said it should be “illegal” to distribute the abortion pill. ADF claimed the FDA didn’t adequately evaluate the abortion drug's safety and urged officials to take it off the market. On August 16, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FDA must restore crucial safeguards around chemical abortion drugs. 

ADF is representing four different medical associations and four different doctors with experience caring for pregnant and post-abortive women. When the FDA permitted the distribution of mail order abortion pills, these medical professionals spoke up against the dangers of said drugs and sued the administration back in November 2022.

First of all, if the drug, mifepristone, works, it ends the life of at least one human being. Second of all, it poses significant risks to the health and even life of the mother who takes it. The drug can cause the mother to experience a month of cramping, bleeding and severe pain. According to Sen. James Lankford (R-Texas), the drug is “four times more dangerous” than surgical abortions and has reportedly increased abortion-related ER visits by “500 percent” from 2002-2015. Yet in April, the Supreme Court ruled that it would stay on the market.

Note Mandelburg's framing of those behind the lawsuit as "medical professionals" and not the anti-abortion activists they actually are. Also, it's nonsensical for Mandelburg to hype a claim that mifepristone is "four times more dangerous" than surgical abortions when Mandelburg and her fellow extremists also want to outlaw surgical abortions. Further,. such language obscures the fact that complications from either mifepristone or surgical abortions are very rare.

A Sept. 22 post by Mandelburg raged at comedian Leslie Jones for talking about how she learned about contraception from Planned Parenthood after having abortions:

Despite her realization, Jones accredited Planned Parenthood to being her Hail Mary during those times and her babies were already killed by the time she understood that birth control is to prevent pregnancies, not end them when they already exist.

“When I went to Planned Parenthood, I finally learned how to prevent pregnancies and take care of myself. Thank God for those people and what they do,” Jones wrote. “I still give money to them to this day.” 

It’s kinda ironic that Jones is thanking God for Planned Parenthood. If she’s talking about the real God, based on everything He teaches, I am pretty sure He doesn’t support anything Planned Parenthood does. As a matter of fact, Jones should have been thanking the Devil because personally, I think Planned Parenthood is a direct result of his work! 

Mandelburg's rage at Planned Parenthood for teaching Jones about contraception as a big clue that she wants to outlaw contraception as well as abortion.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:40 PM EST

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When it wasn't working the debates for his benefit, the Media Research Center's DeSantis Defense League continued to promote and defend its favorite Republican presidential candidate. Clay Waters was angered in an Oct. 3 post by the New York Times pointing out that DeSantis' anti-immigration platform is unrealistic:

The New York Times continued to paint Republicans as the extremists on the immigration issue, even when it’s the Democratic Party who seems eager to welcome a surge of migrants and perhaps even give them the vote.

The online headline over the story by Nicholas Nehamas and Eileen Sullivan didn’t even nod toward objectivity: “With Unrealistic Immigration Proposals, DeSantis and Trump Try to Outdo Each Other.”

Campaign reporter Nehamas is notoriously hostile to DeSantis, and Sullivan's previous misleading reporting captures her siding with illegal immigrants, so this anti-DeSantis screed comes as no surprise.

[...]

The Times piled on details to make it seem an impossible mission to enforce U.S. law, making the unbearable status quo, which is causing protests in even liberal New York City, seem inevitable.

Waters is notoriously hostile to the Times -- bashing it was once his exclusive job at the MRC -- so perhaps he should be disregarded the way he thinks we should ignore Sullivan. Also, Waters is too busy bashing the Times to even bother to explain why DeSantis' eagerness to deport all undocumented immigrants has any basis in reality.

Luis Cornelio served up DeSantis stenography in an Oct. 9 post, cheering how he adhered to his employer's talking points:

Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) did not mince his words against the leftist Silicon Valley giants and the onslaught of free speech in response to the Supreme Court agreeing to hear a case involving a 2021 Florida anti-censorship law.

DeSantis blasted Big Tech platforms' role in blocking information from the American public during an interview with Shannon Bream on Fox News Sunday on Oct. 8. “We have to grapple with the fact that these Big Tech companies colluded with the federal government to stifle dissent on COVID,” DeSantis said. “If you put up an article in COVID in March of 2020 saying COVID came from the Wuhan Lab, they would take it down and censor it. If you criticized lockdowns, they would take it down. They censored the Hunter Biden laptop story at the behest of the federal government.”

Indeed, MRC Free Speech America exclusively unveiled over 800 instances of COVID-19-related censorship in 2022.

Kevin Tober groused in an Oct. 10 post that "Correspondent Lisa Ling’s first assignment for CBS Mornings Tuesday after leaving CNN was to smear the AP education standards and accuse conservatives like Florida Republican Governor Ron DeSantis of not teaching the full history of the United States, especially when it comes to slavery." Tim Graham followed with an Oct. 16 post complaining that "60 Minutes" pointed out the negative effects of DeSantis' policies in Florida:

Two years ago, CBS reporter Sharyn Alfonsi unloaded a 60 Minutes hit piece on Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis and his COVID-vaccine rollout. She said it sounded like....The Hunger Games. Alfonsi went to a DeSantis press conference and fought with him, and then edited out his rebuttal in their hit piece. On Sunday, CBS and Alfonsi uncorked another one. 

Remember DeSantis flying migrants to Martha's Vineyard? CBS promoted a Democrat sheriff in Texas who says DeSantis committed a crime.

[...]

First, she turned to local lefties, like tavern owners Larkin and Jackie Stallings. Jackie speaks Spanish, so she claimed all the migrants were touting what work they could do. Alfonsi wouldn't tell viewers Jackie Stallings tweeted that DeSantis and Texas Gov. Greg Abbott should be in prison! 

Graham went on to complain that the show quoted a Texas sheriff who said "it was wrong for the Florida governor to fly illegal immigrants from Texas to Massachusetts," but Graham never explain what was right about it. Graham continued to rage about the "vicious attack piece" on DeSantis in his Oct. 16 podcast.

