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Open in TheBrain

tomi lahren

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FOX PUNDIT?! 11 26

gone a while 8 23 now 2x mma one day?

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AN 11 26

On Tuesday, a host at Fox News asserted that the latest move by Republican lawmakers in the House makes it clear that they’re “not interested” in moving on from the MAGA agenda that proved to be historically unpopular in the midterms. According to Fox anchor Gillian Turner, the breaking news that House Republicans had just elected MAGA-oriented Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) minority leader for the upcoming term suggests that President Donald Trump and his allies are preparing to aggressively double down on the policies that dealt the party a historic electoral disaster — an assessment co-host Tomi Lahren enthusiastically seconded.

“He's a great messenger,” asserted Lahren, who herself is a longtime defender of MAGA policies. “And if the GOP, Republicans, MAGA, whatever you want to call them, learned anything from last Tuesday, it should be that they need great messengers out there that are able to articulate a viewpoint, a direction, an agenda.” Lahren’s claim comes despite the fact that voters just overwhelmingly rejected MAGA governance, with Trump-endorsed candidates frequently defeated by wide margins as polls show Americans are sick of his administration’s tariffs, deportation campaign, attacks on democracy, and corruption. Jordan — an avid Trump ally — defeated current House Speaker Steve Scalise (R-LA) by a vote of 106 to 73.

“He is certainly a fighter,” noted Turner, saying Jordan was the “more pugilistic choice” compared to Scalise, who himself is pro-MAGA, but prone to less antagonistic methods of pushing its policies. According to Turner, “This certainly signals, at least on the part of the Republicans who voted for him, that they are not interested in modifying their platform in response to the midterms.” While Turner had a note of skepticism in her voice, Lahren was more eager with her assertion that Republicans should “stick to their guns.”

As many commentators have noted, House Republicans’ decision to go with Jordan won’t likely thrill anyone outside Trump’s more fundamentalist supporters. “This will excite the (quickly dwindling) MAGA base,” noted Zeteo political columnist Justin Baragona. “But it is unclear how this helps the GOP House minority over the next two years.” As Democratic strategist Matt McDermott pointed out, this follows a questionable trend in post-midterm GOP appointments: “Seriously not sure Democrats could have scripted a better Republican response to last week’s historic midterm defeat than Stephen Miller becoming White House chief of staff and Jim Jordan taking over House Republican leadership.” According to National Review senior writer Dan McLaughlin, “Electing Jim Jordan as caucus leader is a pretty clear sign that House Republicans intend to do nothing the next two years but fight investigations of the executive branch.” And in the estimation of former presidential appointee Andrew Weinstein, “Electing Jim Jordan as minority leader suggests the House GOP has learned exactly the wrong lesson from its defeats.”

Regardless, predicted Lahren, over the next two years, Republicans will be “drilling down on their America First agenda.” It was that agenda, she claimed, that won Trump the presidency in 2024 and created the “new” Republican Party, which she refers to as the “America First” Republican Party. “Even though President Trump will not be in office at the end of this term,” concluded Lahren, “I think that the MAGA agenda will move forward.”

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AN 7 26

Right-wingers cheer as Fox’s Tomi Lahren tears into Trump’s Republican party

note no evidence, just gov't is bad

no lnx mma 8 23

fox’s antivax propagandists come out swinging against a new COVID-19 shot

WRITTEN BY MATT GERTZ

PUBLISHED 08/29/23

Tucker Carlson may be gone from Fox News, but his former colleagues are still carrying on his war against the COVID-19 vaccines that have prevented millions of American deaths since they became widely available in 2021.

Fox’s propagandists responded to President Joe Biden’s Friday call for new funding for an updated vaccine booster that will be recommended for all Americans when it becomes available this fall by warning that COVID-19 vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. Some even directly exhorted their viewers — generally seniors who are most vulnerable from COVID-19 — not to take the new booster.

“There's another shot that he's going to recommend all Americans take?” Jesse Watters, Carlson’s 8 p.m. replacement, asked Monday on Fox’s panel show, The Five. “This is another huge scamand no one is going to go along with another shot, especially if it's mandated.”

Several pharmaceutical companies are currently developing updated COVID-19 vaccines that are expected to provide increased protection from Eris, the variant currently dominant in the United States.

With COVID-19 cases on the upswing, Biden said Friday that he plans to ask Congress “for additional funding for a new vaccine” he would “tentatively” recommend “that everybody get.” The updated vaccine is expected in mid-September, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said during her Monday briefing.

Fox hosts responded with ridicule and fury. Notably, several suggested that because the initial vaccines provided limited protection from infection from newer variants (even as they continued to provide strong protection from death or serious illness), people should be skeptical of the effectiveness of an updated shot specifically targeted to current strains. That’s a recipe for Fox’s viewers to once again put their health in danger by declining the shots.

Sean Hannity once garnered unearned credit from mainstream reporters over a tepid snippet about the vaccines. But since coming under fire from right-wing rivals and walking back even those remarks, he’s rarely missed an opportunity to demonstrate his vaccine skepticism. 

“Straight ahead, COVID madness coming back,” he said, teasing a Monday night segment. “More draconian measures and a new vaccine that I'm sure they're going to tell you is absolutely safe. Like the last one? Straight ahead.”

VideoSHARE

CitationFrom the August 28, 2023, edition of Fox News' Hannity.

After the break, he introduced Biden’s comments by saying, “Here we go again,” then asked Fox contributor Tomi Lahren, “Isn't this the same Joe Biden, same government that said that if you got the vaccine, that you'd never get COVID, you'd never transmit COVID and that were proven dead wrong? Isn't that the same government?”

Lahren replied that “if the Biden administration and leftists everywhere were that concerned about a new COVID strain, a new COVID variant, that southern border would be closed,” adding, “If the American people are ever dumb enough to fall for this again, we deserved to fail as a country. But I don't believe we are dumb enough to fall for it again. Not this time.”

Hannity went on to say that while he was not giving “medical advice,” he was “not listening to them” about the vaccines because “I don't believe a word they say. They've been proven wrong again and again and again.”

Likewise, while guest-hosting Fox’s prime-time “comedy” show Gutfeld!, Jimmy Faila argued that Biden’s call for a new shot was unnecessary because “unlike the Clintons, the virus wasn’t nearly as dangerous as we were told.”

“Now, I'll admit it's nice to see this White House making news for a drug besides cocaine,” Faila said. “But there's no need to discuss any drugs because the vaccines didn't stop transmission.”

Faila went on to express confusion about why politicians would say COVID-19 “would have been way worse” if they hadn’t been vaccinated, adding, “Like, you're saying it didn't work, OK? The government was wrong about every single thing they pushed on us during COVID, especially mask mandates, lockdowns, and vaccines.”

Fox could have responded to the deployment of COVID-19 vaccines, which were developed under then-President Donald Trump and are remarkably effective in preventing serious COVID-19 cases (with rare side effects), by urging viewers to get the shots. But the network instead ran a multiyear campaign against the vaccines while relentlessly hyping ineffective drugs popular among right-wing influencers. Any moral responsibility its hosts felt for their audience was apparently overrun by their reflexive opposition to Biden and their recognition that antivax commentary was “great for ratings.” 

