Written by John Rustin

In a sickening example of just how far the liberal media is willing to go to normalize abortion, National Public Radio (NPR) aired a report recently (Nov. 3, 20220) that includes an audio clip of a woman undergoing a surgical abortion.

“You’re gonna hear this machine turn on now, okay, it makes a loud noise,” a female voice says—presumably the doctor—as a vacuum pump is activated. The next 20 seconds is heart-wrenching and nauseating, as a woman moans and groans while her unborn child is literally sucked out of her womb. The NPR reporter admits that the abortion procedure typically takes several minutes, but the short clip, as difficult as it is to hear, followed by an encouraging “You did it!” from the attending clinic staffer, makes the procedure seem quite routine and ordinary.

Moreover, the NPR story has an unmistakable “political” angle. The eleven-minute audio report is entitled, “What it’s like inside a Michigan abortion clinic, days before the midterm elections.” This comes less than a week before Michigan voters decide on a ballot measure that, if passed, would enshrine a constitutional right to “reproductive freedom” (i.e., abortion) in the state constitution.

According to NPR reporter Kate Wells, “In the Northland [Family Planning] waiting room, there are these inspirational quotes on the walls, like, ‘Good women get abortions.’ Another one says, ‘A lot of beautiful, wise women have been here before and are here today.’” Later, she describes the procedure room, “The lights are dimmed. There’s soothing music. It actually feels a lot like a childbirth.” “Whether it’s a birth or an abortion, it is often women guiding other women,” Wells says in an inspiring tone.

She interviews several women at the abortion clinic, most of whom already have young children and laud abortion as the solution to being pregnant. One woman, who has two daughters and is pregnant with twins from an abusive man says, “I’m so fertile, that it’s like literally I just have to stop having sex in order not to be pregnant.” Another married mother of three says she wants to go back to work and “just kind of have something for myself other than just being a mother all day every day,” so she is seeking an abortion.

The report also belittles pro-life pregnancy care centers, and paints them as deceptive, coercive, and unprofessional.

Of course, we have come to expect a certain level of bias in the media, especially from outlets like NPR, but the heartlessness of this report takes it to an entirely different level. NPR’s blatant attempt to normalize abortion and to influence the election in Michigan and across our nation is obvious and unmistakable.

I pray the callousness of this report will prick the heart and conscience of our nation as the evil of abortion is exposed.

After all, the lone voice not heard in NPR’s eleven-minute audio report is that of the child whose life was simply vacuumed away.

This article was originally shared as content from NC Family Action.

Stop reading for a moment. Go get some popcorn, and then sit back and enjoy two rousing videos of heroes pointing their sharpened spear tips right at the rhythmically contracting cardiac tissue of two government re-education camps (so much better to spear the pulsating cardiac organ of leftist schools than that of humans in their mothers’ wombs).

For those who prefer reading, here is some of what former Pennsbury School Board member Simon Campbell said:

This is my comment, not your comment. I’m quoting to you now from the United States Supreme Court, 1964 case, New York Times versus Sullivan. This is constitutional case law in this country. … The judges wrote that this nation is founded on the “profound national commitment to the principle that debate on public issues shall be uninhibited, robust and wide open, and that it may well include vehement, caustic, and sometimes unpleasantly sharp attacks on government and public officials.” That’s constitutional case law in this nation. I don’t have to be nice to you. Nobody behind me has to be nice to you. If you don’t like living in the United States of America, then you can all move to Russia, Cuba, or China. This is the First Amendment. …

There are emails, public record emails, in which the director of equity is lobbying and advocating for public comment to be censored in this school district. … We’ve got the school board president saying she’ll do better at hitting the mute button in blatant violation of the constitution for her lobbying and her advocacy of unconstitutional censorship. I want you, the school board, to terminate the employment of (director of equity] Dr. Cherrissa Gibson with immediate effect. And after you’ve terminated her employment, I want all of you to tender your resignations for hating on this country. We have a God-given constitutional right to critique you, and we can speak in any lawful tone that we see fit.

I recently wrote about the growing resistance to the usurpation of public schools for leftist ideological purposes. The resistance movement is spreading and growing in both intensity and numbers. For decades there have been spear-wielding soldiers fighting the good fight, but, shamefully, the troops that should have been marshalling behind those on the frontlines did nothing. They didn’t back the courageous men and women on the frontlines. They sat home fearful and semi-embarrassed of their conservative brethren, rationalizing their cowardice as the ideological malignancies metastasized in schools.

