Satan, and therefore his Antichrist human host, will cloak himself in the rainbow as an essential element of his claim to be the Messiah.

[...]

Now, to nip in the bud the "Christian left" sophistry that deflects attention away from homosexuality to the sin of "pride," let me stipulate that pride IS the sin at the very root of LGBT perversions, finding its most complete expression in homosexual copulation, as Moses noted in Leviticus 18:22, and Paul so eloquently explains in Romans 1:18-32. I'll further stipulate that their other favorite deflection tactic regarding the "Sin of Sodom," that the actual sin was "inhospitality," is also true: there was no act in the ancient Hebrew culture so grossly inhospitable as the attempted homosexual gang rape of visiting strangers by "all the men of Sodom both young and old" described in Genesis 19:1-11.

Thus, rampant homosexuality is the key symbol of ultimate rebellion triggering God's wrath. And this was true in the case of the Flood as well, in that homosexual "marriage" triggered it, as Jesus implied in Matthew 24:37-38 (taken together with Genesis 6:5) and the ancient Hebrew rabbis expressly stated in the Talmud (Genesis Rabbah 26:5:4). Revelation 11, especially verses 7-8, confirms its association with the Kingdom of the Antichrist.

[...]

Let this be America's warning as it willingly hosts countless rainbow-emblazoned "Gay Pride" parades and flies the LGBT rainbow flag over every U.S. embassy in the world. THIS is the harbinger of wrath. And your attitude about pride in perversion is a big part of God's litmus test for your fate. Shun the curse of the LGBT rainbow flag!

-- Scott Lively, June 7 WorldNetDailiy column

Sexual sin without consequences is the false promise of contraception on demand to normalize culture-wide fornication (Griswold v. Connecticut, 1966), the back-up plan of abortion on demand ( Roe v. Wade, 1973), the "no fault" divorce laws of the '70s that ended punishment for adultery, legalized sodomy (Lawrence v. Texas, 2003) and finally, the invention of "gay marriage," which ended the ancient and essential primacy of natural-family norms that had always served as the "immune system" of society (Obergefell v. Hodges, 2015).

Today's front line of cultural assault on our immunity-suppressed body-politic is transgenderism, which moves beyond sexual conduct to destroy binary male/female human identity in preparation for transhumanism. Now-rapidly emerging transhumanism brings the end of God's design for mankind and the rise of a new human-created "better" species made possible by technology.

Once anarchy had defeated ordered liberty in sexual matters, the disruption of order in all the other social realms was made easier.

[...]

Let us pray and work for that counter-revolution to do more than just punish evil figureheads like Fauci, Newsom and Cuomo. Let us be champions of a return to the "ordered liberty" that can restore our national immune system. And let our voices be heard especially clearly during this "Gay Pride" month of June, when the people most responsible for destroying our moral foundations are celebrating their presumed supremacy with presumed impunity.

-- Scott Lively, June 9 WND column

Regular readers know that I am devoting my weekly columns in the month of June to pushing back against its designation across all the woke countries of the world as "Gay Pride Month." Prophecy-oriented readers recognize the deep significance of this phenomenon, as I document in my book "The Petros Prophecy" (free upon request). MAGA patriots of all stripes are awakening to the centrality of the LGBT agenda to Cultural Marxism and the conquering army of Dem and RINO co-conspirators, as I have summarized in past articles. Virtually every clear-thinking, freedom-loving person in the world recognizes that the increasingly universal, increasingly mandatory celebration of same-sex attraction disorder is a kind of ideological tyranny. The smartest of them realize its ultimate goal is to impose groupthink upon humanity and criminalize dissent.

For about 20 years I have worked to educate the conservative movement about this process and goal which I call the Five Steps of Homofascism: Tolerance, Acceptance, Celebration, Forced Participation and finally Punishment of Dissent. Importantly, this is the process used to enforce submission to every part of the Marxist agenda, but the LGBT movement has always been the point of the Cultural Marxist spear, and every phase of the five-step process was perfected in the fight for so-called "gay rights" before being adapted for other issues.

[...]

That brings us to the main contention of this article: that the abbreviation "Q" for "Questioning" in the acronym "LGBTQ" designates a category best described as "prime candidates for recruitment into the LGBT army." "Q" effectively stands for "ReQruits," and serves the same function for the Marxist faith that the term "seeker sensitivity" serves for the Christian faith – a system for and emphasis on attracting new members.

To be clear, by "recruiting" I primarily mean encouraging impressionable young people to experiment with same-sex conduct with each other. That is the implied and sometimes express purpose of adding Q to LGBT when used by advocates of sexual conduct outside of monogamous heterosexual marriage. And it is why I advise everyone who cares about the moral, emotional, physical and spiritual health of young people never to add "Q" to LGBT when referencing the coalition of people with same-sex attraction disorder and/or gender-identity disorder. To do so enlists you in the recruitment process whether you intend it to or not.

While adult recruitment of young people into same sex relationships does occur, and is especially common in male homosexual culture (related to the age-old phenomenon of pederasty), this problem is significantly eclipsed by the ongoing mass-recruitment of young teenagers into homosexual and/or transgender self-identification through culture-wide social engineering, marketing and propaganda.

-- Scott Lively, June 14 WND column

Posted by Terry K. at 12:53 AM EDT

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In Media Research center writer Curtis Houck's highly biased and partisan worldview -- one he gets paid well to espouse -- White House press secretary Jen Psaki is evil personified, and biased, hostile reporters like Fox News' Peter Doocy are heroes who are always logical and serious and certainly not clowns or carnival barkers (his favorite alleged insult for CNN's Jim Acosta, who was no more abrasive or hostile than Doocy is).

So, when Houck decided to feature non-right-wing reporters for the June 7 briefing, his headline screeched "The Clown Show Is Back!":

The White House Briefing Room returned to full capacity for Monday’s Psaki Show and with that, Trump era carnival barkers such as Breakfast Media’s Andrew Feinberg, Playboy’s Brian Karem and The Grio's April Ryan made sure to have seats. Along with fellow far-left reporter Yamiche Alcindor of PBS, they bashed former President Trump and trumpeted the disastrous For the People Act.

National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan made a guest appearance at the start and Ryan was there to lob softballs with her first question complaining that Russian President “Vladimir Putin has already smeared [President Biden’s] name” and then suggesting passing the For the People Act was a necessity to national security.

Houck further displayed his lack of seriousness and professionalism by repeating a fellow right-winger insulting Alcindor as "the White House press corps’s most useless reporter." But Houck made sure to suck up to his man-crush, touting how "Doocy decided to show up with excellent questions about holding China accountable and Biden not speaking or tweeting about D-Day."