These attacks on the vaccination campaign had deadly consequences. Polls routinely show the network’s viewers were less likely to say they were, or planned to get, vaccinated than people who get their news from other sources.One recent study found that “excess mortality was significantly higher for Republican voters than Democratic voters after COVID-19 vaccines were available to all adults, but not before."

But Fox is undeterred by the destructive impact of its vaccine coverage. The network is doing its best to inflame viewers as its extremist competitors baselessly fearmonger over the prospect of “new lockdowns” ahead of the 2024 election. And that means more of them are going to die.

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mma 7 24

During the June 27 CNN presidential election debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, Trump made false and misleading claims about immigration and migrants seemingly drawn straight from the right-wing media echo chambers.

Trump falsely claimed that Biden “wants open borders” and “wants our country to … be destroyed,” as migrants are supposedly violent criminals stealing American jobs. He also pushed the “great replacement” theory, saying Biden wants to import migrants to vote Democratic.

Below are some of Trump’s debate claims and recent instances of right-wing media making the same points.

Claim: Migrants are stealing jobs from Americans

In the debate, Trump claimed that migrants “are taking Black jobs and they’re taking Hispanic jobs. And you haven’t seen it yet.” The New York Times, [6/27/24]|}:

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senile attack fail so now not manly? biggest mask?

https://www.alternet.org/2020/10/fox-nation-host-blasted-for-promoting-toxic-masculinity-in-attack-against-joe-biden/

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https://www.alternet.org/2020/07/outright-lies-how-voting-misinformation-flourishes-on-facebook/

ProPublica 

On April 3, Terrence K. Williams, a politically conservative actor and comedian who’s beenpraised by President Donald Trump, assured his nearly 3 million followers on Facebook that Democrats would light ballots on fire or throw them away. Wearing a red “Keep America Great” hat, Williams declared, “If you mail in your vote, your vote will be in Barack Obama’s fireplace.” The video has been viewed more than 350,000 times.

On May 8, Peggy Hubbard, a Navy veteran and police officer who this year sought the Republican nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois, warned on Facebook that the country was heading toward civil war. “Your democracy, your freedom is being stripped away from you, and if you allow that then everything this country stood for, fought for, bled for is all in vain.” The cause? California’s recent expansion of voting by mail: “The only way you will be able to vote in the upcoming election in November is by mail only,” Hubbard said. The video has attracted more than 209,000 views.

On June 27, Pamela Geller, an anti-Muslim activist with nearly 1.3 million followers, weighed in. “Mail-in ballots guarantee that the Democrats will commit voter fraud,” she said on Facebook.

There’s no evidence for any of these statements. While California will mail absentee ballots to all registered voters, polling places will also be available. Voter fraud is exceedingly rare, including with mail-in ballots. A recent Washington Post analysis analyzed three states with all-mail elections — Colorado, Oregon and Washington — and found just 372 potential irregularities among 14.6 million votes, or 0.0025%.

Facebook’s community standards ban “misrepresentation of who can vote, qualifications for voting, whether a vote will be counted, and what information and/or materials must be provided in order to vote.” But an analysis by ProPublica and First Draft, a global nonprofit that researches misinformation, shows that Facebook is rife with false or misleading claims about voting, particularly regarding voting by mail, which is the safest way of casting a ballot during the pandemic.Many of these falsehoods appear to violate Facebook’s standards yet have not been taken down or labeled as inaccurate. Some of them, generalizing from one or two cases, portrayed people of color as the face of voter fraud.

The false claims, including conspiracy theories about stolen elections or outright misrepresentations about voting by mail by Trump and prominent conservative outlets, are often among the most popular posts about voting on Facebook, according to a review of engagement data from CrowdTangle, a Facebook-owned analytics tool.

On Facebook, interactions — the number of comments, likes, reactions and shares that a post attracts — are a proxy for popularity. Of the top 50 posts, ranked by total interactions, that mentioned voting by mail since April 1, 22 contained false or substantially misleading claims about voting, particularly about mail-in ballots.

“We have a long history in this country of voter suppression that goes all the way back to our founding,” said Jessica Gonzalez, the co-CEO of Free Press, an advocacy group focused on media and technology. “This is a new way to suppress the vote, and I don’t know why Facebook wants any part of it.”

In an email, Geller said that “what I wrote was factual and accurate” and that the contention that voter fraud is rare “is ridiculous on its face.” She added: “You’re trying to deceive your readers into not believing what they see with their own eyes.”

Hubbard and Williams did not respond to questions. After ProPublica flagged their posts to Facebook, it deleted them.

A Facebook spokesperson said that the company is “running the largest voting information campaign in American history,” including aiming to register 4 million voters. It plans to create a Voting Information Center — a box on top of user feeds — “to connect people with authoritative information about the elections” and add labels that link voting-related posts to official election information.

“Making sure people have accurate information about voting is especially critical during the COVID crisis,” the spokesperson said.

From March to May 2020, Facebook removed more than 100,000 pieces of content from Facebook and Instagram for violating its policies against voter suppression, according to the company’s website. CEO Mark Zuckerberg said last month that he stands against “anything that incites violence or suppresses voting.”

ProPublica and First Draft tracked Facebook posts using voting-related keywords — including the terms “vote by mail,” “mail-in ballots,” “voter fraud” and “stolen elections” — since early April, when Trump began attacking voting by mail. Mentions of these voting-related terms nearly tripled on Facebook, with interest in the topic spiking after Twitter attached a fact-checking label to Trump’s false tweets and directed users to a fact-check page on May 26. Twitter’s intervention prompted Trump to claim that Twitter is “interfering in the 2020 Presidential Election” and “stifling FREE SPEECH.” Facebook has refused to take down Trump’s false claims about voting by mail.

Facebook’s inaction on Trump’s posts spurred pushback over misinformation on the site. Gonzalez helped organize an advertising boycott of Facebook that now includes more than 1,000 companies and some of the platform’s biggest advertisers. Among other demands, they’re calling on Facebook to remove voting misinformation.

In a long-awaited assessment of its civil rights record, Facebook was faulted last week for being “far too reluctant to adopt strong rules to limit misinformation and voter suppression.” Also last week, civil rights groups met with Facebook executives, including Zuckerberg, to push their demands and came away disappointed.

“It was all talk, no action,” Gonzalez said. “We hear words like ‘We know we need to do better’ and ‘We’re working on this,’ and yet misinformation still seems to be quite pervasive on the site.”

Facebook expects to meet one of the groups’ demands by hiring a vice president to coordinate civil rights issues internally, according to the company.

The posts identified by ProPublica and First Draft offer outright false claims about voting, blend opinion and factual errors, or mislead users about the reliability of voting methods. Facebook has said it is committed to both free speech and to providing reliable information about voting, but those goals may sometimes conflict.

Facebook has removed more than 90% of false posts referred to it by VoteSure, a 2018 initiative by the state of California to educate voters and flag misinformation, Secretary of State Alex Padilla said. In VoteSure’s first election, the 2018 midterms, 272 of 276 posts and tweets reported to social media platforms were taken down.

Still, VoteSure only identifies a small portion of misinformation, and Facebook needs to do more, Padilla said. The platform, he said, has made progress but still has “baseless outright lies, claims about massive voter fraud, and posts that are clearly wrong, or clearly erroneous.”

