Then, a Feb. 22 article by Craig Bannister repeated a slanted Rasmussen poll of the kind CNS loves to promote:
Nearly three in four U.S. adults agree that “It’s okay to be white,” results of a new Rasmussen survey reveal.
In a survey of 1,000 American adults, conducted February 13-15, Rasmussen asked:
“Do you agree or disagree with this statement: ‘It’s OK to be white.’”
In response, 58% said they “strongly agree” that it’s OK to be white and another 14% said they at least “somewhat agree.”
Bannister didn't mention that the phrase "It's OK to be white" has been promoted by white nationalists -- and, in a poll, is a loaded question designed to generate specific answers that advance right-wing narratives. This poll, however, set Adams on a racist tirade in which he declared that "the best advice I would give to white people is to get the hell away from black people" -- a rant that caused hundreds of newspapers to drop "Dilbert" and publishers to drop book deals with him.
CNS devoted no news coverage to this story, even though it was major news. Instead, it published a Feb. 28 op-ed by Jeff Charles, "socio-political corresponcent" at right-wing site Liberty Nation, that talked about the controversy and tried to whitewash things:
It all started with a poll. After looking at a Rasmussen survey supposedly revealing that almost half of the black American population does not think it is okay for white people to be white, Dilbert creator and political commentator Scott Adams went on a rant that set social media ablaze and likely set a world record for the number of pearls clutched in one day.
Those familiar with Adams’ work speculated that he was deliberately poking the bear, eliciting outrage to prompt a larger conversation. In subsequent broadcasts and an appearance on social media influencer Hotep Jesus’ YouTube channel, the cartoonist clarified his remarks that set the record straight but likely did not quell most of the handwringing outrage coming from folks on both the left and right. If his conversation with Hotep Jesus is “Act Three,” as Adams indicated, where will this film take us next?
Charles didn't mention that "Hotep Jesus" (real name: Bryan Sharpe) is best known as an anti-Semitic media troll, meaning he may have not have been the best person for Adams to seek help in clearing his racist name.He did, however, acknowledge that white supremacists have embraced the "It's OK to be white." Nevertheless, he insisted on continuing totrying to clean up Adams' reputation and portray him as nothing more than an "out-of-the-box thinker":
The conversation between Adams and Hotep Jesus covered a variety of topic, mostly pertaining to race. In the discussion, Adams acknowledged that he made his incendiary remarks to provoke a conversation on the subject. Indeed, those who have watched his work over the years know that while Adams is an out-of-the-box thinker, there seems to be a method to his madness and that he is known for expressing viewpoints that are out of the ordinary.
Nevertheless, as Adams knew would happen, folks are trying to destroy his career and source of income, which doesn’t seem to matter to the cartoonist as he explained that he plans to retire in the near future. Moreover, he indicated that this is only the third act of this particular movie, so perhaps we should expect to see more of the fallout in short order.
Actually, Adams did a fine job of destroying his own career -- nobody mnade him say that, and Charles' attempt to bestow victimhood on him for saying it falls very flat.
MRC Not Helping Much With Newsmax's Victimhood Narrative Topic: Media Research Center
When DirecTV dropped right-wing channel One America News last year in the wake of defamation lawsuits the channel faced over false claims about election fraud it aired during the 2020 election, the Media Research Center did surprisingly little with it, offering only perfunctory victimhood over the cancellation and a bare minimum of coverage. The MRC has taken the same approach over DirecTV dropping Newsmax in a fee dispute. It did start out strong, however, in a Jan. 25 post by Joseph Vazquez touting how MRC employees went on Newsmax to push the channel's talking points:
There appears to be a trend going on at liberal video programming distributor DirecTV. The company dropped Newsmax from its channel lineup just months after it nixed One America News from the platform.
Newsmax reported Jan. 25 that DirecTV “cut” the outlet’s “signal, immediately shutting the network off from more than 13 million customers of the satellite service, DirecTV Stream, and U-Verse." Newsmax said it was “seeking a fee with a 75% discount to its market value, and compared to fees currently paid by DirecTV, almost all 50 channels below Newsmax in ratings get higher fees.”
Newsmax Media CEO Christopher Ruddy didn’t mince words about the implications of what DirecTV did: “‘This is a blatant act of political discrimination and censorship against Newsmax.’”
[...]
“Is this a new form of red-lining where Big Media is trying to keep conservatives out of the marketplace?” asked MRC Business Vice President Dan Schneider. “Newsmax is a highly-rated network that has proved its market value. Conservatives should be very concerned about what’s going on.”
On Wednesday morning, NewsBusters Executive Editor Tim Graham and Managing Editor Curtis Houck joined Newsmax's National Report to react to DirecTV's decision. Speaking to hosts Shaun Kraisman and Emma Rechenberg, Houck also said it was “very concerning” and noted that Newsmax is closer to CNN and MSNBC in the ratings than the two far-left networks are to the Fox News Channel.
For his part, Graham called out the fact that, while liberals object to Newsmax being allowed on TV packages, Americans haven't had a choice as to whether their tax dollars go to fund far-left news outlets in NPR and PBS.
Vazquez noted the lawsuit OAN failed against DirecTV over getting dropped, but he didn't note that OAN lost a key ruling in the lawsuit just a couple weeks earlier.
Vazquez peddled more pro-Newsmax talking points in a Jan. 27 post:
Even a liberal media outlet raised questions about DirecTV’s standard of fairness in how it’s treating Newsmax in comparison to the leftist channels distributed on its platform.
Newsweek’s Jan. 26 headline didn’t beat around the bush: “Newsmax Ratings Compared to Vice Raises Questions About DirecTV Fairness.” Newsmax reported after having its signal cut that it was “seeking a fee with a 75% discount to its market value, and compared to fees currently paid by DirecTV, almost all 50 channels below Newsmax in ratings get higher fees.”
After propping up DirecTV’s excuse that it didn’t give Newsmax a “carriage fee” due to supposedly low ratings, noted Newsmax’s point that the leftist “Vice TV receives full carriage and license fees from DirecTV, despite having an audience of [only] 60,000, according to USTVDB figures.”
Actually, Newsweek has moved conservative in recent years, meaning that Vazquez's description of the operation as "liberal' is inaccurate. And as we've noted, Vice is included in a package of other channels by its owner, A&E Networks, and DirecTV pays one fee to get all of that provider's channels. Further, Vazquez failed to report in either of these posts that DirecTV replaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel, The First, which means any argument about viewpoint censorship is moot.
Jeffrey Lord seved up his own right-wing victimhood spin in his Jan. 28 column:
There is nothing really new here. Whether it is barring some conservative speaker from speaking on a college campus or de-platforming an entire conservative TV channel or demanding that the late Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity or any other talk radio or TV host be yanked off the air, the objective is always the same: in the name of democracy, shut down free speech, the central pillar of any democracy.
In contrast to Vazquez, Lord gets credit for not only noting that DirecTV repaced Newsmax with another right-wing channel but also disclosing that "I am a NewsMax contributor."
The MRC then went silent for a month. But Vazquez resurface with a March 2 post to spread a conspiracy theory:
It appears that DirecTV dubiously dropping Newsmax and One America News within months of each other may be connected to the lawsuit by Dominion Voting Systems against the two news outlets.
