To donate by check, phone, or other method, see our More Ways to Give page.
In this world, where everything and everyone is for sale, we must sustain independent media we can trust. If you believe independent journalism is critical to protecting democracy and the common good, please support Common Dreams this Giving Tuesday! We wouldn't exist without you.
"Moms for Liberty is linked with the Proud Boys, a chapter quotes Hitler, they are behind book bans, they are funded by right-wing groups and... ABC News calls them 'joyful warriors,'" wrote one observer. "The whiteness of it all is exhausting."
ABC News this week joined other U.S. corporate media outlets in being accused of "normalizing" Moms for Liberty after publishing what one critic called a "puff piece" on the right-wing group that's behind a wave of school book bans and is linked to the neofascist Proud Boys and the Qanon conspiracy theory.
On Saturday, ABC News published an article by Brittany Shepherd titled "Moms for Liberty Are Fired Up in Philadelphia" as the self-described "parental rights" organization held its annual conference in Pennsylvania's largest city, where crowds of protesters turned out to denounce the group's bigotry.
"Did ABC let Moms for Liberty write this puff piece themselves?"
"They call themselves joyful warriors—but this group of conservative moms are mad," Shepherd wrote in her lede.
Author and Daily Beast columnist Wajahat Ali called the article "shameful."
"Moms for Liberty is linked with the Proud Boys, a chapter quotes Hitler, they are behind book bans, they are funded by right-wing groups and... ABC News calls them 'joyful warriors,'" Ali tweeted. "The whiteness of it all is exhausting."
Historian Kevin Kruse wondered, "Did ABC let Moms for Liberty write this puff piece themselves?"
Brandon Wolf, press secretary for the LGBTQ+ advocacy group Equality Florida, noted that a Moms for Liberty chapter in Indiana included a quote from Adolf Hitler in its inaugural newsletter. The chapter chairperson subsequently apologized.
Founded in Florida in 2021 to oppose Covid-19 lockdowns and mandates, Moms for Liberty quickly gained a reputation for its anti-LGBTQ views and its harassment of school officials in service of the organization's far-right agenda.
The group—which says it has more than 115,000 members in 245 chapters in 45 states—wants to erase mention of LGBTQ+ rights, systemic racism, diversity, and other "woke" topics from school curricula.
Moms for Liberty—many of whose chapters are linked to extremist groups like the Proud Boys and Three Percenters as well as the Qanon conspiracy theory—has spearheaded a successful movement to ban books, especially ones with LGBTQ+ and racial themes, from school libraries across the nation.
The American Library Association said earlier this year that it had recorded 1,269 demands to censor books from various groups and individuals in 2022, compared to 729 challenges counted in 2021.
In her article, Shepherd wrote how the Moms for Liberty conference "showcases how local issues like education can have tremendous, galvanizing national influence, as Gov. Ron DeSantis, former President Donald Trump, and former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley tried to woo nearly 700 attendees."
The article continued:
Several key breakout sessions at the center of the group's mission, such as "Protecting Kids from Gender Ideology" and "Getting Flipped School Boards To Take Action" were kept behind closed doors, with media access barred. But still, the enthusiasm at open events was palpable, nearly bouncing off the ballroom walls.
The piece does note that Moms for Liberty is designated an extremist group by the Southern Poverty Law Center for spreading "hateful imagery and rhetoric against the LGBTQ community."
However, two paragraphs later Shepherd wrote that "Republicans will need this group to make up any lost ground" from last year's midterm elections.
In a Friday interview by MSNBC's Nicolle Wallace, extremism expert Kristofer Goldsmith urged viewers to spread the world about who Moms for Liberty are and what they stand for.
"We are talking book burning. We're talking about racism and we're talking about persecuting the LGBTQ community. These are the Proud Boys with a wig and lipstick," Goldsmith said. "That is all that they are. And because of the words 'Moms for Liberty,' not a lot of people are going to understand that."
"So folks watching this need to be evangelists, right?" he added. "You need to get out online and talk to your friends about what Moms for Liberty is, and help them understand that they are a pipeline into the most radical of extremism in this country."
"At a fundamental level, the agencies failed to fulfill their mission and connect the public and nonpublic information they received."
The Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation "failed to fulfill their mission" by dismissing or downplaying ominous intelligence in the weeks and days leading up to the deadly January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol by supporters of then-President Donald Trump, according to a Senate investigation published Tuesday.
The report—entitled Planned in Plain Sight: A Review of the Intelligence Failures in Advance of January 6, 2021—was published by Democrats on the Senate Homeland Security Committee and calls the Capitol attack "an unprecedented effort to disrupt the certification of the 2020 presidential election and our nation's long history of peaceful transitions of power" that "followed months of repeated and false claims by former President Donald Trump, his lawyers, and certain elected officials, that the presidential election was stolen."