Trump’s false attacks on voting by mail had a total of 3.8 million interactions on Facebook. Among them, a Trump post that falsely claimed Nevada had illegally sent out ballots had the most interactions of any post that has mentioned vote by mail in the last 12 months in the U.S. Trump’s false claim that California is sending ballots to “anyone living in the state, no matter who they are or how they got there” drew the third most interactions of any post that mentioned voting over the same period, ranking behind a post from Obama and a pro-Trump meme.

In recent months, Trump has also claimed on Facebook that “mail-in ballots will lead to a “RIGGED ELECTION!” and falsely said they are “substantially fraudulent”; he made false statements about the legality of actions taken by election officials in Michigan and Nevada; and he misrepresented his own power to deny funding to states that expand vote by mail. Trump continued those false claims last week, arguing a debunked distinction between mail-in voting and absentee voting.

“What is frustrating is that Trump can post or tweet whatever he wants without the proper checks and balances,” Padilla said. “What keeps me up at night is that he’s clearly setting the stage to question election results that he might not like in November.”

Breitbart, a conservative website that has long championed Trump, has had more engagement on its voting-related stories than any other publisher from April until July 1, according to our analysis. In fact, voting-related stories on Breitbart have garnered more interactions since April than equivalent articles by The Washington Post, The New York Times and NBC News combined. Many of the Breitbart posts are misleading at best. “Obama ratchets up Democrats’ Cheat-by-Mail scheme!” read one post, linking to a story that misleadingly framed how often voter fraud occurs. Another post declared: “Flooding the nation with ballots that can be stolen, sold, discarded, and forged—THAT’s the path to Leftist victory in November.”

In a video by Fox Nation, Fox News’ streaming service, that has been viewed nearly 500,000 times, hostTomi Lahren said, “I firmly believe the only way Donald Trump loses in November is because of voter fraud.” In the video, Lahren falsely claims that voter fraud is rampant in California. “You think coronavirus is a crisis, wait till you see the voter fraud epidemic we have here in California. And mark my words it’s heading to your state like a diseased bat out of hell.” (There’s no evidence that voter fraud is rampant in California, or in any other state.)

“This is an editorial video, not a news report, which is very clear to any Fox Nation viewer,” said John Finley, executive vice president of development for Fox News Media. The White House, the Trump campaign and Breitbart did not respond to requests for comment.

In a Facebook group dedicated to fans of Candace Owens, a conservative commentator, one post circulated a 2016 video that describes a widely debunked conspiracy theory linking billionaire investor and philanthropist George Soros to “rigged” voting machines. The post has received more than 16,000 shares. Soros’ Open Society Foundations donate to ProPublica.

Claims of “stolen elections” were common across the political spectrum. A post by the left-leaning page Ridin’ With Biden contended that Trump and Kanye West were trying to steal the election. A clip of Joe Biden saying that his “single greatest concern” is that Trump would try to “steal the election” was touted as evidence of a conspiracy by Republicans. Other claims of stolen elections have come from Secure America Now, quoting Newt Gingrich; Trump’s former White House doctor Ronny Jackson, now running for Congress; and liberal accounts like StandWithMueller and Occupy Democrats.

Facebook is reportedly considering banning political ads in the days before the election. But our review showed that misinformation or false claims about voting by mail on Facebook are rarer in paid political ads than in posts. The vast majority of ads that used voting-related terms were factual and promoted voter participation broadly, including ads from Democratic and Republican groups, nonpartisan voting organizations and state election offices. However, we did find a handful of ads that pushed questionable claims about voting by mail.

A group called Morning in Nevada PAC, created by supporters of Adam Laxalt, the state’s former Republican attorney general, has launched a handful of ads attacking voting by mail, spending between $14,800 and $20,998 this year, according to a search of Facebook’s political ad library. Some of these ads make unsubstantiated claims that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to fix the election using mail-in voting.

A similar ad from the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs describes absentee ballots as the “‘tool of choice’ for those who are engaging in election fraud.”

Several posts identified by ProPublica and First Draft seized on isolated incidents to link people of color to voter fraud, a tactic reminiscent of the 1988 George H.W. Bush campaign ad that featured mug shots of Willie Horton, a Black felon who committed a rape while on a weekend furlough, to paint Michael Dukakis as weak on crime. One meme-like post has appeared on at least 136 Facebook pages and groups, including Hubbard’s, as well as groups like “2nd Amendment Hotties” and “Dullards for Trump,” which have produced 100,838 interactions. The post features a headshot of Sherikia Hawkins, a former Southfield, Michigan, clerk. Text on the image reads:

“THE DEMOCRAT CLERK OF SOUTHFIELD, MICHIGAN IS FACING TRIAL ON 6 FELONY COUNTS OF VOTER FRAUD FOR EDITING HUNDREDS OF BALLOTS. PRESIDENT TRUMP HAS BEEN RIGHT ALL ALONG ABOUT DEMOCRATS’ ELECTION TAMPERING AND VOTER FRAUD.”

The post is inaccurate. Hawkins was not charged with editing ballots themselves. She was charged in state court with altering voter records used to track ballots. No voters were disenfranchised. Hawkins, who has not yet entered a plea, is expected to face trial this year.

In June, a Patterson, New Jersey, city councilman and a councilman-elect, along with two other men, were charged with illegally collecting ballots from voters and delivering them to an election office. New Jersey prohibits anyone from delivering more than three ballots on behalf of voters. The case is pending, and the councilman and councilman-elect have said they will plead not guilty. On Facebook, Breitbart and several other conservative pages have displayed mugshots of the defendants, all of whom are people of color, to suggest that voter fraud is rampant.

“There is already a sense in the Black community that our votes will be lost and that the election won’t be fair,” said Brandi Collins-Dexter, a senior campaign director at Color of Change, a civil rights group organizing the ad boycott. “What this stuff does is just confuse people and sow distrust.”

Though vote by mail was less controversial before the pandemic, misinformation about other aspects of voting also plagued Facebook in 2016. Before Rhode Island’s presidential primary that year, Bernie Sanders supporters wrongly accused its secretary of state, Nellie Gorbea, on social media of suppressing turnout, based on a news report that the number of open polling places would be considerably less than in a November general election.

However, it’s common for states to have fewer polling locations during a primary, when turnout is lower. Rhode Island actually had 15 more locations available than in the 2012 presidential primary. In any case, the state Board of Elections, not Gorbea, was in charge of polling places.

“In 24 hours, we received thousands of comments on Facebook and Twitter,” Gorbea said. “Nothing would quell it.” Her office received angry messages from 36 states and three countries, but just one message from a Rhode Island constituent. Her office has since hired a full-time employee to monitor social media.

Exaggerating the prevalence of voting fraud can backfire. In a study released in June, researchers showed respondents a series of tweets. Some were actual 2018 tweets by Trump, Florida Gov. Rick Scott and Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Marco Rubio that put forth unfounded claims of voter fraud; others were more generic “placebo” tweets. The false claims reduced confidence in elections for everyone, the researchers found, especially Republicans and those who approve of Trump. Those groups “reported significantly lower confidence in elections after exposure to a low dose of voter fraud allegations even when those claims were countered by fact-checks.”

As a result, Trump’s rhetoric may cause fewer Republicans to vote by mail than Democrats, said Brendan Nyhan, one of the authors of the study and a political scientist at Dartmouth College. Still, Nyhan is worried about broader effects of misinformation. “The problem has clearly gotten worse in terms of elite rhetoric,” Nyhan said. “We’ve seen what happens in other countries when there isn’t a shared trust in the rules of the game in democracy and it’s not good.”