AT&T, which holds the majority ownership stake in DirecTV (70 percent), is overseen by its liberal Board Chairman William Kennard, who’s been accused of directly interfering in the decision by DirecTV to drop OAN April 2022. This development happened just under a year after it was reported that Dominion Voting Systems, the voting tech company that was the subject of controversy during the 2020 election, had launched billion-dollar lawsuits against both OAN and Newsmax in 2021 for spreading what NPR called “misinformation” about “rigging the ballots.” DirecTV has since deplatformed both outlets.
Kennard is one of the three executive board members of Staple Street Capital, the middle market private equity firm that — along with the Dominion Voting Systems management team — acquired Dominion Voting Systems in 2018. Kennard’s executive role at Staple Street Capital — of which he reportedly joined in 2014 — involved “principally focus[ing] on the communications and media sectors and other regulated industries.” Kennard also joined AT&T’s board in 2014, and was named AT&T chairman just three days after the tumultuous 2020 election.
In other words, the chairman of the company that owns the programming distributor that dropped OAN and Newsmax, is also an executive board member of the firm that owns the voting company that’s suing both outlets.
Note how Vazquez tried to undercut Dominion's allegations -- which are, in fact, valid enough that its lawsuit against Newsmax is continuing -- by dishonestly framing them as "what NPR called 'misinformation.'" He also didn't metion that Newsmax retracted false claims made on the channel about a Dominion official.
Vazquez didn't explain why a "news" outlet that has demonstrably forwarded false information so eghregious that it's being sued over them is solehow entitied to a permanent slot on DirecTV to keep spreading falsehoods.
Meanwhile, the MRC's "news" division, CNSNews.com, has barely noted the situation, publishing only columns by Craig Shirley and Bill Donohue (both of which were also published by Newsmax) decrying the situation and devoting no "news" articles whatsoever to the story.
WND's Mercer Wants Republicans To Help White People More Topic: WorldNetDaily
Ilana Mercer likes to complain that Republicans aren't helping white people enough, and she did so again in her Feb. 2 WorldNetDaily column. She started out by complaining that Republicans took the "bait" of classified documents in President Biden's possession and are caught arguing "the differences between the infractions of the Democrats' guy (Biden) and our guy's transgressions (Trump's)," then complained that Republicans are "unserious about its rights-based constitutional obligations to the voters." You will not be surprised to learn that the "obligations" about which Republicans should be as obsessed as her are heavily on hating immigrants and helping white people:
Impeaching Biden for the country having been invaded and consequently permanently altered. The demographic tipping point has arrived, and Biden had heralded it in opening the border by presidential decree. From here on in, America will be what I term in the book "Into the Cannibal's Pot" a dominant-party state.The Vandals and Huns, the Goths and Visigoths are here to stay by invitation of the American treason class.
Demanding day-in, day-out that the 4-5 million outlaws invited into the country illegally be rounded up and deported, and not one more penny be confiscated from taxpayers to pay for their keep and safe passage into American communities.The overtone window alludes to a range of ideas once considered unthinkable, but now normalized. With their flaccid, crushingly stupid responses to most situations, for example the self-induced "crisis" on the southwestern border, Republicans have normalized an open border, through which millions of impoverished people are flowing.
[...]
Forthwith repealing all manner of COVID restrictions, including the ban on white, unvaccinated non-citizens from vising the U.S.Why do I assert that the travel ban on the unvaccinated is anti-white? Simply because the regulation stipulates that foreigners from "countries with limited COVID-19 vaccine availability" may be forgiven for entering the United States unvaccinated! Witness the southwestern border. The rule banning unvaccinated non-citizens is thus a proxy for race, engineered to privilege brown and black Third Worlders and disfavor those Westerners who, while having had the good sense to reject the kill shot, travel from countries in which the "mRNAgent Orange" is abundant.
[...]
Defunding all institutions that practice woke anti-whiteness starting with public schools, tertiary, secondary, primary and kindergarten. Add gender ideology. Yes, the Democrats are the party of sexual-offenders-by-proxy, of violent criminals, outlaws and scofflaws. If not by commission, Republicans are guilty by omission, having allowed the normalization of the unthinkable.
Exploring the launch of Civil Rights action against any financial institution engaged in financial deplatforming of innocent individuals, based on thought crimes harbored and impolite speech spoken.
Yes, she really did write "overtone window." Apparently, neither she nor WND has editors who would catch that sort of thing.
Mercer also included a video of her talking about this with podcast partner David Vance, who had been kicked off Twitter a few years back for spewing racism. That tells you the kind of people she hangs out with -- not surprising, given that the South Africa native has a soft spot for apartheid.
MRC Loved 'Dilbert' Cartoonist's Right-Wing Leanings -- But Is Silent On His Racism Topic: Media Research Center
Even before it published an error-ridden post last September falsely claiming that his "Dilbert" comic was dropped by a newspaper chain for making fun of liberals, the Media Research Center was a longtime champion of the right-wing turn of cartoonist Scott Adams:
A 2013 post noted that a Paul Krugman-like character had been added to the comic strip, adding that "Paul Krugman is now both literally and figuratively a cartoon."
A June 2016 post by P.J. Gladnick complained that Adams' right-wing turn was called out, insisting in response that "Adams has been so amazingly correct in his analysis of why Trump is winning."
A November 2016 post by Gladnick hyped Adams criticizing CNN for the purported "lengths they go to in order to avoid mentioning Hillary Clinton's name or her troubles."
A March 2017 post by the disgraced Tom Blumer touted how Adams "spotted the Donald Trump phenomenon early on" and repeated his attacking on a New Yorker "hit piece" about him.
In a May 2017 post, Gladnick gushed over how Adams "had a good laugh" over a tweet by Keith Olbermann regarding Trump's firing of FBI director James Comey.
A few days later, Aly Nielsen hyped a "Dilbert" storyline in which "Dilbert’s boss invited a climate scientist to explain how climatologists predicted the impact of climate change. The result was a hilarious send-up of how such scientists respond."
A December 2018 post by Gladnick featured Adams complaining that images of him in a Google search are manipulated images of him as a Nazi and how "Adams gave Google a deadline to remove those offensive images."
Gladnick followed with a February 2019 post noting that Adams "brought up an interesting thesis in a Tweet on Friday about whether Trump Derangement Syndrome could be used as a legal defense in the future for people who acted criminally or immorally."
Then came last month, when Adams went on a racist tirade (which would seem to show that the manipulated Nazi images were merely prescient) that caused his comic to be dropped by hundreds of newspapers. Neither Gladnick nor anyone else at the MRC has referenced this incident or Adams since -- not even to denounce Adams even though that would be the easiest thing in the world to do. It was also silent when Elon Musk defended Adams in a tweet he later deleted -- which also would have been an easy layup.
NEW ARTICLE: Joseph Farah's Trump Restoration Project Topic: WorldNetDaily
The WorldNetDaily editor's wild plan to return Donald Trump to the presidency by first making him House speaker actually got slightly closer to reality for a very brief time (though he may have to fight Wayne Allyn Root over credit for the plan). Read more >>
MRC Keeps On Fluffing Musk, Touting Dubious 'Twitter Files' Topic: Media Research Center
Elon Musk had a pretty rough February -- it was revealed that not only did he fire a Twitter engineer because his tweets weren't getting engagement (which he reportedly demanded after his Super Bowl tweet got fewer views than President Biden's), he order those engineers to create a method to give his tweets maximum visibility whether Twitter users subscribe to his feed or not (all of which he laughably denied). Twitter succumbed to the demands of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and censored a documentary film critical of him (about which Musk pleaded ignorance). Musk also defended "Dilbert" cartoonist Scott Adams after he went on a racist rant (which he later deleted), and ads from large mainstream companies are appearing next to tweets from Holocaust deniers.
