"We're here, we're queer we won't disappear." So chanted transgender high school students on ABC earlier tonight in the documentary SOUL OF A NATION: THE FREEDOM. These are the kids actually effected by the hate and scare tactics grown adults are using.
In what has to pass as a moment of pride for Sidney and Jacqueline Blumenthal, due to his having given them so little, last week Max Blumenthal confronted/heckled Rachel Maddow. You may remember Max's ugly wife screeching -- like a fish monger's wife -- at people who objected to a so-called peace or anti-war event that invited racists, pedophiles, homophobes and transphobes on stage. Nothing mattered, she insisted, but preventing a nuclear war she just knew was coming.
So you may think that "blogger" Max showed up at Trucon where MSNBC personality Rachel Maddow was delivering the keynote speech to press her on that issue. No. He showed up at the centrist Truman Center for National Security's four-day event to call Rachel out for . . . media coverage of Russia-gate and the Steele Dossier.
These are events that date back to 2016.
They have nothing to do with any of his wife's deranged nuclear war fantasies. They don't have to do with much of anything at this point. The media lies about Iraq? They matter which is why Maxie and his cronies ignore Iraq. The media lies about Iraq egged on and started a war. And US troops remain on the ground on Iraq. And the UN Security Council is egging the IMF to take even more control of Iraq's economy.
But there was Max Blumethal kicking off Pride Month with an attack on one of the country's most well known lesbians.
We called out the nonsense and the lies of Russia-gate in real time, back when they were being pimped. Hillary Clinton's campaign was too lazy to have Hillary visit every state on the mainland to campaign for the presidency but they did have time to lie and spin and create false rumors. And when Hillary's lazy campaign failed, it was time to blame Russia and time to talk about pee tapes and other things, to treat these lies as fact instead of confronting a weak and pathetic candidate.
And she wasn't going to deal with reality anymore than her fan base. She knew she was lazy, Bill even told her that in real time. He told her she was taking too much for granted and needed to get out and in the mix the way she did when she was running for the 2008 Democratic Party's presidential nomination. She didn't listen to him and she ended up a failure. But neither she nor her cult could admit reality, hence the nonstop push by so many to blame the results on Russia.
The Steele Dossier was paid for and pimped by the Clinton campaign. It claimed that Russia had the dirt on Donald Trump and would use that to blackmail him. It's most infamous lie was that they had video of Donald peeing on a prostitute. The 'reporter' pushing that? David Corn.
Which means a lot of people in the CIA were pimping it because David types what his CIA pals dictate to him. It's always been that way -- when he went after Gary Webb, when he fretted and cried over the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, so many other times.
The pee tape and much more were Tweeted about by David Corn, blogged about by David, gas bagged on cable by David, he even co-wrote a really bad book in 2018 with Michael Isikoff -- RUSSIAN ROULETTE: THE INSIDE STORY OF PUTIN'S WAR ON AMERICA AND THE ELECTION OF DONALD TRUMP. Isikoff gets air kisses from Max and Glenn and the others. Isn't it funny how that happens? He was the man behind Monica-gate, remember?
But in March of 2019, as Michael began backing off from the lies of Russia-gate and the pee tape, Max and his cronies began praising him. Why? By that time, the damage was done. But, you know this, they always give men a pass. We've covered it here many times before. So the fact that Isikoff was a talking bobble head for years on this topic, doing great damage and even wrote a book -- with David Corn -- on it, it didn't matter.
Yet all this time later, it's necessary for Max to go after Rachel?
We're not Rachel Maddow fans. We've never been. Rachel supported the Iraq War. AIR AMERICA RADIO gave her a job knowing that. She's is not and never has been The Great Liberal Hope. In 2005, Arianna Huffington learned that she was to the left of Rachel. It was always there for anyone who wanted to see it but few did. As UNFILTERED fell apart on AAR, Rachel resorted to doing what her bosses told her -- lying to the listeners. Lizz Winstead was sick, Rachel explained, out sick. No, Lizz walked out on the show. And the listeners had every right to know that -- and to know why. (Why? AAR had decided to cancel UNFILTERED and replace the show with Jerry Springer. Lizz said "Hell no" and walked. Rachel stayed on the air and lied.)
