NEW ARTICLE: California Recallin' At The MRC
Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center predictably shilled for right-wing radio host Larry Elder in the lead-up to the California recall election -- and was presumably glad it no longer had to suppress its transphobia to support early GOP front-runner Caitlyn Jenner. Read more >>

MRC's Graham Justifies GOP Lie About Biden, Complains That Fact-Checkers Called Them Out
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center's Tim Graham, it seems, still doesn't understand how fact-checking works. In a Sept. 16 post, he tried to push a false narrative and complained that fact-checkers busted right-wing media for spreading it:

Sister Toldjah at RedState reported that those “independent fact checkers” at CNN andThe Washington Post rushed to Biden’s defense again on Tuesday. They were upset that Republicans pounced on Team Biden for cutting off the president’s White House video feed in mid-question on Monday in Idaho, like he was going to lose his marbles.

For Biden critics, this easily recalled the recent Politico story about how embarrassed the Bidenites are "filled with anxiety" are about Biden speaking in public and “some White House staffers will either mute him or turn off his remarks” at their desks.

[...]

Glenn Kessler threw Four Pinocchios – his Pants on Fire rating – for Sen. James Risch (R-Idaho) asking the Secretary of State “It’s been widely reported that somebody has the ability to push the button and cut off his sound and stop him from speaking. Who is that person?”

That’s actually a question. Someone obviously cut the feed. They didn’t “stop him from speaking.” They stopped the public from hearing it. But Kessler aggressively and defensively interpreted it (which ain’t fact checking) as “Who’s that person behind the scenes secretly controlling President Biden?”

It wasn't until the 13th paragraph of his article -- after pushing the malicious right-wing narrative that Biden is purportedly suffering from "cognitive decline"  -- that Graham got around to admitting that Kessler is right:

There was a point in here. The White House described this as a “pool spray,” which suggested in advance they would cut off the feed to the media once the president turned to questions. But the president clearly didn’t wait for his team to cut the feed. He plowed ahead.

That's right -- the cutoff of the  feed was planned in advance, and the media knew it. Which means Republicans were lying by claiming the feed was cut off to save Biden from embarassment.

But when Kessler accurately pointed out that Republicans "made a mountain out of a molehill" and that "readers should be wary of partisan efforts to craft a narrative out of misleading clips," Graham attacked Kessler, not his fellow Republicans, with lame whataboutism:

So Kessler isn't really "fact checking" here. He's objecting to "partisan efforts to craft a narrative." As if The Washington Post is never guilty of this! The newspaper whose reporters have pumped out three hyperbolic anti-Trump books in 2021.

Yeah, whataboutism is pretty much all that Graham has here. He's justifying Republicans spreading a lie, complaining that they got caught spreading it, and refusing to admit they were right to do so. That's not "media research" -- that's partisan hackery at its worst, and it doesn't make anyone want to trust anything the MRC does.

CNS' Favorite Loopy Right-Wing Rabbi Rants Again
Topic: CNSNews.com

Loopy right-wing rabbi Aryeh Spero has continued to keep up both ends of that description for his CNSNews.com column. In an April column, Spero purported to offer up "A Prayer for the Schoolchildren of America" that was little more than a litany of right-wing talking points:

Almighty God, in Your Scripture You declare: “I, God, Protect the Innocent”…not only the righteous, but especially the children. We American parents and grandparents therefore ask that You help us protect our children in school from malevolent forces trying to take away our children’s innocence by indoctrinating them to hate America, hate their American and Christian heritage, and to even hate their own race and skin color if they are White.

We ask that you help us stop those deliberately confusing children as to their natural God-given gender and forcefully pushing them to explore and even affirm sexual practices that are anathema to the innocence of childhood, that most precious and sacred phase of their life.

Lord, with all our heart we beseech you to help us, as your partner and agents, in protecting the children, the innocents so dear to you and your cosmic design. Do not allow the so-called “woke” to teach our children to despise themselves.

A June 22 column was a screed against liberal members of Congress forpurportedly not loving Israel enough, attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar in particular for allegedly having "engaged in trickeries to keep herself viable until her next round of defamation of Jews and calls for the destruction of Israel." His group, the Confrence of Jewish Affairs -- which may or may not be more than just Spero himself -- demanded that Omar be removed from committee assignments. Spero then lashed out a Democratic Jews in Congress:

Worse, only a handful of the many Jewish Democrat [sic] congressmen have been willing to condemn her anti-Semitism. They are following orders. Unfortunately, they are putting their careers and Democrat Party power above the safety of American Jews. Most of the Democrat [sic] Jewish congressmen and senators seem content to allow these anti-Jewish activities to continue rather than risk their career, though they are the first to display outrage when black, Muslim, Latino, or LGBTQ communities are perceived as being mistreated. 

Spero discredits himself by embracing the gramatically incorrect right-wing pejorative for the Democratic Party.

Spero spent his July 21 column ranting against Ben & Jerry's ice cream for deciding not to sell in the disputed West Bank, which Spero insisted on referring to "Judea and Samaria" in line with more right-wing language dictates: "Ben and Jerry’s punishment and ostracizing of Jews living in areas the Muslim world considers off-limits to Jews is an acquiescence to the infamous anti-Jewish theory called judenrein, namely that an area be formally free of Jews. Is that Ben and Jerry’s idea of social justice?" Spero might want to look up how Muslims in Israel are treated before he tosses around the "judenrein" smear any further.

An Aug. 23 column claiming to be "A Prayer to Save Us From Our Arrogant Ruling Clique" amid the Afghanistan was in reality yet another right-wing screed:

We wonder if our so-called “woke” culture that continually demonizes America has made us no longer value Americans.  But verily, American lives matter. 

Yes, we wonder if our “woke” culture ever so eager to defame the Judeo-Christian culture -- so essential to America’s founding -- no longer has the regard or will to defend an America founded on that Judeo-Christian outlook.

No longer believing in ourselves, we have been humiliated by those who, while rag-tag, at least have pride in themselves, their history, and their national peoplehood.

A nation with skewed, upside-down, and frivolous priorities eventually loses its sense of importance, its identity, and the will to defend its own.

Because it is ashamed of its past, it does not protect its future.

Spero used his Sept. 23 column to rant against the "Democrat Party" for not wanting to fund Israel's "Iron Dome" defense system:

Many Americans, including Christians of faith, are alarmed and concerned regarding this open hostility and demonization of Israel within a major political party here in America. No doubt they will condemn it. The $64,000 question is: Will liberal and "progressive" Jewish groups be alarmed enough to momentarily waive their loyalty to the Democrat Party so as to condemn this in-your-face anti-Jewish maneuver?