Speaking of sucking up, Houck unironically accused non-right-wing reporters of doing just that in writing about the June 8 briefing:

With Tuesday serving as the final White House press briefing for at least week due to President Biden’s trip to Europe, liberal reporters had one more chance to perform for the cameras and/or suck up to Press Secretary Jen Psaki. Unfortunately, PBS’s Yamiche Alcindor,The New York Times’s Katie Rogers, and The Grio’s April Ryan seemed to be more like CNN's Brian Stelter than, say, Fox’s Peter Doocy.

After Ryan hammered Psaki from the left about the right for Black Americans to vote being in peril, Rogers tag-teamed with Psaki to mock conservatives and Republicans as having “[gone] crazy” and got “worked up” over Vice President Kamala Harris’s comments about the U.S./Mexico border as well as her NBC interview.

Rogers began with a series of climate change and infrastructure questions, but that was merely lip service to what she seemed most enthused about: trashing the right.

We don't remember Houck ever complaining when his beloved Kayleigh McEnany used White House press briefings to trash liberals -- in fact, he reveled in it. Houck also sucked up to Doocy again, declaring that he "came ready to ask questions that actually advance the ball down the field." Of course, Houck means that they advance right-wing narratives.

Houck's all-too-predictible rants, hate and man-crushing have more than amply demostrated who the real clown is here.

Posted by Terry K. at 6:10 PM EDT

Updated: Sunday, September 12, 2021 2:13 PM EDT

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WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah has been ranting a lot about the "digital cartel" that is supposedly running WND out of business. That's because he's begging for money and he needs a victim. Farah rantted in a June 14 column:

For almost 25 years, WND has blazed trails in the new media world as the first independent online news site. We were challenged, vilified and made sport of by the state-run media, but it was not until 2017 that Google and Facebook – along with Twitter, Apple and Amazon – joined forces against us.

And then I suffered a series of strokes in 2019 – talk about a double-whammy!

At least it's no secret now. But WND has continued to tumble – Google and Facebook denying us revenues and readers, Amazon killing WND books and movies.

While in normal times WND regularly showed up among the top of Google News results, it now never does. Even worse are the words it uses to characterize our stories – "dangerous," "derogatory," even "shocking content." These are all applied to TRUE stories – all of which have panned out. But few got to read them, because Facebook censored them and Google made sure they weren't read by most people.

I don't want reform. I want real justice for those harmed by these companies. What they have done to the American landscape with these tactics is a disgrace!

[...]

Under no circumstances should these corporations be permitted to engage in political lobbying, soliciting, accepting government contracts or participating in any political activities, operating as they currently do under special government protections against liability claims.

By law, Google and Facebook must be ideologically neutral in all they do, since, under the law, they are not "publishers" but "carriers" of information – the same goes for Twitter, Amazon and Apple.

Farah is lying when he says that every single story WND has published is "TRUE" -- we've documented numerous examples of false and misleading information WND has published, not to mention the defamation lawsuit from a Tennessee car dealer it abruptly settled out of court before trial after dragging things out for years by, in part, admitting that the stories it published calling him a drug dealer were false.

Also, Google and Facebook are private companies who have terms of service by which they have every right to remove or restrict those who violate it. WND publishes conspiracy theories and many stories of dubious factual content, and because one of the services Google and Facebook provide is accurate information to their subscribers and users, they have under no obligation to promote information that's not true masquerading as "news."

Farah also invoked Google critic Robert Epstein to attack the company for is allegedly "demonstrable pro-Democrat activism" in the 2016 election. But as we've documented, Epstein's research, as clickbait-y as it is for right-wingers like WND and Farah, leaves something to be desired.

After more ranting, Farah gets to the sales pitch:

WND has been forcibly downsized by these leftists by 80% since January 2017. There's a direct correlation between the percentage of Google-Facebook advertising revenue control and the decline in advertising revenue at WND in the same time period.

Thus, there's nowhere else for WND to turn than to direct financial contributions. What we collect in donations for the WND News Center all goes to reporters, editors and contributors – every dime.

That's why beginning Tuesday, June 15, we're launching our drive to raise $100,000 by July 15. And with your help, and God's help, we will rise like a phoenix again to help America straighten out this mess.

Please support us with your prayers and by making a generous tax-deductible donation to the WND News Center, the nonprofit, charitable, 501(c)3 sister organization to the for-profit WND. And consider sending a monthly contribution of any amount.

If we go down, soon the independent free press will be a thing of the past, and with it, our uniquely blessed nation.

Nah, that's not gonna happen. bad-quality "news" operations like WND will go down, but those who publish quality news will not be affected. Farah is once again trying to blame the "digital cartel" for his own failings in how he has run WND for the past two decades. Sensationalism and conspiracy theories sell -- but only to a certain extent. If WND published content that was truthful and of high quality, he would not be as affected as he is by the shift away from advertising that nearly all online media operations face. The fact that Farah is begging for money tells us that the WND News Center and ad-free subscription plans -- which didn't launch until late 2019, nearly two years after WND's current round of existential crises -- aren't bringing the money they need and were too little too late. Apparently, not as many other operations want to republish WND's dubious content as it was counting on.

More importantly, WND never deviated from the content that played a major role in driving WND into the ditch -- it's still obsessed with conspiracy theories and publishing less-than-truthful content. It didn't change, and hasn't shown that it deserves to live.

Since then, most of Farah's columns have been tirades against "big tech," with similar pleas for money and the occasional update. On June 23, Farah wrote that the drive had raised $12,517.38, which he insisted was "a good start, but we have three weeks left to raise the remaining $87,483."

Weirdly, this campaign is being promoted only in Farah's column and not anywhere else on the WND website, even though higher visibility might help raise more money. That findamental mismanagement may be another sign WND doesn't deserve to live.

But in his June 30 column, Farah moved the deadline, giving himself a couple more weeks to raise the money: "As of today, we've raised $23,564. Thank you sincerely for that, all who donated. Now we need to raise the remaining $76,436 by the end of July." Farah did not explain why his deadline moved.

Looks like another WND fundraising campaign lacking transparency -- even after Farah bashes the "digital cartel" for an alleged lack of transparency.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:16 PM EDT

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Julio Rivera, of something called Reactionary Times, ranted in a May 14 CNSNews.com commentary:

So, with it being well-established that America’s literal borders are being weakly monitored, a message has been sent to the world’s hack-for-profit underground that America has never been more vulnerable as she is at this very moment in history.

Want proof? Look no further than this past weekend’s Colonial Pipeline ransomware attack. Colonial's 5,500-mile pipeline carries almost half of the East Coast's fuel supplies.