A Nov. 3 post by Mark Finkelstein touted that MSNBC's Joe Scarborough "conducted a lengthy interview with Ron DeSantis. A wide range of issues, foreign and domestic, were discussed, with DeSantis displaying an impressive breadth and depth of knowledge." He expressed surprise that "the overall tone was respectful, with Scarborough even praising DeSantis for being forthright about his views."

The MRC, meanwhile, did not want to discuss DeSantis' apparent preference for wearing lifts in his shoes to make himself look taller.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:36 PM EST

Updated: Sunday, December 24, 2023 8:43 PM EST

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Michael Brown's hatred for LGBT people surfaced yet again in his Oct. 27 column, in which he praised a Christian musician for hating them as much as he does:

Although Skillet is one of the best-known Christian rock bands ever, I only became aware of them when John Cooper, the band's longtime frontman, wrote a strong response to former Hillsong worship leader Marty Sampson. Since then, John and I have become close friends, often interacting about the compromised state of so much of the contemporary church. In fact, Skillet's great song "The Resistance" is the theme music for my daily broadcast, the "Line of Fire."

Most recently, John has been involved in the controversy the erupted after "Former Caedmon's Call singer-songwriter, Derek Webb, went to the [Dove] awards in a dress, alongside openly queer Christian artist Semler, and drag queen Flamy Grant. Webb also posted a picture of the trio on social media with the caption, '54th annual dove awards, here we come.'"

Webb is a former contemporary Christian music artist who turned away from the faith and has partnered with "Flamy Grant," a drag queen (and former worship leader named Matthew Blake) whose music was No. 1 on iTunes for Christian music in 2022. I am not making this up.

Nor am I making up the reference to the "openly queer Christian artist Semler," as if one could be openly queer and follow Jesus at the same time. Not a chance.

John has rightly rebuked this destructive behavior, but other leaders in the contemporary Christian music (CCM) industry, have taken issue with his comments, calling him out for his alleged lack of love. They have been joined by many social media commenters who claim that Jesus is using these "drag Christians" to help us be more tolerant and inclusive in our attitudes.

In fact, Cooper apmly demonstrated his lack of love, sneering that not hating LGBT people as "libertarian tolerance" and "moral relativism," maliciously likening them a equivalent to Hitler, slaveowners and racists, which Brown approvingly quoted:

"Sincere question: Were Christians not acting like Jesus when they spoke against slavery? Or stood for civil rights? Was Bonhoeffer a judgmental Pharisee when he was warning the church against Hitler?

"More sincere questions: If people attended the Doves dressed in KKK hoods, would 'love for Christ and being about the Father's business' demand silence from Christian artists? After all, God is the judge, not us, right? 'What's a little racism in our midst?'

"So, will you support folks attending in blackface? What if a section of CCM artists began promoting 'shout your abortion,' and praising the killing of the unborn as an act of love. Does Jesus respond to that? Or does He just love people so much that He stays silent about calling good evil and evil good?

"What if folks came to the Doves promoting segregation between blacks and whites. Or promoting the end of laws that bar minors from entering into consensual sexual relationships with adults. Spoiler alert: There's no way that you or the other folks in the industry would stay silent if those things happened at the Doves.

"You need to ask yourself – why would I be more bothered by racism than sexual immorality? Your take on what it means to love Christ and others is sentimental, not biblical.

If you're likening gay people to Hitler and the KKK, you're not being sincere -- you're being maliciously hateful. Nevertheless, Brown concluded by gushing: "Preach it, kid brother! This is why I love John Cooper and Skillet.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:48 AM EST

Updated: Sunday, December 24, 2023 8:41 PM EST

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The Media Research Center has a bad habit of getting its collective manhood triggered by things like vasectomies and guys in dresses. Clay Waters was triggered by the former in a Nov. 14 post:

After the PBS News Hour aired a curious story Thursday on “How climate change risks impact people with disabilities,” they offered another niche left-wing cultural selection on Saturday’s PBS News Weekend, courtesy of St. Louis-based PBS “community correspondent” Gabrielle Hays, about a spike in men supposedly rushing out to get vasectomies after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade and returned the abortion issue to the states.

In true PBS woke fashion, the terms “male” and “female” and “men” and “women” rarely appeared in two stories by Hays (one a television story, one an older PBS.org print story) about the sensitive and exclusively masculine procedure. One doctor Hays talked to resorted to the bizarre and awkward term “people with uteruses” to identify the class of people formerly known as “women.”

Planned Parenthood is intimately involved in the new vasectomy movement, and Hays awkwardly attempted to show that some ideological statement was being made regarding the Dobbs decision -- as if social conservatives would be trying to ban vasectomies next!

Given that conservatives want to ban birth control, there's no reason they wouldn't want to ban vasectomies; indeed, right-wingers are trying to shame men for getting them. And if Waters wasn't trying to similarly do that, there was no reason to invoke Planned Parenthood as a provider of them. He continued to complain:

Hays then explained: “Planned Parenthood held a three-day vasectomy clinic and three different cities across state of Missouri (...) One person I spoke to last week told me that he got it after the Dobbs decision because he was afraid that at some point maybe the option wouldn't be available to him in the future…."

Hays’ October 24 print article made a ridiculous comparison between abortion (what many consider the killing of a human being) to vasectomies (the blocking of male gametes from fertilizing female ova -- no new human beings involved).

[...]

Woke language followed on the tax-funded news outlet:

Dr. Esgar Guarín, who performed Jon’s vasectomy, said it’s important that the topic of contraception doesn’t rest solely on people with uteruses.