For now, misinformation may be difficult to stop before it goes viral. On July 13, conservatives on Facebook pounced on a video in which an unidentified Trump supporter said she was denied the right to vote, apparently in Louisiana. Many of these pages framed it as evidence of voter fraud and a Democratic plot to steal the election. By the time the post was deemed false by PolitiFact, a Facebook fact-checking partner, it had received more than 3.7 million views and been shared more than 170,000 times.

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fox News also published an online opinion piece Tuesday by Chuck DeVore, a former member of the California state Assembly, commending Musk’s decision and talking down California’s high-tax status: “Musk appears to be channeling his inner Davy Crockett, who after losing his campaign to get reelected to Congress in 1834 said ‘…you may all go to hell and I will go to Texas.’”

Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren also tweeted a video message Tuesday in support of Musk and against California:“Attempting to rig elections through mass voter fraud opportunities, continue to power-grab, take federal dollars to cover the tracks of their mismanagement, get Californians reliant on government — and pass it all off as public health. No, it’s public bullshit.”

She added: “And Elon Musk, I’d say go for it. Move your innovation, your jobs, your patriotic spirit to a state that still believes in freedom and still recognizes that rights come from God, not government.”

Lost in all this commentary on Fox News, however, appears to be any mention of whether health and safety issues at the plant are being addressed for the plant’s reopening.

The Los Angeles Times reported on that front:

The county said it has been working with Tesla to develop a safety plan allowing the Fremont plant to reopen. Alameda county spokesperson Neetu Balram said in a statement the county has collaborated “in good faith” with the company to create a plan that ensures safety for employees through screening procedures and by establishing processes for collecting feedback from front-line staff.

Balram said the county expected Tesla to submit a site-specific safety plan on Monday following state guidance on manufacturing businesses. But Balram said late Monday afternoon the county had not yet received a plan from Tesla.

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Here are just some of the most notable examples of conservative media pushing this negligent narrative:

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fo

x Nation host Tomi Lahren dresses as AOC for Halloween

https://nypost.com › 2019/10/31 › fox-nation-host-tomi-lahren-dresses-as-...

1.

Oct 31, 2019 - Conservative Fox Nation commentator Tomi Lahren kept it political for ... Controversial Costume Didn't Go Over Very WellMarketwatch.com.

Lahren's Controversial Costume Didn't Go Over Very Well

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appearing Friday on Fox Business to discuss the Democratic debate the night before, Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren suggested that Americans may have to shoot immigrants, saying “The people in the middle of this country, we are going to be armed and ready, because we have to have a means to defend ourselves from — who knows who's coming in?”

Guns were a main topic in right-wing media after former Rep. Beto O'Rourke (D-TX) called for a mandatory buyback of AR-15s and AK-47s. Shortly after, a Texas state rep. tweeted that "My AR is ready for you Robert Francis.” Many right-wing media figures defended the obvious death threat, and the representative was even feted on Dana Loesch's radio show and on Fox News.

Elsewhere on Fox News, Fox host Jesse Watters suggested that a buyback program, similar to what Australia has done, would result in gun owners in America murdering police officers. Others on Fox have made similar remarks.

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AN 819

no lnx

The stupid merchandise conservatives buy in their endless pursuit to ‘stick it to the libs’

Tomi Lahren athletic wear

Written by Doctor RJ / Daily Kos August 28, 2019

In their decades long resentment fueled quest to achieve government by spite, conservatives have not only sacrificed their souls, but also their wallets. Giving one’s money, time, and effort to horrible human beings in order to achieve disgusting policies is one things. But buying horrible crap just because it has some stars and stripes which these idiots say represent America and Jesus, or diet supplements with a label stating how “alpha” it is and promises to be “rock hard” in making their dick better than liberal cucks, while being promoted and hocked by the latest right-wing dipshit, well … that’s a whole other sad story.

Late last week, Fox News personality Tomi Lahren announced her “Freedom” line of athletic wear,which is being marketed specifically as “a brand that represents their freedom … a brand that represents their rights.” Lahren, who seems to be living proof hair bleach may cause brain damage, has made her bones by being Fox’s young conservative voice of millennials. However, she’s also infamous for not being the sharpest knife in the drawer, even among the dull selection of conservative nitwits which make up the pundit stable. Lahren infamously showed her lack of depth when she admitted to still being on her parents’ health insurance moments after criticizing Obamacare, which she wouldn’t have been able to do if the law didn’t exist, and received intense criticism this year when she claimed Sen. Kamala Harris had slept her way to the top.

Partnering with Alexo Athletica, a brand which makes clothing with gun holsters inside of them, the athletic line will include a bra top for $52, a sweater for $69, leggings at $89, and a bomber jacket for $99, designed around having a space for a “small self-defense tool,” which Lahren claims is “about freedom, it’s about the bill of rights, it’s about constitutional freedoms” in support of Donald Trump and the United States. However, there are two problems. Buying star-spangled polyester is a dubious argument for patriotism. And reports indicate that just like many of the bearing the name of the current president, Lahren’s clothing is being made in China.

Lahren’s is but one of many on the right-wing side of things which has embraced merchandising, and linked its sale to support of conservatism and patriotism in America. Trump himself has basically been using his position to grift supporters out of their money in selling t-shirts, straws, and other knick-knacks, and this has been true among other conservative special interests as well. The fact there are people attempting to make money off of bullshit is not new, or is it unexpected. But it is interesting to ponder the market for products whose only distinctive appeal is based on ideology, and the thought-process of the dummies who buy into all of this mess, especially in a country where the values people care about are becoming more divergent among different political ideologies.

When I went to a Trump rally back in 2016, one of the things which stood out was something which happened whil walking into the rally. Around the entrance to the event, there were a throng of vendors selling MAGA hats, Trump books, and other assorted crap which would give trash a bad name. But the juxtaposition between right-wing jagoffs screaming: “Get your ‘Bomb the shit out of ISIS’ buttons,” not far from a Girl Scout troop who had decided to use the rally to sell cookies, seemed to say it all about the combination of projected American values and unseemliness. And that combo has held true into the Trump presidency and become more and more the defining quality of the conservative movement. It comes from the same disgraceful place where the same people who want to defend the American flag from NFL players who kneel in protest then support every policy which defiles what that flag represents, even when it means concentration camps and support for white nationalist rhetoric.

The sale of conservative merchandise embraces the same “fake news” resentment of reality and what is true, and then asks the same group of people who vote against their own interests to now personally spend their money in the same way.

From Christina Zhao on Newsweek:

Lahren, 27, announced her new clothing line,“Freedom,” on Instagram last week. “Some have told me I’m too ‘controversial’ to have an athleisure line, that conservatives should just stick to politics and Trump cheerleading,” the Fox personality wrote, alongside a poster advertising the new brand. “My response? Watch me. Introducing Freedom by Tomi Lahren by @alexoathleticafull line available now.” Designed to represent patriotism, the line boasts clothing in red, white and blue as well as some items decorated with stars to loosely resemble the American flag. The line was created with active wear brand Alexo Athletica, a company known for producing clothing featuring gun holsters.

