Wayne Besen

• 

  September 27, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Weekly Column • 13

  Trump’s Malice Sabotages Medicine Raising Pandemic Fears

  RF Quack Jr. Guts the CDC Creating ‘Zombie’ Agency

  If you’re like me, you’ve probably said the Trump administration makes you sick. But Trump’s spectacular bungling of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) quite literally could make us deathly ill. America is relying on nothing more than dumb luck to prevent the dumb people running our country from causing a devastating pandemic.

  This week, the United States joined Europe in rejecting a United Nations Declaration on Preparing for Future Pandemics. At least the European Union had a rational explanation, expressing concern over patents. The U.S. spurned the U.N. over petty culture war issues, such as claiming the document included “divisive ideologies.” The U.S. “asked to delete mentions of equity, solidarity, and universal access to sexual and reproductive health care services.”

  “Agreeing to collaborate to prevent, prepare for and respond to pandemics should not be controversial,” said Helen Clark, a former prime minister of New Zealand and a co-chair of the Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response.

  Unfortunately, it became controversial because our unhealthy MAGA government now prioritizes battling “woke” over fighting deadly diseases where people don’t wake up. The crisis extends far beyond high-minded United Nations documents few people will read. Our key health agencies are suffering from an epidemic of idiocy and an outbreak of quislings and quacks.

  The New York Times described the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as “zombified,” saying “the agency has lost its independence and nearly a third of its staff, as Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and associates have tightened control.”

  

  Read More »
• 

  August 16, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Project 2025, Truth Wins Out, Weekly Column • 86

  Elite ‘Cadillac Conservatives’ Plot to Overthrow America

  New ‘Davos 7 Mountains’ Scheme Comes with Wine and a Ski-Lift

  In 1975, key evangelical leaders were alarmed with recent advances in secularism and human rights. In their lifetimes’, they witnessed what was once unthinkable: The civil rights movement, women’s liberation, Woodstock, and a nascent push for LGBTQ equality. These deeply religious men viewed modern developments as the end of Western civilization and a direct path societal collapse.

  Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ (now Cru), and Loren Cunningham, founder of Youth With A Mission, were disgruntled evangelical stars. The two men convened in Colorado to plot how they could turn back the surging liberal tide. They decided that in order to save society and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, right wing Christians must hijack America’s critical institutions.

  Bright and Cunningham both claimed to have received a divine message in Colorado, identifying seven key areas of strategic influence where Christians must seek total dominion: Government, Education, Media, Arts & Entertainment, Religion, Family, and Business.

  They branded these cultural sectors “mountains” that must be scaled by their ideological comrades. Hence, the 7 Mountains Mandate (7MM) was born–and this new concept was soon popularized by right wing theologian Francis Schaeffer.

  In this theocratic scheme, right wing Christians were commanded to infiltrate professions in these seven arenas. Of course, those who participate in this surreptitious chicanery, are two-faced and operating in bad faith. The visage they present to the world is one where they are dedicated servants. In reality, they are misrepresenting themselves, while stealthily serving an extremist movement rather than their company or country.

  Today, the Seven Mountains Mandate is embraced by radical Chrisitan movements, such as the New Apostolic Reformation and Bethel Church in Redding, California. Bethel has the nation’s largest “ex-gay” ministry and believes its faith healing team can regrow limbs on amputees. Paula White, spiritual advisor to Donald Trump, is part of this crazy movement.

  7MM’s growth has always been limited by class issues. It was often dismissed as a pipe dream for lowbrow, backwoods, tongue speaking evangelical simpletons. Well, imagine if the gaudy, gospel music blaring, tent revival, was suddenly supplanted by sophisticated billionaires in a gilded boardroom, huddled around an Italian marble table, while Bach and Beethoven were melodiously piped in through Bose speakers.

  Enter Project 2025’s Teneo Network, which is essentially a warmed-over remake of the Seven Mountains Mandate for “Cadillac Conservative” elites. Instead of speaking in tongues, they offer corporate platitudes. They sip Napa Valley wine in lieu of guzzling warm beer. But they share the same theocratic worldview of Christian supremacy and the desire to control every finite detail of society, down to the smallest aspects of our individual personal lives.

  

  Read More »
• 

  August 3, 2026 • News, Opinion, Politics, Project 2025, Truth Wins Out, Weekly Column • 116

  A Secret, Puritanical Purge of Transgender Troops

  Pentagon’s Orwellian Policy Has Shades of The Handmaid’s Tale

  Eighteen U.S. troops have been killed and at least 653 have been injured since the war with Iran began on February 28, 2026. The conflict has caused extensive physical damage to more than 20 U.S. military sites, including the destruction of at least 42 aircraft and critical infrastructure, with individual strikes causing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages. A single Iranian strike on the Fifth Fleet headquarters in Bahrain resulted in approximately $200 million in damages.

  Obviously, we need more experts in air defense systems to stop the onslaught of Iranian missiles and drones. However, Defense Secretary Peter Hegseth is more interested in personal prejudice than protecting our troops. While America is under lethal attack, his priority is purging the military of transgender service members–including those who have expertise in shooting down enemy projectiles aimed at US assets and soldiers.