This most recent attack occurred in the wake of the Justice Department starting a 120-day review of critical cybersecurity threats last week. The DOJ initiative was confirmed in late April by Deputy Attorney General Lisa Monaco at the Munich Cyber Security Conference.

Curiously, Rivera made no mention of Donald Trump, who was president the previous four years and apparently did nothing on the cybersecurity front that would have stopped the Colonial Pipeline cyberattack -- indeed, he does't mentionb Trump at all. He did, however, go back to the Obama administration, which he claimed "was marred by a multitude of foreign cyber-attacks.

Rivera closed his commentary by sounding like a Trump hack: "If this losing trend continues for the Biden Administration, Americans can expect nothing short of agony during the more than three-and-a-half years we still have left with 'Sleepy Joe' and company." He offered no evidence of anything Biden did or didn't do to be blamed for the cyberattack -- whcih means he's just ranting for no reason.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:08 AM EDT

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As part of its rampant homophobia (and non-binary-phobia), the Merdia Research Center has been on a tirade of late against chidren's TV shows who show that non-heterosexual people exist.

Elise Ehrhard ranted in a May 21 post:

Drag queens continue to groom preschoolers with the help of entertainment media and woke "educators."

This spring, a PBS Station in New York aired a drag queen storytime and sing-along with "Little Miss Hot Mess" on a program for children aged 3-8.

Lil Miss Hot Mess read her "children's book" The Hips On the Drag Queen Go Swish Swish Swish on the preschool program Let's Learn, for  WNET, a New York PBS affiliate. Let's Learn is a partnership of WNET and the New York City Department of Education.

What, exactly does Ehrhard think letting a drag queen read a book to children is "grooming" them for? Not to hate people different from them? That would a terrible outcome as far as Ehrhard is concerned, since the MRC pays her well to spew her hate.Later in the piece, Ehrhard huffed that "PBS has been pushing Gay, Inc.'s agenda for years." she did not explain what "Gay, Inc." is, let alone its purported "agenda"; instead, she linked to the MRC's 2019 meltdown over a gay character appearing in the animated TV show "Arthur," which explains nothing.

It was Veronica Hays' turn to melt down in a May 27 post declaring that "inflicting" a gay character on the animated show "Rugrats" was "LGBTQ propaganda":

Paramount+ is releasing new Rugrats reboot this month and its gonna be gay! Yeah baby!

Your children are sure to appreciate this very inclusive update to the Rugrats lore. Unfortunately, we’re not being blessed with a gay baby. No, it's actually Phil and Lil’s mom Betty who is receiving a sexuality update. As pop culture outlet The AV Club says, Betty “has low-key always been a queer icon.” For those who did not see this coming “let’s be real: Betty was gay as f**k - and now that's actually canon.” 

This is a momentous occasion for the collective culture, as Betty is the first openly gay woman in the Rugrats series. The original series portrayed Betty as an independent and gutsy business woman married to the very passive and quiet Howard. He is being kicked out of the picture this time around for the Paramount+ reboot. Whether or not this new Rugrats rendition will explore new potential gay love interests for Betty is yet to be seen. For the sake of the children, let's hope not.

So before Betty was madegay, was "Rugrats" heterosexual propaganda? Hays didn't address that.

On June 1, Gabriel Hays whined that another animated show was getting gay characters:

Another favorite kids show for the last generation of youngsters is falling victim to yet more militant wokeness. Last month, Entertainment Weekly finally unveiled the new, LGBTQ-as-hell characters from its upcoming Proud Family reboot. Yes, the show now has an interracial gay dad couple, who, might we add, are the proud parents of another new character, a budding social justice activist.

Well this certainly puts the Proud in Proud Family.

The reboot, which is set to air on DisneyPlus in 2022, makes no bones about its commitment to the radical, anti-traditional family spirit of the age. Just look at the show’s name, The Proud Family: Louder and Prouder. Of course, the show lives up to the euphemism, with EW announcing that gay Hollywood actor Zachary Quinto and trans actor Billy Porter will be playing an interracial gay couple.

[...]

Though what else are we to expect from Disney these days? The mega media giant has cultivated some of the most cherished childhood memories, only to brutally crush them years down the road. Ask any diehard Star Wars fan. Now it seems that even a lighthearted children’s comedy about a charmingly dysfunctional African American family can’t escape the woke revisionism.

The same day, Veronica Hays returned to totally lose it over "Blue's Clues" showing children that non-heterosexual people exist:

Pride Month is upon us. And with that, an onslaught of LGBTQ propaganda from every corporation and media outlet. Unfortunately, for the children of America, classic cartoons, such as “Blue Clues” are the latest mechanism being used to target kids and snuff out their innocence.

“Blues Clues” published a video to its YouTube channel entitled “Blues Clues Pride Parade Sing- Along.” Nina West, a popular drag queen and previous contestant of “RuPaul’s Drag Race” stars as a cartoon drag queen leading all the other queer animals in song. "This family has two mommies. They love each other so proudly and they all go marching in ... the ... big parade," the lyrics go. 

You children can sing along: “this family has two mommies” and “this family has two daddies” and “these babas are non-binary.” And “Ace, BI and Pan grown-ups you see can love each other so proudly.”  

Won’t it be fun to hear them chant, “This house is a family of kings and queens, they love each other so proudly.” At last, as if to signal the completion of your child’s brainwashing, the song concludes with “Love is love is love you see, and everyone should love proudly.” 

This seemingly innocent kid’s cartoon looks like an aggressive grooming campaign. There’s an astonishing level of attention to detail within each moment of the video to push blatant LGBT motifs. The “Blues Clues” creators took pains with this one, even unto the point of depicting a disabled gay dolphin waving its rainbow flag from a wheelchair. Every variation of queer flag is represented and paraded around by little woodland animals. A hijab-wearing owl is shown proudly waving the rainbow flag. This is not parody.

[...]

Of course, if you disagree with a kid’s show teaching your susceptible children that mutilating perfectly healthy bodies is okay and rejecting your God-given sexuality is right and proper, you are a bigot. Celebrating and encouraging mental illness in such a glaring manner should be enough to radicalize every person against these sickos. In the meantime, hide your kids, hide your wives, hide your husbands, and throw the TVs out. 

What video was Hays watching that she thinks it's all about "mutilating perfectly healthy bodies"? And the fact she apparently believes that anyone who isn't a heterosexual is a "sicko" suffering from "mental illiness" tells you all you need to know about the virulent homophobic hate coursing through MRC headquearters.

Gabriel Hays served up yet another drag-queen meltdown in a June 8 post:

If your children have access to a screen and the internet they are in more danger than ever of being inundated with hyper-radical sexual politics. This Pride month, children’s programming outlets are pulling out the stops to make kids okay with the trans agenda.