Shortly after Freedom’s launch, social media users quickly moved to accuse Lahren of producing her line in China. Freelance writer Robyn Pennacchia tweeted a screenshot of a conversation between someone selling a Alexo Athletica piece online and a potential buyer. When asked to list the materials used, the vendor responded: “It’s 95 percent polyester and 5 percent spandex. Made in China though.” … Twitter user @JordanUhl pointed out that Lahren’s allegedly made in China clothing line comes just one month after the television personality called on companies to make their products in America during a Fox Nation “Final Thoughts” segment on July 17th.

“As it stands, products used for government projects can carry the ‘Made in America’ logo with parts made of 50 percent foreign components but not under this president,” Lahren said in the segment. “Trump signed an executive order raising the percentage of American components to 75 percent. That’s right baby, made in the U.S.A.” … “He talks the talk and walks the walk. In America, it’s Americans first. We should come first in our own dang country and in under this president, we do,” the 27-year-old host added

Robyn Pennacchia

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@RobynElyse

I am shocked, shocked to find out that Tomi Lahren's Athleisure line for women who don't hate America is... Made In China.

View image on TwitterView image on Twitter

2,729

This sort of merchandising is very common among right-wing morons.

Another Fox shithead,Ben Shapiro, has been using his talk-show to market dietary supplementswhich use antioxidants, prebiotics, and probiotics.

The king of merging politics and overpriced supplements is conspiracy loon Alex Jones, who urged his viewers to buy more supplements to show their disapproval of recent bans from social media platforms. Beyond iffy and unscientific claims, Jones will now have to deal with new scrutiny from the FDA going forward.

Paul Krugman

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@paulkrugman

Replying to @paulkrugman

I first learned about the close affiliation between right-wingers and direct-order scams from @rickperlstein: https://thebaffler.com/salvos/the-long-con …

The Long Con

Mitt Romney is a liar. Of course, in some sense, all politicians, even all human beings, are liars. Romney’s lying went so over-the-top extravagant by this summer, though, that the New York Times…

thebaffler.com

Paul Krugman

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@paulkrugman

Alex Jones fits the model perfectly http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/05/how-does-alex-jones-make-money.html …

The Whole Point of Infowars Is to Sell Diet Supplements

How does Alex Jones make money? It’s not advertising, and it’s not subscriptions.

nymag.com

While it’s shouldn’t be surprising a guy which has been in court about the Emoluments Clause and wants to pimp his own golf resort for an international conference would attempt to make money off of the presidency, the Trump campaign resorting to selling plastic straws to MAGA idiots for a $1.50 per straw in order to stoke the Republican base’s anger towards companies trying to be environmentally friendly by switching to environmentally friendly paper straws struck a nerve earlier this year. It was the sort of spiteful “fuck the environment because it’ll piss the other side off” move which has defined the past three years

A Medellin, Colombia-based direct marketing company, FlowActiv, sold “The Shepherd’s Diet” to Christian conservatives and MAGA Republicans on the claim it was Biblically based and recommended by Jesus, when in fact it was basically just a warmed-over version of the Keto and Paleo diets.

From Jed Oelbaum at Vice:

The marketing pitched the diet to a holy trinity of older Americans, religious people, and the heart of MAGA America, with ads that sold it as “Donald Trump’s Plan to Make America Thin Again,” advertorials on sites like Teaparty.org, and spots that warned of “leftist food corporations” that are “terrified” of consumers taking up the diet.

Other pitches clearly targeted Christians with pop-up ads and “one weird trick”–style offers touting the program as a secret technique “hidden in the bible” that “burns fat overnight.” One bit of ad copy claimed “2,000-year-old nutritional scrolls that biblical scholars recently uncovered are bringing new hope to Americans who struggle with knowing what to eat.” Also marketed with alternate brand names like “Biblical Belly Breakthrough” and “The Truth About Fats,” at one point the program was seemingly renamed, switching from primarily “The Shepherd’s Diet” to “The Shepherd’s Code.” (In Spanish, the plan goes by “La Dieta de Jesus.”)

Less than a year later, the Shepherd’s Diet, was gone, leaving a trail of misleading ads, questionable charges, and broken weight-loss dreams. Some fans of the diet say it helped them lose weight and get in shape. But other customers told VICE News that it’s a “scam” targeted at Christian consumers. Either way, its story is a glimpse into the growing online landscape of unaccountable businesses hawking shady products to Christians and conservatives in the Trump era.

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/08/fox-news-tomi-lahren-delivers-insane-new-claim-gun-rights-are-gay-rights/

no lnx twt

Fox News’ Tomi Lahren dragged for trying to use LGBTQ people as an issue against Ocasio-Cortez and ‘The Squad’

Written by David Badash / The New Civil Rights Movement August 20, 2019

Tomi Lahren, the Fox Nation host who’s been mocked as “white power Barbie,” could also be called anti-LGBT Tomi. Time and time again, often out of the blue, Lahren has railed against the LGBTQ community.

But now Lahren is getting slammed for a tweet she posted, trying to use LGBTQ people as an issue against the progressive Congresswomen known as “The Squad,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (NY), Ilhan Omar (MN), Ayanna Pressley (MA), and Rashida Tlaib (MI).

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Lahren posted a link to a Fox News article, “Palestinian Authority bans LGBTQ activities in West Bank, reports say.”

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If Lahren were an LGBBTQ supporter, advocate, or ally, perhaps her taunt might have worked, a bit, but she’s not.

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Just two weeks ago, after the El Paso and Dayton mass shooting massacres, Lahren tried to use the LGBTQ community to advance her extremist pro-gun agenda, claiming gun rights are gay rights. It bombed.

A month ago Lahren told World Cup champion Megan Rapinoe, that she’s actually not a hero.

Earlier this year Lahren stoked outrage when she lied, falsely claiming “The Left” says “we MUST be tolerant of Sharia Law” and “stoning of gays.”

And in February Lahren went ballistic – out of the blue slamming the LGBT community for “this ongoing and continual assault on masculinity and “attacking traditional men and marriage at every turn.”

So, it’s not surprising that Lahren got totally dragged Monday for her latest ignorant tweet.

Take a look:...

==

Fox News commentator Tomi Lahren apologized on Thursday for a sexist tweet about Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) the previous night, arguing that it was “the wrong choice of words.” But she previously pushed the same repugnant smear on her Fox Nation show, and several other Fox commentators have also promoted the narrative.

During the July 31 Democratic presidential debate, Lahren attacked Harris for her relationship with former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown in the 1990s, tweeting, “Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?”

The sexist narrative has gained traction on anonymous message board fever swamps and among right-wing influencers. Lahren’s vile Tweet was widely condemned, including by some of her Fox colleagues. Network commentators Britt McHenry and Kat Timpf both chastised the Fox Nation host on Twitter, and several Fox employees admonished her.

On Thursday morning, Lahren tweeted, “I apologize for my comment on Kamala’s personal relationship. It was the wrong choice of words. There are many other things to take her to task for and I will stick to those.”

But Lahren hasn’t limited her use of this misogynistic smear to her personal Twitter feed -- she previously devoted an entire episode of her Fox Nation show to the claim. Lahren accused Harris of “using an extramarital affair to boost her political career” and “dating [her] way to the top” in January.