She lied before that as well. She used to show up, for example, on a Tuesday with a WASHINGTON POST article to reference. It would be a week old but Rachel would insist on air that it had just been published. At first, people working on the show tried to correct her. Rachel soon made it clear that they need not bother. If she was talking about it on air, she was going to intentionally lie and claim it was published in the last 24 hours.
Rachel knowingly brought on a veteran who had beaten his wife and glorified him. The listeners of UNFILTERED took to the show's chat room to complain about this and Rachel's response? To bring him back for the Friday show that week and praise him again. That's how Rachel defends women.
We could go on and on and certainly there's the moment when she went after Elaine on air. Or tried to. Peace really wasn't a topic on AIR AMERICA RADIO. Al Franken and Rachel Maddow were both war hawks. (Al even trashed Meg Ryan for calling for end to the war. Waited until after she left -- his program was airing from a college -- and then trashed her. Stated she was "just an actress" -- and what the f**k was he? -- and didn't understand all the complications involved. And, yes, we're aware of the effort to rewrite history on Rachel and Iraq -- shop those lies somewhere else.) Randi Rhodes and Janeane Garofalo were the only ones worried about peace. (You can throw in Chuck D but he wasn't on air that much.) One day, Elaine (a regular on the UNFILTERED chat room -- she listened to an hour each day while she was taking lunch) pointed out that Rachel would bring on pro-war vets and would bring on 'vets' that were veterinarians but never any veteran who was speaking out against the war. And other regulars agreed that was a problem. Rachel saw the discussion taking place and had a meltdown on air. She trashed the person who raised this issue.
But Rachel being such an idiot, she didn't understand the names were at the bottom of the post and trashed a man for what Elaine was writing. Trashed him, talked crap about him, just lost it on air.
We still listen to it and laugh and laugh. It's the real Rachel Maddow -- a short-fused liar.
So we're not friends of Rachel and we're not defenders of her.
But even we were shocked by Max Blumenthal's attack on her.
For one thing, Rachel was not the only one preaching lies about Russia. She was part of a huge system that was spreading propaganda. Equally true, she's not the most prominent today. She now appears once a week on MSNBC. Lawrence O'Donnell, for example, also pimped the lies in prime time (and created some of his own) and also did it on MSNBC where he still broadcasts five nights a week. Why go after Rachel and not him?
The transphobia of Max's wife leads many to believe that Rachel was targeted because she's a lesbian. We think it might be because she's a lesbian or because she's a woman. Remember little Maxi as a toddler taking off his pants or pulling his little penis out through the fly and walk around his parents' visitors insisting this was his favorite toy?
Why Rachel?
Not only was she one of many but, again, we're talking about events that are not even pertinent. By all means, use them as an example of how the media lies. But let's not pretend this is a pressing issue.
The four-day event that Rachel was speaking at? Sponsored by War Profiteer Lockheed Martin. And filled with Russia-gaters. People like Gil Cisneros. The lottery winner ended up in Congress and never shied from using claims about Russia to attack Donald Trump. Probably why he was only a one-term member. No sooner had he lost re-election, than his friend Joe Biden put in the Defense Dept where he is now Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness. Seems like there's a lot to confront Gil on -- both the historical issue of Russia-gate and the current issues of readiness, wars and -- his wife's big ticket issue -- nuclear war.
Max heckled Rachel three-hours-and-fifteen-minutes after Gil finished his panel at Trucon. Rachel was really the best he could do? The biggest threat?
State after state attempts to strip transgender persons -- children and adults -- of their rights. And the media that should be calling it out either ignores it or joins in. MSNBC has many problems currently including, as THE ARI DRENNEN SHOW points out below, Joe Scarborough's habit of lying about transgendered people -- and Mika's habit of smiling and finding it cute.
An actual war -- not Ms. Blumenthal's thus far imaginary nuclear war -- has been going on for some time. It's a war on the transgendered community -- a war that the right intends to expand to include gay people, transgenders are only the first wave of targets.
And Max and his wife? They've joined the side that ridicules and hates transgender people.
