1. Introduction To Laura Ingraham
2. NRA, Infowars, Fox News, Breitbart And Sinclair Function As A Terrorist Propaganda Wing Of The GOP That Seeks To Build Hate & Muddy The Waters (Kinda Like State TV)
3. How Media Silence Helps With Right Wing Hate: The Laura Ingraham Example Of Explaining Away A Hate Crime Against A Young Muslim Girl
Lauran Ingraham will say anything to demonize the left and stop sensible gun laws from passing. This post attempts to outline some of her lies around the NRA and abortion to show what sort of monster she truly is.
Ingraham: Conservatives strike back at the NRA boycott - Mar. 02, 2018 - 5:50 - After the Parkland Massacre, students-turned-activists trained their own political sites on the NRA, launching a boycott championed by the mainstream media.
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Notice how the issue here is gun deaths and she is demonizing liberals for Planned Parenthood which is a very successful tactic the right uses to demonize and kill people around the right wing wedge issue "abortion" (and then they traditionally act like it wasn't their fault by avoiding the issue and their role in the incendiary rhetoric that caused the violence their rhetoric endorses).
Analysis (all bold and italic collections of Ingraham's comments are taken from this transcript)...
INGRAHAM: I would say Planned Parenthood hasn't supported the right to live. The NRA has been in business since 1871 and it does more to promote responsible gun ownership and gun safety than any other organization in the country.
Here you see Ingraham lies about NRA history. Actually, the NRA went from a 'help the people' type group to a 'help the guns and corporations' type group a long time ago. You can't maximize profits AND keep the people safe at the same time, so, apparently, the NRA has been pursuing policies to actively destabilize society and get people killed (by blocking useful laws - see below) and should be classified as a Domestic Terror Group. Here is some history;
NBC A look back at gun control history
Generally, the gun control versus the gun rights debate exists focuses on an individual’s right to bear arms and the government’s obligation to counter violence and crime. The wording of the Second Amendment–specifically “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed”–seems unambiguous but in fact the interpretation of the law has evolved.
In the 18th and 19th century, armed civilians used guns as a means of survival and protection from foreign enemies. As westward expansion occurred, frontiersman used guns to arm themselves against Native Americans and potential threats in the uncharted territories. Then in 1927, Congress outlawed the mail-order sale of guns or concealed firearms after mob violence broke out from Prohibition. However, mob violence escalated so quickly with the usage of Tommy guns in gang wars that Congress passed the National Firearms Act of 1934, which taxed firearms under 18 inches and on machine guns and required gun registration. This act became the first federal gun-control law.
President John F. Kennedy’s assassination in 1963 and Martin Luther King, Jr.’s assassination spurred leaders to pass the Gun Control Act of 1968. This act prohibited the sale of guns to convicted felons, drug users and the mentally ill, and also required firearm dealers to obtain licenses and imposed interstate sale restrictions. The law also raised the age to legally purchase a handgun to 21.
Although the ATF was granted expanded power, the NRA became increasingly agitated, prompting the gun lobby to create a new lobbying branch, the NRA Institute for Legislative Action, which aimed to nullify the 1968 law. In 1986, President Reagan signed the Firearm Owners’ Protection Act which eased the penalties from the 1968 law, banned a federal registry of gun owners, and disallowed the ATF’s power to inspect gun dealers.
But the gun culture changed again in 1981 when John Hinckley, Jr. tried to assassinate President Reagan and nearly killed his press secretary James Brady instead. He and his wife Sarah became activists. “You can begin to see a sea change of attitudes during this time,” said Sarah Brady. “The NRA was fighting against the cop-killing bullets and plastic guns, and we got into an alliance with law enforcement and we just got together and said, ‘What’s the first thing we should do?’ And we all said, ‘Background checks.’”
In 1991, Ronald Reagan said at a ceremony at George Washington University: “I want to tell all of you here today something that I’m not sure you know. You do know that I’m a member of the NRA. My position on right to bear arms is well known. But I want you to know something else. And I’m going to say it in clear unmistakable language. I support the Brady bill and I urge the Congress to enact it.”
The Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act was passed in 1993. This law created a system for background checks of licensed gun buyers, which was maintained by the FBI.
Although this national system prevented convicted criminals and potentially violent people from purchasing handguns, a loophole existed. The 1993 act did not cover private sales from one individual to another. In 1993, 57% of people surveyed by the Pew Research Center said that controlling gun ownership was more important than protecting gun rights; in 2012, the percentage went down to 47%.
In 2004, President George W. Bush said, “I did think we ought to extend the assault weapons ban, and was told the fact that the bill was never going to move, because Republicans and Democrats were against the assault weapon ban, people of both parties. I believe law-abiding citizens ought to be able to own a gun. I believe in background checks at gun shows or anywhere to make sure that guns don’t get in the hands of people that shouldn’t have them.”