It's not "woke" to expect only women to take responsibility for contraception -- unless, of course, Waters wants to ban that too.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:27 AM EST

Updated: Saturday, December 23, 2023 10:36 AM EST

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The war today in Israel is not primarily Israel vs. Hamas or Hezbollah, or Syria, or Iran or all of Islam. It is a civil war of Jews – the globalist Synagogue of Satan "Jews" of the United States vs the ultra-nationalist authentically Judean Jews who came to power in Israel last November for the very first time since the British repatriated the Jewish people in their ancestral, God-covenanted homeland in 1917. This new Jewish government represents primarily the Sephardic minority, descendants of Jewish "golden age" on the Iberian Peninsula whose ethnic claims to the Holy Land have never been contested – as opposed to the majority Askenazi Jews of largely Khazarian (non-Hebrew) ethnicity by way of Germany (where the literal Seat of Satan was reconstructed by the last Caesar of the Second Reich in the late 1800s and so very many modern evils originated).

To be clear, Khazarian heritage does not in itself disqualify any individual from membership in authentic Judaism, because the Mosaic Law had always allowed for non-Hebrew conversions (Deuteronomy 23:1-8). But it is from this cohort of Jews that the evil branch of Torah-defying fake Jews has grown into a world-strangling vine heavily laden with the Grapes of Sodom: the George Soros and Paul Singer and Chuck Schumer types.

To understand what is happening in Israel we must step back to see the bigger picture of the entire world at war. In a very real sense World War III began with the election of Barack Obama to the White House, whom many still recognize as a prime candidate for the final Antichrist even though he mostly lurks in the shadows at present. It was Obama who dramatically escalated the globalist campaign for world control – sponsoring along with "Pope" Francis the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which is the final blueprint for achieving global government and which the U.N. has ominously just pledged to complete in the seven remaining years – even while admitting they are behind schedule (consider the implications of THAT).

[...]

The loss of Israel to the nationalists was the ultimate nightmare scenario of the Synagogue of Satan globalist "Jews" who have since engaged in all-out political and judicial warfare to stop the them from reforming the leftist-controlled Israeli judiciary (where the real power over policy is wielded, just as is true in the U.S.). In the past month these globalist "Jews" seemingly lost that domestic Israeli battle, while at the same time realizing they have lost the Ukraine proxy war. Their time for desperate measures had come – and for that reason, I believe, THEY unleashed Hamas on Israel. (Netanyahu may or may not be complicit, but it's too soon to tell.) And when, not if, the true Jews build the Third Temple, these globalists will somehow wrest control of it from them and install their own man – Satan's man – in that place.

So, yes, Israel clearly is in a multi-front war, but the central and most consequential front is the civil war the media is not covering.

-- Scott Lively, Oct. 30 WorldNetDaily column

(Yes, WND really does want you to think that Obama is the Antichrist.)

Posted by Terry K. at 12:38 AM EST

Updated: Saturday, December 23, 2023 1:15 AM EST

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Curtis Houck found a biased question from a right-wing reporter who wasn't Peter Doocy to tout in his writeup of the Nov. 20 White House press briefing:

On Monday, Newsmax’s James Rosen brought the rhetorical curtains down on the last White House press briefing ahead of the Thanksgiving holiday (and President Biden’s departure to Nantucket) with a series of probing questions to Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre about polling with being Rosen’s thesis: “[A]re only certain polls valid in your eyes – the ones that support your agenda?”

One could tell it was going to be good from the moment Rosen thanked Jean-Pierre “as always” for calling on him and she proceeded to chuckle. He then merely got out, “I want to ask you about” before Jean-Pierre half-jokingly interjected: “I might regret it, but go ahead.”

After Rosen drew laughter for saying “I assure you, you will not,” he cut to the chase, starting with President Biden’s February interview with Telemundo in which he largely dismissed the negative polls about his job performance: “[H]e answered in words to this effect: ‘Do you know anyone that believes the polling these days?’ And he talked in some detail about the difficulty of getting people on the phone and compiling accurate polling.”

Rosen used that answer alongside his summation of what Jean-Pierre usually says when negative polls are invoked by reporters in the room, which he paraphrased as “we’re not going to look at the polls; we look at his accomplishments.”

But, when polling goes in a favorable direction on “various domestic policy initiatives,” Rosen noted to Jean-Pierre she’s quick to argue something to the effect of Americans “support what the President’s agenda is.”

Houck's focus on selective poll promotion is hilarious given his employer's record on the issue: After the 2020 election, it falsely accused pollsters ofmaking up polls that showed Donald Trump losing to Joe Biden, but touted those same pollsters when their polls showed Biden with low favorability ratings -- in other words, the MRC considers only those polls that advance its right-wing agenda to be valid. Still, Houck persistedd in fawning over Rosen:

Rosen was even more blunt in his final question wondering if “the White House ha[s] any basis to challenge the accuracy of” polling “show[ing] that the electorate at large and also significant majorities within the Democratic Party believe that the President is too old,” “the American people and also significant majorities within the Democratic Party don’t want him to run again, and…his handling of the economy, foreign policy,” which are each “dismal” for Biden.

Despite the record showing she never answered his previous questions in full, Jean-Pierre maintained “we never challenged” polls and she’s “not” doing that “here”.

For the Nov. 27 briefing, Houck raged at a "far-left" reporter (though he never tagged Rosen with a "right-wing" label):

For the first White House press briefing since the Thanksgiving holiday, it was the ultimate contrast of stupidity vs. substance. In the one corner, longtime far-left White House correspondent and African-American activist April Ryan lobbied the ever-inept Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre to have President Biden discuss “the black agenda” with Stevie Wonder.

In the other corner, Fox’s Peter Doocy actually decided to challenge Jean-Pierre and the administration by standing up for Americans who continue to struggle with inflation.

Ryan cut to the chase with her hackery, saying she “had an in-depth conversation with Stevie Wonder last night,” but was interrupted by others in the room (journalists and/or White House staff) laughing at this train of thought. She then lashed out, saying “it’s a serious question.”