In a highly disturbing music video produced by kids’ cable TV network Nickelodeon, a peppy singing drag queen named Nina West educated kids about pride month and all the support they need to show to oppressed LGBTQ peoples, from the gays to the transgenders.

[...]

One of the most telling signs of this propaganda being more radical and transgressive than usual, is that the video's pride flag had trans and oppressed people of color triangle on it. So not only this about celebrating the homosexual lifestyle, it was about promoting trans lifestyle and toxic critical race theory.

Of course, Hays won't tell you what this "trans agenda" is. And dismissing LGBTQ people as merely living a "lilfestyle" than being who trhey are is a longtime right-wing anti-gay trope.

Gabriel Hays and Tierin-Rose Mandelburg did a summary piece on June 16 collecting all this hate:

Once upon a time, parents could feel okay about letting their children watch cartoons or ogle the shelves of toy stores. Chances were good they’d come away with their innocence intact. No more. Progressive LGBT etc. propaganda now litters the cartoons, commercials and even the toy aisles. 

Don’t believe it? MRC Culture found that within the last year, from June 2020 to June 2021, at least 30 different pieces of mainstream media and consumer products – many of them children’s TV episodes – assaulted kids with extreme lefty propaganda, mostly focused on promoting the LGBTQ agenda.

Again with the "LGBTQ agenda"! And, again, it's never explained what it is.Perhaps because it fits the MRC anti-gay agenda to baselessly suggest it's something sinister than that it's actually about love an acceptance -- two words that can't be found in those MRC narratives.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:44 PM EDT

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Laura Hollis isn't the only WorldNetDaily columnist who has been unironically complaining about media falsehoods and fake news. Rachel Alexander made her contribuion -- which, interestingly, was focused on right-wing media -- in her May 17 column:

The left is great at putting the right on the defensive, lumping us all in with a handful of extremists and making us defend them. As I've written previously, the left has figured out how to label conservative principles as conspiracy theories, racism or other distasteful characterizations, causing us to run from our own views.

Part of the reason they get away with the conspiracy theory label is because we get caught spreading stories that may cross that line, and so the left then lumps in perfectly legitimate suspicions with them. This took place far too often regarding the presidential election.

Alexander didn't call out any outlet by name --perhaps because she knows that the publisher of her column, Joseph Farah, has fully bought into conspiracy theories about the election. She did, however, call out some examples of misinformers promoted by right-wing media:

Another recent example is Mike Lindell's "Absolute Proof" documentary about election fraud. While much of it seemed plausible, there was one lengthy segment discussing foreign hacking of voting machines that was noticeably lacking in evidence. The movie displayed logs of the alleged hacking and cited just one person, Mary Fanning, who has little information available about her on the internet. There is no explanation as to how Fanning obtained the logs nor any of the technical details about how it worked. For something that serious, that incredible, you can't just expect people to believe some little-known woman claiming it's true. If she didn't reveal more details because she was afraid for her safety, then why did she reveal her name and as much as she has?

Maybe clear, irrefutable evidence will come out that there was foreign hacking, so the investigations need to continue. But one person saying so with some logs that could have been made up isn't enough to get anywhere, so it allows the left to pile on and claim the right is making up conspiracy theories.

Needless to say, WND has happily promoted Lindell's dubious documentaries without bothering to fact-check them first. Alexander concluded by lecturing:

I believe the vast majority of these people are patriots who think they are doing the right thing. But the left will use their sloppiness to discredit the rest of us. Those of us who are really laboring to get to the bottom of issues like election fraud get lumped in with extremists' efforts, and we end up wasting a lot of time defending them instead of doing the tedious work required to hold up to the Democrats' intense scrutiny.

They also waste our time watching and then researching all of their ideas. I don't have time to vet every video out there. The videos usually end up the same – a grain of truth stretched to an unrealistic conclusion, with lots of vague, attention-getting words. Stop blindly promoting them; if you don't have time to vet them, don't share them.

Are you listening, WND? Probably not.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:14 PM EDT

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As we've documented, CNSNews.com editor in chief Terry Jeffrey showed little interest in calling out President Trump for the federal deficits he was racking up -- but when President Biden took office, he suddenly became a more aggressive deficit hawk. The hypocrisy has contined.

On May 28, Jeffrey used all the zeroes he could find (in violation of AP Stylebook rules on writing out numbers) to attack Biden's budget proposal:

The budget proposal that President Joe Biden released today calls for the federal government to run a cumulative deficit of $14.53 trillion ($14,531,000,000,000) over the next ten years.

Under Biden’s proposal, the lowest the deficit would ever go in the next decade is in 2027, when it would hit $1,303,000,000,000.

The proposal says that it aims to reduce deficits starting a decade from now—rather than in the next ten years.

Biden, who is 78 years old, could serve as long as eight years as president--if he is elected to a second term.

Jeffrey recycled his attack on Biden's budget in his June 2 column, right down to irrelevantly emphasizing Biden's age:

Americans, President Joe Biden's budget proposal suggests, should not worry that he plans to significantly increase federal deficits over the next eight years.

Why? Because he intends to begin reducing them — but not eliminating them — nine years from now.

Of course, even if the now 78-year-old Biden were to run for reelection in 2024 and win the presidency again, he would be out of office in nine years.

Neither Jeffrey piece mentioned Trump, who ran up trillions of dollars in deficits during his presidency.

On June 10, Jeffrey served up his monthly lament about federal spending:

The federal government set new records in the taxes it collected, the spending it engaged in and the deficit it ran through the first eight months of fiscal 2021 (October through May), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement.

Federal taxes hit a record $2,606,879,000,000 while federal spending climbed to $4,670,668,000,000, resulting in a federal deficit of $2,063,789,000,000.

If you'll recall, those monthly laments during the Trump administration sought to lay equal blame on Democrats and Republicans alike by including Democrats in the stock photo accompanying the article, even though Republicans controlled the presidency and Senate and Democrats controlled only the House. This time, the photo is of Biden, Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer. 

Posted by Terry K. at 12:54 AM EDT

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If you're a celebrity and you're not heterosexual, the Media Research Center will try to destroy you. (Just ask JoJo Siwa.) And you don't even have to be gay to get the treatment -- any less-than-totally-heterosexual orientation will set off the MRC's hate machine. Veronica Hays devoted a May 19 post to lashing out at singer Demi Lovato, viciously questioning her mental health and petulantly ranted that she would call Lovato whatever she wents, regardless of who Lovato says she is:

Singer Demi Lovato has declared that “they” are non binary and now use they/them pronouns.