But you didn't read about any of this at the Media Research Center because it remains a group of Musk fanboys and his PR operation. A Feb. 10 post by Catherine Salgado cheerily touted a far-right congresswoman naming a bill based on the selectively released "Twitter files" after Musk:
Congresswoman Lauren Boebert (R-CO) issued a press release on Thursday announcing that she introduced the Exposing Lewd Outlays for Social Networking Companies Act, or the ELON Act, to audit Big Tech’s collusion with the government to censor Americans. The ELON Act also puts a year’s moratorium on FBI payments to tech companies.
[...]
The congresswoman quoted Elon Musk who tweeted that, “Government paid Twitter millions of dollars to censor info from the public.”
Renata Kiss quoting Musk-fluffing from others in a Feb. 14 post:
Renowned podcast host Joe Rogan and Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi hashed out Elon Musk’s quirky business strategy at Twitter that ticked off many on the left.
On Monday, podcast host Joe Rogan released a conversation with guest Twitter Files journalist Matt Taibbi where they discussed “eccentric billionaire” Twitter owner Elon Musk’s leadership style and the platform’s sudden turn towards free speech despite media backlash. Rogan said Elon Musk “truly believes that censored social media is a threat to democracy.” He added, “I believe it too.”
The pair discussed the radical transparency Musk has brought to the platform through the Twitter files.
Kiss added that "Joe Rogan has been adamant about the liberal media’s silence over The Twitter Files, which he equated with a Watergate level scandal on a previous episode" -- which, of course, the MRC previously hyped.
The next day, Kiss cheered Musk's recitation of right-wing talking points:
Elon Musk says Big Tech oligarchs in San Francisco shouldn’t impose their values on the world for the sake of the future of our civilization.
On Wednesday, Elon Musk warned against Silicon Valley elitism at the World Government Summit in Dubai. He referred to the rampant censorship under Twitter’s previous leadership and said it was important “for the future of civilization to try to correct that thumb on the scale,” and to “have Twitter more accurately reflect ... the people of earth.”
Musk highlighted the stark contrast between “the rest of the world” and the “niche ideology” of Twitter headquarters and its progressive San Francisco neighborhoods.
“That’s the general idea to reflect the values of the people as opposed to imposing the values of essentially San Francisco and Berkeley–which are somewhat of a niche ideology as compared to the rest of the world.”
Needless to say, none of these posts mentioned Musk's own elitism in demanding that everyone see his tweets whether they want to or not.Meanwhile, Autumn Johnson had a new "Twitter files" drop to uncritically promote in a Feb. 20 post:
The latest drop of Twitter Files shows that a United States senator's campaign director pressured the company to target his political opponents.
Independent journalist Matt Taibbi posted a thread of tweets illustrating how government officials intentionally targeted constituents and political rivals as "Russian-controlled." Taibbi’s reporting revealed that Sen. Angus King's (I-ME) campaign director and Mark Lenzi, a State Department official, each separately pressured Twitter to censor certain accounts on the platform.
A 2018 email from a Twitter official indicated that King's campaign director flagged< approximately 354 "suspicious" accounts to Twitter. Some of the accounts appear to have included supporters of his opponent at the time, Maine Republican State Sen. Eric Brakey.
But as Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall pointed out, King flagged both conservative and liberal accounts that were considered suspicious -- but Taibbi wrote only about the conservative ones. Taibbi effectively confirmed his laziness in a later tweet. Johnson never updated her post to note the whole story -- she seems mot to understand that if all Taibbi is doing is serving as a servile stenographer for Musk, he's not an "independent journalist."
Instead, the Musk-fluffing continued in a post the same day by Joseph Vazquez:
It appears the liberal media doomsaying over how Twitter owner Elon Musk was supposedly going to make the company implode by cutting the old regime’s censorship-obsessed workforce in half was nothing but noise. And even a Washington Postcolumnist had to eat crow.
Post columnist Megan McArdle was blunt in her Feb. 19 op-ed: “How Elon Musk fired Twitter staff and broke nothing.” She admitted right off the bat that she was “incredulous” when “Musk said he was going to cut up to 75 percent of Twitter’s workforce last year.”
McArdle noted that she initially viewed Musk’s workforce overhaul as “over the top,” “so obviously irrational” and she pointed to an October 2022 column where she lambasted Musk’s method as nonsensical.
“Layoffs of that magnitude mean critical operations running at half strength,” she said at the time. But now, in retrospect, it seems McArdle has had a change in perspective. “[S]ure, in the end he only laid off half the staff, but … half the staff! Yet the site is still running,” she said.
But it turns out that Vazquez's serving of crow to McArdle was a bit premature: Twitter suffered a severe outage a couple weeks later, which was described as "the second Twitter glitch in less than a week and the third in under a month."
A Feb. 22 post by Salgado complained that others engage in the same type of activism against Musk that the MRC does against "liberal media":
Leftist billionaire and eBay founder Pierre Omidyar is bankrolling a sketchy “dark-money group” that is pushing a corporate boycott campaign against Twitter owner Elon Musk.
The Omidyar Network gave Accountable Tech $509,500 between 2021 and 2022, according to Omidyar Network records. The Washington Free Beacon, who also reported on the funding, said Omidyar also gave $2 million more to other groups attacking and writing pieces slamming Musk for his takeover of Twitter.
One leftist Omidyar-funded group, Free Press, claimed in a statement Musk’s pro-free speech Twitter plans would make it a “free-for-all of hate and harassment.”
Accountable Tech and other Omidyar-funded groups have issued demands for investigations into Musk and campaigns aiming to pressure corporations into boycotting Twitter. An Omidyar Network spokeswoman reportedly verified the funding to Free Beacon but claimed the network did not direct the boycott campaign.
Salgado did not disclose which shadowy right-wing billionaires pay her to defend Musk.
CNS Keeps Riding On Right-Wing Anti-ESG Bandwagon Topic: CNSNews.com
CNSNews.com continued its ideologically mandated right-wing bandwagon campaign against investments that take environmental, social and governmental issues into consideration with a Jan. 4 article by Craig Bannister:
As 2022 drew to a close, all 10 of the largest Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) funds left investors suffering double-digit percentage losses in the value of their portfolios, an analysis by Bloomberg reveals.
What’s more, the report finds that eight of the ten largest ESG funds, measured by assets, performed worse than the S&P 500:
But actual analyists point out that this is a "very narrow interpretation of the data" and that ESG investments have done well on a long-term basis:
The problem with this argument – ESG products are bad investments and take returns off the table for hardworking pension funds investors – is that it relies on a very narrow interpretation of the data. Looking at both a short- and long-term horizon, the figures are much better. In the third quarter (the latest figures available), global ESG median return was -6.09% compared with a broader global equity peer group return of -6.87%. Nearly two in three funds – a full 65% outperformed the index.
[...]