Ten years earlier, his father wrote a letter to the NRA just two weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing, resigning as a life member of the NRA. And while Ronald Reagan was the Governor of California, he stated his view on guns in May of 1967 when Black Panther Party members walked into the California Statehouse carrying rifles to protest a gun-control bill. “There’s no reason why on the street today a citizen should be carrying loaded weapons.”
Former Nixon speechwriter, William Safire, wrote in 1999 how Nixon felt about gun control. “His on-the-record reply: ”Guns are an abomination.’ Free from fear of gun owners’ retaliation at the polls, he favored making handguns illegal and requiring licenses for hunting rifles.”
INGRAHAM: The fact is Nikolas Cruz should never had gotten his gun because he was a mental case. He was engaged in criminal threats of violence at school and on the internet. The gun control gang has misdiagnosed this problem. We need to know the real cause of the Florida shooting in order to help prevent these tragedies in the future.
She ignores NRA lies that prove that blocking mental cases from getting guns, if its a thing now for the NRA (I'd have to see proof) was certainly not a priority before, no matter how much the NRA and its spokes people lie about it. The following are some extract from media matters outlining some of the common NRA lies everyone on the right is spreading;
New NRA Lie: We Were Responsible For Creating The National Instant Criminal Background Check System
A video from National Rifle Association executive vice president Wayne LaPierre offered a false history of the passage of the 1993 Brady background check bill in order to attack President Obama's recently released executive actions on gun violence.
In the video, the NRA attempts to position itself as the heroic creator of the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), when in reality the gun group fiercely fought the passage of the Brady bill and then later attempted to have the Supreme Court invalidate the entire law.
On January 5, Obama announced during a speech from the White House that his administration is taking executive action to address gun violence in light of Congress' inaction following several high-profile mass shootings.
A large share of media coverage on Obama's move focused on the president's plan to expand background checks by clarifying what it means to be "engaged in the business" of selling firearms, although the plan also includes provisions addressing effective enforcement of existing gun laws, funding for mental health treatment, and developing gun safety technology.
In a January 6 response video, the NRA attempted to cast itself as the actual authority on background checks. In purporting to tell a history of the Brady bill, the legislation that was responsible for the creation of the national background check system for gun purchases, LaPierre falsely claimed, "The best-kept secret is that the National Instant Check System wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the NRA":
LAPIERRE: The best-kept secret is that the National Instant Check System wouldn't exist at all if it weren't for the NRA. It's true. Back in the '90s, President Clinton forced passage of a mandatory waiting period on every handgun purchase in America. Not a background check. A wait.But NRA said as soon as the technology was available, their wait had to be replaced by an instant background check, done by the dealer, at the point of sale. NRA supported it, NRA got the votes and NRA got it passed.
The NRA's claim is false for several reasons, many of which can be found in a legislative history of the bill's passage in UCLA law professor Adam Winkler's 2013 book Gunfight: The Battle Over the Right to Bear Arms In America.
- The NRA only proposed what became NICS in an attempt to derail the Brady bill by including provisions that were not technologically feasible. To their chagrin, a compromise was introduced that gave the federal government five years to develop the technology before it became mandatory. Winkler writes, "Sarah Brady was an incredibly sympathetic character, and LaPierre knew that tackling her head-on was a recipe for a public relations disaster. So he pushed the NRA's allies in Congress to add to the Brady bill a provision that critics said would render the law ineffective. LaPierre's amendment would mandate instantaneous computerized background checks and a waiting period no longer than twenty-four hours. According to critics, this reasonable sounding proposal had one major flaw: it was not yet technologically feasible."
- The final version of the Brady bill included the creation of NICS, which was to go into effect in 1998. The NRA was furious. According to Winkler, an NRA publication claimed, "When Bill Clinton signed the Brady Bill into law on November 30, a drop of blood dripped from the finger of the sovereign American citizen."
- The NRA challenged the constitutionality of the Brady law in a case that made it to the Supreme Court in 1997. The NRA's primary argument was that the law was unconstitutional because it "commandeered" state governments by forcing them to carry out functions that the federal government cannot force them to do under the 10th Amendment. The NRA could have limited its argument to say that state authorities did not have to perform Brady background checks, essentially pausing the national background check system until 1998 when NICS would come online (states would still be free to run background checks under the Brady bill, but the federal government couldn't force them to do so). Instead, the NRA argued, "the whole Statute must be voided." If this argument would have been successful, NICS would have never been implemented.