This latest manifestation of Lovato’s rapidly-declining mental health means that she has decided she no longer can be classified as one of the two biological sexes. She is neither male, nor female, nor does her identity correspond with any other invented gender. Incredible.

There is violence and terror in the Middle East, America is in political, social, and economic turmoil, a global pandemic is raging, but many news outlets are reporting on what gender, or lack thereof, Lovato deigns to assume this morning.

[...]

Charlotte Clymer, a transwoman and LGBTQ activist, tweeted that “this is going to be such a source of strength for countless trans and non-binary young people who feel alone in the world.” Clymer thanked her while also noting for the skeptics that “trans and non-binary people have always been around, and the reason you’re seeing an increase in our visibility is because its increasingly accepted to be who we really are. Instead of being cynical, you should honor that.”

No. 

Misgendering individuals through use of incorrect pronouns has become a capital offense, so be sure to always ask and use someone’s preferred pronouns unlike the author of this article. In the meantime keep Lovato and other gender-confused persons in your prayers, along with Western Civilization as we approach collapse.

If Lovato's declaration is a sign of her being mentally ill, can we also say that Hays' juvenile screed is an manifestation of mental illness as well?

But the MRC wasn't done kicking Lovato. A May 20 post by Lindsay Kornick cheered a previously unknown radio host's Hays-esque rant about Lovato:

Barely twenty-four hours after Demi Lovato’s announcement about being non-binary, and it’s already causing controversy. A radio host is starting to feel the brunt of the woke mobs for even wanting to even joke about it.

On Wednesday when singer Demi Lovato officially announced a switch to “they/them” pronouns and a “non-binary” status, radio host Matt Siegel came under fire for discussing, or rather not discussing, the news. Host of the popular Boston-based radio show Matty in the Morning, Siegel claimed the higher-ups of his show ordered him not to talk about Lovato’s recent announcement on the air.

That Wednesday, he went into a rant describing his anger at the request, seemingly threatening to quit by ending his show early.

[...]

Despite this, Siegel returned to his show on Thursday apologizing for his outburst. He claimed "I was on a roll, and I haven't been on a roll in a long time. And that's when I got the call and I just snapped. I just said, 'I can't be here anymore.’”

Kornick seems to be suggesting that it's Lovato's fault that Siegel couldn't act professionally. It's not.

The next day, Kathleen Krumhansl caught the Hays hate bug, ranting that a Spanish-language network covered Lovato:

As we’ve often noted, immigration is the topmost issue for the Latino nets, but they're also invested in pushing the entire liberal policy agenda upon their viewers. In the latest example, Telemundo force-fed the trans agenda, seizing upon Demi Lovato’s decision to come out as non-binary.

Watch as anchor Nicole Suarez asked contributor Paola Ramos: “What does it mean to belong to this group that doesn't feel like a man or a woman?” This set up Ramos’s response: “A person who has a fluid gender identity.”

Telemundo’s midday report was the last of four Telemundo stories on Lovato’s “surprise,” which added up to four minutes of air time. This, of course, meant four minutes not spent covering the crisis at the border, sagging employment, inflation, or gas prices. Changing pronouns was apparently more important, as was Ramos’s ongoing effort to unwind and remake the (gendered) Spanish language. 

Actually, transgender and nonbinary are not interchangeable terms, so Krumhansl is wrong in claiming that "the trans agenda" is being "force-fed" (aside from not explaining what "the trans agenda" is or why the mere act of reporting on Lovato means it's being "force-fed"). Oh, and Krumhansl forgot to mention a key reason why a Spanish-language network would report on Lovato: she's part Hispanic. Krumhansl is apparently going to deny Lovato that too.

Apparently because her hate wasn't sated by trying to trash Lovato, Hays came back on May 21 to lash out at another non-binary person, this time a model:

Haven’t you heard? Identifying as nonbinary is the hottest trend at the moment. Demi Lovato sent shockwaves around the world just this week for coming out as "non-binary" and now Elle UK is making history for featuring their very first non-binary cover model. 

Australian-British model Olly Eley, who, mind you, uses the pronouns “they/them” is starring on the latest issue of Elle UK. The strikingly androgynous, biological female poses topless on the front cover with the caption “The End of Gender? Why this model will change the way you think.” Any rational person is not likely to be swayed by the illogical nonsense Eley’s article consists of. 

The piece is prefaced with “What happens when the body you’re born with doesn’t reflect the person you are? As a new generation questions the conventions of gender, model Olly Eley explains their journey of finding themselves beyond boundaries.” This does not bode well.

“The first time someone used the pronoun ‘they’ instead of ‘she’ for me, it felt like peace,” says Eley. “I’ve never felt female, but then neither have I felt male.” Eley then implies gender is a spectrum saying, “If there was a thin line that connected the two genders, I would be a dot floating somewhere between the two, but untethered to the line altogether.” … That does not make any sense. But don’t you dare question it, bigot!

[...]

Eley’s perverse gender theory makes no sense. The mental gymnastics are exhausting and pointless. 

Finally, the ultimate subversion: “The truth is, this backwards society we live in wants me to have to choose between male and female. Sadly, the less ‘confusing’ I look, the safer I am in public spaces.” It is a backwards society indeed when the fundamental reality of biological sex is denied and is now viewed itself as “backwards.”

Unfortunately, Hays' vicious hatred -- and the fact that MRC pays her to spew it -- makes all too much sense.

Posted by Terry K. at 10:34 PM EDT

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In May, CNSNews.com was all in favor of not looking back when it came to Rep. Liz Cheney's criticism of former President Trump, his bogus complaints about a stolen election and his role in helping to incite the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, which got her kicked out of House Republican leadership. It approvingly quoted Cheney's replacement in the GOP leadership post, Rep. Elise Stefanik, saying that "Cheney "is looking backwards. Republicans are looking forward."

But when it came to an official in the Biden administration who wants to look forward and not look bad, CNS is all in. A June 3 article by Susan Jones carried the headline NIH Director Bristles: 'We Should Be Talking About How to Put COVID-19 Behind Us, Not Going Back to January 2020'":

Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, told Fox News on Wednesday that he never rejected the idea that the coronavirus leaked from a lab in Wuhan China, "although there was no evidence to support it."

But in his interview with Martha MacCallum, Collins did reject the suggestion that he and Dr. Anthony Fauci steered reporters away from the lab-leak theory early on.

And he "categorically" denied that NIH gave grant money to the Wuhan Institute of Virology to do "anything that would have created a virus that would have been increased in its transmissibility or its virulence for humans."

Pressed for answers in the interview, Collins said he was "a little disturbed" to be "spending all this time on this issue."

"And here we are today. We should be talking about how to put COVID-19 behind us, not going back to January 2020," Collins said. "We'll get the answers. Right now, we don't have any new data," he added.