Note that Houck also failed to hang an ideological tag on his mancrush Doocy. And, of course, he gave Doocy more love:

Doocy followed up with another hardball: “But why do you think it is that when you say the economy is improving, and President Biden says the economy is improving that a majority of Americans outside of this building are not buying it?”

Jean-Pierre blamed it entirely on Donald Trump, so Doocy fact-checked her by noting Trump’s been gone for three years and, while inflation has slowed, prices are still increasing[.]

Meanwhile, Alex Christy contributed a glancing blow at Jean-Pierre over claims about Thanksgiving dinner costs in a Nov. 22 post:

PolitiFact and Factcheck.org are both part of Facebook’s fact-checking program that rates and suppresses online content, but what is Facebook to do when the two have a disagreement? A Wednesday article from PolitiFact rates a claim about the cost of Thanksgiving from White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre “mostly true,” while Factcheck.org accused both her and the RNC of partisan cherry-picking.

The specific claim from Jean-Pierre is “Because wages are rising, this Thanksgiving dinner is the fourth-cheapest ever as a percentage of average earnings."

[...]

Factcheck.org does not issue ratings like PolitiFact’s truth-o-meter or the Washington Post ’s Pinocchio scale, but if they did, they would probably not give Jean-Pierre a “mostly true” on the grounds that Jean-Pierre was cherry-picking. Disagreements between fact-checking outlets only adds to the evidence that shows they do not speak with the voice of God.

Christy is likely more upset that the RNC was called out for cherry-picking numbers than he was about Jean-Pierre.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:33 PM EST

Updated: Friday, December 22, 2023 9:07 PM EST

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Newsmax heavily promoted the film "Sound of Freedom," so it's not surprising that a Nov. 3 article by Jim Thomas started out by sounding a lot like a press release for it:

Amazon Prime Video has secured the rights to one of the most electrifying box office successes of 2023, Angel Studios' "Sound of Freedom."

"Sound of Freedom," a real-life-inspired narrative, unfolds the harrowing journey of a government agent who resigns from his post to embark on a daring mission to rescue a young girl ensnared by sex traffickers in Colombia, according to CNBC.

The film has garnered considerable attention within conservative political circles, with endorsements from GOP presidential candidates.

Former President Donald Trump hosted a private screening of the film at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club during the summer.

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina lauded it as an "amazing, gut-wrenching, emotional movie."

"Wow. Wow. Wow," Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas exclaimed about the film, encouraging his supporters to watch it.

In between all that, though, Thomas abruptly added the other side of the story:

This attention reflects the grassroots enthusiasm surrounding what Republican strategist Sarah Longwell has termed the "mainstreaming of the center of the QAnon movement, which centers on child protection," as reported by The New York Times.

[...]

During focus groups, Longwell observed that Republican voters frequently voice concerns about schools allegedly "indoctrinating children" and the participation of transgender athletes in sports.

Thomas surprisingly injected even more criticism of the film:

According to Daniela Peterka-Benton, the academic director of the Global Center of Human Trafficking at Montclair State University, the film's emphasis on saviors rather than victims presents an incomplete and idealized portrayal of human trafficking. She pointed out that, in reality, most children are not "snatched away" but are trafficked by individuals with whom they are acquainted.

Peterka-Benton stated, "It does a disservice to the victims; it does a disservice to people really fighting to end human trafficking and to provide services to survivors; there's so much more to it than just the rescue."

For all that truth-telling, though, Thomas failed to mention that the person the film is based on, Tim Ballard, is facing allegations of sexual misconduct and has been forced out of the nonprofit organizatoin he founded for his anti-child-trafficking work, nor did he note that the film's star, Jim Caviezel, is a QAnon adherent. Instead, Thomas finished on the PR note he started the article on, proclaiming that "Angel Studios, renowned for its faith-based content, is poised for a promising future with diverse projects in the pipeline."

Posted by Terry K. at 6:33 PM EST

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WorldNetDaily's Bob Unruh tried his best to fearmonger about voting machines in an Nov. 8 article:

A human programming error in a series of voting machines used this week in a Pennsylvania county has left chaos behind – and confirmed what many who have watched suspicious results trotted out in recent elections as absolute truth feared: Those machines are not infallible.

The situation developed in Northampton County where voters responded to a ballot question about the retention of two Superior Court judges.

It seems the "yes" and "no" options on a printed copy of the results were not the same as what had been punched in on the computer.

At least Unruh led with the sailent finding regarding this situation: it was human error, not the machines themselves, that created this situation. But he censored other sailent facts that undercut his fearmongering, as a more responsible media outlet reported: The error was caught early on voting day because the machinesa provide voters with a paper copy of their votes, and paper ballots were made available to voters (though not enough of them, which caused delays in voting).

Since this wasn't that big deal, Unruh chose to segue into completely unrelated right-wing conspiracy theories about voting machines:

There are doubts raised about electronic voting machines literally every election, as those who accept the results must believe in the absolute impossibility of results being skewed, either by accident or by malicious scheming.

WND reported only a few months ago that a 96-page report from an expert in computer election security concluded one model of Dominion voting machine, those suspected of allowing manipulation during the 2020 election, actually has "critical vulnerabilities that can be exploited to subvert all of its security mechanisms."

In the unsealed July 1, 2021 report, University of Michigan computer science professor Alex Halderman, with the help of Prof. Drew Springall, conducts a "security analysis" of Dominion Voting System's "ballot marking devices," or BMDs, in particular, the corporation's "ImageCast X (ICX) BMD."

As we pointed out when WND first hyped this report, it censored the fact that other observers noted that the alleged risks highlighted in Halderman's report were "theoretical and imaginary" as well as "operationally infeasable" based on scenarios extremely unlikely to occur under normal voting practices and security measures. 