Spero didn't explain why Israel is unable to fund this defense system itself.

MRC Psaki-Bashing, Doocy-Fluffing Watch, Multiple Doocy-Gasm Edition
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center writer Curtis Houck's multiple Doocy-gasms continued in his write-up on the Sept. 22 White House press briefing:

On Wednesday’s episode of The Psaki Show, Fox’s Peter Doocy continued to demand answers on the border crisis by stumping Press Secretary Jen Psaki with questions about how many Haitians have been apprehended at the southern border, why hasn’t the Biden administration addressed the months-long crisis, and whether Biden has ever been to the border in his life.

[...]

Doocy started by following up on a “very basic, but very important question” from ABC’s Cecilia Vega about whether anyone in the federal government can say how many Haitians “have been sent back and how many have been released.”

Psaki demurred, so Doocy had this hardball: “Is this an issue of not knowing or is this an issue of a lot more people are being released into the U.S. than are being sent out? That is certainly not the issue.”

A perturbed Psaki swatted these away, saying she’s “confident” that the Department of Homeland Security will come through with numbers and that many Haitians weren’t actually being released into the U.S. because of Title 42. After the briefing, Fox’s Bill Melugin reported from the migrant camp and eviscerated that claim in a brutal fact-check.

[...]

But Doocy’s best moment came at the end of his turn when he simply wanted to know whether Biden has ever been to the border. Needless to say, Psaki didn’t know[.]

Needless to say, Houck didn't explain why it was necessary for Biden to visit the border to make policy regarding it. And, of course, Houck failed to report that Psaki busted Doocy on his lie about immigration policies.

Also note that Houck suddenly loves fact-checks when biased right-wing outlets llike Fox News conduct them despite the MRC's war on fact-checkers -- so much so that Houck devoted a separate post to the "indefatiguable" Megulin's fact-check, oozing: "If the liberal media wanted genuine pointers on how to fact-check this administration, Melugin and Fox White House correspondent Peter Doocy would be the perfect people to start with."

Houck served up more Doocy-gasming for the Sept. 23 briefing:

Thursday’s White House press briefing was a barnburner about the border crisis as, at one end, Fox News’s Peter Doocy pushed a perturbed Press Secretary Jen Psaki for answers on Team Biden’s erroneous math about Haitian illegal immigrants, their lax COVID policies, and how women are being allowed to stay as long as they claim they’re pregnant (which led Psaki to imply Doocy was a sexist).

[...]

Doocy began by going back to some statistical inconsistencies Psaki had offered minutes earlier: “So, there are 15,000 migrants under the Del Rio bridge Saturday. If you add up the ones that you say were expelled or released it's less than 5,000. Say there's 5,000 that are still left. Where’s everybody else?”

After Psaki dismissed Doocy’s fact-check by saying she’d be “happy to get you a more fruitful rundown,” he pointed out the fact that “when you talk about how some of these people are being placed in removal proceedings, that does not mean removed.”

Psaki’s response all but conceded Doocy’s point as she said it “means they're in the process of going through removal proceedings,” which, for those playing along, means absolutely nothing.

We don't recall Houck ever calling out his beloved Kayleigh McEnany's anti-media rantings from the White House press room podium as meaning "absolutely nothing" or described those rantings as meaning she was "perturbed." It's as if Houck is utterly biased against Psaki and refuses to see her as a human being because she's working for a Democratic administration.

Like a fangirl, Houck squealed "DOUBLE DOOCY" in the headline for his writeup of the Sept. 24 briefing. First up was laughably portraying Doocy as a victim:

The Psaki Show went into the weekend on Friday with a bang thanks to an appearance from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas amidst the latest Biden border crisis and the administration peddling false claims that Border Patrol agents treated Haitian illegal immigrants like cattle and used whips against them. Of course, Fox’s Peter Doocy was there and fought with both Mayorkas and Press Secretary Jen Psaki over their lies.

[...]

Though Doocy wasn’t saying a thing, Mayorkas repeatedly snapped at him, demanding, “let me finish” as he said, upon further examination, what took place “horrified the nation” and “raised serious questions...about what occurred and, as I stated clearly, it conjured up images of what happened in the past.”

Incredibly, Mayorkas added that he’ll “let the investigation run its course” and he won’t “interfere with” it.

Doocy wasn’t having it: “And just, to follow-up, please. Before the facts are in, is it helpful to your investigation for the President of the United States to use inflammatory language like people being strapped?”

An annoyed Mayorkas seemed incensed that Doocy would challenge him, arguing he’s “not concerned with the respect of the integrity of the investigation”< and his own conduct has been pitch perfect because he “served as 12 years as a federal prosecutor.”

Then it was time to hype Doocy's act against Psaki:

Shifting to Psaki, Doocy also came out swinging. Before talking about the border, however, he had a Hunter Biden question (and one that Psaki had ignored from Newsmax’s Emerald Robinson): 

[T]he President has said, and you have tweeted, that allegations of wrongdoing based on files pulled from Hunter Biden’s laptop are Russian disinformation. There is a new book by a Politico reporter that finds some of the files on there are genuine. Is the White House still going with Russian disinformation?

Psaki’s response? A pants-on-fire lie: “I think it’s broadly known and widely known, Peter, that there was a broad range of Russian disinformation back in 2020.”

Actually, there's plenty of evidence that Russia tried to interfere in the 2020 election to help Trump, but you do you, Curt.

Houck focused on bashing Psaki for his writeup of the Doocy-free Sept. 28 briefing:

On Tuesday, White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki found herself as a modern reincarnation of the boy Alexander from the famous children’s book as she faced a torrent of tough questions from reporter after reporter on Afghanistan, the border, and spending. And with little in the way of answers to defend President Biden and his administration’s failures, shortcomings, and spin, the questions kept coming.

[...]

Speaking of being in trouble, Fox’s Jacqui Heinrich wondered what Psaki made of former President Obama’s claim hours earlier to ABC that open borders were “unsustainable.” In response, Psaki laughably claimed that “[w]e don’t have open borders.” Oops.

Are people still being apprehended on the border? Yes, they are. That means it's not an "open border," and Psaki is correct. But Houck has decided that words don't mean things, and that pushing right-wing narratives is more important than providing an objective review of the briefings.

WND Columnist Spreads Lies About Harris, Pelosi
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Patrice Lewis ranted in her Sept. 3 WorldNetdailiy column:

What many people, even those on the left, are realizing is this: Everything Trump did was to benefit our nation and put America first. They may have disagreed with this or that, they might have suffered from irrational Trump Derangement Syndrome, but they couldn't argue he put America first. By contrast, everything Biden is doing is weakening us and making our nation an international laughingstock.