- Claims that the NRA wanted comprehensive background checks during the legislative fight over the Brady bill should be treated with extreme skepticism, as the gun group repeatedly fought to weaken the bill. One example is the Gekas amendment to the Brady bill, where the NRA urged its allies in Congress to introduce a provision allowing a gun dealer to go forward with a sale after three business days, even if the background check had not been completed. The amendment received widespread attention following the June 2015 mass shooting at a church in Charleston, South Carolina. The gunman in that shooting should have failed the background check he underwent while purchasing the gun he used in his attack, but instead the sale proceeded after three days because NICS had not yet been able to locate his prohibiting record.
On ABC’s This Week, NRA’s Dana Loesch pushes gun lobby lie that NRA created the background check system Loesch also misleads about lawsuit NRA supported that inhibited background check system
National Rifle Association (NRA) spokeswoman Dana Loesch on ABC’s This Week falsely claimed that, the NRA “created” the current gun background check system and whitewashed the NRA's role inhibiting the national background check system.
Discussing the Parkland, FL, shooting with ABC host George Stephanopolous, Loesch recycled the NRA lie that the organization “created” the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS). In reality, the NRA fiercely opposed the 1993 Brady background check bill, which created NICS, and continued to lobby against it after its passage. Loesch also misled about Printz v. United States, an NRA-supported lawsuit that strongly inhibited NICS after the Supreme Court ruled for the NRA’s position. From the February 25 edition of ABC’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos:
NRA national spokesperson Dana Loesch lied to Stoneman Douglas student Emma Gonzalez
Emma Gonzalez, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, had a simple question for National Rifle Association (NRA) national spokesperson Dana Loesch during CNN’s gun violence town hall: “Do you believe that it should be harder to obtain the semi-automatic ... weapons and the modifications for these weapons to make them fully automatic, like bump stocks?”
Instead of providing the NRA’s well established positions on these questions, Loesch gave a series of dishonest explanations that sought to hide the NRA’s fringe absolutism against gun regulation.
After some niceties, Loesch purported to answer Gonzalez's question by saying, “I don't believe that this insane monster should have ever been able to obtain a firearm, ever. I do not think that he should have gotten his hands on any kind of weapon. That's number one.”
According to Loesch, “This individual was nuts and I, nor the millions of people that I represent as a part of this organization, that I'm here speaking for, none of us support people who are crazy, who are a danger to themselves, who are a danger to others, getting their hands on a firearm.”
Loesch was lying.
The NRA opposes adding prohibiting categories to the gun background check system that could have included the Stoneman Douglas gunman. As the NRA’s website states, “NRA opposes expanding firearm background check systems, because background checks don’t stop criminals from getting firearms.” It also opposes a policy called a “Gun Violence Restraining Order” or a “Red Flag” law that has been widely cited as a policythat could have stopped the gunman from having access to firearms. These laws allow family members and law enforcement to petition courts to temporarily remove people’s access to firearms who are a danger to themselves or others.
Loesch’s dishonesty didn’t stop with that claim. Moments later, while talking about the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS), Loesch said, “It is not federal law for states to report convictions to the NICS system. It's not federally mandated.” Loesch also argued that the states can convict a person, they "can adjudicate the mentally unfit," but "if a state does not report it to the National Crime Information Center, when you run that form, this individual -- this madman passed a background check." (NRA CEO Wayne LaPierre also used this talking point in his February 22 speech at CPAC.)
What Loesch failed to mention is that states can’t be required to report disqualifying records because of the outcome of a 1997 NRA-backed lawsuit Printz v. United States.
The lawsuit was the NRA’s attempt to invalidate the entire national background check system in court before it could be implemented. While the system eventually went into effect, the outcome of Printz damaged its effectiveness, as the Supreme Court ruled in a 5-4 decision in favor of the NRA’s argument that requiring states to perform background checks for a federal system violated the 10th Amendment.
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP) BARACK OBAMA, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration and the Bush administration. And each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are going to regenerate, and they have not. And it's not surprising then that they get birther, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them. (END AUDIO CLIP)
INGRAHAM: I'm just a bitter clinger. I'll never get over that line. But it was so condescending, so insulting, and it was wrong then, and what these corporations are doing to the NRA is wrong now. Because of the corporate cowardice of these companies, people who aren't NRA members are actually considering joining.
Put Laura Ingraham on a lie detector and I'm sure it will turn out she is lying about being insulted (that's why she would NEVER sit for a lie detector test). Clearly she believes Obama is right about many in the GOP base being bitter and is using that bitterness to breed anger (or at least, that's what it must have started out as, now the right is angry... and its all based on lies!). What she is doing he is conning her listeners to get angry so they will listen to her and her nonsense (same for all right winger opinion personalities). This certainly explains why GOP states are so poor. Obama said the people fell through the cracks and got bitter (indicating he wants to help them get economically secure again) and the right wing turns it around to get them to oppose policies that would help them. Now they have passed bad economic polices for the people and are claiming all the years of growth of the economy under Obama never existed at all! (& that "Trump did it"!) ... still more proof that the right are criminals and traitors.