Posted by Terry K. at 2:18 PM EST

Updated: Friday, December 22, 2023 2:20 PM EST

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After spending the summer cheering the collapse of a plea deal involving Hunter Biden and being unsure whether the appointment of a special prosecutor was a cover-up of some kind, the Media Research Center went into the fall months with renewed hatred and determination to continue to destroy Hunter's life as a gotcha to his father, the president. A Sept. 6 post by Kevin Tober cheered that the Hunter obsession slipped into right-wing media:

On Wednesday afternoon, special counsel David Weiss revealed in a new court filing that he planned to file felony charges against President Joe Biden’s crackhead son Hunter due to his illegal firearm purchase and intentional lying on a background check form. The news was so big that even the “big three” evening news networks were forced to cover the story.

In total, the three networks ABC’s World News Tonight, CBS Evening News & NBC Nightly Newsspent a combined 4 minutes and 50 seconds somberly reporting the indictments. ABC spent the most time on the news with a grand total of 2 minutes and 3 seconds. While CBS spent 1 minute 35 seconds, and NBC spent 1 minute and 12 seconds.

Tober is inventing a lot here, purporting to read the minds of the networks by claiming the reported this news "somberly" without demonstrating that was done any more or less "somberly" than any other news story. He also misled in the headline by portraying the indictments as have already happened.

The MRC then bided its time with more Hunter obsession:

• James Comer Subpoenas Mayorkas for Hunter Biden Records, Nets Ignore
• Morning Joe Buries Looming Hunter Indictment, Rips 'Howling' Republicans
• NBC’s Chuck Todd Frets Trump Trying to ‘Muddy the Waters’ With Hunter Biden ‘Questions’
• Brooks Alleges Republicans 'Don't Really Have Anything' On Joe, Hunter Biden

When the expected indictment of Hunter finally dropped, Tober returned in a Sept. 14 post to read the minds of non-right-wing outlet, claiming without evidence that they "bitterly" and "somberly" reported on it:

On Thursday afternoon, a federal grand jury in Delaware indicted Joe Biden’s crackhead son Hunter Biden on three felony charges of lying on a gun background check form. Despite trying their hardest to ignore each new development in the rolling crime spree known as Hunter Biden, all three networks were forced to cover this massive news. In fact, they each lead with the story. 

“The President's son Hunter Biden indicted. Three felony gun charges,” ABC’s World News Tonight anchor David Muir somberly reported the news to his audience. “Accused of lying about his drug use when he bought a firearm in 2018. And then illegally possessing that weapon for 11 days,” Muir added.

Tober also played a little Trump whataboutism:

Meanwhile, on NBC Nightly News, anchor Lester Holt whined that the indictment of Hunter will give Republicans “wide avenues of political attack for Republicans who have been investigating Hunter Biden and the legality of some of his business dealings.”

Did Holt ever complain that the numerous indictments against former President Donald Trump by Soros-backed Democrat prosecutors and rigged juries would give Democrats ammo to attack Republicans?

Tober didn't mention that the gun charge is one rarely charged, especially without an accompanying drug-related charge, and seem to be happening because right-wing congressmen have been aggressively attacking Hunter for years.

Alex Christy spent a Sept. 15 post being angry that a commentator dared to show a tiny bit of sympathy for Hunter and his father:

CNN political director David Chalian joined the Thursday edition of CNN News Central to discuss Hunter Biden being formally indicted on three gun charges and to wax poetic about “this unbelievable Biden story” as it relates to President Joe Biden’s life.

Chalian tried argued that for Biden, “There's the political for him and then there's the personal. The political, obviously, this is an unwelcome development for any White House. As we said it's the first time ever a president's child is indicted on criminal charges. Nobody would want that. It's an unwelcome development for this campaign season getting under way. It's a distraction from what the White House and his team want to focus on.”

[...]

Wrapping up his thoughts, Chalian repeated himself, “There have been more emotional ups and downs for this family, and this is now another day where the president is going to suffer an emotional down that his son is under these criminal charges, so I know—I am certain he's not just viewing this through a political lens, but obviously, he is somebody so identified with his children and his grandchildren as at the very center and core of his being.

Naturally, the idea that Joe Biden was something other than a heartbroken, empathetic father when it comes to all of Hunter’s “troubles” was something Chailian never considered.

The same day, Mark Finkelstein whined that someone pointed out that questions can be raised about the indictment:

The once-fierce pit bull has lost his bite! As Robert Mueller's closest aide during the Russia, Russia, Russia investigation, Andrew Weissmann earned the moniker, "the pit bull," for his hyper-aggressive approach to prosecution. But now that Weissmann has become an MSNBC analyst, and asked to comment on the indictment of Hunter Biden on gun charges, the pit bull has suddenly become a Biden lap dog.

On today's Morning Joe, Weissmann said of the indictment: "This really strikes me as an abuse of the enormous discretion that a prosecutor has." He said special counsel David Weiss "obviously can do it, there is probable cause that a grand jury found -- but should you be bringing the charges?"

The panel also focused on alleged Republican hypocrisy in hailing the indictment under a federal statute whose constitutionality they have challenged on Second Amendment grounds. But no word from the Morning Joe crowd on the mirror image: the hypocrisy of Democrats in challenging a gun control law, passed by a Democrat Congress, that they have vigorously defended. 

[...]

The bottom line is that Weissmann, and the entire Morning Joe crew, circled the wagons around Hunter, doing their best to undermine the case against President Biden's son.

Is that like how Finkelstein's MRC crew circled the wagons around Trump over his multiple indictments? He didn't want to talk about that.

Curtis Houck irrationally raged in a Sept. 18 post that someone else said nice things about the Bidens:

NBC’s chief Biden tool and apple polisher Mike Memoli hit send Sunday on a puketastic item with colleagues Carol Lee and Monica Alba that painted President Biden with nothing but sympathy from the get-go in “Biden allies worry son Hunter’s indictment could strain the president’s 2024 focus”.