What did Trump do? He sent mean tweets.

He also secured our borders, made us energy independent, dismantled onerous regulations, boosted the economy, lowered the unemployment rate, revitalized manufacturing, fortified the military, negotiated with world leaders, neutralized hostile nations and appointed constitutional-minded judges. His massive list of accomplishment can be seen here. He also withstood a 95% negative coverage rate and outright lies from the mainstream media because he sent mean tweets

Trump did many more negative things  than "mean tweets," but Lewis is suffering from cognitive dissonance

Meanwhle, Harris is suffering from Biden Derangement Syndrome, as she exhibits elsewhere in her column:

Unwilling to accept any responsibility for the events in Afghanistan, Kamala Harris screamed "You will not pin this sh*t on me!" and fled the country. Nancy Pelosi followed with a stunning display of callousness when she blocked – blocked! – the names of the 13 slain American troops from being read out loud on the House floor. Democrats are desperate to distance themselves from the Afghanistan debacle, yet they're ready and eager to blame Trump for everything, including the dust bunnies under their beds.

For the purported Harris quote, Lewis linked to a highly dubious far-right website that cites no on-the-record proof of the remark. She linked to the same dubious source on the Pelosi allegation, which is a lie. Then Lewis had another lie to peddle:

Oddly enough, I don't blame Biden personally for any of this. His mental decline is so transparent that it is, in my opinion, elder abuse to keep shoving him in front of cameras and expecting him to be coherent. Let the poor man retire to his basement and eat ice cream. Rather, I blame his puppet masters, the Democratic majority and the Republican weaklings who are encouraging or permitting this gross political ineptitude to continue.

That's what cognitive dissonance does to people.

MRC's Graham Cheers Polls That Echo MRC's Anti-Media Narrative
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center just loves it when its anti-media attitudes are reflected in polls. So Tim Graham made sure to pretend to be shocked in a July 9 post:

This is shocking. The latest phone and online survey by Rasmussen Reports found voters overwhelmingly believe “fake news” is a problem, and a majority -- 58 percent! -- agree with former President Donald Trump that the media have become “the enemy of the people.”

To be precise, Rasmussen found that 58% of likely U.S. voters at least somewhat agree with the statement that the media are “truly the enemy of the people,” including 34% who "strongly agree." Thirty-six percent don’t agree, including 23% who "strongly disagree." Fully 76 percent of Republicans and 61 percent of independents agreed.

Graham then laughably added: "With numbers this bad, the media will try to insist the poll must be wrong."

First: This is the guy who, along with his fellow MRC employees, was insisting that pre-election polls were not only wrong but "intentionally" manufactured because they showed Donald Trump losing re-election (which he did). Second: There's plenty of reason to distrust thtese findings, starting with the fact that Rasmussen Reports has a notorious right-wing bias and is seemingly interested in helping to advance Republican narratives than serving up accurate polling.

Graham then joined Fox News' Greg Gutfeld in chortling over another poll showing low media favorability, which Gutfeld defined as "ony slightly more popular than chlamydia":

At the top of Thursday's top rated Gutfeld! on Fox News, host Greg Gutfeld had a little fun with the latest Gallup poll on confidence in the press. The numbers weren't good. 

[...]

Gutfeld ran clips of Joy Behar mocking Republicans as stuck in the 1850s and ex-GOP strategist Stuart Stevens on MSNBC imagining a Republican-caused 9/11, and asked "So, what's it going to be you bozos? Are we terrorists, are we slave owners? Are we on the road to another civil war, or another 9/11? I'd say make up your mind, but you need minds to make up. And Joy and that freak can barely scrape four brain cells together."

[...]

Over his 30 years in media, Gutfeld said, he's learned something about reporters. "Their entire purpose is to slam their subject because in their world that's success. You don't win awards for doing a piece on Trump supporters that says wow, these people are decent Americans or even most Trump supporters are decent Americans. You find one that isn't and then you smear the rest. Anger and fear sells." 

Apparently, Fox News is not part of "the media," since it arguably does all of those things to an even greater extent than the non-right-wing media. Indeed, "anger and fear sells" may as well replace "fair and balanced" as Fox News' slogan. But Gutfeld -- and Graham -- will never admit that.

In a Sept. 1 post, Graham was in full rant mode on a poll that didn't toe the MRC narrative on media hatred:

Sara Fischer at Axios reports a new study by the Pew Research Center found "Conservative trust in media has cratered." That's not quite right: Conservative trust in liberal media has cratered. In a poll conducted in mid-June, Pew found Democrats continue to have great trust in the media, declining slightly from 83 percent to 78 percent. Why not? They echo the Democrats.

Graham isn't going to mention that one big reason that conservatives have so little trusdt in "liberal media" is because he and his MRC co-workers getspaid very well to inculcate that mistrust -- not necessarily because it's true, but because it's a narrative that sells, generating millions of dollars a year of the MRC to perpetuate the cycle.

Graham complained further:

CNN's Brian Stelter hit the panic button at the top of his "Reliable Sources" newsletter and associated the conservative media with "flooding the zone with s--t." (Bolding is Stelter's.)

Let's be honest and recognize that this trust-in-national-news gap isn't happening in a vacuum. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen said his takeaway was that "Republicans trust everything less, including social, often seen as a freewheeling alternative to The Media, icon of right wing resentment theatre. Flooding the zone with s*** works. It lowers trust in the entire system, so the worst among us can profit."

The "flooding the zone" strategy includes a never-ending Fox News narrative about Big Media and Big Tech censoring and hurting and destroying everyone in its way.

[...]

It's completely tiresome that liberals and leftists equate trust in their partisan media with the success of democracy. Stelter also quoted David Roberts at Vox: "The decades-long, extremely well-funded conservative effort to completely cut its suburban/rural base off from mainstream sources of information has basically succeeded. Not clear that democracy can survive it."

Identifying yourself as the "mainstream" is the first mistake of arrogant liberal journalists. Identifying conservative efforts to expose liberal media -- like NewsBusters -- as killers of democracy is especially loathsome. We'll put on our Tom Cruise costume and yell "You can't handle the truth!" 

Note that Graham never actually engages with Stelter's argument but, rather, merely complains that he said it -- after all, he's a prominent cog in that "decades-long, extremely well-funded conservative effort" to discredit the media. And Graham doesn't think it's at all tiresome for spend the vast majority of his career ranting about the suposed destructive effects of the "liberal media" when not only is he pretending right-wing media doesn't have a similar effect, he absolutely refuses to admit there's any right-wing media bias at all.

