Preying on Fear: The Crime-wave Hype

https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/fbi-report-crime-down-republican-election-fear-rcna121384

https://www.mediamatters.org/fox-news/2022-fox-news-created-crime-crisis-failed-attempt-sway-midterms

The American Right seems keen to promote the notion of a serious crime wave and it's now taken for granted by those within the movement and among those who regularly digest its media. But is it true?

BBC: Foxes Guarding the Hen House

In recent years a number of mainstream outlets have produced watchdog shows that attempt to navigate the larger media world and its increasingly conflicting and contradictory presentation of facts and narratives. These shows are meant to help one discern the truth and of course it is assumed that whatever the said outlet is, (such as the BBC) – it is in fact a guardian of it.

Shameless Evangelical Liars and The Squad

https://www.christianpost.com/voices/the-squad-shamefully-tries-to-inflame-another-summer-of-riots.html

Are these serious people – or merely actors and clowns? The Squad is trying to start riots?

Utilitarianism and the So-Called Culture of Life

I was disappointed but hardly surprised to find that a local 'Bible-believing' church leader posted anti-Covid material on Facebook.

In this case he couldn't believe the 'libtards' made such a big deal about a virus that only had a .004% death rate.

The Failure of New Calvinist Apologetics

https://www.sermonaudio.com/sermoninfo.asp?SID=107221718125272

Matt Slick antedates the rise of New Calvinism – I remember him from the 1990's, but in many respects he's one of several figures that anticipated the movement and even now can and should be identified as a member of that camp.

AFR: Glorying Once More in its Shame

Recently, I received a message from AFR. Their longtime morning host is retiring – yet another Right-wing liar and deceiver who promotes mammon, war, and nationalism.

But who is replacing her? Another Christian feminist of an even worse stripe: Jenna Ellis

The Sad Saga of Glenn Greenwald: A Tale of Abandoned Integrity

https://www.counterpunch.org/2022/05/27/apologist-for-tucker-carlsons-racism-glenn-greenwald/

I wasn't surprised to see this article. In some respects I'm surprised more people aren't commenting on this. I was glad to see Greenwald leave The Guardian in the aftermath of the Snowden revelations. The founding of The Intercept looked promising but that too began to degenerate. And then in 2020, Greenwald went out on his own – it was real display of integrity, or at least so I thought.

Deceit on All Fronts

I clicked on a CNN video the other night and gave up after just a few minutes. It was ridiculous. It wasn't news. It was just a juvenile editorial and misleading at that. Even if I agreed (for the most part) with what was being said, the presentation was disgraceful – the very sort of thing that is par for the course on FOX. The two channels are increasingly cut from the same cloth. Deceit reigns as the interests of mammon dominate the airwaves and both channels (in service to the Wall Street Establishment) are on a mission to blur and ignore context and the true nature of the problems that dominate this society and the larger world. Ratings, advertising, and thus entertainment are paramount and increasingly rage and fear are the tools to keep people energized.

First Christo-Americanism, Now Christo-Trumpism

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zx8tsompfiM

This disturbing video was released in late May and yet just a month later the context has dramatically changed. The Supreme Court has overturned Roe v. Wade, ruled in favour of tax money being used for private and thus religious schools, thrown out gun restrictions, ruled in favour of the coal industry and restricted the EPA, and now the court has ruled in favour of an Evangelical football coach praying in connection to school events. More than ever the Christian-Right is energized and they believe their 'victories' are due to Donald Trump.

Great Replacement Confusion

The Great Replacement theory appears in various forms and has undergone numerous permutations. For some it's about race, for others it's race on one level, but primarily it's a question of culture.

The Biden Doctrine: Great Powers Conflict, Endless War, and Regime Change

With Biden's open call for regime change in Russia, he has played his hand. Though framed as 'controversial' by the media, Biden was simply expressing what has been US policy for almost twenty years.