They didn't have to do that. But that's the choice they made. The same one their friend Glenn Greenwald made. He ridicules the transgender community. And he ridicules the staff of THE NEW YORK TIMES which has rightly called out the paper for its one-sided and reactionary work on this issue. The paper has ignored science to instead push and further attacks on the transgender community.
Ari Drennan, in the video above, notes that if you're not at the table, you're being served up. And yet NYT was happy to provide one-sided and hateful 'coverage.'
Tonight, SOUL OF A NATION: THE FREEDOM aired on ABC. It's rare to get a documentary on one of the big three these days and its even rarer to see a serious discussion of the effects of hate impacting the transgender community.
"All trans kids are kids and that they deserve to be loved. They deserve to feel joy." So true but so rare to hear from the media. Instead, we get hate merchants like Jonathan Turley claiming that children are being harmed! We need to respect these hateful people, the hate merchents in the media tell us, because they're trying to protect children! No. They are not.
Tyler Monroe (MEDIA MATTERS FOR AMERICA) notes:
But few want to address that reality. One of the few who has is Karen Hunter.
It's never been about protecting children. On ABC's documentary, Nicole Maines declared, "I hope the future for transkids is one where they can just be themselves." That's not asking too much but in the climate of hate we currently live in, it seems near impossible as one phony lie after another is spread by hate merchants intent upon destroying LGBTQ+ members. Let's again note John Russell (LGBTQ NATION) reported:
Amid recent, highly publicized conservative backlash to several corporations partnering with LGBTQ+ artists and activists, two far-right commentators are saying the quiet part loud: Their goal is to make support for the LGBTQ+ community “toxic” to brands.
On Wednesday, Matt Walsh, a host for far-right media outlet The Daily Wire and one of the most virulently anti-trans voices in the country, kicked off a tweet storm about recent calls to boycott brands like Bud Light and Target by explicitly outlining what he says has been the goal from the start.
On his own Daily Wire show, host Michael Knowles reiterated Walsh’s point. “This has been the point that has been building for months now, which is we need to make that symbol toxic, the Pride flag symbol, we need to make that toxic,” Knowles said. “We need to have companies think twice about it.”
“Everyone was talking about the Dylan Mulvaney incident as being harmful to the Bud Light brand,” he continued. “That’s true. But more importantly, it was harmful to the Dylan Mulvaney brand. Now, other companies are going to think twice before sponsoring Dylan Mulvaney because they don’t want to lose $6 billion in market cap in two days. That’s what we got to do. And then once we make these things culturally toxic or as we’re making these symbols culturally toxic, we’ve got to bring in the cavalry, we’ve got to come back in with more political force to ban some of this stuff and to say no.”
The Bud Light debacle started in early April, when the beer brand partnered with Mulvaney, a trans influencer and popular target for anti-trans trolls, sending her a one-off commemorative beer can with an image of her face on it. Transphobes both online and in the media quickly called for a boycott of parent company Anheuser-Busch’s products. The corporation’s lackluster response to the backlash drew criticism from the LGBTQ+ community and led the Human Rights Campaign to downgrade Anheuser-Busch’s previous 100 percent rating on the organization’s corporate equality index.
On Wednesday, Walsh also tweeted that, “The Bud Light boycott will prove to be one of the most significant conservative victories of this decade. It was never just about Bud Light. It was about sending a message.”
Max Blumenthal, Glenn Greenwald, Aaron Mate, Jonathan THE LIAR Turley and others refuse to defend transgender young adults but can't stop kissing the ass of that Mother Tucker Carlson.
"We all need to decide what kind of a world we want to live in," explained a person on the ABC special. Yes, we do. And Max and his crowd appear to have made their decision regarding which side they are on. That's why his attack on Rachel Maddow is suspect. She's one of thousands in the media who pimped the Russiagate lies and she wasn't the most powerful person speaking at the Truman Center's event. But she ended up the one targeted by Max. People are right to look at his choices and those of his friends and his first wife and come to the conclusion that his attack on Rachel Maddow had a great deal to due with the fact that she's a lesbian. That's how Max celebrate Pride -- how very FOX "NEWS" of him.