WND Had Mixed Emotions About Jan. 6 'Justice' Rally
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetdaily was of three minds about the Sept. 18 "Justice for J6" rally, in which motley right-wingers expressed their support for the insurrectionnists at the Jan. 6 Capitol riot. First up was Brent Smith, who stated in a Sept. 17 column that the rally was a stupid idea:

But it seems we on the right also have our gaggle of morons – like those who entered the Capitol on Jan. 6. Notice I said entered – but for all intents and purposes, they were let in.

Little did they know, but certainly should have, that Jan. 6 was a setup – a setup by the left. Of course, it wasn't organized by leftists, but they quickly made it into a crisis that didn't go to waste, beginning with the twisting of President Trump's words and intent, from, "We will march down to the Capital to peacefully and patriotically make your voices heard," to him "inciting" violence with his caustic rhetoric.

The Quick Reaction Force (QRF) of the left, the leftist media, turned that almost entirely peacefully protest march into something rivaling 9/11 or the Civil War. It was and still is despicable. But it's what we've come to expect from the media.

Yet after all that's happened in the aftermath – after all the reflection of what a stupid idea it was to enter the Capitol, some have decided, "Hey – January 6th was such a monumental failure, let's try it again. Let's give the radicals on the left another go to paint all conservatives as domestic terrorists." Brilliant!

[...]

I agree that the some 600 people charged in connection to Jan. 6 deserve real justice, but I can guarantee they won't be helped by people showing up at the Capitol again.

The left, with an assist from Trump-hating spineless Republicans, made up their minds long ago about the guilt of every last one that was there on Jan. 6. And nothing will change their minds.

So what a great idea, to have another "right-wing rally." CNN already reported of a "new wave of concern about more potential violence on Capitol Hill …"

[...]

There have been no calls by leftists to shut this thing down. Gee – I wonder why? It sure as hell isn't because of their love and respect for freedom of speech. They are hoping that something will happen that gives them the opportunity to paint all on the right as domestic terrorists, or at the very least, enemies of democracy.

Anyone with a brain has to know that this event is a monumentally bad idea. If you are considering attending, don't. If you know anyone who may, try to talk some sense into them.

Maybe if we're lucky, they'll be a freak hurricane or tornado that blows through.

The same day, Tom Zawistowski complained that the rally was being demonized by "the left":

So, let me get this straight. A group of around 700 American citizens, by "intelligence estimates," with documented legal concerns about disparate treatment of the political prisoners arrested after the Jan. 6 violence, are going to be protesting at the U.S. Capitol and in several state capitals this Saturday, Sept. 18. They have a permit for the event from the U.S. Park Service. They have coordinated the details of the event with the Capitol Police, the D.C. Police and the Park Service. They have their own security.

They have publicly rejected any participation in the event by anyone who wants to commit violence. They are doing what is lawfully their right to do under the First Amendment and doing it in a lawful way, as all Americans would want them to do and wish had been done on Jan. 6. Yet, Reps. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, and Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., who chair panels that oversee the Capitol Police, said, "Given the violent tendencies of the right-wing extremists who plan to attend, it is obvious this rally poses a threat to the Capitol," while adding that Capitol Police have "a clear plan … to maintain order."

Does he mean those "violent tendencies" like the Antifa and BLM violent "peaceful protests," which included looting and burning 140 cities and inflicting $2 billion in damages while injuring 2,037 police officers?

They say it's "obvious"? Based on what, Rep. Ryan? Leaked media claims from "unknown sources" about "internet chatter"? Really?

Then why are all the unfairly demonized groups, like the Proud Boys and Oath Keepers, and even most hard right podcasters and social media sites, telling everyone "don't go, it's a false flag event setup by the FBI to trap Trump supporters"? Which it is not.

While everyone on the left is creating hysteria to try to stop this event and attack those with a dissenting opinion, those on the right should be embarrassed for not supporting this important rally. They are proving that one thing is clear: The left, the media and the Biden regime have succeeded in creating delusional thinking on both sides of America's great divide.

[...]

In closing, let me state clearly, this unwarranted hysteria is all a campaign of intentional distraction intended to stop Americans from exercising their rights and stop the world from hearing the truth about what actually happened on Jan. 6 and the gross mistreatment of the Jan. 6 political prisoners. A recent Rasmussen Poll shows half of Americans believe that the U.S. government is holding political prisoners.

On the other hand, Joseph Farah penned a Sept. 22 column after the rally praising it for being a "dress rehearsal" for the anti-Biden movement he wants to start:

And so it begins. …

On Friday, I shared my thoughts about how to build a visible movement against Joe Biden's terror program – and I watched a picture perfect demonstration of it already on Saturday!

A group of several hundred peaceful protesters gathered near the Capitol – and were met by a heavy police presence meant to "protect" the building from another "insurrection," just as I predicted.

This was a demonstration seeking "Justice for J6" (a reference to the Jan. 6 Capitol fracas) that made its point effectively amid beefed up security, police in full riot gear and National Guard fencing.

This was a start of what I proposed for the occupation of Washington EVERY DAY commencing later this year and continuing through the midterm election next year.

Think of it! An OCCUPY D.C. movement by the deplorables! It's rich. Do you remember Occupy Wall Street? This should be the polar opposite.

They had just the right tone on Saturday. The event began with prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem. What a contrast to the mayhem of the left!

[...]

So there you have it. A job well done. Keep it up!

Remember, I was suggesting that OCCUPY D.C. begins with some planning around Nov. 8, 2021, and ends hopefully in an electoral triumph Nov. 7, 2022. But I'm delighted to witness a dress rehearsal for the idea.

Contrary to Farah's claim, there weren't "several hundred" protesters there; the attendance was a couple hundred at most.

MRC: It's 'Politicizing Death' To Note There Are Missing Non-White Women
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center has managed to politicize the death of Gabby Petito ... by accusing others of politicizing it. Kristine Marsh complained in a Sept. 22 post:

After the body of a missing 22-year-old woman Gabby Petito was found earlier this week and ruled as a homicide Tuesday, ABC was already politicizing the young woman’s death. On Good Morning America, co-anchor T.J. Holmes criticized the media for not giving enough attention to missing people of color and urging them to follow the left-wing Black Lives Matter movement.

Holmes seems to have been inspired by MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who voiced the same criticism on her show Tuesday night.

Marsh then played whataboutism:

From there, [Holmes] highlighted three missing person cases of Jelani Day, Daniel Robinson and Maya Millete, all not white women, to show how they weren’t household names. The elephant in the room is why ABC didn’t cover their stories when they went missing to begin with. Not to mention the dozens of minorities who are killed by gang violence every few weeks in places like Chicago, doesn’t get the notice of the networks. So the media themselves are the ones responsible for catering a narrative that diminishes the importance of black lives. 