Leftists know they can destroy lives and careers when the number of resistors are small. They also know they can’t destroy the lives and careers of armies of resistors, which is why leftists are now in a state of panic. It’s also why conservatives must come out in droves to stop the spread of Critical Race Theory and deviant views of sexuality in public schools.

I have learned the sorry lesson over the past 20 years that adults are as fearful of ostracism and needy for peer approval as the neediest teen, and as a result, many conservative Americans do not treat their conservative beliefs as if they believe they’re true. Many conservatives fear the stink-eye of the cool crowd more than the all-seeing eye of the creator of the universe who has the power to destroy body and soul.

While ideological groomers in government schools affirm homosexuality, cross-sex impersonation, and anal sex to grade schoolers with public money, milquetoasty Christians fret about how to address these evils “winsomely.” There are times and places, however, when evil demands righteous wrath, for which God has given us rhetoric. Properly trained minds and hearts are able to discern which words and tone are appropriate for confronting evil.

Here’s the deal, people are not only cowed by the madding crowd. They can also be inspired by boldness and fearlessness. The willingness to endure the slings and arrows of the cool crowd sets an example for others to emulate. Leaders inspire and galvanize others to walk the hard path.

Career military officer, Purple Heart recipient, attorney, and former Virginia State Senator Dick Black recognizes the evil being done to children, and at a recent Loudon County School Board meeting, Black properly—that is, passionately—expressed what all decent people should be expressing at school board meetings all across the country:

You retaliated against (P.E. teacher) Tanner Cross for addressing a public hearing of this board. The judge ordered you to reinstate Mr. Cross, because if his comments were not protected speech, then free speech does not exist at all. It’s absurd and immoral for teachers to call boys girls and girls boys. You’re making teachers lie to students, and even kids know that it’s wrong. This board has a dark history of suppressing free speech. They caught you red-handed with an enemies list to punish opponents of Critical Race Theory. You’re teaching children to hate others because of their skin color. And you’re forcing them to lie about other kids’ gender. I am disgusted by your bigotry and your depravity.

Immediately after Mr. Black’s comments, the school board shut down public comments and walked out, leaving scores of people unable to make their comments.

Who needs Netflix, when you’ve got warriors with spears poking leftist school board members and backed up by troops who have finally reported for active duty?

Wall Street Journal reporter Abigail Shrier, who wrote the critically important book Irreparable Damage on the staggering explosion in the number of adolescent girls joining the “trans’-cult, recently wrote an article expressing her frustration with the passivity of people who know how damaging “trans”-cultic beliefs and practices are to children and yet say nothing:

[I]f you read my inbox, you’d think I was popular, awash as I am in secret fan mail and “silent supporter” notes. …

Child and adult psychologists and psychiatrists write to say they have witnessed a surge in transgender identification among teen girls who seem to be acting under peer and social media influence. Teachers write to say they believe that the phenomenon is plainly an example of social contagion within their classrooms. Surgeons and pediatricians and endocrinologists write to wonder aloud at what has happened to their profession.

There are lawyers who posit that lawsuits are on the way—brought by others, presumably. Professors who have come to hate their jobs—you can’t discuss your own research without trampling on a young generation’s vast neural network of sensitivities. Journalists at our most storied newspapers, TV networks, and literary magazines, even at NPR, write to tell me they liked my book, they agree with it, and to tut-tut the abuse directed at me. They assure me that the horrible accusations—from child predation to white supremacy and transphobia—accusations that will forever live on the internet, blackening my name, are things no one really believes. …

And so, for over a year, I responded to those silent supporters with thanks and reassurance. You don’t have to speak out, just send me your documents — I will expose it for you. No need to stand up for me publicly, just tell me what you know. For a while, this seemed a decent bargain. …

[I]t is easy to justify our silence. We tell ourselves that we are protecting our families by remaining quiet and in the short-term, and we may be. But we are also handing our children over to a culture in which freedom of conscience and expression are drowned out. We are teaching our children that truth shouldn’t be our primary concern—or at least, that truth is negotiable or subordinate to being agreeable. They are learning that it is more important to remain acceptable to the powerful than to be truly free. …

[T]he inescapable reality is that defeating this ideology will take courage. And courage is not something that can happen in private. Courage requires each one of us to speak up, publicly, for what we believe in. Even when—especially when—it carries costs.

Christians are expected by God to take up our crosses daily, even when doing so carries costs.

The only regret I have when watching these school board meetings during which arrogant and morally vacuous board members are feeling the righteous wrath of community members is that the guiltier parties are getting off scot-free. Faculty activists have been scurrying around like unseen roaches, seeding their false, destructive, and evil ideas in the minds and hearts of other people’s children using taxpayer money to do their dirty work.