More important is looking at longer term results. On a one-year basis, 63% of global ESG products underperformed. This reflects the overall underperformance of growth products, as 73% of these investments underperformed the index. But looking at a three-year time horizon is different. Seventy-four percent of ESG products outperformed the benchmark, with a median return of 5.9%.
Neertheless, Bannister quoted a right-wing activist insisting that these numbers "dispelled the myth that ESG is a worthy investment" and demanding tyhat it be "challenged and defeated politically."
Bannister continued to crank out biased anti-ESG articles throughout January and February, many of which were reprinted at its Media Research Center parent's NewsBusters blog (so much for any purported wall between news and opinion at the MRC):
When the Biden adminstration established a new rule that allows retirement plans to more easily consider ESG factors, Bannistert had a preordained freakout over it in a Jan. 30 post:
A new Biden Administration rule took effect Monday, allowing retirement plan administrators (fiduciaries) to base investments on Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) goals, rather than only on the maximum financial benefit of their clients.
The U.S. Department of Labor released the final rule under the Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) to allow plan fiduciaries to consider climate change and other environmental, social, and governance (ESG) factors when they make investment decisions and when they exercise shareholder rights, including voting on shareholder resolutions and board nominations.
The Biden rule eliminates a 2020 Trump Administration rule requirement that fiduciaries consider only the monetary benefit (“pecuniary only”) to their clients when choosing investments.
In other words, it's not a new rule but simply reverses a Trump policy and returns things to the previous status quo. Later that day, Bannister served up some related PR for the fossil fuel industry (which CNS loves to do):
An alliance of two hundred companies engaged in oil and natural gas exploration and production has joined with the attorneys general of 25 states in a lawsuit seeking to stop a new Biden Administration rule allowing retirement account managers to invest in Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) efforts, even if they’re not the most profitable for their clients.
The complaint, filed in Texas, seeks a preliminary injunction and permanent relief, in the form of a declaration that the ESG rule violates both the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) and Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA) and is arbitrary and capricious.
“This rule is an affront to every American concerned about their retirement account. The fact that the Biden Administration is now opting to risk the financial security of working-class Americans to advance a woke political agenda is insulting and illegal,” Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who is co-leading the lawsuit, said in a press release announcingthe complaint:
But if the policy simply reverts to previous norms, it makes no sense to call it "aritrary and capricious."
Bannister touted his employer's activism on theissue in a Feb. 1 article:
Every Republican senator and Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) are introducing a resolution opposing President Joe Biden’s new ESG investment rule because it politicizes and threatens the value of Americans’ 401Ks.
Led by Sen. Mike Braun (R-IN), the senators condemn the rule, because it allows fiduciaries to consider ideological factors – specifically, environmental, social and governance (ESG) goals – when investing, rather than just rate of return.
[...]
The Media Research Center (MRC), along with more than a hundred other conservative organizations, have endorsed the resolution in the following letter to Congress:
Bannister failed, however, to dlsclose that the MRC operates CNS -- meaning that there's a conflict of interest here. So much for CNS being a responsible "news" organization.
MRC Can't Bash Rihanna At Super Bowl, So It Bashes 'Black National Anthem' Instead Topic: Media Research Center
When Rihanna was announced as the performer at the Super Bowl halftime show, the Media Research Center -- which loves to freakoutover Super Bowl halftime shows -- tried to get ahead of things. John Simmons pre-emptively ranted in a Sept. 26 post immediately after the announcement:
Do you feel it coming in the air, hearing the screams from everywhere? That’s the sound of all the people that are ecstatic that woke singer Rihanna will be performing at the Super Bowl LVII halftime show.
[...]
While her status as an icon and her talent are not in doubt, she has a long history of supporting anything woke.
In June, Rihanna, along with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, pledged $15 million to organizations that combat climate change and its particular effect on people LGBT members and minorities (because climate change is homophobic and racist).
Furthermore, her beauty company, Fenty, released a series of ads that showed gender-bending men wearing lipstick. She’s also an avid supporter of abortion, but that shouldn’t be a surprise in today’s celebrity culture.
Hopefully, her concert doesn’t have any underlying woke messages in it and we can just enjoy a halftime show simply as a concert. But given her track record -- and the fact that this is an NFL-organized event -- that might be too much to ask.
Bur Rihanna's halftime show came and went, and the MRC found nothing to get outraged about. So Simmons ranted instead about "Lift Every Voice And Sing" being sung before the game:
Kickoff hadn’t even happened in Super Bowl LVII before we got a heavy dose of progressive agendas being shoved down our throats - along with nachos and wings.
There were two major elements of the pregame ceremony that has something to do with wokeness:
1) Singing Of The Black National Anthem: Singer Sheryl Lee Ralph performed her rendition of “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” marking the first time that the song - also widely referred to as the unofficial “Black National Anthem” - was sung before the Super Bowl.
Of all the backwards ways in which progressives try to elevate black voices so that they are viewed as “equal,” this might be the most counterproductive method they choose.
If one ethnic group sings an anthem that only represents themselves and not the rest of the country, doesn’t that mean they are choosing to further the divide they claim is a problem that needs to be addressed?
[...]
Our national anthem is one of the few elements of culture where Americans recognize that no matter how we disagree, we are all citizens of the same country. If we are going to start having every ethnic group have its own national song, we’re not going to be a united country for very long.
Yes, Simmons thinks a song that first appeared in 1900 is "woke." He cited no lyrics from the song he considered to be overly "woke" or objectionable.
Simmons went on to complain that the all-female crew who conducted the annual flyover of the stadium had "a lot of wokeness mixed into it. After all, a progressive organization like the NFL will do anything to magnify the voices and accomplishments of oppressed groups like women." Simmons didn't explain why that was a bad thing.
This meltdown complements the MRC's defense of religious commercials aired during the Super Bowl that were paid for right-wing interests.
Joseph Farah's Biden Derangement Syndrome, New Year Edition Topic: WorldNetDaily
Something about President Biden makes WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah go into spasms of BidenDerangementSyndrome. And with the new year, we saw new Biden meltdowns from Farah. Let's review, shall we?
Does it seem like every day, there is another scandal surrounding Joe Biden?
It seems like our world is on fire.
Beginning on the first day of his "presidency," Biden has done everything wrong. He set out first to ensure the U.S. was no longer energy independent – by design.
He began declaring Republicans were "insurrectionists" – and the real enemies of America.
The Department of Justice began treating parents of school children as a "domestic enemies."
He made a debacle of the withdrawal from Afghanistan.
He opened the border for massive illegal immigration.
He stepped up censorship against most of his domestic opponents.
And now this:
Reported this week is the fact that among the items from Joe Biden's time as vice president discovered in a private office last fall are 10 classified documents including U.S. intelligence memos and briefing materials that covered topics including Ukraine, Iran and the United Kingdom. The documents were dated between 2013 and 2016.
They were found in three or four boxes that also contained unclassified papers that fall under the Presidential Records Act.
What has Joe Biden been hiding from 2016 and beyond? No one in the press has been asking. Strange. Because a lot is not known about that time period – stuff that could explain much about the classified documents recently discovered at his homes in Delaware and at the Penn Biden Center.
Starting in 2018, Biden started doing weird stuff – he started building his "crime family."