David Brooks and the Trumpite Schisms Within the Evangelical Movement

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/04/opinion/evangelicalism-division-renewal.html

David Brooks is not a Christian and I know of Right-wing folk who laugh at the notion that he's a conservative. This represents part of the divide that I've been highlighting for years – the difference between elements of the now almost defunct American Conservatism and the Right-wing Libertarian movement that has largely supplanted it. There's overlap to be sure and people don't fit into neat boxes but there's an ethos about the New Right and now Trumpism that's remarkably different from what American Conservatism was a generation ago.

I often disagree with Brooks and sometimes strongly so, but I will at least listen to what he has to say. Disagreement does not mean that his commentary is utterly lacking any value.

The Family Life Network and the Further Degeneration of Evangelical Radio

Recently I've had the opportunity at work to listen to the radio during the noon hour, something that has largely eluded me for the past year. The Family Life Network (FLN) based in Bath NY continues to expand its listening area and unfortunately this includes the region of Pennsylvania where I live. A typically Evangelical organisation, its theology is light and is mostly geared toward therapy and entertainment-based 'ministries' complimented with copious amounts of trite and terrible Christian pop music.

Usually the only thing I bother with is their news show. And yet having listened very little over the past year (I only occasionally listen to their teaching programmes and I cannot stomach the music), I was struck by how much the organisation has shifted to the Right.

The Nation, the Christian Right, and Levin's Caricature of Marxism

https://www.thenation.com/article/society/mark-levin-american-marxism/

The Nation is a well-established liberal magazine with deep roots in the American political order.  As connected as it is with the power centres of the Democratic Party, the publisher (Katrina vanden Heuvel) is (ironically) widow to the recently deceased Stephen Cohen – the renowned but controversial Russian studies scholar who rejected and decried the Anti-Russia campaign being led by the US Establishment and particularly the DNC. I'm sure there were some interesting conversations that took place in their home.

Police Support for Fascists and the Right's Counter-narrative Cover

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/12/06/patf-d06.html

https://news.yahoo.com/hundreds-white-supremacists-march-lincoln-182827649.html

Large sections of the media chose to ignore this story regarding an early December fascist militia marching on the National Mall, and others reported it but downplayed it. While the police are identified in some pieces as 'monitoring' the fascist marchers, the video evidence along with testimonials suggest that law enforcement were providing a buffer – a kind of safe-zone for the group to march and to avoid coming into contact or conflict with onlookers, many of whom are clearly appalled.

False Teachers, their Propaganda, and the Degenerate State of American Evangelicalism

https://www.christianpost.com/news/fox-news-hosts-launches-series-to-show-proof-of-heaven.html

This is not really a noteworthy story but it provides an occasion to reflect upon a few things. Because like it or not this is what people are buying into and as long as we're attending mainstream institutional 'conservative' churches, we're going to encounter the folks who are influenced by these people – and even look up to them.

The FBI and the Whitmer-Michigan Plot Viewed Through the Flawed Lens of Libertarianism

Though this story has already faded away from the news cycle it will return and there are some elements concerning it that deserve reflection. 

Condemned by Her Own Words

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/jun/14/fox-news-host-kayleigh-mcenany-never-lied-trump-press-secretary

Lauded by the broader American Christian community, Kayleigh McEnany continually demonstrates that she is both a serial liar and a person in the severest grip of self-deception. She continues to stand by Donald Trump, a person that essentially wears his reprobation on his sleeve and McEnany seems to equate her Trumpian fidelity with Christian virtues and ethics – demonstrating only just how lost she is.

FOX's Lipstick-Evangelical Feminism and its Fruits

https://www.christianpost.com/books/shannon-bream-god-never-viewed-women-as-second-class-citizens.html

The FOX channel is mistakenly perceived as conservative. It is certainly Right-wing but conservative is not a term that would apply. And overarching all the politics of the channel is the ubiquitous presence of tanned, blond women in tight short dresses – most of whom don't seem to own an outfit with sleeves. Several of them are former beauty queens and almost all put on airs of piety and religiosity. It's offensive, but the tactic has worked and over the past twenty years the entertainment-propaganda channel has played a profound role in re-shaping Evangelicalism.

Tragedy in Texas

I remember years ago reading about the US electrical grid and how basically there's the Eastern United States, the West, and then there's Texas which is on a standalone grid.