And it is dirty.

• It is false, destructive, and evil to teach that girls can be boys.

• It is false, destructive, and evil to teach children that cross-sex hormone-doping and bodily mutilation are healthy and good “treatments” for gender dysphoria.

• It is false, destructive, and evil to teach that in order to be compassionate and inclusive, children must relinquish their privacy and welcome cross-dressing opposite-sex peers into their bathrooms, locker rooms, and sports teams.

• It is false, destructive, and evil to teach children that commitments to love and respect require that they view homosexuality as favorably as heterosexuality.

• It is destructive and evil to require teachers to refer to students or colleagues who identify as the sex they are not and never can be by opposite-sex pronouns.

• It is destructive and evil to recommend or require students to read plays and novels with obscene language and graphic (usually disordered) sexuality.

• It is destructive and evil to teach children anything about masturbation, anal sex, “gender expansiveness,” homosexuality, or “trans”-cultism, let alone advocate leftist views of these topics as if their views are objective, inarguable facts.

• It is destructive and evil to teach racist, sexist, heterophobic, “cis”-phobic, anti-American, Marxist Critical Race Theory as objectively true and to do so without presenting dissenting views.

Several months ago, conservative Catholic philosopher and Princeton University law professor Robert P. George tweeted this:

I sometimes ask students what their position on slavery would have been had they been white and living in the South before abolition. Guess what? They all would have been abolitionists! They all would have bravely spoken out against slavery and worked tirelessly against it. Of course, this is nonsense. Only the tiniest fraction of them, or of any of us, would have spoken up against slavery or lifted a finger to free the slaves. Most of them—and us—would have gone along. Many would have supported the slave system and happily benefited from it.

So, I respond by saying that I will credit their claims if they can show evidence of the following: that in leading their lives today they have stood up for the rights of unpopular victims of injustice whose very humanity is denied, and where they have done so knowing: 1) that it would make them unpopular with their peers, (2) that they would be loathed and ridiculed by powerful, influential individuals and institutions in our society; (3) that they would be abandoned by many of their friends, (4) that they would be called nasty names, and that they would risk being denied valuable professional opportunities as a result of their moral witness. In short, my challenge is to show where they have at risk to themselves and their futures stood up for a cause that is unpopular in elite sectors of our culture today.

Can you, kind reader, show evidence that you stand up for culturally unpopular causes at great personal cost?

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/School-Boards-Feeling-Some-Righteous-Wrath.mp3

WBEZ reporter Natalie Moore praised Illinois last month for what she saw as a strength. Illinois has become a go-to state for abortion:

Women travel from all over the country to have abortions in Illinois. As neighboring states restrict abortion access, Illinois is seen as a haven that protects access.

The number of “tourist” abortions carried out in Illinois nearly doubled from 2014 to 2018. She credits two groups of people for this development. First, while neighboring states have enacted laws related to such things as parental notification, counseling, waiting periods, or restrictions on public funding, Illinois politicians have been busy making law too. Even if Roe v Wade gets overturned, they have seen to it that Illinois’s abortion centers will remain open for business – with taxpayer funding for customers on Medicaid. Because of moves like these, says Chicago activist Megan Jeyifo, pregnant women pursuing abortion are choosing Illinois “because it’s quicker and less expensive.”

“Looking at Abortion More Expansively”

Moore also credits Illinois activists for having worked to change the narrative about abortion. I read her article carefully. Here is what is meant by “changing the narrative,” based on what she wrote in Abortion Access And Activism Remain Strong In Illinois:

• Abortion should be commonplace. In an earlier era, “keep abortion safe, legal and rare” was the operative slogan. No more. “Rare” must be dropped. Why? Because …

• Words are tools. “Political education means astute communication.” Messaging must serve the cause, and saying abortion should be “rare” doesn’t project the right message. How is the “right” message to be projected?

• Storytelling is a political tactic. Political education also means “storytelling” and “humanizing people.” Here’s what is meant by that. Since nearly 1 in 4 women will at some point have an abortion, everyone knows and loves someone who’s had one. Also, abortion experiences can be difficult. Therefore, stories designed to stir up feelings of love and compassion, especially those involving hardship, should be told.

The campaign to change the narrative, then, reduces to a political strategy by which stories are told to manipulate people into going along with an agenda they would not otherwise go along with. Emotions surrounding the universal values of love, compassion, and goodwill are stirred up and tied to a message that says, if you are loving and compassionate, you will join the “fight” for this cause. This is the very essence of propaganda.

