Fox News: Laura Ingraham Segment Uses NAMBLA In Southern Poverty Law Center Attack
Fox News‘ Laura Ingraham last night on Bill O’Reilly‘s “O’Reilly Factor” hosted a segment that portrayed the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a fundraising machine whose goal is to shut down national debate. Ingraham moderated a dishonest and one-sided (so much for “fair and balanced”) segment that actually used NAMBLA, a heinous and essentially defunct —  but hot-button dog whistle to radical right wing conservatives — group in an attempt to paint the venerable Southern Poverty Law Center as dangerous and un-American.
Not once did Ingraham, who claims the SPLC just wants to “demonize good people who just happen to have a different point of view,” educate her viewers on what the Southern Poverty Law Center does, the rigorous investigations they perform, or even (God forbid!) the actions an organization must take in order to be labeled a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.
In short, Ingraham performed journalistic malpractice, in my opinion, something she has built her career on doing.
Some of the “good people who just happen to have a different point of view” the Southern Poverty Law Center tracks:
Tony Perkins and the Family Research Council: The Southern Poverty Law Center writes:
The FRC regularly portrays LGBT people as sick, evil, perverted, and a danger to the nation. It talks about their “dark, perverse†ways and their “sordid sex lives.†It attacks their “transient, promiscuous and unfaithful relationships,†and insists that gay people are “fundamentally incapable†of providing good homes for children — a claim flatly contradicted by virtually all relevant scientific authorities. Gay rights activists, Perkins said in 2011, are “intolerant,†“hateful†and “vile,†and are pursuing an “agenda†that “will destroy them and our nation.†An FRC official has said he wanted to “export homosexuals from the United States.†That same official, speaking on national television in 2010, advocated the criminalizing of gay sex.
Bryan Fischer of the American Family Association: The Southern Poverty Law Center offers these quotes from Fischer:
“Homosexuals are rarely monogamous and have as many as 300 to 1,000 sexual partners over the course of a lifetime. … [T]he risk of sexual abuse in a homosexual household is much greater than in a heterosexual household.”
– Bryan Fischer Web post, “The Truth about Gay Marriage and Civil Unions,” 2006“It is time, I suggest, to stop the practice of allowing Muslims to serve in the U.S. military. The reason is simple: the more devout a Muslim is, the more of a threat he is to national security.”
– Bryan Fischer Web post, “No More Muslims in the U.S. Military,” 2009“Homosexuality gave us Adolph Hitler, and homosexuals in the military gave us the Brown Shirts, the Nazi war machine and six million dead Jews.”
– Bryan Fischer Web post, “Homosexuality, Hitler, and ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,'” 2010“[T]he most compassionate thing we can do for Americans is to bring a halt to the immigration of Muslims into the U.S. This will protect our national security and preserve our national identity, culture, ideals and values. Muslims, by custom and religion, are simply unwilling to integrate into cultures with Western values and it is folly to pretend otherwise. In fact, they remain dedicated to subjecting all of America to sharia law and are working ceaselessly until that day of Islamic imposition comes.”
– Bryan Fischer Web post, “Time to Restrict Muslim Immigration to the U.S., Send Them Back Home,” 2010“Many of the tribal reservations today remain mired in poverty and alcoholism because many native [sic] Americans continue to cling to the darkness of indigenous superstition instead of coming into the light of Christianity and assimilating into Christian culture.”
– Bryan Fischer Web post, “Native Americans Morally Disqualified Themselves from the Land,” 2011
There are so many more. Literally, over a thousand. But to Laura Ingraham, apparently these are just “good people who just happen to have a different point of view.”
Ingraham hosted former FBI agent and Bob Hamer” target=”_blank”>author Bob Hamer, who admitted he knows nothing about the SPLC in the segment. Hamer then immediately introduces the pro-pedophile group NAMBLA, the North American Man/Boy Love Association, into the segment as an example of “real hatred.”
Ingraham’s other guest, hate group leader Bob Dane, Communications Director for the Federation of American Immigration Reform (FAIR).
The SPLC notes that FAIR is closely associated with white supremacist and white nationalist groups, and offers these quotes from its leaders:
“As Whites see their power and control over their lives declining, will they simply go quietly into the night? Or will there be an explosion?”
— FAIR founder and board member John Tanton, Oct. 10, 1986“I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that.”
— John Tanton, letter to eugenicist and ecology professor Garrett Hardin (now deceased), Dec. 10, 1993“I blame ninety-eight percent of responsibility for this country’s immigration crisis on Ted Kennedy and his political allies, who decided some time back in 1958, earlier perhaps, that immigration was a great way to retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance and hubris, and the immigration laws from the 1920s were just this symbol of that, and it’s a form of revengism, or revenge, that these forces continue to push the immigration policy that they know full well are [sic] creating chaos and will continue to create chaos down the line.”