CNS did not describe any Republican official has having "bristled" regarding Cheney's focus on Trump.

Posted by Terry K. at 7:42 PM EDT

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Joseph Mercola is a longtime quack doctor and seller of alleged health supplements who loves promoting bogus conspiracy theories,, so it's not a surprise that the ConWeb in general, and WorldNetDaily in particular, love the guy. In 2012, for example, we caught WND editor Joseph Farah citing Mercola to scaremonger about HPV vaccines. We've already noted that WND columnist Joel Hirschhorn approvingly cited Mercola falsely attacking mRNA coronavirus vaccines as "gene editing."

But WND has given this quack even more exposure. Bob Unruh dedicated an entire April 9 article to Mercola's rantings against the use of masks to slow the spread of COVID,  calling them an unsafe "ticking time bomb" that also pose a risk to the environment:

"The planet may be facing a new plastic crisis, similar to the one brought on by bottled water, but this time involving discarded face masks," Mercola wrote. "'Mass masking' continues to be recommended by most public health groups during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite research showing masks do not significantly reduce the incidence of infection."

The microfibers in the masks, discarded into the environment, "are being ingested by fish, plankton and other marine life, as well as the creatures on land that consume them (including humans)," he explained.

He said researchers from the University of Southern Denmark and Princeton University already have warned that masks could quickly become "the next plastic problem."

Unruh added: "His concerns about the health impact of masks where echoed by Dr. Jane Orient of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons." Orient, of course, is the quack-adjacent head of the fringe-right Association of American Physicians and Surgeonswhose fearmongering about COVID vaccines and promotion of unproven treatments WND has also promoted.

On May 15, WND stole a story from fringe-right activist Steve Bannon's War Room website featauring more wild claims by Mercola:

Dr. Joseph Mercola, author of The Truth About Covid-19, says no rationale person should take the experimental covid vaccines, which have caused more deaths from all vaccines combined in the last 15 years.

“This is so reprehensible,” Dr. Mercola told War Room, Friday. “The people behind this should be put in jail, permanently.”

Mercola explains these vaccines are categorized as an “unprecedented vaccine” like HIV or malaria, which would typically take 12 to 15 years to produce.

In the War Room article, Mercola went on: "'So what do we have, operation warp speed, in less than one year,” he said. “That is technically impossible.'"

Mercola is lying. The COVID-19 virus has no resemblence whatsoever to malaria, which is caused by a parasite that can evade the immune system. While COVID-19 and HIV are both viruses -- although ones that manifest themselves in completely different ways -- the number of upfront resources thrown at creating a COVID vaccine has been exponentially greater than those given to HIV treatments, in no small part because COVID was considered a threat to everyone while HIV was stigmatized because it first surfaced among LGBT people and drug users.

Mercola is quoted in the War Room article as saying that "We have over 4,000 people who have died to date, that is more than any vaccine combined in deaths for the last 15 years," which is another lie. As we noted when Hirschhorn said it, reports of adverse effects to the CDC's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System does not equal indisputable proof that the vaccine cause the adverse effect.

Despite his atrocious track record, WND has presented Mercola's claims credulously and without fact-checking. That just adds to the pile of lies and misinformation WND has fed readers about COVID.

Posted by Terry K. at 1:10 AM EDT

Updated: Wednesday, June 30, 2021 5:37 PM EDT

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The Media Research Center has been spending months obsessing over how cop shows on TV (and superhero shows) reflected a little bit of reality by admitting that cops aren't always good and black people aren't always evil and/or criminals. It took both Gabriel Hays and Tierin-Rose Mandelburg to summarize this obsession in a May 24 post:

A lot can change in a year. And it seems like no year has brought as much cultural change to America’s TV landscape as the year since African American man George Floyd died at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. In that timeframe, America endured a summer of rioting, the acceleration of cancel culture and attempts to force critical race theory into every aspect of public and even private life.

Unwilling to leave bad enough alone, Hollywood joined in the hate; 127 TV episodes promoted the self-described Marxist Black Lives Matter movement, “Defund The Police” initiatives, and peddled the myth of America as a systemically racist country.   

MRC Culture’s TV blog covered the entire year of Black Lives Matter narratives and propaganda forced into TV programming following Floyd’s death and found that there were 127 episodes promoting BLM talking points. Some of the worst moments included characters referring to police as “pigs,” lies that America has been the same racist place for the last “500 years,” and racist smears against white people, arguing that each should feel “personal shame” over the death of George Floyd.

These 127 BLM TV episodes featured propaganda-ridden storylines written to depict racist cops gunning down innocent black people, for example. NBC’s Chicago PD, CW’s Black Lightningand CBS’ FBI: Most Wanted smeared cops in this way.

No mention, of course, of how TV cop shows have spent decades pushing negative portrayals of Blacks and normalized and justified violence by the police -- which could also be described as "propaganda-ridden storylines" -- so it could be argued that the past year was a corrective for the past.n But no, Hays and Mandelburg have to portray it as a conspiracy:

Again, it was no accident nor mere organic trend that TV exploded with this racist, anti-American propaganda in the last year. It had been done for an expressly political purpose. Kristen Marston, Culture and Entertainment Advocacy Director of the Pro-BLM civil rights non-profit, Color Of Change, stated in an interview with Hollywood Reporter, “What we see on TV, it impacts the way we vote, the way that we react to people and even the way that we either believe Black Lives Matter is a terrorist organization or not.”

Take it from Marston. She was actually asked to advise ”over 100 TV shows” on how to help them move away from “unhelpful narratives” regarding police or Black Lives Matter. Her progressive non-profit also compiled a “damning 153-page report” on how entertainment TV depicts crime in such a way that “undermines racial equality,” called Normalizing Injustice.

Um, don't most TV cop shows use actual current or former law enforcement officers as consultants? We don't remember Hays or Mandelburg ever complaining about that.

(By the way, this is all somewhat lazy blogging, since it essentially just updates a February post by Matt Philbin offering similar complaints and citing some of the same examples.)