Tack on the all-purpose rhetorical caboose “justice,” and voilà, you have organized a “reproductive justice” train. Moore lauds the fact that the idea of abortion as “reproductive justice” was conceived in Chicago. “The beauty of the reproductive justice framework,” said Toni Bond, one of the framers of the strategy, “is the way that it looks at things much more expansively.”

Looking at Abortion Activists More Expansively

I abhor abortion. I think it’s one of the most egregious human rights violations of our day. But abortion activists aren’t moved by my outrage. Or by yours. In the face of hardened abortioneers (social activists specifically pushing abortion), I think there’s a time and place for drawing them out.

Here are two ways to do that. Both involve looking at abortion – and the abortioneer – more expansively. (Never give an ounce of air to the emotional manipulation. Just call it out, and then proceed.) One approach is to make the case for human life based on facts and logical reasoning. If a conversation is to be had, center it on the nature of abortion. For more on how to make the case for life this way, I highly recommend the work of Scott Klusendorf, president of Life Training Institute (LTI) and author of The Case for Life. Click here or here for more on that.

“Why We Fight”

The other way to proceed is to do what the activists do – tell stories. Except that we tell stories that are true. Here’s a true story:

In 2001, HBO released the ten-part miniseries Band of Brothers. Based on the Stephen Ambrose book of the same name, it followed a group of WWII paratroopers, E Company (“Easy Company”), through basic training, D-Day, occupied France, and finally into Germany.

In Episode 9, “Why We Fight,” the soldiers encounter an altogether different kind of evil. It’s April 1945, the war in Europe is all but over, and they’re stationed in the German town of Landsberg awaiting orders. One day, a few of them venture out to explore the area. They come to the edge of a forest, and before them stands a high barbed wire fence with a locked gate. They venture closer and find behind it hundreds, perhaps thousands of dazed, emaciated and starving prisoners. They have seen fierce battle, but this is a horror on a whole new level, and they are speechless.

After they set about meeting the prisoners’ basic needs – food, water, medical attention – they marched the Landsberg townspeople out to the camp. They made them look, straight on, at the human atrocity that had been taking place in their own backyard, with their complicity. I think it’s safe to say that nobody would want to have been one of the Landsberg townspeople that day.

We can’t drag Illinois abortion defenders out to the POC rooms of Planned Parenthood’s sparkling new complexes in Fairview Heights (near St. Louis) or Flossmoor (near Indiana), or to the spa-like Carafem (near Wisconsin). But one day, all the things that have taken place behind those fences and walls will be exposed.

What we can do now is challenge the activists to look more expansively – straight on, as much as is possible – at exactly what it is that they are championing. Invite them to watch an actual abortion procedure with you. There are plenty online. Maybe even let them have the honor of choosing one to watch. Click here, here, or here for options. Afterward, invite them to explain what they just saw. Perhaps they might further explain how it merits the term “justice.” For the truly hardened, if you can manage to do all this in public, that’s all the better.

You may not change the moral orientation of a given abortioneer, but you can proceed with confidence, knowing that the real justice train only runs one way. In drawing the abortioneer out into the light, you will have invited someone championing evil to look at it from a very uncomfortable place. That’s what tends to happen when the light of truth is shone into the “haven” of darkness.

Subscribe to the IFI YouTube channel
and never miss a video report or special program!

Last month, Erica Komisar, author of the book Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters, wrote an opinion piece for The Wall Street Journal under the headline “Political Correctness is Bad for Kids.”

In her first paragraph, Komisar writes:

Family life shouldn’t be politicized, but a new poll suggests that it is. Only 33% of U.S. liberals “agree that marriage is needed to create strong families,” according to the survey from the Institute for Family Studies. The figures are 80% of conservatives and 55% of moderates.

Despite her status as a liberal and self-declared feminist, Komisar goes on to write that,

“On this subject, the conservative majority is right. Marriage provides children both emotional and material security, and the ideal environment for children is a loving household with both a sensitive and empathic mother and a playful, engaged and protective father. It’s a shame that political correctness inhibits discussions of what’s best for children.”

It’s remarkable, isn’t it? We’ve come to the point in America when standing up for traditional views on marriage and motherhood is controversial. James Taranto, in a 2017 piece for The Wall Street Journal, quotes Komisar as saying that the publication of her book had made her “a bit of a pariah” on the left. She had been interviewed on Christian radio and Fox & Friends but couldn’t get on NPR. She had been “rejected wholesale” by the liberal press, and when she went on ABC’s Good Morning America, the interviewer told her right before they went on that, “I don’t believe in the premise of your book at all. I don’t like your book.” All of this presumably because she was challenging mothers to “prioritize motherhood” to the maximum extent they could, which, apparently, is perceived as a threat to the idea that a woman can have it all, all at the same time.