INGRAHAM: But they've also kicked a hornet's nest, offending millions of law-abiding peaceful Americans who support the Second Amendment and the NRA. And by the way, those people vote, too. And that's the angle.
So shes doing what all of GOP/Fox/Infowars/NRA etc are doing, i.e. riling up the base to attack democrats, liberals (which includes school kids) and anything except the problem (guns), i.e. its just another con designed to fool disappointed people into attacking what's best for them so they will support the GOP's treasonous plans (killing people and planning to kill more people to serve the people who bought them).
Then she brings in two politicians and here her rhetoric gets even more interesting and incendiary;
GOP and Democratic congressmen debate NRA boycott
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The following bold and italic extracts are from the same transcript as above;
INGRAHAM: Congressman Garamendi, the New York governor, Andrew Coumo, is trying to lure Delta to New York, saying, come to New York, we'll treat you well. But New York is a nightmare still for businesses, even though they tried to bring more businesses back. What is your reaction to this concern from the NRA members and just regular Americans? This is all taking it a bit too far that the NRA is killing kids. Come on.
This is interesting. First she demonizes New York for being a fully developed State and not an empty one still experiencing Economies of Scale (but economics is not their forte). Then she wants sympathy for the NRA pushing laws that gets kids killed!
INGRAHAM: I get it. But the problem here is that the members of the NRA had nothing to do with this shooting. They're not responsible for this and truth be told, I think they only had like 13 people get this Delta break on their airfare to the NRA conference. It's not that many people, but it's a message.
NRA members support the NRA despite its demonizing tactics and lies... of course, Fox news and the rest of right wing media helps so its a really big con. In fact, part of the con is to describe thier own evil tactics as being on "the other side", pretty much proving itself to be a cult. i.e. Conservatives have been formulated, through rhetoric and demonizations, into a cult.
INGRAHAM: And it's the same message that Middle America has gotten from the elites for years, that you're stupid, you're obsessed with guns, you're a bunch of bible-thumping idiots. That's how they feel. Congressman Duffy, I know we've discussed this before --
Interestingly enough, "elites" means anyone who disagrees with them who is rich and/or educated and/or famous (such as Hollywood people who have the time to look up facts). Since educated people tend to use facts they are a threat. Elites use facts. Since most of the rich and famous are happy - or dissatisfied - with their own lives, they are not interested in messing with the lives of others, like a conservative does. That's why conservatives always get involved with the bedroom stuff (except for their President/Leaders) as they want to control other peoples lives (as its in thier religion) while pretending they want to reduce the size of the constitutional government (which specifically separates Church from State). Breaking down society to a third world level might break the people enough for them to get away with their treason for cash and that seems to be thier primary political and economic cons, i.e. break the people and America is theirs for the buying/taking. Then they can be like the unconstitutional tyrants from Ayn Rand's fictional madness inspired by her life in Russia. The way to make this work is to make the bitter and uneducated HATE the experts who could pull them out of thier sorry state with some support of the people.
INGRAHAM: Let me tell you why we said it. I thought it was pretty clear, but I'll explain it again. We're talking about the blood of children, innocent children who were gunned down in that school and we're talking about the blood of the most innocent who are defenseless in the womb. The elderly, in the womb, and the disabled are the most defenseless in this country. That's why he brought it up. But go ahead.
An undeveloped fetus on which the science is still under debate can't be equated to fully formed human beings. Doing this indicates Ingraham is using a demonizing tactic which also doubles as a normalizing tactic so people will accept the NRA's lies and affiliation with treasonous right wing media, as normal.
i.e. Media Matters: The right has a new 20-week abortion ban, and it's still built on junk science and right-wing lies.
The U.S. House of Representatives has promised an October 3 vote on a 20-week abortion ban -- misleadingly named the Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act -- that is based on junk science and a longstanding right-wing media myth that fetuses can feel pain by 20 weeks in a pregnancy. In reporting on the vote, media have an obligation to include scientifically accurate information about abortion including 20-week abortion bans at the state level, how a ban is unconstitutional under Roe v. Wade, and the personal or medical decisions behind having an abortion after 20 weeks.