— FAIR President Dan Stein, “Oral History of the Federation for American Immigration Reform,” interview of Dan Stein by John Tanton, August 1994.“Do we leave it to individuals to decide that they are the intelligent ones who should have more kids? And more troublesome, what about the less intelligent, who logically should have less? Who is going to break the bad news [to less intelligent individuals], and how will it be implemented?”
— John Tanton, letter to eugenicist Robert K. Graham (now deceased), Sept. 18, 1996“Immigrants don’t come all church-loving, freedom-loving, God-fearing … Many of them hate America, hate everything that the United States stands for. Talk to some of these Central Americans.”
— FAIR President Dan Stein, interviewed by Tucker Carlson, Oct. 2, 1997
At issue is that the Southern Poverty Law Center calls groups “hate groups” after they have consistently documented those groups disseminating lies repeatedly. Also, the Southern Poverty Law Center adds:
All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.
But Ingraham’s viewers will never know any of this, because she has no intention of shedding light on anything that would destroy her ugly world view.
Perhaps what’s truly vile about Ingraham’s brand of “journalism” is the information it restricts from her viewers. The SPLC produced an important and disturbing report about the rise of hate groups in America, militant so-called “Patriot” groups that are planning attacks against Americans, that are creating lies, conspiracy theories, and promoting hate of America’s first black President.
The Southern Poverty Law Center notes “the Patriot movement… generally believes that the federal government is conspiring to take Americans’ guns and destroy their liberties as it paves the way for a global “one-world government.†From a mere 149 organizations in 2008, the number of Patriot groups shot up to 512 in 2009, jumped again to 824 in 2010, and then skyrocketed to 1,274 in 2011 before hitting their all-time high last year.”
Now, in the wake of the mass murder of 26 children and adults at a Connecticut school and the Obama-led gun control efforts that followed, it seems likely that that growth will pick up speed once again.
Fox News viewers will never know the deep-seated danger to their own way of life, because Laura Ingraham has an agenda that does not include fair and balanced.
Watch the latest video at video.foxnews.com
Hat tip: Mediaite
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General Mark Milley, one of then-President Donald Trump’s top generals who served as the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, says the Republican presidential nominee is “fascist to the core” and there is no one in America who has ever posed more of a threat to the nation.
Milley, appointed by Trump in 2019, served as the highest-ranking officer in the U.S. Armed Forces until his retirement last year. His remarks appear in Watergate journalist Bob Woodward’s latest book, “War,” The Independent reports.
After the January 6, 2021 insurrection, Gen. Milley requested a meeting with incoming Attorney General Merrick Garland, “to urge him to investigate domestic violent extremism and far-right militia movements.”
“According to Woodward, a senior Department of Justice lawyer said at the time that Milley’s sit-down with Garland might have been the first-ever meeting between a chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the country’s top civilian law enforcement official. He writes that the general asked for the meeting because he was ‘deeply convinced’ that Trump remained ‘a danger to the country’ even though he had been forced from office after Biden’s election win.
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Later, in March of 2023, Milley spoke directly to Woodward, telling him that “no one has ever been as dangerous to this country” as the former president.
Milley had talked to Woodward about Trump for a previous book, “Peril,” but apparently his concerns had grown stronger since then.
“Do you realize, do you see what this man is?” Milley asked the veteran journalist. “He is the most dangerous person ever. I had suspicions when I talked to you about his mental decline and so forth, but now I realize he’s a total fascist. He is now the most dangerous person to this country.”
“A fascist to the core,” the General declared.
The Guardian adds that Milley “fears being recalled to uniform and court-martialed should Trump defeat Kamala Harris next month and return to power.”
“He is a walking, talking advertisement of what he’s going to try to do,” Milley recently “warned former colleagues,” Woodward writes. “He’s saying it and it’s not just him, it’s the people around him.”
Former top Trump adviser Steve Bannon, according to Woodward, has vowed to hold Milley “accountable.”
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In 2021, Woodward’s book “Peril” revealed Milley acted to ensure Trump could not misuse the nation’s nuclear arsenal.
“Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley took steps to prevent then-President Donald Trump from misusing the country’s nuclear arsenal during the last month of his presidency, according to a new book by The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward and Robert Costa obtained by NBC News,” the news organization had reported.
The book “recounted a phone conversation Milley had with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi after the Jan. 6 violence at the Capitol, which Pelosi blamed on an ‘unhinged’ Trump. Pelosi said in January that she spoke to Milley about ‘preventing an unstable president from initiating military hostilities or accessing the launch codes and ordering a nuclear strike.'”