Lydia Switzer served up a similar complaint the next day:

On Wednesday, just days following the tragic discovery of missing woman Gabby Petito’s body and the autopsy ruling her death a homicide, CNN’s New Day aired a segment in shocking bad taste accusing society of suffering from “missing white woman syndrome.” The guest on the show, journalist Mara Schiavocampo, began by claiming, “This isn’t saying Gabby Petito is not important,” and then went on to complain about the way the media has relentlessly covered her story.

“When everybody knows their face, when everyone knows the world is looking for them, it makes a real difference,” she said. This, of course, is a good thing, and assisted in the search for Petito. However, Schiavocampo interpreted the national media attention as a flaw in the nation’s "value system":

[...]

Yes, that’s right. Covering the Petito tragedy is just another symptom of systemic racism, and this type of media coverage is directly endangering women of color, according to Schiavocampo: “This makes them less safe. Perpetrators, predators know that if you want to get away with murder, you seek the victim that no one is going to look for. So this has very real implications for women who are walking around today.”

[...]

Curiously, Schiavocampo did not have a problem with the statistical underrepresentation of men in missing persons cases: in 2020, 35,000 more men than women over 21 went missing. It doesn’t quite fit with her narrative that the problem is racism.

As the nation grieves alongside the Petito family and anxiously awaits new developments in the story, it is stunning to see such bitterness from pundits who can only think about fairness in the wake of a young woman’s murder.

Neither Marsh nor Switzer bothers to hold up righty-wing media as a shining example of how missing-persons cases are covered -- because they presumably know that their record is at least as bad. Plus, "missing white girl syndrome" is very much a thing, and there's no reason to believe that systemic racism doesn't play a part in that. Also, systemic racism is very much a thing too, but the MRC's partisan agenda means it will never admit it exists.

WND's Zumwalt Declares That Biden Is Not His President
Topic: WorldNetDaily

We've previously noted that WorldNetDaily made a big deal of complaining that some liberals declared that Donald Trump was not their president -- despite the fact that editor Joseph Farah had made a big deal of declaring that Barack Obama was not his president. Now the not-my-president is swinging back, if James Zumwalt's Aug. 27 WND column is any indication:

While we live in a time when many Americans will not admit it, I will: I love my country. Through good times and bad, good presidencies and bad, that love has never diminished. One generation of family member after another – from Jacob Zumwalt who served during the American Revolution to my son's 21st century service in Iraq as a bomb technician – attests to this love by voluntarily serving in uniform.

As a veteran who served for over a quarter of a century, I never thought I would say this about a commander in chief, but the terrorist bombing at the Kabul airport that claimed 40 lives, including at least 13 of our brave warriors, leaves me no choice. It is love of country and all those serving to protect her who have needlessly, callously and intentionally been put in harm's way with no rational basis for doing so that forces me now to declare: "Mr. Biden, you are not my president."

I do this with deep concerns. Every president before Biden making a bad decision did it with the same love of country many of us harbor. But Biden's outrageous actions, both in opening up our borders and rushing to withdraw from Afghanistan, is senselessly claiming American lives.

[...]

Biden need take no further action to demonstrate the fact protecting American citizens and our military from danger is not his priority. Because he rejects this responsibility, evidenced by a disgraceful withdrawal that leaves an enemy behind that is stronger than ever before while subjecting our warriors to greater risk both now and in the future, Biden commits a dereliction of duty for which I no longer consider him my president.

Zumwalt sounds like a fair-weather patriot, supporting the country only when his fellow right-wing ideologues run it. But given how many bogus election fraud conspiracies he has spouted over the past several months, it seems very likely that Zumwalt actually decided well before this that Biden was not his president.

CNS' Resident Refugee Obsessive Continues His Work
Topic: CNSNews.com

CNSNews.com writer Patrick Goodenough has long been obsessed with the issue of refugees coming to the U.S. -- specifically, that there are too many of them in general, too many non-Christians and not enough Christians. That obsession has continued through this year as well.

In April, Goodenough complained that "the Biden administration is reversing its decision announced on Friday to keep the number of refugees to be resettled in fiscal year 2021 at the record-low 15,000 cap set by President Trump last fall," which came after "after refugee resettlement groups expressed “shock” and outrage” over the administration’s “broken promise” to significantly raise the 15,000 ceiling set by President Trump for the fiscal year. Goodenough once again defended Trump (as he is wont to do), this time over Secretary of State Antony Blinken's claim that refugees from Africa and the Middle East had effectively been blocked under Trump:

But those claims distort the facts.

It is true that Trump’s PD of October 27 last year did not set out specific allocations for refugees from each of the five regions traditionally used in the U.S. refugee program: Africa, East Asia, Europe and Central Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, and Near East and South Asia.

But the criteria that it did use would have covered refugees from all parts of the world, including Africa and the Middle East.  They included: those fleeing religious persecution; those falling into a category listed in the 1990 Lautenberg Amendment and its 2004 extension, the Specter Amendment; and those falling into a category in the Refugee Crisis in Iraq Act of 2007.

The fact remains, however -- whether Goodenough wants to admit it or not -- that Trump sought throughout his administration to drastically cut the number of refugees allowed into the U.S., particularly from Africa and the Middle East.

And even with that denial, Goodenough went on to complain in a May 4 article that "President Biden’s new determination on refugee admissions, announced on Monday, indicates that when it comes to resettling refugees in the U.S., his administration is prioritizing those from Africa, the Middle East and South Asia over other parts of the world."

As the Biden administration's refugee policy firmed up even more as the year continued, Goodenough found new reasons to complain in a Sept. 21 article:

The Biden administration informed Congress on Monday that the United States will admit up to 125,000 refugees in fiscal year 2022, doubling the ceiling of 62,500 that it had hoped to resettle in FY 2021.

An admission ceiling of 125,000 refugees would be the highest set by any administration in almost three decades.

[...]

The move comes after Trump administration reduced the annual refugee admission cap for five consecutive years, each time setting a new record low ceiling: 50,000 refugees in FY 2017, 45,000 in FY 2018, 30,000 in FY 2019, 18,000 in FY 2020, and 15,000 in FY 2021.

But Goodenough found something to cheer in an Oct. 6 article -- that Biden couldn't reverse Trump's unusually low refugee quotas in time to get more refugees in before the fiscal year ended:

Despite a last-minute escalation during the final month of the fiscal year, the Biden administration in FY 2021 oversaw the smallest resettlement of refugees since the modern-day refugee admissions program was established in 1980.

A total of 11,411 refugees were admitted to the United States during the year that ended on September 30 – 403 fewer than the previous record low, recorded during the last full fiscal year of the Trump administration.