I don’t have any data on this, but I suspect we wouldn’t have to rewind history very far to find virtually universal support for both marriage and motherhood. But in today’s increasingly liberal society, traditional views on these matters are fading.

The Bible, of course, gives us the truth on these subjects. God created marriage, therefore we know it’s important. God placed children in families, therefore we know that parents matter.

It’s not just the Bible. The very nature of creation also points to the importance of traditional families.

Have you ever considered the possibility that God could have created human existence in any way he chose? He was under no constraints to create marriage and the nuclear family as the basis for bringing children into the world and raising them to adulthood. Remember, He was starting with a blank canvas—He could have done anything. Hey, He could have created the world in such a way that human babies spring into existence through spontaneous generation and raise themselves to adulthood in baby communes deep in the forest. Why not? Just because it sounds crazy to us doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be completely normal if that’s the way it had always been. God gets to decide reality, and if He had chosen to create reality in a different way, that’s His privilege as the all-powerful Creator.

The fact that He chose to create the world in a certain way gives us clues as to how He intends human life to work best. The fact that He created marriage, family, and both mothers and fathers tells us something important: this is the way God wants the world to work. This is the way He created us to flourish and experience the best of His plans for us as His creation. And what the created order tells us implicitly, the Word of God tells us explicitly: marriage and parents are vital.

The bottom line is, God is the Creator of reality, and we have the best chance of happiness, satisfaction, joy, and success when we conform our lives to God’s created reality. When we shun the created order that God established—by rejecting marriage, for instance—we put ourselves at odds not simply with a moral code, but with reality itself.

On the other hand, if we reject God as creator, we’re left to come up with our own ideas of reality and how human life should work. We’re seeing this daily with the redefinition of marriage, the concept of “gender fluidity,” the rise of intentionally single mothers, and so on. We’re remaking family in whatever shape and form we choose because we’ve rejected God’s created reality and the truth of His Word. We think we can flourish in whatever way we choose. But violating reality will never produce the best results.

The cultural trends may be discouraging, but take heart. If you’re following God’s plan as outlined in Scripture and His created reality, trust Him to bless you and your family. Live as a testimony to the superiority of God’s ways. And in the midst of a culture increasingly out of alignment with God’s plan for humanity, you and I have the opportunity to shine as bright lights. Who knows? Perhaps your happy marriage can be the very thing God uses to draw others to Himself.

IFI depends on the support of concerned-citizens like you. Donate now

-and, please-

Look no further than Illinois State University (ISU) for evidence of the degradation of public education. In addition to hosting an annual drag queen fundraiser in the Bone Student Center, Illinois State University owns a fake news organization: WGLT. The call letters come from the school’s increasingly ill-fitting motto: “Gladly we learn and teach.”

WGLT, a public radio station and, therefore, an affiliate of National Public Radio (NPR), came to Illinois Family Institute’s (IFI) attention when a short article about IFI’s robo-calls warning Illinoisans about the campaign to resurrect the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) decades after its expiration date began circulating on social media. The article, written by “progressive” Baylee Steelman, is titled “Hate Group Lobbies Against ERA With B-N Robocalls” (B-N refers to Bloomington-Normal).

It should be clear from the title that the article is an editorial hit-piece on IFI masquerading as a news story about the ERA—thus a fake “news” story—but for those who need proof, here is Steelman’s “news” story:

The revival of a decades dormant campaign to pass the Equal Rights Amendment is drawing an opposition campaign from what some call a hate group.

The Illinois Family Institute has been placing robocalls to Bloomington-Normal area residents asking them to write state lawmakers Dan Brady and Jason Barickman.

“Don’t be fooled: The Equal Rights Amendment is not about equal pay for equal work. This radical anti-woman amendment will require taxpayers to fund more abortions. It will require young women to register for the military draft. It will increase car insurance premiums for women. The ERA will force women to use coed restrooms and locker rooms. It will impact child support as well as Social Security benefits for widows. The Equal Rights Amendment is all war on women,” said one recording.

Those claims are false.

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists the Illinois Family Institute as a hate group usually focusing on anti-LGBTQ issues. The SPLC says the IFI has identified headquarters in Peoria and Carol Stream.

Supporters of the ERA revival campaign are also urging their members to call lawmakers to counter the IFI robocall.