“‘I can guarantee you, you can take it to the bank, that there’ll be, that the nuclear triggers are secure and we’re not going to do — we’re not going to allow anything crazy, illegal, immoral or unethical to happen,’ Milley told her, according to a transcript of the call obtained by the authors.”
“The president alone can order the use of nuclear weapons. But he doesn’t make the decision alone. One person can order it, several people have to launch it.”
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Billionaire Elon Musk, the world’s richest man who purchased the social media platform Twitter and renamed it X, is “all in” on Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, The New York Times reports. X has “reportedly worked with Donald Trump’s campaign to censor material that could be harmful to the former president’s White House chances as part of a pattern of election interference that is unprecedented in U.S. history,” according to The Daily Beast.
Musk, The Times reports, “seen over the weekend jumping for joy alongside former President Donald J. Trump at a rally in Butler, Pa., is now talking to the Republican candidate multiple times a week.”
Video (below) shows Musk wore a black “Make America Great Again” cap with the words “Never Surrender” embroidered on the side and praising the ex-president’s actions during the attempted assassination.
The relationship between Musk and Trump “has proved significant in other ways. After a reporter’s publication of hacked Trump campaign information last month, the campaign connected with X to prevent the circulation of links to the material on the platform, according to two people with knowledge of the events. X eventually blocked links to the material and suspended the reporter’s account.”
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The reporter, Ken Klippenstein, whose work often focuses on national security issues, published the document because “it’s of keen public interest in an election season.”
Klippenstein last month called his ban “political,” and wrote: “It’s been widely reported that my suspension from X (Twitter) is only temporary. Those reports are false. My ban from X, the company says, is permanent.”
The New York Times’ Aric Toler writes: “Trump’s campaign worked with Musk/Twitter to implement a blanket ban on sharing the link to the Vance dossier.” NBC News’ Kevin Collier adds, “Per NYT, X’s crackdown on Ken Klippenstein and the Iran-hacked Vance doc came after the Trump campaign reached out. Well within each party’s right, but this is the exact same thing Musk, Trump, and the right threw a yearslong fit about over Hunter Biden.”
Journalist Steve Mullis notes, “It’s crazy that this is a single paragraph in the NYT’s Elon Musk story. Given that there were congressional hearings accusing Biden and Democrats of doing this sort of thing, this should be its own huge story.”
Musk, The Times adds, “has effectively moved his base of operations to Pennsylvania, the place that he has recently told confidants he believes is the linchpin to Mr. Trump’s re-election,” and “relentlessly promoted Mr. Trump’s candidacy to his 201 million followers on X, the social platform formerly known as Twitter that he bought for $44 billion and has used to spread conspiracy theories about the Democratic Party and to insult its candidate, Vice President Kamala Harris.”
The Times’ article ends with this: “Online, Mr. Musk has painted a dark picture of what would happen if Mr. Trump lost, a circumstance that could hurt Mr. Musk personally. In an interview with the former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, he acknowledged ‘trashing Kamala nonstop’ and being all in for Mr. Trump.”
“If Mr. Trump loses, he joked, ‘how long do you think my prison sentence is going to be?'”
Democratic strategist Matt McDermott writes, “Doesn’t seem to be enough appreciation for the fact that it’s entirely reasonable to assume that Elon Musk is going all in on Trump because he’s worried about a federal probe into corporate corruption + election interference and knows Trump will shut down an investigation.”
The Times notes that Musk “is personally steering the actions of a super PAC that he has funded with tens of millions of dollars to turn out the vote for Mr. Trump, not just in Pennsylvania but across the country. He has even proposed taking a campaign bus tour across Pennsylvania and knocking on doors himself, in part to see how his money is being used.”
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The Times does not include news from August related to Musk’s super PAC, America PAC.
Attorney Jay Kuo alleged on Substack, “Elon Musk’s PAC Is Harvesting Voter Data.”
“The America PAC is using fraudulent techniques to obtain highly personal information from voters in swing states,” Kuo wrote, pointing to a CNBC “explosive report on how Elon Musk’s America PAC is defrauding voters through online ads. As the report explained, Musk’s Trump-aligned PAC is running a scheme that pretends to register people to vote. But in many cases, the PAC simply collects higher personal information from users that it can later use to retarget them.”
According to The Washington Post, some of Musk’s foreign backers in his $44 billion purchase of Twitter include Billionaire investor Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud ($2 billion) and The Qatar Investment Authority ($375 million). Buzzfeed News in 2022 referred to them as “countries that have historically restricted freedom of speech.”
Watch the video below or at this link.