Science does not support 20-week abortion bans
New England Journal of Medicine: A fetus cannot perceive pain until around 30 weeks into a pregnancy.According to The New England Journal of Medicine, “study after study has determined that perception of pain is not physically possible until nearly 30 weeks of gestation, when thalamocortical pathways are present and have begun to function.” A 2010 report from the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists stated that “although the cortex can process sensory input from 24 weeks, it does not mean that the fetus is aware of pain. There is sound evidence for claiming the cortex is necessary for pain experience, but this is not to say that it is sufficient.” According to the American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, “a comprehensive, nonpartisan, multidisciplinary review of almost 2,000 fetal pain studies concluded that ‘the capacity for functional pain perception in preterm neonates probably does not exist before 29 or 30 weeks.’” The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologist also gave a similar timeline -- saying a fetus cannot feel pain until the third trimester. [The New England Journal of Medicine, 9/1/16; Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologist, March 2010; American Medical Association Journal of Ethics, October 2014; LiveScience, 5/17/16]
Fetuses recoiling from stimuli does not mean they feel pain. A common reason given in support of a 20-week abortion ban is that fetuses are shown to react or recoil to stimuli in the womb. A 2015 article on FactCheck.org found there was no causal relationship between fetal withdrawal from stimuli and feelings of pain because any “recoil is more of a reflex” that is distinct from “the experience of pain” itself. According to Salon, “Because the neural structures necessary to feel pain have not yet developed, any observable responses to stimuli at [20 weeks] -- like the fetal “flinching” during an amniocentesis - are reflexive, not experiential. Which is to say, the fetus at 20 weeks can’t actually feel anything at all.” [Media Matters, 5/20/16; FactCheck.org, 5/18/15; Salon, 8/7/13]
INGRAHAM: Congressman -- and I want Sean Duffy to get on this. If we're going to judge people based on an organization, blood spilled, well, I hope Planned Parenthood is going to lose all of its partnerships or affiliations, given the fact that we have about 57 million babies who never got to see the light of day.
There's a lot of medical waste that includes blood all over this country. And so, the vilify the NRA when we have 325,000 babies murdered in an abortion clinic, Planned Parenthood, every year, give me a break. Go ahead, Sean.
This still amazes me. She literally implies that if Planned Parenthood can kill undeveloped fetuses then its OK for the NRA to kill kids and people too! (It certainly explains the GOP's economic policies and planned policies). But first things first. She's lying. She's an anchor on a primetime show so she has the research abilities, staff and motivation to find out the truth... that means her lying is intentional and Lauran Ingraham is the very personification of evil. A devils minion, if you will, who uses Christianity to fool believers like explained in the book The Screwtape Letters.
Here are a list of her lies to support GOPs and NRAs killing/murder/treasonous policies;
Fox News has a long history of pushing the Center for Medical Progress’ anti-abortion lies The network recently aired Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s repetition of CMP’s “baby body parts” lie
After Twitter briefly prevented Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s (R-TN) Senate campaign from promoting an ad on the platform featuring an “inflammatory” and inaccurate claim about Planned Parenthood, Blackburn made the rounds on Fox News to push the ad’s anti-abortion talking point about “baby body parts,” which came from the discredited Center for Medical Progress (CMP). This isn’t anything new: Fox News has a long history of promoting anti-abortion lies from both Blackburn and CMP.
During her radio show, Ingraham repeated her anti-abortion misinformation in an interview with Blackburn. Ahead of her debut as the host of a Fox News show, Ingraham used anti-abortion talking points during her radio program, The Laura Ingraham Show, in an interview with Blackburn. During the October 11 interview, Ingraham characterized Blackburn’s campaign ad as describing “Planned Parenthood’s disgusting -- trying to sell baby body parts” and again repeated that the “the left” does not want to “confront their own facilitation of this … heinous crime of abortion.” From the October 11 edition of Courtside Entertainment Group’s The Laura Ingraham Show:
CMP’s claims have been consistently debunked, and the organization now faces multiple legal challenges
CMP’s videos have been consistently debunked as deceptively edited. CMP claims that its videos show covertly recorded conversations with Planned Parenthood personnel and employees of private, for-profit biomedical procurement companies discussing the sale of fetal tissue or “baby body parts.” An independent analysis commissioned by Planned Parenthood and conducted by forensic experts found that CMP’s videos “contain intentionally deceptive edits, missing footage and inaccurately transcribed conversations” to suggest Planned Parenthood engaged in the illicit sale of fetal tissue. Several media outlets have called out CMP for its deceptive footage. [Media Matters, 8/31/15]