Two more states need to ratify the amendment before it could take effect.

Steelman provides no evidence for her assertion that IFI’s claims are false. She did not cite another organization as the source of the assertion that IFI’s “claims are false.” She never contacted IFI to query us about our claims or to get a statement about them. She merely inserted her opinion that the claims are false, thereby implying that her opinion is settled, inarguable fact.

Steelman stated that the ERA has been long “dormant,” but failed to include the fact that the final deadline for the passage of the ERA was 1982.

While maligning IFI with the false label assigned to us by the ethically impoverished Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), Steelman never bothers to mention that the SPLC and its founder Morris Dees have been widely criticized by conservatives, “progressives,” and moderates, and is no longer listed as a resource in FBI materials. In other words, Steelman repeatedly cited a disreputable organization as her only source.

As a result of this poorly written, fake “news story,” IFI sent this email to WGLT:

Dear WGLT,

Your article titled “Hate Group Lobbies Against ERA With B-N Robocalls,” which is being promoted on social media, demonstrates why so many Americans have a dim view of the press.

We are disappointed to see WGLT and National Public Radio blindly repeating the ad hominem assault by the left-wing SPLC that falsely identifies Illinois Family Institute (IFI) as a “hate group.”

The article title suggests that the “hate group” designation represents an unassailable and objective fact, whereas the designation is given to us by a dubious organization widely criticized by even progressives.

In a brief news story ostensibly about the ERA, student reporter Baylee Steelman spent an inordinate amount of time referencing the SPLC and its false characterization of IFI without once mentioning that, for example, the FBI has removed the SPLC from its resources list.

Following her transcription of our robo-call, Ms. Steelman asserts without evidence that our claims “are false.” Without evidence, she inserted as fact her editorial opinion in a news story.

Even as she reported as fact that IFI is a hate group, Ms. Steelman failed to contact IFI for a statement or a response to this story. We’d be happy to defend our position on this important public debate on the ERA.

Shouldn’t a reporter strive for accuracy and objectivity in reporting stories on controversial cultural issues?

Perhaps Steelman should spend some time on the American Press Institute website, which warns against some of the journalistic failings she demonstrates:

This neutral voice, without a discipline of verification, creates a veneer covering something hollow. Journalists who select sources to express what is really their own point of view, and then use the neutral voice to make it seem objective, are engaged in a form of deception. This damages the credibility of the craft by making it seem unprincipled, dishonest, and biased.

Citing David Protess, the American Press Institute recommends the following:

Assume nothing is true. Go directly to the source. Don’t rely on just the authorities or officials. Touch all bases. Be systematic.

Did Ms. Steelman do those things?

IFI received this response from news director Charlie Schlenker that also went to several WGLT staffers:

We will not be responding to this hate group.

Charlie

Can readers expect fair reporting from a purported news station whose director responds like this?

Some astute readers may have noticed that the online version of the WGLT article no longer attributes it to Baylee Steelman (IFI has the original). The byline now says Charlie Schlenker wrote the article. Curiouser and curiouser.

Taxpayers might wonder, exactly what is being learned, who is teaching, and who is making administrative decisions at ISU. We already know who’s making decisions at WGLT: bigoted Charlie Schlenker.

Remember friends, we the people fund this radio station.

Take ACTION: Click HERE to send an email or fax to the WGLT “news” department, urging them to report matters of public policy fairly and objectively. Please also ask them to cease using the SPLC’s fake and slanderous attack on IFI and other theologically orthodox Christian organizations that express views of sexuality with which “progressives” disagree.

Listen to this article read by Laurie:

https://staging.illinoisfamily.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/ISUs-Fake-News-Station-WGLT-Calls-IFI-Hate-Group.mp3

The Left is working overtime to silence and/or marginalize conservative voices in America
The time to support IFI is now!

So I don’t have to repeat myself throughout the article, I’ll say things loudly and clearly at the outset.

The KKK, white supremacists, and neo-Nazis are evil. I deplore what they stand for and denounce it – as a follower of Jesus, as a Jew, as an American, and as a human being. I pray that they would repent and find mercy from God, and to the extent that the media exposes their lies, I applaud the media.

But I cannot applaud the media when it comes to its reporting of acts of hatred and violence on the radical left. Their double-standard is glaring, ugly, and inexcusable.

You see, the question is not, “Is Antifa as bad as the KKK? Are radical leftists as evil as neo-Nazis?”

Rather, the question is, “Should the media highlight acts of hatred and violence when carried out by the left?” And, “Should the media call out political leaders who do not denounce these acts?”