The trio did its best in the first paragraph to make one’s eyes roll 180 degrees to the back of their head: “During the period between his vice presidency and presidency, Joe Biden was often asked about the campaign he didn’t run. In explaining why he passed on a White House bid in 2016, Biden would describe how the death of his eldest son, Beau, weighed heavily on him and his family.”

Like concerned family members, Memoli and co. fretted that while Biden wanted another term, “people close to the president are increasingly worried about how the legal troubles of his remaining son, Hunter, could divide his attention at a time when he needs to be fully focused on what’s expected to be a razor-close election.”

[...]

Cue the laugh tracks for this zaniness from former Biden aide Michael LaRosa, who surmised that the President likely “wakes up and thinks about his deceased son and probably cries every day” about Beau and Hunter’s life of ruin.

They also made Biden seem like, yes, a child “The president relies most heavily on his wife at these moments, and they were apart for about a week with her Covid diagnosis and his trip to India and Vietnam, which came hours after the news that Hunter would be indicted by the end of the month.”

Yes, someone as devoid of basic human empathy as Houck (and most other MRC employees) would find it "puketastic" that Biden might continue to grieve for his deceased son.

As the MRC is prone to do, a Sept. 18 post by Tober expressed new outrage that Hunter is committing the offense of fighting back against his critics (though he switched from smearing Hunter as a "crackhead" to merely a "drug addict," despite providing no evidence of a current addiction):

President Joe Biden’s drug addict son Hunter Biden launched a frivolous lawsuit Monday against his father’s own IRS due to the agency allegedly releasing his tax records during a whistleblower report against the agency.

While ABC's World News Tonight ignored this escalation from Hunter Biden's team, the CBS Evening News chose not to simply report on it. Instead, they touted Hunter “going on the offensive” against the IRS. In a random act of journalism, NBC Nightly News played it straight and reported the facts of the story. 

“Tonight Hunter Biden's legal team is going on the offensive, filing a lawsuit against the IRS for the alleged unlawful release of his private tax details,” CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell hyped in her biased report. 

“Attorneys claim two agents violated Biden’s privacy rights when they disclosed his tax information during media interviews including with CBS News,” O’Donnell added.

By contrast, on NBC Nightly News, left out the editorializing of Hunter Biden “going on the offensive.”

Toer didn't explain how he decided Hunter's lawsuit was "frivolous" or why Hunter should not even be allowed to respond to his critics.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:05 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, December 21, 2023 9:07 PM EST

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Like WorldNetDaily, Newsmax has been trying to engage in revisionism regarding the Capitol riot -- particlarly when it comes to "QAnon Shaman" Jacob Chansley. A March 7 article, for instance, hyped how "New footage released through House Speaker Kevin McCarthy from the Jan. 6, 2021, protests at the U.S. Capitol shows two Capitol Police officers escorting 'QAnon Shaman' Jacob Chansley past other police officers and to the door of the U.S. Senate" -- but she omitted that prosecutors pointed out that Chansley had spent the previous half-hour facing off against law enforcement, adding: "Chansley was not some passive, chaperoned observer of events for the roughly hour that he was unlawfully inside the Capitol. ... He was part of the initial breach of the building; he confronted law enforcement for roughly 30 minutes just outside the Senate Chamber; he gained access to the gallery of the Senate along with other members of the mob (obviously, precluding any Senate business from occurring); and he gained access to and later left the Senate floor only after law enforcement was able to arrive en masse to remove him.”

A March 30 article by Theodore Bunker, meanwhile, tried to rename Chansley: "Jacob Chansley, the man known as the Jan. 6 "Shaman," has been moved from federal prison to a halfway house, according to records from the Federal Bureau of Prisons." The word "QAnon" was nowhere in his article, and Bunker did not explain why he dropped it, given that "QAnon Shaman" is very much Chansley's identity.

The remaning seems to be done as a favor to Chansley and his attorney, William Shipley, who appeared on Newsmax in 2021 to assert: "We're going to begin to try to address this issue is to eliminate this reference to him as the QAnon Shaman. ... He has zero connection to QAnon." Shipley went on to play dumb: "He does practice shamanism, which is a form of a sort of a meditative religious practice, but he has no connection to QAnon. ... Where that ever took hold, I have no idea, but his attorney did him no favors at all by allowing that characterization to sort of dominate the manner in which he was addressing the media and in court, and it's just so far from the truth." In fact, Chansley was a known supporter of QAnon, as indicted by social media posts.

Eric Mack -- who wrote the 2021 article on Chansley's lawyer pretending he had no link to QAnon -- returned for a July 20 article that tried to engage in further whitewashing:

Using the Jan. 6 tapes aired by Tucker Carlson, the self-proclaimed "America's Shaman" sought to have his guilty plea deal voided due to "newly discovered" evidence, but a federal judge rejected Jacob Chansley's request Thursday.

"Chansley's arguments are without merit," U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth in Washington, D.C., wrote in his ruling.

[...]

Chansley was the famed Jan. 6 "Shaman" who wore a headdress and horns while being ushered through the U.S. Capitol building by police on Jan. 6, 2021. The video released publicly earlier this year, as permitted by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., showed "newly discovered" evidence Chansley was not forcing his way through the building to the Senate chambers.

The word "QAnon" appeared nowhere in Mack's article.

All this rewriting of history and attempted softening of Chansley earned Newsmax an interview with him when he decided he wanted to run for Congress -- and Mack lovingly devoted three articles to the interview. The first was a bit of cleanup:

"Shaman" Jacob Chansley, vilified for his protest at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is running for Congress as a libertarian to fight the establishment and stand for America and Arizona voters, he told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Monday.