Lahren faced no apparent consequences for the Fox Nation segment, just as she faced no consequences for using a 4chan lie to attack Sen. Elizabeth Warren. Unsurprisingly, Fox has not responded to questions about whether Lahren was disciplined for her tweets smearing Harris.

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ref

https://www.mediamatters.org/tomi-lahren/tomi-lahren-pushed-4chan-lie-about-elizabeth-warren-and-fox-news-hasnt-done-thing-about

Fox Nation host Tomi Lahren slandered a sitting senator and a 2020 presidential hopeful by accusing her of racism and amplified a hoax that originated from anonymous message boards. In the days since, Fox News has done nothing to hold Lahren accountable.

Four days after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) announced that she was launching an exploratory committee to run for president in 2020, Lahren shared with her 1.2 million followers on Twitter the slanderous accusation that Warren had a racist ornament in her kitchen:

[pix]

The screenshot of Warren’s kitchen is from a live Instagram Q&A session she did on New Year’s Eve. Lahren was amplifying and spreading a hoax that previously was spread in the anonymous message board 4chan and “r/The_Donald” subreddit on Reddit, in which a vase was misconstrued to be a racist figurine of a Black child eating a watermelon. As documented by Right Wing Watch, Lahren deleted her tweet but did not apologize or provide clarification to her massive audience. Fox News not only failed to acknowledge the slander, but Lahren’s Fox Nation shows, First Thoughts and Final Thoughts, continued to stream as scheduled on Fox’s online platform. The network also continued to book Lahren on its cable morning program, Fox & Friends.

Lahren’s Twitter feed is a constant stream of inaccuracies, falsehoods, and vitriol.She once apparently echoed the idiotic conspiracy theory that white supremacist Jason Kessler (who organized the 2017 racist “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, VA) was a tool of the left. She tweeted that watching immigrants getting tear-gassed at the border was the highlight of her Thanksgiving weekend. And just this week, Lahren baselessly claimed that the remittances that undocumented immigrants send to their home countries are used to fund “cartel and criminal organizations.” Fox News kept her on air and even gave her a hosting gig on Fox Nation.

The network ignoring its host amplifying a easily-debunked hoax from 4chan shows the garbage that the network finds acceptable. The network also recently gave a pass to Rep. Steve King (R-IA), after King embraced white supremacy in an interview with The NewYork Times.Fox covered the story for a mere 42 seconds, framing its coverage as King “fighting back against a New York Times article” (a reference to King’s statement in response to the Times article).

What Fox does find unacceptable, however, is cursing. The day after Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) said “impeach the motherfucker” in reference to President Donald Trump, the network gave 52 minutes of coverage to her comment -- 74 times more than it gave to King’s white supremacy.

==

Grow the f*ck up’: Tomi Lahren blasted for blaming trend of white shooters on ‘over-medication’

Fox News host Tomi Lahren argued over the weekend that…

==

Tomi Lahren’s attack on Kamala Harris was so vile even her Fox News colleagues are calling her out: ‘It makes me sick’

Written by Alex Henderson August 1, 2019

It isn’t uncommon for Fox News’ Tomi Lahren to be attacked from the left: the far-right firebrand has a long history of saying inflammatory things that are likely to anger liberals and progressives. But this week, Lahren’s attack on Sen. Kamala Harris of California was so repulsive that even her right-wing colleagues at Fox News are calling her out.

Tuesday on Twitter, Lahren attacked both Harris and another well-known California Democrat, former San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown, when she posted, “Kamala, did you fight for ideals, or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?” The tweet was bound to come under fire from the left, butFox News’ Kat Timpf was equally angry  — responding, “I am curious to know what you think bringing a woman’s personal/sexual life into this accomplishes. Men do that to us enough as it is. I’m honestly asking.”

Fox Nation’s Britt McHenry was angry as welland tweeted, “Do you have any idea how damaging this is to women who’ve actually been sexually harassed, assaulted or demeaned in the workplace? How much this weakens our own gender, regardless of partisanship. My goodness.”

Tomi Lahren

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@TomiLahren

Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?

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5:26 PM - Jul 31, 2019

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16.6K people are talking about this

In a separate tweet, McHenry posted, “Slept her way to the top? I’m sorry, what law degree do you have? What state bar did you pass?”

At 26, Lahren has been described as a millennial Ann Coulter. And Lahren, not unlike Coulter, often makes offensive statements in the hope of getting a reaction.

Kat Timpf

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@KatTimpf

I am curious to know what you think bringing a woman’s personal/sexual life into this accomplishes. Men do that to us enough as it is. I’m honestly asking. https://twitter.com/tomilahren/status/1156722853846237184 …

Tomi Lahren

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@TomiLahren

Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?

12.7K

6:14 PM - Jul 31, 2019

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3,350 people are talking about this

Tomi Lahren

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@TomiLahren

Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?

Britt McHenry

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@BrittMcHenry

Do you have any idea how damaging this is to women who’ve actually been sexually harassed, assaulted or demeaned in the workplace? How much this weakens our own gender, regardless of partisanship. My goodness.

1,123

8:18 PM - Jul 31, 2019

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272 people are talking about this

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CNN’s Oliver Darcy also weighed in on the Lahren/Harris controversy, tweeting that he has been “hearing from Fox staffers who are not happy with @TomiLahren’s tweet. One Fox News employee, quoted anonymously, told Darcy, “It makes me sick that I work for the same company as Tomi Lahren.” And another anonymous Fox News employee told Darcy that Lahren’s attack on Harris is “unacceptable.”

Oliver Darcy

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@oliverdarcy

This kind of commentary is really reprehensible. https://twitter.com/TomiLahren/status/1156722853846237184 …

Tomi Lahren

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@TomiLahren

Kamala did you fight for ideals or did you sleep your way to the top with Willie Brown?

Oliver Darcy

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@oliverdarcy

I've been hearing from Fox staffers who are not happy with @TomiLahren's tweet. "It makes me sick that I work for the same company as Tomi Lahren," one Fox employee told me. Another employee called it "unacceptable." I reached out to Fox, but no comment. https://mailchi.mp/cnn/rs-july-31-2019 …

==

‘I’m sick of this!’ Fox News’ Tomi Lahren gets livid and complains that she’s not allowed to be proud of ‘heterosexuality’

Fox News pundit Tomi Lahren is coming out for “straight pride,” and she’s…

==

Fox's Tomi Lahren outraged about new Border Patrol job: "That they had to create a new position to essentially baby-sit illegals is mind-boggling"

==

https://www.alternet.org/2019/01/rapper-cardi-b-shuts-down-tomi-lahren-in-a-single-tweet-for-mocking-her-call-to-end-the-government-shutdown/

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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomi_Lahren

Tomi Lahren (/ˈtɒmi ˈlærən/; born August 11, 1992) is an American conservative political commentator and former television host.[1] She hosted Tomi on TheBlaze, where she gained notice for her short video segments called "final thoughts", in which she frequently criticized liberal politics.[2] Many of her videos went viral, with The New York Times describing her as a "rising media star".[3]^

Lahren was suspended from TheBlaze in March 2017 after saying in an interview on The View that she believed women should have legal access to abortion.[4] Shortly thereafter, she began working for Great America Alliance, an advocacy organization that supports Donald Trump,[5] and, in August 2017, she joined Fox News as a contributor.[6] Lahren's commentaries have frequently been described by critics as racist, which she disputes.[3]^