“What’s even more telling is that America PAC only collects this personal information from users residing in swing states, such as Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina. For anyone else, it actually does assist them with registering to vote,” Kuo wrote. “It’s possible that America PAC simply ‘messed up’ badly by forgetting to actually redirect users in swing states to voter registration sites after scraping their personal information. In so doing, however, it has made it abundantly clear that it treats swing state users very differently than non-swing state ones. In exposing its own operations this way, it has raised a more troubling question: Is Musk involved in improper data harvesting and planning to improperly influence the election, just like we saw in 2016?”
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A prominent former U.S. State Department official who worked to fight Russian disinformation has labeled the Trump presidential campaign an “influence operation,” with several experts echoing his assessment.
Richard Stengel, an NBC News/MSNBC analyst who spent seven years as TIME magazine managing editor and served as the chief executive of the National Constitution Center, on Thursday shared his evaluation.
“The Trump candidacy is not so much a political campaign as what intelligence services call an influence operation, a coordinated effort to use mis-and-disinformation to undermine democratic institutions and processes,” declared Stengel.
Stengel, who served as U.S. Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy and Public Affairs, is the author of the 2019 memoir, “Information Wars: How We Lost the Global Battle Against Disinformation and What We Can Do About It.”
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Stengel’s comment received hundreds of thousands of views on social media, and garnered responses from experts.
“This is correct,” replied Ruth Ben-Ghiat, the well-known professor of history and an expert on fascism, authoritarians, propaganda, and democracy.
“True,” asserted Eric Chenoweth, Director of the Institute for Democracy in Eastern Europe, adding, “it is correlated with Russian influence operations.”
“The Trump effort has the support of his BFF Putin, who has paid agents in the US as social ‘influencers’ to help promote Russia’s pro-Trump narrative,” noted former U.S. Ambassador to Kosovo, Greg Delawie.
Indeed, early last month the U.S. Dept. of Justice announced it had seized “32 internet domains used in Russian government-directed foreign malign influence campaigns,” which “used these domains, among others, to covertly spread Russian government propaganda with the aim of reducing international support for Ukraine, bolstering pro-Russian policies and interests, and influencing voters in U.S. and foreign elections, including the U.S. 2024 Presidential Election.”
Days later, MSNBC’s Ja’han Jones reported, “MAGA influencers are scrambling after the DOJ’s Russia indictment,” and mentioned “an unsealed affidavit … alleging a Kremlin-backed agency had nearly 600 U.S.-based influencers in its sights as it waged an online-based election manipulation operation in the United States.”
The Washington Spectator’s Dave Troy, an investigative journalist and tech entrepreneur who has written extensively on Russia and Russian President Vladimir Putin, responded to Stengel’s post: “Yes. And this would have been a very cool thing for the Obama administration to say in 2015-2016.”
Dr. Joanne Freeman, a professor of American history and of American studies, replied to Stengel’s post with a simple “YUP.”
Stengel’s pronouncement wasn’t so much a revelation as a reminder.
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Earlier this week, David Corn, Mother Jones’ Washington bureau chief and co-author of “Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump,” penned an important piece titled: “Trump Is Running a Disinformation Campaign, Not a Political Campaign.”
“He’s not just lying. He’s creating an alternative reality,” Corn states. “His campaign is a full-fledged project to pervert how Americans view the nation and the world, an extensive propaganda campaign designed to fire up fears and intensify anxieties that Trump can then exploit to collect votes. And the political media world has yet to come to terms with the fact that Trump is heading a disinformation crusade more likely to be found in an authoritarian state than a vibrant democracy. This is unlike other presidential campaigns in modern American history—other than his own previous efforts.”
Even before Donald Trump left the White House in disgrace in January of 2021, experts were busy analyzing just how damaging his time on office then had been.
The day after the November 2020 election which Trump ultimately lost but falsely had declared victory, The Washington Post‘s Dan Balz wrote: “Trump has attacked democracy’s institutions, but never so blatantly as he did overnight.”
“For four years, President Trump has sought to undermine the institutions of a democratic society, but never so blatantly as in the early morning hours of Wednesday. His attempt to falsely claim victory and to subvert the election itself by calling for a halt to vote-counting represents the gravest of threats to the stability of the country,” Balz wrote. “A president who respected the Constitution would let things play out. But Trump has shown once again he cares not about the Constitution or the stability and well-being of the country or anything like that. He cares only about himself and retaining the powers he now holds. And so he cries “fraud” when there is no evidence whatsoever of any such thing.”
The Niskanen Center, a D.C. think tank, one week before the violent and deadly January 6, 2021 insurrection Trump allegedly incited, asked: “How Much Did Trump Undermine U.S. Democracy?”
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