That's when we found out that Hunter Biden claimed that he owned his Dad's home – the one his father also claimed to own. Hunter, in fact, also listed the house as his primary residence on his driver's license. This is the very same home where Joe Biden has spent a third of his presidency, in addition to his beach house in Rehoboth, without maintaining any visitor logs.
It seems there's a lot to be learned from Hunter's "Laptop from Hell," still in the possession of the FBI and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Now do you understand why Biden's tax returns are not available after 2018?
(In fact, the Bidens have released their tax returns through2021.)
Many of us have been trying to figure out what's wrong with so many in our country. Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the governor of Arkansas, gave the rebuttal to Biden's State of the Union. Because she has a humble heart, she called his caricature speech "crazy."
It was crazy. It was warlike. It was sinful. His statements were full of fighting words. They were proud. They were devilish.
He is far from God. He's not walking with him. He's walking the other direction.
With his words, Biden he was being thoroughly deceitful, and he's been that way for a long time. What he has been doing to this country for his entire career is despicable. What he is doing now is taking us all down to the pit of hell – if we will follow.
[...]
It comes down to humility. That's what God says.
As James, Jesus' brother, said: "Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded. Be afflicted, and mourn, and weep: let your laughter be turned to mourning, and your joy to heaviness."
Many people have read Alex Thompson's Politico story that contains the most truthful quote that Barack Obama may have ever given to anyone about Joe Biden.
Obama, you will recall, spoke with a Democrat, expressing his private doubts about Biden becoming the Democratic Party's presidential nominee in 2020.
The former president famously said: "Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f--- things up."
[...]
Obama was absolutely right about Biden. We've all seen it in spades. He had it exactly right.
"Don't underestimate Joe's ability to f--- things up." Words that all Americans are increasingly comprehending on a daily basis.
You had better sit down for this one. It's so bizarre, you won't believe it. I scarcely believe it myself.
The World Health Organization, a subsidiary of the United Nations run by a team of bureaucrats in Geneva, soon could have the power to dictate lockdowns, vaccination mandates, social distancing and much more in the United States.
Even surveillance of citizens.
Joe Biden is getting ready to sign the U.S. up to a "legally binding" deal that would give international politicians authority to make decisions for America during a pandemic.
And he's maneuvering so it won't require approval by the U.S Senate. I'm not kidding. And you didn't believe all those who told you that the 2020 election was fraudulent, stolen from the people, rigged and that was only the beginning?
You'll be happy to hear that Joe Biden recently got a clean bill of health from his personal physician, Dr. Kevin O'Connor. Of course, the report didn't mention his noticeable cognitive decline – the thing that concerns most Americans.
Nevertheless, he was cleared as fit to continue fulfilling his duties as commander in chief – with memory lapses, trips and falls, forgetfulness episodes, inability to know where he is and where he's going, nor what he is talking about.
MRC Touts, Defends Tony Dungy's Right-Wing Christian Leanings Topic: Media Research Center
Like its co-workers down the hall at CNSNews.com, the Media Research Center loves former NFL coach Tony Dungy and, more specifically, his right-wing leanings. In April 2022, John Simmons defended Dungy after he was criticized for appearing with Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as he signed a bill claiming to boost fatherhood initiatives, calling it "just another installment of unhinged individuals with nothing better to do with their time than tear someone else down." (Um, isn't that pretty much an accurate description of the MRC as a whole?) Simmons followed up two days later with another post praising Dungy: "Instead of caving to the mob and rescinding his support to get back in their good graces, Dungy doubled down on his stance." More defenses and promotion came after that:
When Dungy was called out for hanging out with an anti-LGBT preacher, Jay Maxson used a Jan. 12 post to defend Dungy ... and homophobia:
Openly Christian NFL broadcaster Tony Dungy, a former NFL player and coach with a Super Bowl championship on his resume, is being targeted for his faith by the alphabet mob. Outsports is doing a two-part series examining his “anti-LGBT past”, starting with a smackdown over his upcoming appearance at a Christian conference in March.
Dungy and CBS football host James Brown are both speaking at the Charis Bible College’s Men’s Advance 2023, March 9-11. They’ve been featured for years at the event hosted by “rabidly anti-gay Christian evangelist Andrew Wommack,” who has equated being gay to murder, according to Outsports co-founder and Christian shamer Cyd Zeigler.
[...]
Wommack’s anti-LGBT rhetoric uses “cruel language,’’ Zeigler charged. Two years ago, he claimed homosexual behavior is hazardous to people’s lives. Which, according to much social science research, is absolutely true.
“If you are a Christian, if you claim to be a Christian, and you promote homosexuality as an accepted lifestyle ... if you believe that, you are taking a stand completely against the word of God,” Wommack has stated in the past.
It’s going to be a bitter pill to swallow for LGBT people “to learn these two men openly embrace someone who has made such cruel public comments about the LGBT community,” Zeigler said, adding that 96 percent of Outsports Twitter comments expressed “discomfort with listening to someone who has embraced an anti-gay preacher discuss the NFL on television.”
Wow, only 4 percent of Outsports followers reject Zeigler’s Kool-Aid. With its in-your-face alphabet agenda, Outsports hardly qualifies as a credible source on public opinion.
[...]
It’s horrible that these two heretics to LGBTQABCD orthodoxy are going to be front-and-center during the NFL Playoffs the next three weekends, Zeigler moans. Mainstream America does confirm them and their religious freedom.
A Jan. 21 column by Jeffrey Lord similarly ran to Dungy's defense after it was questioned whether his right-wing sympathies made him suitable for being a featured NFL commentator:
Well. Message received. If you are a black man, you are expected to be Left. But Dungy has had the temerity to walk off the liberal plantation and think for himself - and he should be fired post-haste.
Where have we heard this bigoted line of thought before? Oh yes. Recall this 2020 headline at CNN: Biden: ‘If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black’
Which is to say, if you’re black and don’t think the way white liberals demand, then “you ain’t black.”
In the case of Tony Dungy, this kind of woke bigotry is being used to demand that he be fired.
Maxson returned to whine in a Jan. 25 post that Outsports continued to criticize Dungy:
The ravenous LGBTQABCD mouthpiece Outsports says that, after posting six anti-Tony Dungy rants this month alone, there is “no agenda” against the Christian NFL football commentator. Talk about blathering out of both sides of your mouth!
[...]
The “gay agenda” has not returned; it never left. LGBTQABCD fascists have completely captured pro sports and the left-stream media, who bow to them. They’re angry over the last few non-compliant sports commentators.
[...]
Dungy’s defenders are bludgeoning the alphabet mob with debate by taking a “rhetorical steel chair to the head,” Schultz roared. Despite Outsports’ outburst of anti-Dungy attacks, he defends it by contending Christians have the freedom to express their beliefs. It just doesn’t shield them from criticism … or month-long attacks.
Thus, “Destroy Dungy Month” aims to cancel him for expressing his Christian beliefs. Schultz still insists that the mob is not engaging in an anti-God agenda, and his post should strike everyone as being eminently reasonable.
This is clearly the eminent reason of an alternate universe where God-fearing people are despised.
After Dungy got busted for spreading a false story about classrooms installing litter boxes for children who identify as cats, it was Tim Graham's turn to play defense in a Jan. 27 post:
Sports-section columnists can be the most aggressive liberal jerks in the opinion business. In Tuesday’s Washington Post, columnist (and University of Maryland journalism professor) Kevin Blackistone aggressively played guilt by association when Hall of Fame NFL coach and NBC football analyst Tony Dungy attended the March for Life last week.