The month of September alone saw one-third of the annual number of resettled refugees arrive – 3,774 refugees out of the total 11,411.  The largest contingents came from the Democratic Republic of Congo (1,442 refugees), Syria (705), and Sudan (360).

Goodenough went on to join his CNS co-workers in grumbling about refugees coming from Afghanistan after the U.S. withdrawal, making a big deal abou h ow "Many of those are “parolees” – Afghans who did not work for the U.S. and so are not eligible for SIVs, but who have been granted temporary admission on humanitarian grounds."

MRC Shoehorns Nicki Minaj Into Its Right-Wing Victimhood Narrative
Topic: Media Research Center

In 2017, the Media Research Center was attacking hip-hop artist Nicki Minaj because she once "putted a golf ball into a rear-end shaped golf hole as 'a tribute to Scotland’s love of golf,'" going on to huff: "This is also the pop star that criticized Melania Trump, asking a concert audience, 'You niggas want brainless bitches to stroke your motherfucking ego?' She’s also anti-Catholic, performing on stage as someone who is possessed by demons, snarling at a priest, and ‘levitating’ while a choir sings a sexualized version of “O Come, All Ye Faithful.” Nothing says culture like mocking religion."

But times change, and the MRC is now willing to forgive all that because Minaj is suddenly useful to its right-wing agenda.

A Sept. 15 post by Curtis Houck admitted that Minaj's claims about COVID vaccines were "unfounded," but he was all to willing to take her side because she was involved in a Twitter feud with MSNBC's Joy Reid, whom Houck hates with an irrational passion. Houck referenced Minaj's "bizarre" claims in a post later that day but, again, was much more obsessed with trashing Reid.

On Sept. 16, Alexander Hall was able to induct Minaj into the right-wing victimhood club:

Rapper Nicki Minaj claimed to have been penalized by Twitter after she posted tweets expressing skepticism over COVID-19 vaccinations and apparent agreement with Fox News host Tucker Carlson. 

The massive shakeup of modern politics continues as a rapper condemned political tribalism and censorship. Minaj made headlines when she expressed concern about the risks of taking a COVID-19 vaccination shot on Monday, cautioning her followers “pray on it” and to “make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied.” On Wednesday, she posted an Instagram story claiming, “I’m in Twitter jail y’all. They didn’t like what I was saying.” Twitter has reportedly denied that the platform took action against her account.

Minaj faced backlash from Twitter users for expressing skepticism over COVID-19 vaccination and for sharing a clip from Carlson. Minaj shared a tweet with a bullseye, presumably as an endorsement, of Carlson praising her post for encouraging Americans to think for themselves. Carlson observed in the video how “our media and public health officials didn’t like this because they make their living bullying people.”

Note that Hall claimed only that Minaj was merely "expressing skepticism over COVID-19 vaccinations" when, actually, she made a specific claim about a cousin's friend suffereing swollen testicles after receiving the vaccine -- something which, again, has been discredited.

But the fact that Minaj was making a demonstrably false claim doesn't matter to Hall. He has found yet another person to fit the MRC's narrative, and that's all that matters.

WND Parrots COVID Vaccine Misinformer
Topic: WorldNetDaily

WorldNetDaily's Art Moore -- already a master of promoting fearmongering and misinformation about COVID and its vaccines -- pushed more of the same in a Sept. 21 article:

An employee of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has presented video recordings to Project Veritas of colleagues privately voicing alarm about the safety of the experimental COVID-19 vaccines, alleging a cover-up of "evil at the highest level."

Jodi O'Malley, a registered nurse at the HHS-run Phoenix Indian Medical Center in Arizona, told Project Veritas CEO James O'Keefe in a video featuring the recordings that she's seen dozens of people with adverse reactions to the vaccines come to the facility, but the cases are not being reported.

"You have the FDA, you have the CDC, that are both supposed to be protecting us, but they are under the government, and everything that we've done so far is unscientific," she said.

[...]

O'Malley recorded another nurse on hidden camera saying most incidents aren't being reported to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, known as VAERS, because physicians complain it takes too much time.

She also recorded emergency room physician Dr. Maria Gonzales wondering aloud why HHS won't take into account the natural immunity that comes from infection.

"The problem in here is that they are not doing the studies," Gonzales said to O'Malley. "People that had [COVID-19] and the people that have been vaccinated – they're not doing any antibody testing. Everybody is quiet with that. Why?"

[...]

O'Malley's whistleblowing also addressed the blocking of off-label COVID treatments that many physicians around the world have found to be effective, particularly hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin.

A pharmacist confirmed to O'Malley that that she's barred from prescribing ivermectin, even though it's use for COVID-19 is supported by more than 100 studies and the testimonies of governments such as the Indian state of Uttar Pradesh.

Because Moore doesn't bother to fact-check anything that aligns with his anti-vaxxer views, it was up to an actual news organization to look into O'Malley's claims:

Claims that no reports are being made to the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System are misleading. The system, which currently contains more than 720,000 reports, was set up for early warning purposes and may contain “incomplete, inaccurate, coincidental, or unverifiable” information. Through the system, health regulators such as the CDC and the FDA analyze data to identify serious vaccine-related adverse effects, such as the rare occurrence of myocarditis.

The video also includes claims promoting ivermectin, an antiparasitic drug touted by anti-vaccine communities as an effective treatment against Covid-19. Neither the FDA nor the WHO recommends the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19.

That organization also hinted at O'Malley's possible motivation -- a cash grab to justify pushing her fringe beliefs:

A crowdfunding page for O’Malley appeared on GiveSendGo, a Christian fundraising site, and has since raised over $417,000. “Now that she has boldly stepped into the limelight and exposed corruption in our Federal Healthcare system she is facing an uncertain future,” reads the call to donate.

Moore's claim that a study in Uttar Pradesh proved the effectiveness of ivermectin as a COVID treatment isn't true either. As an actual medical fact-checker pointed out:

Likewise, the Ivermectin recommendation didn’t necessarily cause the current drop in COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh, which can be due to other factors. In an article for The Conversation, epidemiologist Rajib Dasgupta explained that the sharp decline in COVID-19 cases in June 2021 might be due to the high proportion of previously infected individuals, combined with COVID-19 vaccination and increased testing.

Indeed, the fourth nationwide seroprevalence study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in June and July 2021 showed that 67.6% of the population over the age of six had antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 as a result of either vaccination or previous infection. This figure is much higher than in the previous three national serosurveys (0.7% in May-June 2020, 7.1% in August-September 2020, and 24.1% in December 2020-January 2021).

[...]