"The fact of the matter is the mockingbird media chose to use my image to create a shock and awe campaign," Chansley told "National Report" in his first national TV appearance since the protest and his prison release.

[...]

The images of his Jan. 6 costume does not destroy his credibility, but enhance it, Chansley argued.

"Literally decades here in the United States of America we have had swindlers in suits and liars in ties stealing our tax dollars, moving our public money into private hands," he said. "And I'll say this: If it takes horns and face paint with no shirt to end up disrupting the establishment and the established, corrupt politics and the dinosaur circus that we call D.C., then I'm fine with that."

At the very end of this article, Mack finally said the forbidden word and effectivley admitted he was censoring the term on Chansley's behalf: "Labeled the 'QAnon Shaman,' Chansley has disavowed the QAnon movement and has preferred to be recognized as 'America's Shaman.'" In fact, Chansley has not disavowed QAnon; he has even said that "I never denounced Q or the QAnon community." This makes Mack's whitewash job even more dishonest.

Mack let Chansley whine further in his second article:

The attempts to blame former President Donald Trump for the Jan. 6 protest is a function of "corrupt DOJ talking points" and "neuro linguistic programming" for "critical factor bypass" by anti-Trump "mockingbird media," the infamous Jan. 6 "Shaman" Jacob Chansley told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Monday.

"No, I do not" blame Trump, Chansley told "National Report." "And I think that any attempt to try to paint anything that happened on that day onto the president or try to paint him with that broad brush is just mockingbird media and corrupt DOJ talking points, because the fact of the matter is the man said peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard."

Chansley was giving his first national TV interview since his imprisonment for having taken part in the Capitol protest that had him convicted for the obstruction of an official congressional proceeding. He spent the time researching, studying, and even teaching inmates as he prepares for a 2024 libertarian campaign in Arizona's 8th Congressional District.

"What we're talking about here is optics, and based on the mockingbird media and neuro linguistic programming, based on critical factor bypass, and all that kind of psychological warfare, basically, you can paint anybody to be anything," Chansley said.

"So you could choose to look at me as a felon. I've heard people call me a traitor that's a threat to democracy. Or you could choose to look at me as I am a person that was maligned and skewered by a corrupt system — as so many hundreds of thousands of people have been in the United States, as so many Jan. 6ers have been in the United States, and as Donald Trump has been in the United States of America."

One can easily look at Chansley as a felon because that is, in fact, what he is.

Mack let Chansley do even more revisionism in the third article:

January 6 "Shaman" Jacob Chansley regrets his involvement, but he rejects the "bogus narrative" of him having any mental health issues, he told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Monday.

"My mental health is as sound now as it was then," Chansley told"National Report" in a wide-ranging interview. "The fact of the matter is, this notion of mental illness or having mental health issues is a bogus narrative."

Chansley said it began with his former lawyer concocting it in a defense he does not agree with.

[...]

Despite serving time for a felony conviction of obstructing a congressional proceeding, Chansley noted he remained peaceful, did not break anything, and even assisted law enforcement during the protest in the Capitol.

"The moment that I entered the building I stopped somebody from stealing out of the break room," he said. "The whole reason why the police were escorting me around the building was because I offered to help them clear the Senate chamber, offered to help them make sure there was no vandalism, violence, or theft.

"And as soon as I got out the building, not a short time after, I stopped people from breaking in and told everybody to go home. No, I was not violent. No, I did not break anything. No, I did not steal anything. I was doing everything to keep the peace."

Mack censored the word "QAnon" in those latter two articles. If Chansley was asked any questions that weren't softball, Mack didn't indicate it.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:01 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, December 21, 2023 9:24 PM EST

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Most people would be a bit ashamed to discover that their shoddy work has been featured in a film made by a known fabricator and convicted felon, but the Media Research Center is not most people. Thus, we have an Oct. 27 post by Catherine Salgado:

Filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza’s new movie “Police State” highlighted a federal program to target Republicans, conservatives and Christians that was exposed by the Media Research Center.

In his new movie “Police State,” which premiered in theaters Oct. 23, D’Souza and the experts he interviewed particularly emphasized how much the federal government has violated First Amendment rights with their mass censorship efforts. Author Peter Schweizer highlighted the “Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization,” revealed by MRC Free Speech America as part of a Department of Homeland Security (DHS)-funded program, the “Targeted Violence & Terrorism Prevention Grant Program” (TVTP), targeting Republicans, conservatives and Christians.

Schweizer showed D’Souza the Pyramid during the film, pointing out how groups like the National Rifle Association (NRA), The Heritage Foundation, the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN), Breitbart News and the Republican National Committee (RNC) were included on a chart with neo-Nazi groups.

The Biden administration revamped the DHS TVTP to provide funding for localities to combat “all forms of terrorism and targeted violence,” as MRC revealed in May. That meant targeting not real terrorists, but the entire spectrum of the political right and Christians through “media literacy and online critical thinking initiatives” and other so-called training seminars as part of a coordinated effort to make America into a one-party system. One of the grantees, the University of Dayton, featured a “Pyramid of Far-Right Radicalization.”

But as we documented, the MRC's report fundamentally misunderstood the pyramid graphic and was so filled with misinformation that even its ideological fellow travelers at Fox News felt compelled to debunk it.

But D'Souza's history of shoddy and discredited work -- which, of course, Salgado hid from her readers -- doesn't matter to Salgado, because his film is promoting the correct right-wing narratives:

D’Souza covered Big Tech’s aggressive censorship of COVID-19 content under government pressure. He also examined how censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop scandal, done after government priming, rigged the 2020 election against former President Trump, as Patel put it. The federal government is overseeing the “slow death” of our rights, including free speech, Bongino told D’Souza in the film.