The headline was “Dungy shows the regressive and intolerant worst in sports.” Inside the paper, a similar headline: “Dungy has offered his voice to the cause of intolerance.” Obviously, Blackistone doesn’t believe “black lives matter” when it comes to abortions.
Blackistone tried to tie Dungy to anyone who ever spoke at a March for Life, starting with Sen. Jesse Helms (in the Reagan years), Operation Rescue founder Randall Terry, and Donald Trump. Now imagine how he’d freak out if we started talking about that photograph where Barack Obama is beaming next to Rev. Louis Farrakhan.
He vaguely mentioned a tweet that Dungy deleted about the rumor/joke that high schools are putting litter boxes in the bathrooms for students who identify as cats. Dungy apologized: “I saw a tweet [Tuesday] and I responded to it in the wrong way. As a Christian I should speak in love and in ways that are caring and helpful. I failed to do that and I am deeply sorry.”
[...]
He concluded by noting Dungy is speaking at an anti-gay minister’s conference, warning: “Dungy should know going through with that appearance could be hazardous to his career.”
Before the March for Life, USA Today sports columnist Nancy Armour also trashed Dungy for his kitty-litter tweet, although she at least explained what it was. the headline was "Tony Dungy shows his true values with hateful tweet that puts transgender kids at risk."
[...]
Armour somehow thinks you can only measure God's word from the words Jesus actually said in the New Testament, and you can ignore everything else the Bible says about God making humans male and female -- "assigning them at birth." That God is apparently a bigot.
Graham provided no evidence that the kitty litter story was a "rumor/joke," and Dungy made no claim to that effect in his apology.
Maxson served up a Feb. 12 post praising Dungy yet again, this time for encouraging prayer:
Years ago, when Tony Dungy was head coach of the Tampa Bay Bucs, the NFL issued all teams a “no prayers on the field” edict. The whole world saw that directive get blown off when Damar Hamlin’s heart stopped beating in Cincinnati this past season. Dungy and other football greats kept the faith talk rolling in their appearances before 2,000 people attending Saturday’s Athletes In Action Super Bowl Breakfast in Phoenix.
[...]
“It’s okay to pray, and God answers prayer,” Dungy said Saturday. God is going to use Damar, and He showed us God is real. Bills’ quarterback and Hamlin teammate Josh Allen said he wasn’t too spiritual, but he saw what was happening, confessed that God is real and is using Damar for His glory.
Maxson concluded: "It’s refreshing to know that, during this era of woke sports franchises and athletes, there are still stand-up, inspirational athletes with deep faith who are setting good examples by standing on God’s Word." Maxson didn't explain what "woke" means.
Newsmax Promotes Dubiously Sourced Attack On COVID Vaccines Topic: Newsmax
Newsmax has apparently decided it wants in on some of that COVID vaccine misinformation action that WorldNetDaily has been not-so-lucratively mining. Lynn Allison wrote in a Jan. 25 article:
A new study claims that the underreporting of adverse events linked to COVID-19 vaccination is caused by clinical, political, systemic, and media factors. The peer-reviewed study published in the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research claims that this lack of information has led to misguided recommendations by authorities. The study is titled “The Blind Spot in COVID-19 Vaccination Policies: Under-Reported Adverse Events.”
According to The Epoch Times, Patrick Provost, a professor in the Department of Microbiology at Laval University in Quebec City, says his study is based on a the adverse reactions suffered by two scientists who were in good health prior to vaccination. He claims they experienced several adverse events (AEs) after getting COVID-19 vaccines and still suffer the consequences.
Allison didn't mention that not only is the Epoch Times an anti-vaxxer publication, the International Journal of Vaccine Theory, Practice, and Research leans anti-vaxxer, so it's not clear how good the journal's purported peer review is.
There is one improvement over WND's approach, though: Allison did actually note Provost's anti-vaxxer leanings and that he "was suspended by Laval University for eight weeks last summer after he said publicly that there’s no real benefit to vaccinate children against COVID-19," and she did note criticismof Provost's results:
Provost’s views were challenged by many experts, including Dr. Mathieu Nadeau-Vallée, a medical resident at University of Montreal, who holds a Ph.D. in immunology. He said that Provost is not an expert in the mRNA technology used in the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines, or in the vaccination of children.
“This person doesn’t really have the expertise to speak about this,” Nadeau-Vallée. “He’s a biochemistry professor; he doesn’t study messenger RNA, he studies small RNA. It’s not at all the same area of research. So, this is a person who is expressing themselves about a subject that they’re not really an expert in and is speaking against the scientific consensus on that subject.” Nadeau-Vallée said that COVID-19 vaccines and public health measures have saved lives.
“Academic freedom means being able to speak about any subject but it doesn’t mean we can say false things,” he said, adding that if someone wants to speak against scientific consensus, they have to show scientific evidence.
This was all buried at the bottom of the article, however, with the questionable study claims given more prominence.
WND's Alexander Rages Over Red States Catering To Non-Right-Wing Tourists Topic: WorldNetDaily
Rachel Alexander -- who we last saw embracing conspiracy theories about election fraud in Arizona -- devoted her Feb. 6 WorldNetDaily column to complaining that Republican-run states are trying to attract tourists who aren't right-wingers (and, worse, may not be heterosexual):
Right in Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis' own state, government tourism agencies are promoting radical LGBTQ+ causes, including taxpayer-funded "Visit Florida." Visit Orlando paid the leftist PR company MMGY for a "study" that rebuked DeSantis' policies and the laws of Florida. New York-based MMGY is one of the largest PR companies for tourism offices in the country, and also one of the most woke.
MMGY Global thanked Visit Orlando and others, including Destination DC and Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, for financial contributions to the study. The study asked LGBTQ+ individuals whether "state policies related to their LGBTQ+ identity greatly impact their decision to travel." It found that 52% said yes. Stirring up these types of views does nothing to help tourism in red states like Florida; it generates hostility and will just backfire on efforts to promote tourism there.
Visit Florida's agenda for March has just one item listed on it: "LGBTQIA+ FloridaEvents, Pride festivals, bars, beaches and destinations." There's no semblance of balance, no conservative or Christian events. Those types of activities have been scrubbed clean from tourism agencies. One of the partnerships prominently featured on MMGY's website is the "Love and Lipliner" event at the James New York hotel featuring "some of NYC's biggest drag stars."
Alexander didn't explain why Republican-led stdates shouldn't want to attract tourists who may not politically agree with them but have disposable income. Instead, she went on a rant about the PR agencies these states hired for their tourism campaigns. one of which "isn't an American company," that target people that aren't right-wing election deniers like herself and who are, of course, "woke" (whatever that means). Alexander huffily concluded:
Visit Florida's annual report shows on page 17 that more tourists come from red states than blue states. Florida's main tourism comes from seven red states, three purple states (Pennsylvania, Michigan, Georgia) and just five blue states. So why the focus on New York PR and leftist causes?
Why are multiple red states continuing to contract with woke PR companies? With the left canceling so many businesses now, it's insulting to pass over conservative PR companies who no doubt could really use the work due to being blacklisted over their politics.