Contents

Early life

Lahren grew up in Rapid City, South Dakota, in a USMC family,[jargon] and attended Central High School.[7][8][9][unreliable ^source?] She is of German and Norwegian descent.[10]Lahren graduated from University of Nevada, Las Vegas in 2014 with a B.A. in broadcast journalism and political science.[11] She also hosted and associate produced the university's political roundtable show The Scramble.[12] Lahren interned for Republican congresswoman Kristi Noem, serving as the first intern at Noem's Rapid City office.[13]^

Career

Hoping to find an internship in political commentary, Lahren applied to One America News Network (OANN), obtained an interview, and was instead offered the opportunity to host her own show. She moved to San Diego, California and began working for OANN. On Point with Tomi Lahren debuted in August 2014.[14][7][15]^

In July 2015, a video of her commentary on the 2015 Chattanooga shootings garnered widespread attention.[16] On August 19, Lahren announced that she had completed her last show with OANN. She moved to Texas, and began a new show with TheBlaze in November 2015. She became known for ending her program with three-minute segments called "final thoughts", in which she spoke extremely quickly. These segments became widely popular on social media, but have been called "screeds" and "rants".[17]^

In January 2016, Lahren endorsed Marco Rubio for president in the Republican Party presidential primary.[18][19] On November 30, Lahren appeared on The Daily Show with Trevor Noah for a 26-minute interview. Many critics compared her appearance to former host Jon Stewart's friendly rivalry with Bill O'Reilly.[20][21][22]^

On March 17, 2017, Lahren made a guest appearance on The View in which she said that women should have access to abortion and said she would be a hypocrite if she supported both "limited government and also government restrictions on abortion".[23] TheBlaze's owner, Glenn Beck, who is pro-life , criticized Lahren for her comments and suspended her with pay,[4][24] leading Lahren to file a wrongful termination suit.[25][26][27]The suit was settled under an agreement in which Lahren kept her Facebook page but removed videos she had made with TheBlaze.[28]^

In May 2017, Lahren began working in communications at Great America Alliance, an offshoot of Great America PAC, a large pro-Donald Trump super PAC chaired by Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. Lahren described her role there as a "side gig" and said she would return to television as a commentator.[5] In August 2017, Lahren joined Fox News as a contributor.[11]^

Political views

Lahren speaking at a campaign rally for U.S. Senate candidateKelli Ward in August 2018

Lahren describes herself as a "constitutional conservative".[29] She has said that she is a commentator, not a journalist,[30] and that her shows are not about presenting news neutrally, but about commentary and "mak[ing] the news".[17] The Daily Beast described her as a "right-wing provocateur".[31]^

Critics have considered Lahren's commentaries racist, which Lahren has disputed.[3][30] She has been described as an "anti-feminist who admires strong women", with positions on immigration similar to those of Donald Trump.[17] She has criticized African Americans on various social issues, including drug abuse and unemployment.[17] She has said that while she does not consider herself a feminist,[32] she believes in women's empowerment and looks up to various women from both the political left and the political right.[17]^

In July 2016, Lahren posted a tweet comparing the Black Lives Matter movement to the Ku Klux Klan.[17] Tens of thousands of people signed a Change.org petition in response asking for her to be fired from TheBlaze.[33] The petition was unsuccessful. In November 2016, Lahren released a video on the protests against Donald Trump.[34] In August 2016, she released a video criticizing NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick, who had been protesting racism by kneeling during the playing of the national anthem before football games.[3]^

In March 2017, Lahren said she was pro-choice, sparking criticism from a number of pro-life writers.[35] TheBlaze owner Glenn Beck, among others, noted that Lahren had previously publicly said she was pro-life, in addition to numerous other inconsistencies on other issues.[26] Soon thereafter, Lahren told Playboy that she had always supported abortion rights as a matter of national law but was personally against abortion.[36][37]^

Lahren supports fracking and denied climate change.[9][unreliable ^source?][23]

Controversy

In August 2018, at a political rally for Kelli Ward, Lahren warned against voters electing 'RINOs' (Republicans in name only) like Senators John McCain and Jeff Flake into Congress.[38] Lahren was criticized as cruel and disrespectful as McCain was in very poor health; that day he discontinued medical treatment for brain cancer, and he died the next day. Many people have called out Lahren for her behavior including former Fox News anchor Greta Van Susteren.[39][40]^

References

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Tomi Lahren, Sean Hannity, and Fox News

Fox News has hired Tomi Lahren. That may not seem surprising on its face if you know anything about Lahren,

https://www.mediamatters.org/research/2017/08/30/trump-sycophant-tomi-lahren-joins-fox-news-after-taking-cues-sean-hannity/217811

who used to work at Glenn Beck's outlet and also at a Trump Super PAC. But there was one notable thing about her hire: Fox News announced that Lahren will primarily appear only on Hannity's Fox News show. This reveals that Fox executives are complicit in turning Hannity's show into a propagandist cesspool.

==

Variety: Fox News signed Tomi Lahren as a contributor. Fox News announced on August 30 that “conservative media host Tomi Lahren has joined Fox News in a contributor role,” according to Varietymagazine. Lahren will reportedly “have a signature role on the network’s upcoming digital lineup and will also offer political commentary to the network’s opinion programming, primarily ‘Hannity.’” From the August 30 article:

Conservative media host Tomi Lahren has joined Fox News in a contributor role, the cable news network announced Wednesday.

She will make her debut as a contributor on tonight’s edition of “Hannity” at 10 p.m. ET/PT. According to FNC, Lahren will have a signature role on the network’s upcoming digital lineup and will also offer political commentary to the network’s opinion programming, primarily “Hannity.” *Variety*, [8/30/17]

Lahren recently had a weeklong residency on Fox’s Hannitywhere she complemented Hannity’s pro-Trump propaganda

During her weeklong “audition” on Fox, Lahren ripped a page from Hannity’s playbook, attacking mainstream media and other Republicans while heaping praise on Trump. During her monologues for “The Final Word” segment of Hannityin July, Lahren attacked media outlets for reporting on President Donald Trump’s Twitter habits, criticized celebrities as having “Trump derangement syndrome” for speaking out against the president, and warned Trump dissidents in the Republican Party to get behind the president’s agenda:

Lahren seems to have auditioned for the Hannity role in mid-July, when she appeared for a weeklong stretch on “The Final Word,” a taped monologue segment at the end of Hannity’s show. Other recent participants include pro-Trump commentators Diamond and Silk and Terrence Williams of YouTube.