The MRC has also continued to complain about individual shows since the last time we checked in, even throwing some non-cop shows in the mix apparently to pump up the numbers:

• Before the May 4 episode of super producer Dick Wolf's FBI: Most Wanted, “Criminal Justice,” even began, we knew it was going to be yet another Black Lives Matter themed show. -- Alexa Moutevelis, May 5
• At this point, which shows haven’t catered to Black Lives Matters in some way? The CW’s Kung Fu re-imagining following a Chinese-American woman returning to her hometown of San Francisco after a journey to China is only the latest to fall prey to the BLM message, even after almost criticizing it. -- Lindsay Kornick, May 5
• We’ve already seen Hollywood use fictional stories to paint the police as violent racists, but Wednesday’s episode of the CW’s Nancy Drew might take first place for the most over-the-top and racially divisive anti-police storyline. Not only were police vilified, but a few white suspects who aren’t officers were thrown in as evil participants who harassed an innocent black woman for good measure. -- Dawn Slusher, May 6
• On Wednesday, it was ABC’s A Million Little Things’ turn to create fear and division with lines like, “As a Black woman, I don't feel safe in my own body anywhere,” and, “There are police out there looking for a reason to take your life.” -- Dawn Slusher, May 13
• NBC's Law and Order: Organized Crime opened this week's episode with an over-the-top scene of a New York City police officer crushing the bones in an innocent, unarmed black man's hand. ... I cannot imagine how hard it must be for police officers throughout the country to turn on the television and regularly see the boys in blue portrayed as the enemy by a pampered Hollywood elite that can afford private security. -- Elise Ehrhard, May 13
• The CW’s high school football drama All American picked up where it left off last week, dealing with the aftermath following the shooting death of an innocent, young, black woman, Tamika Pratt, by police. And if you thought the show couldn’t possibly have any more disdain for the police than they did before, you’d be very wrong, as they claimed the police system is “predicated on [black people’s] oppression since the beginning” and that people of color are “being hunted” by the police. ... The left is creating hate, division and fear and their “plan” has no good outcome for anyone. Not for black businesses that have been burned and looted by BLM protesters, not for the innocent black and white lives that have been taken during BLM protests and in the subsequent rise in crime, not for the innocent officers who continue risking their lives to protect us, not for race relations in this country, and not for black people themselves. Nothing and no one wins in their narrative except chaos, anarchy and hate. -- Dawn Slusher, May 18
• Law and Order: Organized Crime pushed the Black Lives Matter narrative again this week, claiming  that police officers randomly kill innocent young black men without consequence. ... Black Lives Matter's paranoid lies about police officers have led to real police officers being murdered by BLM fanatics. In the fictionalized Law and Order: Organized Crime universe, it lead to the murder of a cop's wife. I doubt the show's writers have the self-awareness to realize the episode did not quite make the point they thought it was making. -- Elise Ehrhard, May 21
• Season three of Showtime's The Chi was purposefully devoid of the police, even while a major storyline revolved around the disappearance of a black woman, and one episode featured a disturbing scene showing what sex trafficked and drug addicted young women endure. The season four premiere changes all of that when a 15-year-old is the victim of police brutality during the May 23 episode, “Soul Food.” ... After a unique season with no police, The Chi just jumped the shark and became like every other show on television with an anti-police Black Lives Matter storyline. -- Alexa Moutevelis, May 24
• ABC’s A Million Little Things has added to the count of 127 episodes on television that have pushed Black Lives Matter since George Floyd’s death with their third straight week of BLM-themed episodes. In Wednesday's episode, “Not Alone,” one character claims that black Americans must wear an “armor” that gets heavier “every time another innocent black person is killed.” -- Dawn Slusher, May 27
  
• Three episodes into season four of Showtime’s The Chi and it looks like the war with the police is here to stay. Last week’s episode saw Mayor Otis ‘Douda’ Perry (Curtiss Cook) looking to defund the police after 15-year-old Jake Taylor (Michael Epps) was assaulted by the police in the season opener. In the June 6 episode, “Native Son,” Douda enlists the help of Tracy (Tai Davis) and Trig (Luke James), providing them with the money that normally goes to the police budget so that they can run their own version of 911. Seriously. -- Alexa Moutevelis, June 7
• The Showtime "comedy" Black Monday claimed this week that all cops except police dogs are white supremacists. The show, set in the 1980s, regularly attacks Christians, conservatives and Republicans. This week, the writers could not resist also tossing in contemporary BLM anti-police rhetoric despite the 1980s setting. -- Elise Ehrhard, June 13

Hays and Mandelburg concluded their summary by declaring: "It’s clear that this is all being done to change your perceptions about your country and its history. And it's all being broadcast into the safety of your suburban home. It’s way past time to just turn the television off." As if the MRC is not paying them to change perceptions about BLM and black people in general.

Posted by Terry K. at 11:05 PM EDT

Updated: Monday, July 5, 2021 10:52 AM EDT

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Pedro Gonzalez kicked off his May 26 Newsmax column by ranting about the Nikole Hannah-Jones and the 1619 Project, which he declared is an "anti-white, anti-American project that is somewhere between a grift and an intellectual welfare program, following by a call to destroy Hannah-Jones professionally: "Hannah-Jones should not be allowed to teach, educate, write, or publish in a professional capacity anywhere. In other words, she and those in the 1619 camp ought to be canceled wherever and whenever it is possible to do so." Gonzalez then ranted that conservatives aren't destroying the lives of enough of the people they hate:

The conservative preoccupation with cancel culture has blinded them to the fact that some people should actually be canceled, and what matters, in reality, is who is in charge of the canceling and that the only way to conserve anything is to cancel those toppling civilization.

That may seem reactionary, but reaction, as the late Mel Bradford wrote, "is a necessary term in the intellectual context we inhabit in the twentieth century because merely to conserve is sometimes to perpetuate what is outrageous."

In the twenty-first century, too many conservatives naively committed to conserving all sorts of new outrages and, most importantly, the power of their enemies, are convinced that forceless facts, logic, and truth can prevail on merit.

By contrast, progressives have no qualms fighting dirty in the war of ideas—and that’s why they have effectively routed their opposition. Reflecting on the cancellation of Lou Dobbs' show, CNN's Brian Stelter reframed cancel culture as "consequence culture."

"What are the consequences for riling up people with reckless lies?" Stelter asked.

That's a good question, one that the conservative commentariat loves to ponder but never come down from the clouds to act upon.

[...]

If conservatives and the right-liberals with whom they overlap are not willing to cancel the architects, peddlers, and profiteers of our national demise, then they cannot complain about the walls tumbling down. Nor should not be surprised that everyday Americans care increasingly little for their calls for Queensberry Rules.

So much for conservatives hating cancel culture.

Posted by Terry K. at 8:02 PM EDT

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To nobody's surprise, WorldNetDaily editor Josseph Farah is continuing to push conspiracy theories about the election and whitewashing the Jan. 6 Capitol riot.

Under thet headline "The enemies within," Farah's May 28 column attacked Republicans who voted for a 9/11-style bipartisan commission to examine the insurrection, declaring that "Those are the people who need to be ousted at the end of the day, the sooner the better" and the commission proposal to be "overkill, an outreach by Democrats who planned to use it to once again implicate Donald Trump when he did nothing wrong." Farah then ranted:

Republicans are the problem we face. We're losing our freedom, our God-given heritage, our constitutional republic. We need to be reunited. Democrats are. Republicans need to stand for something.