The claim that Uttar Pradesh is now COVID-19 free due to the use of Ivermectin is inaccurate and unsupported by scientific evidence. Uttar Pradesh isn’t entirely free of COVID-19, and comparisons with other states are challenging due to differences in testing capacity. Furthermore, many factors other than Ivermectin use could have influenced the course of the second COVID-19 wave in Uttar Pradesh, including restrictions and immunity from previous infection and vaccination.

In addition, the quality of evidence supporting Ivermectin use in COVID-19 patients is very low. For this reason, public health authorities don’t recommend the use of Ivermectin for preventing or treating COVID-19 outside of clinical trials. Given all these uncertainties, we can’t determine whether Ivermectin played any role at all in the decline of COVID-19 cases in Uttar Pradesh.

But that doesn't fit WND's preferred narrative, so it's Moore's job to censor it.

There's A Gay NFL Player, And The MRC Is Not Happy
Topic: Media Research Center

When professional football player Carl Nassib came out as gay, the notoriously anti-gay Media Research Center was on hand to complain about it. After his announcement in June, Alexa Moutevelis whined and played whataboutism:

Get ready for the NFL and woke sports media to become even more unbearable. If you thought they were bad before, just wait until you see how they’re reacting to the first active NFL player in history to come out as gay.

[...]

Remember, this is the same media that glorified Michael Sam for being the first openly gay player to be drafted (he never played an NFL game) and Colin Kaepernick for being openly anti-police and anti-America, while hating on Tim Tebow for being openly Christian. 

As for the NFL itself, the official twitter account (complete with rainbow NFL logo) tweeted Nassib’s video with the message, “The NFL family is proud of you, Carl.”

[...]

The NFL has apparently learned nothing from the hemorrhaging of viewers in the wake of their embrace of Black Lives Matter social justice activism and has decided to double down with LGBTQ promotion. It's a bold strategy, Cotton, let's see if it pays off for 'em.

Moutevelis' alleged proof that  the NFL is "hemorrhaging" viewers beause of "social justice activism" is a post from last December by the MRC's mysterious (and hateful) sports blogger, Jay Maxson, making that correlation-equals-causation claim without evidence to support it.

Speaking of Maxson, he (or she -- we don't actually know for sure) is pretty homophobic, so he (or she) felt compelled to weigh in on Nassib's story. A couple days after Moutevelis' post, Maxson seemed to take glee in the fact that Nassib is a Republican:

Carl Nassib went from hero to zero in record time. Hailed earlier this week by the Left for being the courageous first active homosexual player in the NFL, Nassib is now getting canceled by the Twitter mob because he is a registered Republican who voted for Donald Trump. Oh, the agony of it!

Twitter is afire with the unthinkable news. Snopes already declared the rumors true: Nassib is indeed a registered Republican.

Yes, the MRC suddenly likes Snopes again because it confirmed a fact that conforms to right-wing narratives. On the other hand, despite claim that "Twitter is afire" with the story, Maxson cited no major non-conservative on Twitter bemoaning this fact.

Maxson kept up his (or her) homophobic whining, melting down over the NFL making a play for LGBT fans in part to capitalize on Nassib:

At long last, football has shed its macho identity of steel curtains and doomsday defenses, not to mention toxic masculinity. Football came prancing out of the closet Monday with a new identity: “gay,” “lesbian,” transgender” and “queer.” As well as "beautiful."

The NFL’s marketing department has demonstrated the fine art of virtue signaling on performance-enhancing drugs with this startling Youtube video.:

"Football is lesbian. Football is beautiful. Football is queer. Football is life. Football is exciting. Football is culture. Football is transgender. Football is queer. Football is heart. Football is power. Football is tough. Football is bisexual. Football is strong. Football is freedom. Football is American. Football is accepting. Football is everything. Football is for everyone." 

The video follows’ last week’s revelation that Las Vegas’s Carl Nassib is the first active NFL player to emerge from the closet. It also gives the NFL a big virtue-signaling send-off to the LGBT’s annual June pride month. 

[...]

This ain’t your father’s NFL anymore, not by a long shot. It’s not the league of Dick Butkus, Mike Ditka or Pittsburgh’s famed Steel Curtain. The NFL had already turned off many fans, on both sides of the political aisle. The latest bull-rush of pride mania may just be the last straw for another wave of fans who’ve had enough of the social justice, virtue signaling and political grandstanding.

Maxson didn't explain why it was a bad thing for the NFL to try to expand its audience beyond homophobes like him (or her).Nevertheless, Maxson whined further about sports taking part in LGBT Pride Month in June, grumbling that "Carl Nassib, an NFL player for the Las Vegas Raiders, sprinted out of the closet to worldwide fanfare."

When Nassib made the cut to play for the Raiders this season, Maxson huffed in a Sept. 1 post:

The most strident LGBT voices in sports are crowing about Carl Nassib becoming the first openly, active out football player in NFL history. At the same time, SB Nation Outsports is griping and moaning that – yet again – there will be no out men’s tennis players competing in the U.S. Open.

Carl Nassib thrilled the Left when he came out of the closet in June. “(I)t was the biggest story in sports for a few days,” Jim Buzinski crowed on the Outsports blog Tuesday. Yes, to a gay sportswriter it was. The rest of the world, not so much.

In announcing their 53-man roster for 2021, the Las Vegas Raiders on Tuesday assured the LGBT world that Nassib made the final cut. He’s going to be the first openly homosexual player in NFL history when the Raiders host Baltimore Sept. 13. Yabba dabba do.

[...]

It’s a good bet that Nassib will be the toast of the NFL to the Left, so starved for the homosexuals, lesbians, transgenders and non-binary types who make their crazy world go round.

The MRC's latest addition to LGBT-averse sports bloggers, John Simmons, served up his own take on the situation in a Sept. 14 post after Nassib became the first openly gay NFL player to have played in a game:

Week 1 of the 2021-2022 NFL season concluded with a thrilling duel between the hosting Las Vegas Raiders escaping with a win in overtime over the Baltimore Ravens 33-27.But apparently, the really important storyline was that the first openly gay NFL player participated in a game.

[...]

When Nassib first made his “coming out”announcement via Instagram, NFL Commissioner Rodger Goodell and countless other people on social media hailed him as a hero. Unfortunately, that narrative will probably only gain more traction as the season progresses.

And that is not a good thing. The media and the NFL have routinely supported the left-leaning causes taking root within the sport, which will likely grow in the following weeks thanks to the recent developments regarding Nassib.

As is the case with most causes the NFL supports, they will jam that propaganda down your throat until it becomes at least normalized that this is the way football will operate, if not outright accepted.

[...]