Lahren’s “The Final Word” monologues, much like Hannity’s own performances, feature a mix of pro-Trump cheerleading, criticism of his foes, and policy pablum. She attacked the “leftist mainstream media” for “nitpicking” Trump’s habits while ignoring that the “average American is making a comeback under this president.” She criticized the “Hollywood elitist[s]” like Kathy Griffin, Johnny Depp, and Madonna, and their “Trump derangement syndrome.” She also complained that the rest of the Republican Party refuses to get on board and pass the president’s agenda. *Media Matters*, [8/30/17]

Lahren has built her career on attacking liberals

Lahren got her start on One America News Network by attacking President Obama for failing to blame “radical Islam” for Chattanooga terror attack. The Guardian reported that after getting rejected for an internship at Glenn Beck’s staunchly conservative news outlet TheBlaze in 2014, she found a welcome home at One America News Network (OANN), a right-wing news network that has become a key peg in Trump’s propaganda mill. Lahren hosted On Point and gained notoriety after admonishing then-President Barack Obama for his “reluctance to blame Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez’s shootings on a military recruiting centre and navy reserve base in Chattanooga on ‘radical Islam.’” Obama declined to use the term in order to avoid “lump[ing] these murderers into the billion Muslims that exist around the world, including in this country, who are peaceful.” The Guardian’s profile of Lahren noted that she would later be dubbed “white power Barbie” for her inflammatory racial and nativist rhetoric. The Guardian*, [9/23/16; *Media Matters, 1/19/17; CNN, 9/29/16]

Lahren then got a job at TheBlaze where she used her platform to berate liberal activists, usually referring to them as “snowflakes.” After leaving OANN, Lahren joined TheBlaze where she often dedicated entire segments to attacking progressive activists, calling them “snowflakes.” In one instance, she offered a number of different definitions for the term “snowflake,” declaring, “If you believe illegal immigrants should be able to get driver's licenses and in-state tuition and Obamacare, you might be a snowflake,” and “If the term ‘White Christmas’ seems racist to you, you might be a snowflake.” Another time, according to The Daily Beast, Lahren directly addressed liberals, saying, “I am your worst nightmare. I don’t care what you label me or how many times you come for me. I am fearless and I’m just getting started.” TheBlaze, [1/10/17; The Daily Beast, 12/9/16]

Before landing a spot at Fox News, Lahren worked for a pro-Trump super PAC subsidiary

Dallas Morning News: Lahren joined an arm of Great America Alliance PAC as a “side gig” while she was weighing TV options. In May, Dallas Morning News reported that Lahren was joining “Great America Alliance, a nonprofit promoting President Donald Trump’s agenda, as its senior adviser for communications,” which was “formed by people behind the Great America PAC, the largest such group to support Trump.” Great America Alliance co-founder Eric Beach told the Dallas newspaper, “Tomi was an important and impactful voice in support of Donald Trump during the campaign.” *Dallas Morning News*:{, :(style="background-color:#ffffffff"):}:[5/22/17]

Lahren frequently uses racist dog whistles in her angry monologues

In a tweet that has since been deleted, Lahren wrote, “Meet the new KKK, they call themselves 'Black Lives Matter.'”

*The Baltimore Sun*, [7/10/16]

Lahren claimed that the Black Entertainment Television network’s “definition of a humanitarian is someone who perpetuates a war on cops.” According to The Daily Beast, in response to actor Jesse Williams’ acceptance speech “indicting systemic racism and pleading for equality and justice” at the 2016 BET awards, Lahren remarked, “The BET definition of a humanitarian is someone who perpetuates a war on cops.” Lahren also said that using “the term unarmed black man” when describing an unarmed victim of police brutality “may be literally accurate, but it doesn’t tell the whole story in most cases. In a number of cases, if the victim ended up being unarmed, it was certainly not for a lack of trying.” The Daily Beast, [12/9/16]

Lahren attacked Colin Kaepernick as a “whiny, indulgent, attention-seeking cry baby” for declining to stand for the national anthem in protest of racial injustice. After football player Colin Kaepernick refused to stand for the national anthem as a way of protesting racial oppression and police brutality, Lahren labeled him a “whiny, indulgent, attention-seeking cry baby.” She also addressed Kaepernick, saying, “It seems to me blaming white people for all of your problems might make you the racist.” YouTube,[9/15/16]

Lahren has insisted that immigrants and refugees are criminals and rapists that would cause a “fundamental transformation” of their new country

Lahren used “A Day Without Immigrants” to cast undocumented immigrants as violent criminals. Lahren dedicated one of her monologues to criticize “A Day Without Immigrants,” a “combination boycott/strike” that meant to highlight “the contributions of immigrants to U.S. business and culture,” falsely asserting that, “a day without illegal immigrants means a safer America for us all as illegal immigrants are three times as likely to be convicted of murder as members of the general population.” YouTube,[2/16/17; NPR, 2/16/17; CBS News, 1/27/17]

Lahren: “I, quite frankly, am tired of pressing two.” In 2015, Lahren opened one of her monologues saying, “Let’s talk about immigration because I, quite frankly, am tired of pressing two.” She was referring to the option to press two for Spanish when calling customer service phone numbers and later implied that being an American meant speaking English, an ideal frequently pushed by anti-immigrant nativist groups. In between making these nativist remarks, she attempted to whitewash her anti-immigrant rhetoric, commenting, “Transferring frustration with a broken system into hate for our fellow human beings does not solve the problem.” YouTube,[10/27/15; Southern Poverty Law Center, 8/27/15]

Lahren called refugees “rape-ugees”:

Follow

:{[Tomi Lahren :{}:

✔

@TomiLahren](https://twitter.com/TomiLahren)}:

Are we worried? Is that an honest question? Yes we are worried about the rape-ugees. #GOPDebate

4:17 PM - Jan 14, 2016

55 Replies

1818 Retweets

7474 likes

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Twitter, [1/14/16]

Lahren told Playboythat Europe has experienced “a fundamental transformation” due to its refugee policy. Lahren pointed to Europe’s refugee policy as a justification for Trump’s Muslim ban, saying in an interview with Playboy magazine, “Look at Europe. They’ve said, ‘Bring them all in,’ and look what’s happening there? It’s a fundamental transformation.” *Playboy*, [5/2/17]

Lahren frequently diminishes feminism as a form of “victimhood”

Lahren claimed feminists use the obstacles women face as “an excuse to fall short.” Without giving any evidence, Lahren claimed on International Women’s Day that feminist activists cast themselves as victims and feel they “deserve special treatment because [they] have ovaries and menstrual cycles.” She also said, “Yeah, some challenges might be a little greater for some women but let me tell you — it feels a whole hell of a lot better to overcome those challenges than it does to dwell on them, complain about them, or use them as an excuse to fall short.” TheBlaze, [3/8/17]

Lahren dismissed modern-day feminism as the "dumbest load of hypocritical crap ever masqueraded as an equality movement." Lahren responded to news that Aleppo, Syria, was being evacuated as a result of the country’s raging civil war by attacking the United Nations’ decision to remove Wonder Woman as an honorary ambassador, attributing the move to the pressure by “feminist cry babies.” Lahren also dismissed modern-day feminism as the “dumbest load of hypocritical crap ever masqueraded as an equality movement.” TheBlaze, [12/15/16]

Lahren falsely claimed that feminism is “wanting free abortions or free birth control” and is based on “a false statistic like the 77 cents on the dollar bullshit.” Lahren told Playboy that feminism is “bad” for the U.S. and misinterpreted the feminist movement as one that simplifies women’s issues “into wanting free abortions or free birth control” and “using a false statistic like the 77 cents on the dollar bullshit.” *Playboy*, [5/2/17]

Lahren lauded conservative women for “dressing like women” as opposed to liberals who wear pant suits. Speaking at Turning Point USA’s Young Women’s Leadership Summit, Lahren characterized modern feminists as being “all about ‘give me.’ It’s ‘Give me this. Give me this. Pay for my birth control. Pay for my abortions.” She also told her audience, “You notice the difference between a conservative women’s conference and a liberal women’s conference, because you all dress like women.” YouTube,[6/23/16]

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