A Media Research Center poll found that Big Tech and liberal media censorship of the Hunter Biden scandal altered the outcome of the 2020 election, favoring Joe Biden, as 9.4% of Biden’s voters would not have voted for him had they known the truth.

Salgado failed to disclose that this poll was manufactured for the MRC by a polling firm founded by Trump adviser Kellyanne Conway, raising reasonable doubts about bias.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:56 PM EST

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As it typically does, the Media Research Center reacted to October's gun massacre in Maine, in which 18 people were killed, by whining that people are emphasizing the gun part of it. Nicholas Fondacaro ranted in an Oct. 26 post:

In the wake of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine overnight, the liberal media made their predictable and ghoulish push to strip law-abiding American gun owners of their Second Amendment rights. MSNBC’s Chris Jansing was particularly irritated as she spent part of her eponymous show on Thursday lashing out and attacking the residents of Maine for supporting the Second Amendment and repeatedly rejecting attempts to curtail their rights via gun control legislation.

[...]

Growing more hysterical as the segment went on, Jansing looked to MSNBC anchor Lindsey Reiser to decode Maine’s supposedly mysterious gun laws. “You’ve been looking into Maine's gun laws, what did you find?” she asks as if she was translating the Rosetta Stone.

Reiser did admit that Maine had “relatively low homicide rates compared to rates of high gun ownership. Last year alone, they had only 29 homicides.”

But she did take issue with them having “permitless carry.” “So, anyone 21 or older can carry a gun without a permit. If you're 18 to 20, you need a permit to carry a weapon, unless you serve in the armed forces or you're in the National Guard,” she added. Of course, this left out the important detail that to buy the gun they were carrying, they would have already had to pass a background check.

And on background checks, Reiser was out to mislead with lies like the gun show loophole. “We know that they don't require background checks for all gun sales, just for federally licensed dealers, so private sales, gun shows, those don't require background checks,” she falsely proclaimed.

Fondacaro failed to explain why any reference to the gun show loophole is a "lie" -- an odd claim given that some are trying to close it.

The next day, Fondacaro spent his daily hate-watching of "The View" raging that the American obsession with guns was called out:

The term "RINO" didn’t begin to describe the level of contempt the so-called “conservatives” of ABC’s The View had for the ideology and people they purported to represent. In the wake of the mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, FAKE conservatives Alyssa Farah Griffin and Ana Navarro spewed pure ignorance and hatred at any Republican (politician and private citizen) who supported the Second Amendment and wanted their gun rights secured; openly blaming law-abiding gun owners for mass shootings.

Farah Griffin began her uniformed screed by falsely claiming that gun violence and mass shootings were a “uniquely American problem.” And she tried to portray herself as a knowledgeable commentator who supported the Second Amendment because her husband “owns a gun.”

According to an NPR report from 2019, in the Western Hemisphere alone, the U.S.’s per capita gun deaths were more than eclipsed by at least 10 different countries. Gun violence was one of the leading reasons why people were fleeing Central and South American countries for the U.S.

Fondacaro concluded by Heathering the show's conservatives for not being pro-gun absolutists like him:

Navarro would later blame all mass shootings and gun deaths on anyone who exercised their Second Amendment rights. “It's all about you all who keep electing gun-rights apologists, gun-owner apologists,” she bleated. “Do the people in Canada have better hearts? Do the people in Finland have better hearts than Americans do?”

The only thing rotten here was the fake conservatives on The View.

Brad Wilmouth used an Oct. 28 post to complain that gun restrictions were discussed in the massacre's aftermath, obsessing over the side issue of gun rights for veterans:

On Thursday's CNN This Morning, reacting to a deadly mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, the show provided Senator Chris Coons (D-DE) an unchallenged forum to push for more gun control and lament that such legislation would likely be opposed by newly elected House Speaker Mike Johnson. And, even though fellow Democrat Senator Jon Tester supports legislation to protect the gun rights of veterans, Senator Coons was allowed to mislead viewers on the issue.

After playing a clip of the mayor of Auburn, Maine, reacting to the murder spree in neighboring Lewiston that killed 18, CNN co-host Poppy Harlow brought aboard her guest as she misleadingly blurred gang-related mass shootings with the less frequent type that has a high death toll and is more difficult to predict.

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After Harlow followed up by asking if Congress might pass more spending for mental health if it were not tied to new gun laws, the Delaware Democrat repeated his misleading claims that Republicans are trying to help veterans with mental illness get their gun rights back.

It was not mentioned that it's not just Republicans who support the measure regarding veterans. Senator Jon Tester (D-MT) also supports the same measure which would protect veterans who have had to get help in dealing with their finances because of mental illness, contrary to how Senator Coons made it sound.

As it turned out, the massacre perpetrator was an Army reservist with apparent mental health issues that hadn't been addressed despite warnings.

Wilmouth used a post the next day to whine that the massacre made a Maine congressman change his mind on gun regulation:

In the aftermath of the deadly mass shooting in Maine, CNN This Morning on Friday spent time touting a moderate Democrat congressman who has now switched to the liberal side on gun control as the show also took time to single out the only five congressional Democrats who voted against an "assault weapon" ban last year.

Left-leaning CNN analyst Natasha Alford declared that Congressman Jared Golden (D-ME) had "moral courage" in switching sides on the issue after the shootings in his state while CNN Republican Alyssa Farah Griffin lauded the move as "fairly bold."

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Alford suggested that Second Amendment supporters are not thinking of what's best for their constituents as she also took a jab at newly elected Speaker Mike Johnson:

Then, Griffin -- the kind of Republican analyst the liberal media like best -- went along with the premise of the discussion that there needs to be more gun control and speculated about what might pass in spite of Republicans usually opposing more gun laws.

Wilmouth didn't explain why a mass shooting shouldn't change people's minds about the danger of guns.

Posted by Terry K. at 9:20 PM EST

Updated: Thursday, December 21, 2023 10:22 AM EST

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