It is abundantly clear that the NFL does not support faith-based, American-loving, conservative values, but favors social justice and gay pride.

The days of watching football for the sake of the pure enjoyment of the sport are over. It has become an indoctrination camp for millions of viewers in the hopes of making them liberal sympathizers.

Yes, Simmons really does believe that the mere existence of Nassib on a football field is an affront to right-wing snowflakes who think football is made for them and only them.

Scott Lively Anti-LGBT Meltdown Watch, 'ReQruitment' Edition
Topic: WorldNetDaily

If you thought "Gay Pride Month" (formerly known as June) was bad, brace yourself for another annual "Gay History Month" in public schools throughout October, including "Coming Out Day" on the 11th. June was for planting the seeds of sexual anarchy in the hearts and minds of the children and teens. October is the harvest, when countless American parents discover that the "Q for Questioning" in LGBTQ actually stands for ReQruitment of their children (which is why conservatives should never add Q to the acronym).

The cutting edge of the LGBT agenda is now transsexualism, but the catch-all idea of "gayness" remains the "gateway drug" to childhood self-identification with perversion. All of the "out and proud" LGBT-based identities begin in the mind, often spawned by LGBT propaganda-driven enticement to sexual experimentation and rebellion (highly alluring to all-too-many hormone-inflamed pubescents).

Gay History Month (in the controlled social-engineering environment of today's public schools) is designed both to sell the false narrative of LGBT political activism as "a noble and historic movement for social justice," and to define a young person's personal pursuit of "sexual liberation" through "gayness" as an act of moral courage. This explains the delusional zealotry of "woke" youth since the "gay" 1990s (which for many lasts well into adulthood as a life cause).

-- Scott Lively, Sept. 13 WorldNetDaily column

(Lively loves to fearmonger about gays "recruiting" people.)

CNS Columnist Is A Catholic Priest, But He Sounds Like A Right-Wing Activist
Topic: CNSNews.com

We've noted one instance in which CNSNews.com columnist Rev. Michael P. Orsi comes off as a right-wing polemicist instead of the Catholic priest he is supposed to be. There are more, such as a July 15 column headlined "Jesus Was Canceled too":

Our society is coming to resemble the world through which Jesus walked in many uncomfortable ways. We have an intellectual elite, including educators, media, and literary types, whose “correct thinking” and “settled science” are every bit as rigid as how the Scribes and Pharisees interpreted the Torah.

We have our masters of industry and technology who are as singularly focused on protecting their business interests as the Priests and Levites guarded the prerogatives of the Temple.

We have politicians and their operatives who are as obsessed with enlarging their sphere of control and protecting their power as were the Roman occupiers of biblical Palestine.

We even have our equivalents to the Zealots in today’s various radical groups. Their devotion to transforming society is every bit as fanatical as that of those biblical revolutionaries.

Of course, he sees "cancel culture" as coming from the "progressive left," not from his fellow right-wingers.

In a July 23 column, Orsi managed to portraying critical race theory and questions of gender identity -- and, effectively merely not beoing heterosexual -- as thte work of Marxism:

The primary way in which Marxism operates is by co-opting, in a distorted manner, Judeo-Christian religious/political precepts. So, for instance, social justice is interpreted in the communist worldview not as human dignity, freedom, and equality before the law, but as redistribution of wealth, class warfare, and ongoing conflict between races and ethnic groups (as in critical race theory). These days, any aberrant forms of gender identity and sexual expression also seem to fall under the social justice label.

The religious root of this Marxist worldview is the assumption that humanity has nothing to do with the image and likeness of God, but rather is merely part of the material world. Therefore human beings can be reshaped in any way that suits current desires, attitudes, or expectations.

Orsi's Aug. 19 column appeased anti-vaxxer sentiments, arguing a right and duty to reject a COVID-19 vaccne because "It’s your body, and you have the right to refuse accepting any chemical substance to which you object morally, or which you fear might injure or even kill you," adding tyhat "I have come to believe that there would be grounds for a faith challenge to an employer mandate." He went on to argue that "if the demands are reasonable, then they are appropriate, if only to ease any discomfort which others might feel at being in close proximity to an unvaccinated person," but then declared: "If you should find yourself under pressure to be vaccinated, I would suggest you contact the Pacific Justice Institute. Based in Sacramento, Calif. with other offices around the country, PJI could provide legal guidance and assistance in securing a religious exemption."

Orsi spent his Sept. 1 column trying to turn a right-wing rant about the less-than=smooth withdrawal into a call for "conversion":

Finally, what is the American Way at this point in our history? Surely not this.

Can we ever get back to some understanding of our country as place where there’s a commitment to the rule of law and the biblical principles on which it was founded, as well as loyalty to those who have sacrificed on our behalf, and (at the very least) an intention to treat people fairly?

Will we ever again be a land Superman would have recognized?

It would take a lot. We’ve got quite a bit of lost ground to recover. Two small indicators: a recent commentary in The New York Times proclaiming "a more secular America” and a newly appointed chief chaplain of Harvard University who is a self-identified atheist.

Think of it. Our secular nation with a Harvard atheist chief chaplain has just experienced one of the most shameful failures in its history.

What is left for us to do?

Well, we can do what we’ve always done in moments of crisis. We can pray. And that’s no small thing. It’s brought us through conflict and national self-doubt before.

Pray for those we’ve left behind. Pray for the tortured people of Afghanistan, who are now reliving the nightmare from which they thought they had awakened.

Pray for repentance and conversion — for our own personal sins, for the sins of our leaders, for the sins of the nation. In fact, declaring a national day of repentance and conversion might be a timely idea.

Shades of Joseph Farah! Orsi doesn't say if he will ask for repentence for his eagerness to use his religious pulpit as a political soapbox.

Orsi started a Sept. 14 column reflecting on the 20th anniversary of 9/11, but eventually turned it into a rant that vaccine mandates are satanic:

In his recent address, Biden insisted that forcing people into vaccination “is not about freedom or personal choice. It’s about protecting yourself and those around you — the people you work with, the people you care about, the people you love.”

But this is not true. The issue is precisely about personal freedom and choice, the freedom to choose what we will accept into our bodies, a freedom protected by the Constitution, a freedom acknowledged and defended by the Church.

The government does not own our bodies. They are given us by God to use in glorifying him. We are not to be coerced or pressured into compromising them.

Biden’s forced vaccine initiative contradicts this truth. As such, it’s a violation of human dignity. And no amount of syrupy, guilt-laden appeals to conscience, to protecting “people you love,” can mask the fact that it, too, is deception.

Such things are the work of the Father of Lies, the Prince of Darkness.

Yeah, he went there. How many people will die of COVID because of Orsi's extreme rhetoric?