  Capt. Kai Proce, for instance, was an air defense officer. He was trained to shoot down incoming enemy missiles, yet he was unceremoniously purged for the “crime” of being transgender. How many casualties occurred that could have been avoided had Proce and other trans soldiers been available for the jobs they were trained for?

  Today, New York Times reporters Greg Jaffe and Dave Philipps published a hair-raising article, “Inside the Secretive Boards Deciding Trans Troops’ Fate.” It detailed an Orwellian kangaroo court set up to purge trans soldiers who honorably served their country. Many of these service members are far more distinguished than Hegseth–an underachieving drunkard who has spent far more time allegedly beating women than defeating America’s enemies.

  The Pentagon keeps these “Sovietesque” kangaroo courts secret, because if they were made public, their disgraceful efforts would be overwhelmingly rejected by the American people. So, like sewer rats, Hegseth and his creepy cronies have blacked out the un-American proceedings. The New York Times reported:

  At least six soldiers were barred from attending their own separation board hearings because they refused to cut their hair and appear in the uniform of their sex assigned at birth. One was a master sergeant in South Korea with 17 years of service who was allowed to testify by video, but only if she turned off her camera.

  “I have gone to pretrial confinement hearings where somebody is so addicted to meth that they are throwing up on my shoes,” Ms. Rashid said. “They were allowed into their own hearing.”

   

  Read More »
• 

  July 25, 2026 • News, Opinion, Politics, Project 2025, Weekly Column • 114

  Trump’s Rolling Election Coup is, Once Again, Underway

  Project 2025 Created a Multi-Headed Hydra of Election Thieves

  While Trump is an incompetent fool who behaves like an ADHD monkey on a crack bender, he has an army of lawyers and non-profits who are filled with deadly serious people. They are part of a sprawling Project 2025 machine, working day and night, to keep MAGA in power—regardless of whether their right-wing candidates actually get the most votes.

  At the center of this scheme is a Project 2025 organization, the Conservative Partner Institute (CPI), run by former South Carolina Sen. Jim. DeMint (R-SC). CPI raised nearly two hundred million dollars in 2022. It wisely used this windfall to spin off a constellation of nonprofits that work to steal elections under the euphemism “election integrity.”

  Much of the funding for such election theft comes from the Milwaukee-based Bradley Foundation, with an endowment of some eight hundred and fifty million dollars. Public records show that, since 2012, the foundation has spent eighteen million dollars (and counting) supporting conservative groups involved in election tampering.

  The individual most responsible for orchestrating the rolling coup is former Bradley Foundation board member Cleta Mitchell. She is also a Senior Legal Fellow at CPI and is the Founder of the Election Integrity Network.

  

  Read More »
• 

  July 19, 2026 • Opinion, Politics, Project 2025, Truth Wins Out, Weekly Column • 128

  Trump’s Tyranny of Toadies

  Project 2025’s Personnel Machine Designed to Punish Dissent  

  It was dispiriting to watch Jay Clayton waffle on democracy in front of the Senate Intelligence Committee. He hopes to be confirmed for director of national intelligence, yet he refused to explicitly say that Joe Biden fairly defeated Donald Trump in the 2020 election.

  His inability to fully affirm the peaceful transfer of presidential power is disqualifying and proves him manifestly unfit for the job. It arguably makes Clayton a national security threat too.

  I am deeply concerned that if Trump attempts a second coup there may no longer be enough patriots of good character left in government to stop him. Since 2022, Project 2025 has set up a massive job recruiting effort to stock agencies with MAGA bootlickers. They have created a system that has been called a “conservative LinkedIn” to ensure ideological conformity.

  The Washington Post reported in May 2024 that The Heritage Foundation’s database “was approaching 10,000 resumes.” Oracle built a secure database to house the personnel files of some twenty thousand potential Administration staffers.

  Those aspiring to be on the MAGA gravy train have to toe the line. Zealous Project 2025 investigators are sleuthing to ensure there is no daylight between an applicant and Trump. “You need negative information and blacklists” a person involved in the project told The Washington Post.

  The New Yorker reported that Ginni Thomas, the wife of the Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, has assembled lists of “bad people” in the government for Trump to fire or demote. Government officials on the lists were often identified as either pro-Trump or anti-Trump.

  The American Accountability Foundation has investigated the personal profiles and social-media posts of federal employees to determine who might lack fealty to Trump. The Center for Renewing America is also involved in this process.

  The Conservative Partner Institute (CPI), which was founded by former Tea Party Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), is leading much of Project 2025’s dystopian effort. Having raised nearly two hundred million dollars in 2022, C.P.I. had the capacity to spin off a constellation of non-profit groups that serve as career gatekeepers. The financially empowered organization also bought approximately fifty million dollars’ worth of real estate in and around Washington, including multiple properties on Capitol Hill.

  One staffing group CPI created was the Washington, DC-based Personnel Policy Operations (PPO). When people like Jay Clayton refuse to answer whether Biden won, it is because nonprofits like PPO fervently enforce Trump’s election denial.

  

   

  Read More »