Multiple federal and state investigations have cleared Planned Parenthood of any wrongdoing. The CMP videos prompted more than a dozen states to conduct investigations into whether Planned Parenthood illegally sold fetal tissue for profit. Investigations by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and 13 states -- Massachusetts, Indiana, South Dakota, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Florida, Missouri, Washington, Kansas, Michigan, Nevada, Ohio, and South Carolina -- found no wrongdoing on the part of Planned Parenthood or any violation of federal law. [Media Matters, 8/2/17]
CMP head David Daleiden was fined and held in contempt for violation of a court order for releasing prohibited videos. On May 25, CMP circulated an unlisted YouTube video that contained footage of conversations that were previous barred by a federal injunction due to a court’s concerns about harassment and violence the individuals in the video could encounter. U.S. District Court Judge William Orrick fined CMP head David Daleiden and his attorneys for the breach of the injunction and found them in contempt of court. [Media Matters, 5/26/17; Rewire, 9/1/17]
Fox News has a history of promoting anti-abortion lies from the Center of Medical Progress
Blackburn’s select panel provided “advance copies” of documents from Planned Parenthood investigation to Fox News. Following the initial release of deceptively edited CMP videos purporting to show Planned Parenthood selling fetal body parts, the House formed a committee in 2015 called the Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives (chaired by Blackburn) that sought to verify CMP’s claims. During the investigation, Fox News received advance copies of letters detailing the select panel’s allegations against abortion providers -- a day before the letters were publicly released -- and aired an “exclusive” interview with Blackburn about the contents. Subsequently, Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) wrote in a letter that she was “deeply concerned” that the letters had been released to Fox News before the Democratic members of the panel or even the Department of Health and Human Services were allowed to see them. [Media Matters, 6/6/16]
Fox News aired an hour-long special in support of CMP’s videos. In September 2015, Fox News aired a one-hour special that offered an uncritical and supportive promotion of CMP’s claims. Before its airing, Troy Newman -- head of the extreme anti-abortion group Operation Rescue and a CMP board member -- said, “I expect the documentary will be very much on our side” and, “This information really made [Fox News anchor] Shannon Bream emotional.” [Media Matters. 9/1/15]
Fox News consistently reported more inaccurate information about CMP’s videos than any other outlet. In analyzing prime-time cable news coverage of abortion in 2016, Media Matters found that Fox News overwhelming aired more segments promoting CMP’s inaccurate claims that Planned Parenthood was selling “baby body parts” than any other outlet. In 2016, Media Matters found that Fox News ran almost all of the total cable segments about CMP and that 80 percent of Fox News’s statements about CMP, abortion funding rules, Planned Parenthood’s essential services, and later abortion were inaccurate. In 2015, Fox News hosted CMP founder David Daleiden at least seven times and was the only network to host him in 2016 -- once on Hannity. Daleiden also was a guest on Tucker Carlson Tonight on June 9, 2017. [Media Matters, 6/1/16; 6/2/16; 4/18/17; 6/9/17]
Lauran Ingraham is just part of the spinners working on promoting NRA & GOP terrosim through all of America;
Media Matters: Fox News is firing up the right-wing spin machine for the Supreme Court's new abortion case
On Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight, host Tucker Carlson fearmongered about a reproductive rights case that the Supreme Court just decided to hear -- signaling the start of another right-wing misinformation campaign about abortion.
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Despite much grandstanding, Carlson failed to accurately describe either the factual basis of the California law or the nature of the lawsuit. (Carlson has a history of failing to accurately address abortion issuesthroughout his tenure as a prime-time Fox News host.) While Carlson described CPCs as “not hurting anybody,” they actually use multiple deceptive tactics to convince individuals to utilize their services, ultimately dissuading many considering abortion. A yearlong investigation by Cosmopolitan found CPCs “increasingly look just like doctor’s offices with ultrasound rooms and staff in scrubs. Yet they do not provide or refer for contraception or abortion. Many pregnancy-center counselors, even those who provide medical information, are not licensed.”
As Teen Vogue reported, some CPCs also lie about state restrictions that prohibit abortion past a certain week of pregnancy and about the risks of abortions -- including making inaccurate claims that abortion makes a person infertile or causes breast cancer. Some CPCs also lie before people even get in the door -- posing as comprehensive reproductive care clinics or suggesting in their advertising that they offer abortion services or contraceptives, when in reality many CPCs provide neither. Some CPCs also receive direct funding from states. For example, Texas awarded a $1.6 million contract in 2016 to The Heidi Group, an organization led by anti-abortion extremist Carol Everett, for the purpose of providing low-income reproductive health services. Earlier this year, the Heidi Group was found to have failed to deliver on any of its proposals. On the federal level, Rewire found that the Trump administration has awarded “at least $3.1 million … to religiously affiliated organizations and crisis pregnancy centers.”