That means ensuring free and open elections – something we didn't have in 2020.

On Jan. 6, hundreds entered the Capitol, some breaking windows and some inextricably being let in by Capitol Police. The crowd was protesting what they saw correctly as a rigged election. They were not armed. They did not have bombs. By the standard of previous Capitol protests, it was cakewalk.

One person died as a result of the protest, shot without warning by an unknown policeman, though reports are still insisting that five people, including Capitol Police Officer Brian Sicknick, were killed in the attack. They were NOT. Ashli Babbitt was the only victim of the violence. The others died on natural causes.

More than 400 people have been charged criminally in the wake of Jan. 6.

Do you believe that? It's insane. It's so over the top. This was not an "insurrection."

Farah then repeated his ownattacks on the election itself:

So why are Democrats fighting so hard against the idea of finding out what went wrong in the election?

Why should any American want to uphold a questionable election?

Democrats do. They are united behind it. They believe that Democrats should never lose another election. They want to get rid of police. What does that tell you? They don't believe in the laws of the land and, as a point in case, they want open borders. What does that tell you? They don't believe in making America great. What does that tell you?

And neither do a handful of Republicans want to make America great.

They resent Donald Trump for even talking about it, for making it his No. 1 priority.

We need at least one free midterm election between now and the next presidential cycle in which Donald Trump, the most popular presidential candidate – and the most controversial – has a chance to do his thing.

Will he have it?

I'm betting on it.

Or else this country's over.

Farah used his June 18 column to peddle another election conspiracy theory:

What do we do when it appears, later than we like, that the 2020 election was thrown after all?

BIG TIME!

The latest story from Just the News is that the Georgia audit documents expose "significant election failures" in the state's largest county.

"Documents that Georgia's largest county submitted to state officials as part of a post-election audit highlight significant irregularities in the Atlanta area during last November's voting, ranging from identical vote tallies repeated multiple times to large batches of absentee ballots that appear to be missing from the official ballot-scanning records," said the story.

This is big. And coupled with Arizona early results of an audit conducted in Maricopa County, Wisconsin, which apparently shows more votes than voters, Pennsylvania's anomalies, Michigan and several other states, it's really looking like Donald Trump won the 2020 election – and probably broke Joe Biden's crooked record.

The report from the right-wing Just the News appears to have been heavily cherry-picked. The auditor, Carter Jones, also pointed out how partisan election monitors, many of them Republican, were harassing election officials during the November vote count "seemed to feel as though they were detectives or sheriffs and that they were going to personally ‘crack the case’ and uncover a stolen election." Most importantly, Jones said that "in the nearly 300 hours he spent at various locations in the county, he did not witness 'any dishonesty, fraud or intentional malfeasance.'" But far be it for Farah to care about facts:

I don't know how it will turn out until we know two things: The full story of how the vote really went and how the election was stolen from Donald Trump, not to mention all the down-ballot confusion and suspicion and who really should be controlling Congress today.

Now you know why there was such a rush to certify the votes in Congress … and then to go after all of the "insurrectionists."

Actually, there was no "rush to certify" the presidential election in Congress; the Jan. 6 election certification is established in the Constitution and federal code.

Posted by Terry K. at 3:13 PM EDT

Updated: Tuesday, June 29, 2021 3:14 PM EDT

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We've documented how CNSNews.com reporter Patrick Goodenough has a weirdly obsessive interest in burnishing the reputation of Donald Trump's presidency. Months after Trump left office, he's still at it.

When Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki failed to give Trump sufficient credit for his administration's Middle East initiatives, Goodenough took offense in a May 19 article:

The Trump administration did little to advance peace in the Middle East, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki suggested yesterday.

She dismissed initiatives whose crowning achievement was the securing of four normalization agreements between Israel and Arab nations in less than four months.

“Aside from putting forward a peace proposal that was dead on arrival, we don’t think they did anything constructive, really, to bring an end to the longstanding conflict in the Middle East,” Psaki told reporters on Air Force One accompanying President Biden to Michigan.

[...]

Psaki’s dismissive comments about the Trump administration’s efforts in the region stand in contrast to generally positive reactions by the Biden team to those initiatives, which produced a historic series of recognition agreements between Israel and Arab states.

[...]

Psaki was responding to a question by a reporter who suggested that “the thinking behind” the normalization agreements was, “forget the Palestinians, they’re not a problem. We’re just going to move on.”

In fact, the thinking behind the agreements, according to those who brokered them, was that the U.S. should not allow the recurring deadlocks in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations to prevent progress in the broader region.

Then-White House senior advisor Jared Kushner described it as breaking with “the failed conventional thinking of the past.”

[...]

The visible improvement of relations between Israel and the Arab world was welcomed at the time by then-Democratic presidential nominee Biden, even as he sought to give the Obama-Biden administration credit for the achievement.

Senior officials in the Biden administration have also referred to the agreements in positive terms, with both Secretary of State Antony Blinken and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan expressing hope in January that the incoming administration could build on them.

Goodenough has effusively praised the Trump administration's moves to help Israel normalize relations with four minor countries.

Goodenough also demanded credit for Trump in a June 15 article:

As President Biden was attending the first NATO summit of his presidency, the lingering effects of his predecessor could be seen in the alliance’s most recent defense spending data.

Ten of NATO’s 30 allies have now reached the target of devoting two percent of their national gross domestic product to military spending. That is twice as many as hit the benchmark in 2016.

Neither Biden nor NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg in their public comments Monday gave President Trump credit for that, although the former president made the issue a top priority in his often fractious interactions with some NATO allies, notably Germany.

Goodenough even worked Trump into something he had nothing to do with -- the 2002 authorization of force that led to the Iraq War -- in a June 18 article:

The U.S. House on Thursday voted to repeal the 2002 authorization for the Iraq War, with almost one-quarter of Republicans voting in favor.

Others argued that it should have been replaced by an updated one, dealing with today’s threats emanating from Iraq – primarily Iranian-sponsored proxies.

“This feels like yet another political effort to undo one of President Trump’s boldest counterterrorism successes,” House Foreign Affairs Committee ranking member Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said on the House floor before the vote.

After Trump ordered the drone strike that killed Qods Force commander Qassem Soleimani in Baghdad in January 2020, the White House cited the 2002 authorization for the use of military force (AUMF) as legal justification.

By contrast, Goodeneough has been much less kind to President Biden, subjecting him to nitpicky fact-checks he avoided doing when Trump was president.

Posted by Terry K. at 12:33 AM EDT

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