Perhaps because those New Yorkers bring more tourism money to state than visitors from red states. But with Florida's Republican governor Ron DeSantis declaring war on LGBTQ people and anyone who won't play ball with his right-wing agenda, that money will start to dry up and no tourism money spent to lure them will be effective. That seems to be what Alexander wants.
NEW ARTICLE: The MRC's 'Secondhand Censorship' Scam Topic: Media Research Center
The Media Research Center invented a metric designed solely to generate wildly inflated "censorship" numbers to further the right-wing Big Tech victimhood narrative. Read more >>
Anti-Trans Mocking And Misgendering: MRC Spews Hate At Rachel Levine Topic: Media Research Center
Not only does the Media Research Center hate transgender people in general, it has particular loathing for individual transgender people like Dylan Mulvaney. Another target has been transgender Biden administraiton official Rachel Levine, and it showed all through last year. Gabriel Hays sneered ina March 2022 post:
So we have another very serious, highly respected “Women of the Year” list given to us by USA TODAY and would you look at that? A biological man has been included among the roster of the influential and powerful women.
Oh wow. What an amazing, groundbreaking historical moment we have here!
The world’s first Assistant Health and Human Services Secretary to be considered a woman (even though he’s a biological man), Dr. Rachel Levine, now has the honor of being called one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year.
So a man is now woman of the year? And damn right, it’s our duty as politically correct Americans to nod along while clapping vigorously for her achievement.
Suzanne Hackney wrote the outlet’s entry on Levine’s new honorable female status on March 13, stating, “Rachel Levine is one of USA TODAY’s Women of the Year, a recognition of women across the country who have made a significant impact.” Ok first of all. He’s not a woman, and secondly, how does Hackney feel knowing that she has helped the patriarchy insert a male into a “woman of the year” category?
[...]
He’s not a freaking woman – no matter how much of a looker he is with his long gray hair cascading down over his spiffy new female-styled HHS Naval uniform.
And USA TODAY, how do you feel about taking this spot away from a real biological woman? Does that feel like true equality to you? Or might it be that you’re actually taking away from the achievements of actual women?
Shortly afterward, the MRC did a lot of complaining on behalf of right-wingers who faced consequences for their transpobic reactions to Levine. A few days later, it whined that Twitter temporarily locked the account of unfunny right-wing "satire" site The Babylon Bee "after the satire site posted that Rachel Levine was the site’s “Man of the Year.” Levine is a transgender woman." That was followed by a post from Alexander Hall citing another transphobe facing consequences:
Twitter censored Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk for declaring that United States Assistant Secretary for Health Rachel Levine had lived for many years as a male.
Who’s the man? It depends on who you ask, apparently. “Charlie Kirk, founder of TPUSA, talk radio host and outspoken conservative commentator, was suspended from Twitter on Tuesday after identifying President Joe Biden's assistant health secretary in the Department of Health and Human Services as a man,” The Post Millennial reported March 22. Kirk reportedly called out Levine and slammed the fact the official was awarded for being a notable “woman” by USA Today:
“‘Richard Levine,’ Kirk wrote, ‘spent 54 years of his life as a man. He had a wife and family. He “transitioned” to being a woman in 2011, Joe Biden appointed Levine to be a 4-Star Admiral, and now USA Today has named “Rachel” Levine as a “Woman of the Year”[.] Where are the feminists??’"
[...]
Kirk reportedly explained to The Post Millennial that "Everything I said was precisely accurate” He noted further that "Twitter still suspended my account. That should terrify every American, even those who disagree with me. What they want is submission. They have become the enemy of the truth."
That was followed by Joseph Vazquez insisting the Bee's insult was just "benign humor" -- apparently, that's how right-wingers treat all mocking of transgender people -- and whining that another Bee employee had his account suspended for spreading it. Then came a post by Autumn Johnson grumbling that a right-wing Federalist writer also got his account suspended for misgendering Levine. Tierin-Rose Mandelburg returned to whining in promoting her April 6 podcast:
Rachel Levine is the Assistant Secretary of Health for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. Levine is also “the first female four-star admiral of the [U.S. Public Health Service] Commissioned Corps.” Ironically, the left has labeled Levine as transgender, despite the fact that Levine spent 54 years as a male before transitioning to a “female.”
Levine’s biological sex is male. Levine has the X and Y chromosomes, and scientifically is a male. Mention of that fact on social media, however, apparently draws censorship.
[...]
Big Tech allows false narratives to spread rapidly, but censors any content that doesn’t fit within the constructs of the left’s woke ideology.
Yes, not hating transgender people and treating them with the respect that every human deserves is apparently a "woke ideology."
Tim Graham spent a May 1 post complaining that anti-trans right-wingers weren't quoted in an NPR story about Levine:
The most ridiculous joke that airs daily on National Public Radio is that their evening news program is called All Things Considered.
On the Friday night commute, NPR listeners witnessed an audio press release of sorts for the Biden administration. Transgender activist and assistant HHS secretary Rachel Levine is giving a speech to an LGBTQ health conference at Texas Christian University, and NPR promoted it like a press secretary. No opposing view was considered, certainly not about the "Christian" part.
[...]
Conservatives are forced to fund this one-sided propaganda. They are not considered.
Conservatives like Graham don't want people like Levine to exist, let alone be gainfully employed. Why would anyone think that's a legitimate argument that deserves amplification? Nevertheless, he further whined about this in his podcast the next day.
A June 23 post by Gabriela Pariseau complaining that anti-trans right-wingers were "censored" for things like attacking Levine dishonestly framed that hate as affirming "science." In a July 20 post, Pariseau and Brian Bradley factored Levine into their completely made-up "secondhand censorship" metric, insisting that all those transphobes suspended by Twitter for insulting Levine were merely being "critical of the left's transgender narrative."
Matt Philbin ramped up the misgendering and mocking of Levine in a Nov. 7 post that we can assume he considers "benign humor":
You can’t keep a good man down. Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine is proof. Already an admiral of some sort and a USA Today Woman of the Year, Levine was recently elected to the National Academy of Medicine.
It’s another honor, sure, but it’s also another responsibility for someone so busy berating opponents of child mutilation (Rachel is proof you can have it all, ladies!)
One day he’s at a Boston chop shop “to highlight the importance of the work that they are doing for vulnerable, transgender and gender diverse children and their families,” to warn that opposition to double mastectomies for 14 year-olds is “the tip of the spear of the culture wars.” (Stop snickering!)
Another day he’s in California warning state governments to mind their own business when they see electrical storms and eerie lights up at Castle Frankenstein.
So in light of his good work and achievements, and as his political party makes ready to reap the electoral fruits of its focus on these important kitchen table issues, we offer up this heartfelt original musical tribute to the Good Doctor. With apologies to the memory of Muddy Waters, please enjoy “Mannish Girl” by The Unwoke.
A Dec. 30 post by Catherine Salgado complained that Levine advocated for a crackdown on anti-trans hate, which she unsurprisingly falsely framed as "censorship":
Transgender activist and Assistant Secretary for Health Dr. Rachel Levine reportedly tried to galvanize doctors to demand increased censorship from Big Tech.
Levine actively encouraged state medical board doctors to pressure Big Tech platforms to censor criticism of transgender ideology, Daily Signal Managing Editor Tyler O'Neil wrote in an op-ed Thursday.