Similarly, while Carlson decried the FACT Act as an attack on free speech, anti-abortion proponents have long pushed the so-called “informed” consent laws that often require medical providers to lie to patients about the risks of abortion, or provide them information with no basis in science, such as the viability of “abortion reversal” methods. Many have noted that if the Supreme Court's decision falls in favor of CPCs on free speech grounds, it could have unintended consequences for such efforts by the anti-choice movement. As Slate’s Dahila Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern wrote, “If the FACT Act falls ... it would not necessarily be an unmitigated victory for abortion opponents” given the number of deceptive “informed consent” laws that various states have already passed.
Although the Supreme Court just agreed to hear NIFLA v. Becerra, Carlson’s segment demonstrates that right-wing media are already gearing up to push misinformation about the case and support CPCs' efforts to block abortion access.
Anti-abortion violence and harassment was already bad. Right-wing media are making it worse.
Rates of anti-abortion harassment and violence are high -- and continuing to rise
Attacks on abortion clinics and providers have led to 11 deaths since 1993. In 1993, anti-abortion extremist Michael Griffin assassinated Dr. David Gunn outside his clinic in the first known murder of an abortion doctor in the United States. Since then, anti-abortion sentiment has contributed to 10 other deaths, as well as numerous injuries of providers, patients, and their families. In 2015, Robert Dear allegedly opened fire in a Colorado Springs Planned Parenthood clinic, killing three and injuring at least nine more. After the attack, Dear reportedly said the phrase “no more baby parts” as an explanation, likely referring to an oft-repeated right-wing media talking point based on discredited undercover videos from the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress (CMP). [The New York Times, 11/29/15; Media Matters, 12/2/15; New Republic, 12/15/16]
Abortion providers live “in a state of heightened fear and anxiety because targeted harassment follows them everywhere.” In the book Living in the Crosshairs: The Untold Stories of Anti-Abortion Terrorism, authors David Cohen and Krysten Connon detailed the numerous types of targeted and personalized harassment abortion providers endure from anti-abortion activists. For example, in addition to dealing with anti-abortion proponents picketing at their houses and giving out personal information to their neighbors, providers also face the prospect of activists targeting their children and extended families. As ThinkProgress reported, anti-choice activists have “showed up to picket providers’ children’s schools and mailed letters to providers’ family members; some of them have also gone to accost providers’ parents in their nursing home.” According to the report, “Incidents that one person might interpret as a relatively harmless prank — like, say, splashing red paint on the front of an abortion provider’s house — don’t seem quite so harmless to the abortion providers on the receiving end.” Thus, providers often feel “under siege” and live “in a state of heightened fear and anxiety because targeted harassment follows them everywhere.” [ThinkProgress, 4/27/15]
Low-income patients facing extreme financial barriers to abortion may also face heightened harassment when visiting clinics. Lack of income creates many barriers to abortion access, the least of which is the inability to pay for an abortion due to the Hyde Amendment -- a restriction on the use of Medicaid funds for abortion services except in limited circumstances. In addition to financial barriers, closure of clinics may force patients to travel many miles to access a clinic, often resulting in a loss of income from being forced to take time off from work. For this reason, low-income patients may have to schedule their abortions for Saturday mornings, often the “peak hours for protesters,” and thus may be subjected to the worst harassment from clinic protesters, as explained by ThinkProgress [Media Matters, 6/20/16; ThinkProgress, 8/12/13;]
Last year, clinic violence and provider harassment increased to an all-time high. Data from the National Abortion Federation (NAF) shows that anti-choice protests and targeted harassment of abortion clinics and providers both rose in 2016 to the highest level since NAF began tracking them in 1977. According to NAF, there was also an increase in “a wide range of intimidation tactics meant to disrupt the provision of health care at facilities, including vandalism, picketing, obstruction, invasion, trespassing, burglary, stalking, assault and battery, and bomb threats.” While data from 2017 is not yet available, NAF explained, "In the first five months of 2017 ... there have been four times as many online threats and death wishes directed at abortion providers compared with the same period in 2016." [The Cut, 4/20/17; National Abortion Federation, accessed 8/1/17; Slate, 7/21/17]
Right-wing and anti-choice media catalyze harassment for anyone who publicly supports abortion access