"What was shocking is that this attack was essentially planned in plain sight in social media. And yet it seemed as if our intelligence agencies completely dropped the ball."
"During the violent attack, individuals dragged a police officer into the crowd and beat him, struck another officer with a flagpole attached to an American flag, hit another police officer with a fire extinguisher, and damaged the Capitol building," the report continued. "Rioters committed hundreds of assaults on law enforcement officers, temporarily delayed the joint session of Congress, and contributed to the deaths of at least nine individuals."
"This attack on our democracy came in the wake of years of increasing domestic terrorism in this country—which top federal law enforcement and national security agencies had previously identified as the most persistent and lethal terrorist threat to the homeland," the publication added.
According to the report:
The intelligence failures in the lead-up to January 6th were not failures to obtain intelligence indicating the potential for violence. On the contrary, the two primary domestic intelligence agencies—the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A)—obtained multiple tips from numerous sources in the days and weeks leading up to the attack that should have raised alarms. Rather, those agencies failed to fully and accurately assess the severity of the threat identified by that intelligence, and formally disseminate guidance to their law enforcement partners with sufficient urgency and alarm to enable those partners to prepare for the violence that ultimately occurred on January 6th. At a fundamental level, the agencies failed to fulfill their mission and connect the public and nonpublic information they received.
This information included:
Senate Homeland Security Committee Chair Gary Peters (D-Mich.) toldNBC News that "what was shocking is that this attack was essentially planned in plain sight in social media."
"And yet it seemed as if our intelligence agencies completely dropped the ball," he added.
In a separate Associated Press interview, Peters said the agencies' failure to act on the "massive" amount of intelligence they received "defies an easy explanation."
Peters said the Senate probe "in a lot of ways echoes the findings of the September 11 commission, which identified similar failures to take warnings seriously" ahead of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Similarities between 9/11 and January 6 also include a lack of effective interagency communication and coordination, which resulted in "pretty constant finger-pointing" by intelligence agency officials following the Capitol attack, Peters said.
"Everybody should be accountable," the senator asserted, "because everybody failed."
Some Glendale parents say the paper downplayed that the school district overwhelmingly supports LGBTQ rights in schools and that outside activists have been driving much of the hostility.
Violent outbursts and a handful of arrests at a protest against the Glendale Unified School District, in the Los Angeles suburbs, and its vote to recognize June as LGBTQ+ Pride Month, have thrust the town into the news (Washington Post, 6/7/23). The local police chief “blamed ‘agitators on both sides of the issue’ for inciting violence” (City News Service, 6/7/23).
The anti-trans movement has been targeting public schools for some time now. For far-right organizations and their media organs, it is a perfect storm of anti-education, anti-labor, and anti-LGBTQ rage against a public institution, where they see unionized teachers on taxpayer salaries indoctrinating the youth with queer pornography. It’s an old moral hysteria that goes back to the Anita Bryant days, but it still works to rile up reactionary forces and generate headlines.
The battle in Glendale received national media attention (CBS, 6/6/23; CNN, 6/7/23; Fox News, 6/7/23; USA Today, 6/7/23), but it naturally was covered in the leading regional paper, the Los Angeles Times. Some Glendale parents are worried that the LA Times, a major source of information in Southern California, has downplayed the fact that the school district overwhelmingly supports LGBTQ rights in schools, and outside far-right activists have been driving much of the hostility.
While the Times (6/6/23) did note that the Proud Boys, a violent far-right group, had reportedly been on-hand at the protest, it also lumped activists on each side together, reporting that “hundreds of protesters had swarmed outside the building, some waving American flags and others waving Pride flags.” It suggested that the transphobic activists were motivated by concern for their children, noting that “those who were protesting the board’s LGBTQ+ policies chanted, ‘Leave our kids alone’ while naming each of the five members of the board.”
A report in the Daily Beast (6/8/23) painted a fuller picture, describing many of the far-right provocateurs at the meeting as not being Glendale school system parents, and identifying their ringleader as Jordan Henry. Henry, according to the Daily Beast, “moved to the district in 2021”; he “ran for Glendale City Council in 2022 but was not elected,” and “does not have children enrolled in local schools.” Nevertheless, he “has made frequent public comments at school board meetings, speaking against ‘cultural Marxism,’ critical race theory, and LGBTQ-inclusive programs.”
In fact, there is a whole website devoted to tracking Henry’s time as a far-right crusader, showing that he is anything but a mere voice in the wind, as the most recent Times coverage portrayed him.