I’m not talking about Charlottesville here or making a moral comparison between the groups involved. I’m talking about a consistent pattern of dangerous words and deeds from the radical left, most of which get scant attention from the media.

Shall we do some math?

Over the last 12 months, how many campuses have succumbed to pressure from white supremacists and cancelled a talk by a well-known liberal? Can’t think of any?

Well, let’s keep going. How many campuses have even received threats of harassment or disruption from white supremacists should they try to host such a talk? Still somewhere around zero?

In contrast, over the last 12 months, how many campuses have succumbed to pressure from radical leftists and cancelled a talk by a well-known conservative? If my memory serves me right, Berkeley did it twice (once with Milo and once with Ann Coulter), while other campuses, like De Paul, refused to allow Ben Shapiro to speak. And all this because of security concerns – meaning, because of threats of disruption from the left. Toronto University just cancelled a “free speech” event featuring Prof. Jordan Peterson and others because of security concerns as well.

It looks like the left can get pretty nasty too. (For more examples, see here.)

Author Charles Murray, along with Prof. Allison Stangler, who invited him, was physically attacked by protestors at Middlebury College after his speech. “One threw a stop sign with a heavy concrete base in front of the car Murray was in, and several others rocked, pounded, and jumped on the vehicle. One protester pulled Stanger’s hair and injured her neck. She was taken to a hospital, where she was treated and released.”

Heather MacDonald’s speech at Claremont was shut down when protestors blocked entrance to the building, after which she said, “This is not just my loss of free speech. These students are exercising brute force against their fellow students to prevent them from hearing me live.”

And what were the protestors chanting? “[Expletive] the police, KKK.”

Where was the consistent outcry from the leftwing media? How many hours were devoted to covering this? How many liberal politicians were called on to denounce it?

More recently, when protestors pulled down a Confederate statue in Durham, North Carolina, NPR reported that they were chanting, “No KKK, No Fascist USA.”

Actually, they were chanting, “No cops, no KKK, no fascist USA!”

Why did NPR omit “No cops”? What were they hiding? Why not make clear that, in the eyes of these vandals, the cops are no different than the KKK? (Listen to NPR’s audio here.)

As evil as the KKK and neo-Nazis are, they were not the ones carrying out these acts of hatred, violence, and vandalism. All this is coming from the radical left. Why, then, put so much focus on the so-called alt-right and so little (if any) on the radical left?

Here are some more specifics.

As reported by the Daily Caller, “Antifa’s violence ranges from stabbing a police horse in the neck to beating people with bike locks. Antifa physically assaulted a reporter with The Daily Caller News Foundation in January and a search on YouTube reveals hours of footage displaying Antifa violence from protests across the nation. Antifa thugs are additionally known for assaulting police officers and chasing down fleeing people in order to beat them.”

How much of this was covered by CNN?

The Caller continues: “CNN also fails to mention that Antifa was declared a domestic terrorist group by New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security and that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security stated certain actions from Antifa were acts of “domestic terrorism” in a memo from March.

How many of you knew that? Antifa branded a domestic terrorist group by an official government security agency?

As for Antifa’s handiwork at Berkeley when Milo was scheduled to speak, “Antifa groups … rioted, destroyed property, beat people with flagpoles and pepper-sprayed a women [sic].”

I guess it’s not all about peace and love and equality and tolerance?

And this is not just taking place in America. How about the attack last December on the Australia Christian Lobby building in Australia? As reported by the Australian, “The man accused of driving a burning van laden with gas bottles into the Australian Christian Lobby headquarters was a gay activist who disliked the group because of its ‘position on sexuality’ and had searched online how to make plastic explosives and a pressure-cooker bomb.”

Shades of Floyd Lee Corkins trying to carry out an act of mass murder at the FRC headquarters in DC in 2012, inspired to do so by the radical-left SPLC.

But it gets worse.

Both the Washington Post and the Nation carried pieces this week calling for physical violence against the alt-right, with the Post headline calling for “direct action” and the Nation headline reading, “Not Rights but Justice: It’s Time to Make Nazis Afraid Again.”

With this logic, even if the “Unite the Right” marchers in Charlottesville had not engaged in any violence, their ideologies are so evil that they should be violently attacked. Is this the America you want to live in?

And let’s not forget that, for years now, those of us who lovingly oppose LGBT activism have been branded Nazis, KKK, and worse. Perhaps we should be subject to violence too? Perhaps the gay activists who held up signs in 2008 calling for Christians to be thrown to the lions will get their wish?