Then-Fox News host Bill O’Reilly repeatedly attacked Dr. George Tiller before he was assassinated by an anti-abortion extremist. In 2009, anti-abortion extremist Scott Roeder murdered abortion provider Dr. George Tiller while Tiller was attending church. Before Tiller's assassination -- and prior to Bill O’Reilly’s ouster from Fox News due to numerous sexual harassment allegations -- O’Reilly openly bullied Tiller on his program. According to Rolling Stone, “O’Reilly had waged an unflagging war against Tiller that did just about everything short of urging his followers to murder him.” O’Reilly repeatedly called the doctor “Tiller the baby killer” and said there was a “special place in hell for this guy.” At one point, O’Reilly said, “And if I could get my hands on Tiller – well, you know. Can't be vigilantes. Can't do that. It's just a figure of speech. But despicable? Oh, my God. Oh, it doesn't get worse. Does it get worse? No." After Tiller’s assassination, O’Reilly claimed he only “reported accurately” on Tiller. [Rolling Stone, 4/19/17; Media Matters, 6/4/09, 12/1/15]
The Lilith Fund was attacked by right-wing media after offering abortion funding to those affected by Hurricane Harvey. The Lilith Fund -- a nonprofit that provides funding for abortions for people who can’t afford the procedure -- raised funds for those affected by the devastation of Hurricane Harvey. Under normal circumstances, abortion services can already be difficult to obtain due to waiting periods, travel distances to clinics, and other restrictions on access. Natural disasters like Hurricane Harvey amplify these barriers to access by closing clinics or making abortion financially inaccessible. In response to The Lilith Fund’s efforts to help those impacted access essential health care, many right-wing outlets attacked The Lilith Fund and argued the organization was exploiting people who had already suffered a tragedy. For example, The Federalist claimed that “abortionists are scheming to raise the death count even higher” than those who already died as a result of Hurricane Harvey. Anti-abortion activist Abby Johnson wrote for Townhall that “we should never attempt to pile tragedy on top of tragedy, which is exactly what this ‘free abortion’ offer does to women.” On Fox News’ The Story With Martha MacCallum, The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway stated that “funding abortions only makes sense if you think the main problem with Hurricane Harvey was that it did not kill enough people.” [Romper, 8/31/17; The Federalist, 9/12/17; Townhall, 9/8/17; Fox News, 9/1/17; National Review, 9/1/17]
People who speak publicly about having an abortion are frequently attacked in right-wing media. Right-wing media frequently target people’s personal accounts of obtaining an abortion. For example, The Daily Caller “edited” a New York Times op-ed from a woman who had a late-term abortion, adding inaccurate and stigmatizing language to demonize her difficult but medically necessary choice. More recently, actor Martha Plimpton faced an onslaught of right-wing outrage for joking about having her “best” abortion in Seattle. Fox News’ Tucker Carlson said that Plimpton’s comment were “gross,” “disturbing,” and “depressing,” and that “healthy cultures don’t create people like that. Something is wrong.” The Washington Times claimed that Plimpton’s comments “underscore the utter hypocrisy of the left” and that she was treating it as a “bragging right.” [Media Matters, 10/21/16; Fox News, via Twitter, 9/6/17; The Washington Times, 9/6/17; Breitbart, 9/6/17; The Daily Caller, 9/7/17; Townhall, 9/8/17]
People who publicly speak about abortion also encounter harassment on social media. Renee Bracey Sherman, an abortion activist and writer, spoke about the abuse she has encountered on social media because of her public discussion of her abortion and the right to access the health service more broadly. According to Bracey Sherman, due to continued harassment she has blocked the words “baby killer” and “you’re a murderer” from her Facebook feed. Recently, on Twitter, Bracey Sherman spoke about how her being a black woman increases the amount of targeted harassment she receives. She tweeted, “So often when I receive anti-choice harassment, it’s often about race. They degrade me as a Black woman. This is about white supremacy.” The campaign #ShoutYourAbortion, which confronts abortion stigma by having people publicly speak out about their abortions, experiences frequent attacks on social media -- which is quickly evidenced when searching the hashtag on Twitter. The co-founder of the campaign, Lindy West, faced severe harassment, including from trolls impersonating her late father. [Slate, 11/15/16; Twitter, 8/25/17; Twitter, accessed September 2017; New York Times, 10/1/15; Elle, 9/25/15; HuffPost, 9/29/15]
Right-wing media have played an active role in exacerbating harassment against those who support or campaign for abortion access. Right-wing media frequently exacerbate or play an active role in promoting harassment against those who support abortion access. For example, teenager Maddy Rasmussen gained media attention for her high school senior project which created a database of abortion clinics in the United States in order to provide patients seeking abortions with more accurate information about locations to receive care. Anti-choice outlet LifeNews attacked Rasmussen, claiming that she was missing the “fact” that “an abortion is never safe for the unborn baby or the mother.” In a similar incident, LifeNews also attacked an ice cream shop in Portland, OR, because it was holding a fundraiser for Planned Parenthood. The shop stated that although it had previously partnered with Planned Parenthood without facing attacks, having the promotion “covered on LifeNews.com” resulted in backlash and harassment. After the LifeNews article, anti-abortion protesters harassed the shop’s owners on the business's Facebook page and website, as well through several phone calls to the shop. [LifeNews, 5/31/17; ThinkProgress, 7/25/14]
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