Levine’s transgenderism has been linked to Big Tech censorship before. Satire site The Babylon Bee named Levine its “Man of the Year” and was suspended on Twitter until recently restored by new Twitter owner Elon Musk.
Levine falsely claimed that any such critiques were “medical misinformation” because there’s supposedly no “scientific or medical dispute” about the positives of experimental drugs and “transgender” surgeries.
There is actually a great deal of scientific and medical debate, and not just from conservatives. Even the leftist New York Times recently published an in-depth piece on the potential severe long-term effects of puberty blockers on “trans” kids. Activists like Levine claim that “transgender” people are likely to commit suicide unless they can get drugs or body-altering surgeries to “change” their sex.
Salgado concluded: "This is advancement of leftist dogma through the means of biased censorship." But right-wing transphobia is not a "dogma"?
WND Exploits Damar Hamiln For Both Prayer And Conspiracy Theories Topic: WorldNetDaily
After NFL player Damar Hamlin collapsed during a game, WorldNetDaily's first reaction to it was to build an evidence-free conspiracy theory that a COVID vaccine caused it. But it also exploited the incident for another cause: promoting prayer. It published a couple outsidearticles noting the prayer, and WND columnists got in on the action as well to hitch it to their own agendas. Bob Just wrote in his Jan. 4 column:
Most of the country, young and old, started seeing those video clips of the whole Buffalo team kneeling at midfield to pray for Damar Hamlin, the Bills' 24-year-old safety. Of course, millions of Americans had watched live as this moment of faith unfolded.
America started praying. Even an on-air ESPN host stopped to pray with his media colleagues. Important things became very clear, and the unimportant disappeared.
Along with the images of men kneeling in prayer, I was touched by seeing a black player (Tre'Davious White) hugging a white player (Mitch Morse), both grieving for their young teammate, now with his whole future in question, not to mention his life.
Different images from earlier NFL games came to mind – pictures of a different kind of kneeling, players "taking a knee" in angry protest. For many Americans this only made the anger worse, the pain deeper and racial division wider.
Actually, taking a knee was not an "angry protest" -- it was a silent one designed to make a statement about the way non-white people have been treated in this country. If such a silent protest made "racial division wider," it's likely because there's still more reckoning to do. he then turned to claim that the prayers for Hamlin were a racial unifier:
In fact, we don't see the best example of "antiracism" right in front of us – Christians of all races and ethnicities doing what they do every day, working together to improve their communities, whether making up Christmas boxes of food for needy families or just doing their best to love their neighbors and be responsible citizens.
The impact of millions of Christians from all walks of life – and of every race – working and praying together is America's best kept secret, thanks to the media. But now more than ever we need inspiring examples of racial harmony. They are everywhere if we'd only look.
Michael Brown glommed onto to the incident as well in his Jan. 9 column:
Around the nation, in response to the life-threatening injury to Buffalo Bills football player Damar Hamlin, people prayed. Hamlin's teammates and coaches prayed. Millions of fans joined in prayer, tweeting their support. Even on live TV, sports commentators stopped in the middle of their broadcast to pray.
But this is only natural. During times of crisis, especially life and death crisis, people turn to God.
We know the situation is grave, we know we cannot change things ourselves, and we know that only God – an all-powerful being who cares – can turn the tide.
That's why, at such times, people do not turn to atheism. They turn to God.
Two days later, Brown called for exploiting the tragedy for evangelism purposes (while of course denying he's being trying to do that):
All this is good and positive, and in many ways, this could be just the beginning of a beautiful redemptive story.
But there are certainly more things we should be praying for when it comes to Hamlin and the NFL, specifically, the spiritual condition of the men and women who are praying and talking about faith.
Do they all know the Lord personally and intimately? Have they been transformed by His love and grace? Are they followers of Jesus or simply people who recognize that, in times of crisis, we need to look to God?
To be clear, I do not ask these questions in a critical or condemning way. That's the last thought on my mind.
[...]
May the open show of spirituality that has suddenly emerged across the country, receiving widespread praise rather than criticism, continue to grow until millions have come to know Jesus for themselves.
Other WND columnnists like Jane Orient and Wayne Allyn Root were content spreading uninformed COVID vaccine conspiracy theories about Hamliln.
Bob Unruh wrote a Jan. 31 article touting Hamlin's recovery to exploit prayer:
Buffalo Bills football player Damar Hamlin suffered cardiac arrest on live television a few weeks ago. Emergency services responded, he was hospitalized and he's recovering.
There were many people who openly called for prayer for him.
Now, a Western Journal report has revealed he credits God for "using him as a vessel" during that process.
[...]
Now there's a new poll that shows two-thirds of the survey's respondents said public calls for prayer are effective.
The polling, by Summit.org, in partnership with McLaughlin and Associates, surveyed 1,000 likely general election voters Jan. 19-23.
"This poll reveals that public calls to prayer after Damar Hamlin’s collapse from cardiac arrest on national television and through his miraculous healing have, at least for the moment, brought Americans together across the partisan divide," explained Jeff Myers, president of Summit.org.
"Prominent members of the NFL community and sports commentators were led to publicly pray for Damar, and that resonated with the vast majority of Americans."
Unruh reverted to conspiracy-theory form, however, in a Feb. 14 article framing a Hamlin non-answer about what he thinks the cause of his cardiac arrest was as proof it was caused by a COVID vaccine:
On the critical question of what caused his cardiac arrest, however, he was silent.
Asked by Strahan, Hamlin responded with a loooong pause.
"Uhm."
Then another looong pause.
"Uhm."
Eventually, he says, "That's something I want to stay away from."
Of course, multitudes of young and athletic men and boys across America have been reporting heart issues – and some have been dying – after they have taken the experimental COVID-19 shots that have been linked to myocarditis, and other heart ailments.
Newsweek reported his interview "provoked a flurry of new conspiracy theories on social media as to whether the COVID-19 vaccine was to blame for Hamlin's collapse and medical attention."
"It's quite clear that the reason Damar Hamlin won't disclose what nearly killed him is because what nearly killed him was the COVID-19 vaccine," tweeted One America News Network host Addison Smith.
Needless to say, Unruh did not back up his claim that "multitudes" of "young and athletic men and boys" have heart issues from COVID vaccines.
Like its Media Research Center parent, CNSNews.com promoted the right-wing leanings of "Dilbert" cartoonist Scott Adams over the years:
When DirecTV dropped right-wing channel One America News last year in the wake of defamation lawsuits the channel faced over false claims about election fraud it aired during the 2020 election, the Media Research Center 
Ilana Mercer 
Even before it published an 
Elon Musk had a pretty rough February -- it was revealed that not only did he 
CNSNews.com continued its ideologically mandated 
When Rihanna was announced as the performer at the Super Bowl halftime show, the Media Research Center -- which loves to 
Something about President Biden makes WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah go into spasms of 
Like its co-workers down the hall at 
Newsmax has apparently decided it wants in on some of that COVID vaccine misinformation action that WorldNetDaily has been not-so-lucratively mining. Lynn Allison wrote in a Jan. 25 
Rachel Alexander -- who we last saw 
Not only does the Media Research Center hate transgender people in general, it has particular loathing for individual transgender people like 
After NFL player Damar Hamlin collapsed during a game, WorldNetDaily's 