Without a doubt, the media should report on something like the “Unite the Right” march that drew 500 militants to Charlottesville. And with one voice, every American should denounce it. Let those 500 be shamed and isolated, and let their ideology be exposed.

But the media should give equal attention to radical leftists who engage in violent words and acts in other settings, be it Antifa activists vandalizing a campus, student protestors assaulting a professor, or Black Lives Matter marchers chanting (about cops), “Pigs in a blanket, fry ’em like bacon.”

If the leftwing media wants to regain even a shred of credibility, it will have to step up its game. Lives are literally at stake.

The flap over the firing of Juan Williams as a news analyst for National Public Radio (NPR) has created a firestorm of controversy. Williams supposedly violated NPR’s policy regarding interjecting personal commentary while reporting on the news. As a political commentator to the FOX News Channel (FNC), Williams, in essence, stated he gets nervous when he sees individuals wearing “Muslim garb” present in an airplane he is traveling on. Though Williams’ comments might have been politically incorrect, he was simply stating how he feels and how other Americans react in a similar situation.

NPR’s CEO, Vivian Schiller, fired Williams during a phone call and later went on to make public statements questioning Williams’ sanity, suggesting the commentator see a psychiatrist. Schiller later publicly apologized for how she handled the firing of Williams, including her statement questioning Williams’ mental health. However, the situation has thrown gasoline on an issue regarding whether NPR and its sister entity PBS (Public Broadcasting Service) should be on the public dole.

I rarely agree with the political views held by Mr. Williams. He is a staunch advocate for liberalism, including support of abortion on demand, homosexual “marriage” and other political views which are contrary to the pro-family agenda. However, even those on the far left agree that Williams was a victim of political correctness run amuck. Clearly, other NPR contributing journalists, including Nina Totenberg, NPR’s legal affairs correspondent and Cokie Roberts, NPR’s senior news analyst, frequently voice their opinions on political and social issues during appearances on networks other than NPR.

But here is what most reasonable Americans agree on: Juan Williams is also employed by what is perceived as the mortal enemy of the progressive movement in the United States…FOX News. Therefore, NPR’s Schiller applied a double standard in the firing of Williams and did so by interpreting what served her agenda regarding a technical aspect of Williams’ contract.

More important, the Williams’ controversy has brought to the forefront whether National Public Radio or PBS should receive any taxpayer dollars. Only 2% of NPR’s operating costs derive from taxpayers. The combined budget of PBS and NPR is not chump change. The revenue they receive for radio and television from American taxpayers each year totals nearly $420 million. To put this figure into perspective, the new health care law cuts the Medicare budget by $500 million over the next ten years. The annual budget for Medicare is $500 million. The operative question is: What is more important to the majority of the American people, the support of NPR and PBS or the health care for seniors, disabled, widows, widowers and their dependents?

NPR and PBS do not reflect the values of all Americans. NPR and PBS do not report in a fair and balanced manner. Their journalists report the news from a liberal perspective. The commentaries on NPR and PBS never reflect the pro-family viewpoint, but many are led to believe that without the support of taxpayer dollars, NPR and PBS would no longer exist.

Besides being on the public dole, NPR and PBS receive huge amounts of cash from liberal foundations and individuals, including billionaire George Soros who recently contributed $1.8 million to hire 100 reporters (two for each of the fifty state capitols in the United States). These reporters would be assigned to cover state legislatures for NPR. Soros is a major contributor to many far left radical causes. He is the Founder and primary funder of groups like MoveOn.org and Media Matters, two Internet websites which advance the far left political agenda in America. Soros’ political agenda includes the eventual move to socialized health care in America and he believes the United States is not served well by its free market economy and capitalism in general. Anyone who believes there would not be strings attached to Soros’ contribution to public broadcasting is, at best, naive.

But there is a little known fact regarding NPR and PBS which is connected with its programming. Many conservatives have long argued that NPR and PBS should not receive taxpayer dollars. The response from supporters of public television and public radio argue that programming like Sesame Street would disappear without taxpayer money. Nothing could be further from the truth. Go into any store that sells toys this Christmas and check out how many products are licensed by PBS. There is literally an army of high-priced lawyers who protect the licensing rights of Sesame Street products alone–which include Elmo, Ernie, Big Bird, Abby Cadabby, Zoe and Cookie Monster, to mention just some of the merchandizing which generates hundreds of millions of dollars for public television annually.

Subsequently, the firing of Juan Williams provided a service to the nation by exposing NPR and PBS to further scrutiny, not only concerning their liberal political content from a journalistic perspective, but whether nearly a half billion dollars of taxpayer money can be better spent.