Meanwhile, Henry, identified only as a former city council candidate, was quoted by the Times saying, “This is about, specifically, gender ideology being put upon and thrust upon children at Glendale Unified.”
The Times would have been well-served if it had researched its own records. A year ago, the paper (5/11/22) reported on how a records request filed by Henry, who was looking into “social justice learning standards,” led to a backlash against third-grade teacher Tammy Tiber for showing “videos celebrating gay pride to her students.” Henry’s activism prompted so many anti-LGBTQ threats that Tiber had to be “transferred from her classroom for safety reasons”—a controversy that was also covered by the Advocate (5/12/22) and Daily Kos (5/16/22).
In fact, there is a whole website devoted to tracking Henry’s time as a far-right crusader, showing that he is anything but a mere voice in the wind, as the most recent Times coverage portrayed him. There is also a series of YouTube videos documenting him.
Elizabeth Vitanza, a Glendale school district parent, told FAIR that the LA Times has missed an opportunity to put the conflict into context, especially as it pertains to Henry. She said:
The problem is they are not framing this for what it is: an extremist with no children in the schools here, connecting with other extremists like Proud Boys and January 6 insurgents to use our small, successful school district to raise his profile.
Vitanza added, “I find it incredibly frustrating that they don’t look at who’s behind it, just showing fighting in parking lots.”
She criticized a kind of “he said, she said” reporting that portrayed the two sides as equally legitimate voices on either side of the issue. For example, the LA Times (6/6/23) wrote: “GUSD Parents Voices, a conservative group, called for parents to attend Tuesday’s meeting, posting: ‘Join the fight against indoctrination in our schools.’” That sentence was followed by “LGBTQ+ advocacy organization glendaleOUT also urged supporters to attend Tuesday’s meeting.”
In fact, sources told FAIR, the Glendale community largely supports LGBTQ rights in schools, and many of the protesters against the school board were organized by the larger national right-wing push against LGBTQ inclusion.
For Angela Givant, who organizes with the GUSD Parents for Public Schools, the situation is especially frustrating, because public school advocates had been monitoring the social media of far-right groups who were organizing in anticipation of the school board vote. She told FAIR in an email:
Our group of parent organizers had specifically reached out to the Times after a recent protest featured more violence and outside elements. We shared images and information outlining our concerns. I personally had been in touch with two LA Times reporters in 2022, when they covered Tammy Tiber and how Jordan [and] his group’s accusations had led to threats, causing her to be moved from her school to a different site. At the time, we wanted the Times to cover more deeply Henry’s anti-school organizing, and the group’s media he was publicly trying to connect with.
At the time, the reporters thought covering any further would only give him more attention. When his efforts and the attention he was getting escalated even more intensely in right-wing channels, I reached out again to the same two reporters I’d previously been in touch with, and noted the new connections to known extremists. I did not receive a reply.
But, as Givant explained, the LA Times reporters seem uninterested in the fact that Henry, who had formerly advocated against critical race theory in schools, and other far-right agitators are clearly in a minority against the area’s parents. “The Times still framed their coverage as a clash between ‘concerned parents and activists,’” she said, calling it
actively harmful framing, which denies the fact that those of us in support of our schools and long-standing legislation which protects children of all identities are also “concerned parents.”
And it’s having an impact on the public discussion, she said. “I’ve seen readers convinced that there are two equal opposing sides here, both with extreme elements,” Givant said. “The curriculum and legislation they oppose are extremely popular and supported by the majority of families.”
The LA Times editorial board (6/9/23) supports the school district against the right, saying the school district “took a courageous stand against an insidious strain of intolerance that has been creeping into public school districts across the nation.” The paper’s news coverage does not condone the anti-LGBTQ rage. The problem is that news coverage doesn’t go deep enough, leaving the reader to think that there is homegrown outrage against a supposed sexualized curriculum, rather than a coordinated effort by far-right organizations.
And expect the coverage to become thinner: The LA Times just announced it was laying off 74 news staff positions (Variety, 6/7/23).
Anti-trans rhetoric—and a larger outrage about LGBTQ “grooming,” the idea that education about the existence and rights of sexual minorities is somehow conditioning kids into a certain sexual way of life—is a major part of the contemporary right’s cultural agenda. And that’s amplified in the right’s corporate media (FAIR.org, 1/6/23, 3/30/23). But as the LA Times‘ coverage of the attacks on Glendale’s Pride commemoration shows, centrist elements of the corporate media can also inflict harm when their framing over-amplifies the right’s crusade against an incredibly marginalized segment of the population.