March 8, 2017: All About Women on A Day Without Women

1. Buzz on Right: WikiLeaks Proves Our Point

We promise we will get to women as the main theme of our newsletter, but first we have to start off with the story that dominated conservative radioland: WikiLeaks. Wikileaks released thousands of pages it claims are from the C.I.A.’s secret files, allegedly showing that the spy agency is capable hacking phones and communication apps like WhatsApp and Signal.

Talk radio hosts could not get enough of this treachery and to Rush Limbaugh it proved yet again that President Trump was a victim of Deep State manipulation:

“By the way, in the WikiLeaks dump today of thousands and thousands of documents from the CIA, do you know what is included? A little program called UMBRAGE. What this program is, apparently the CIA has the ability to mimic Russian hackers. In other words, the CIA  has the ability to hack anybody they want and make it look like the Russians are doing it or make it look like the ChiComs are doing it or make it look like the Israelis are doing it.

They have the ability to do this. They have the ability to mask and mock various other state actors and make it look like — so I think because of everything that we’re learning here, the danger that Donald Trump has faced ever since he won the election is greater than we’ve ever known. And it is obvious to me that this whole business — well, I say obvious, I’m leaning toward being near certain that this entire pretext of Trump working with the Russians to affect the outcome of the election, folks, it is so ridiculous.”

What We’re Watching:  
So far, the F.B.I. has been taking the heat from the Trump administration, but now all eyes on the C.I.A.. Will the security-obsessed G.O.P. go after our security agencies? The calls for defunding have already begun:

Jerome Corsi @jerome_corsi, with 37k followers and who heads the Washington bureau for Alex Jones and InfoWars, wrote:

@wikileaks Obama CIA w/o congressional approval or funding WENT ROGUE hacking mobile devices & apps - Could emulate Russia SHUT DOWN CIA NOW

— Jerome Corsi (@jerome_corsi) March 7, 2017

2. Naked Marines

We weren’t sure what to expect from the Red Media after word broke of a Facebook site where male Marines share naked pictures of female Marines and comment on them. Many of the women were unaware they had been photographed. The social media accounts behind the sharing have been deleted at the Marine Corps' request.

Overly assertive feminism is a no-no in the conservative world as is criticism of military institutions. So we were nicely surprised that some conservative publications reacted strongly against the marines. Here’s a take from The Washington Examiner:

“It's because I'm married to a Marine that I can tell you not every Marine, or every man, is a sick pervert who think it's funny to sexually assault women.

But it's also because I myself am former military that I can tell you, from my own experiences, the military has not only created this misogynist culture, but has tried to minimize many incidents of sexual assault, thereby allowing them to continue. During my time in the Air Force, I personally encountered this problem with senior leadership after being sexually harassed and inappropriately touched by a fellow airman.”

However, we did not have to look hard for those who blamed the victims:

Andieiam @Andieiamwhoiam with 48k followers posted this:

78% of female Marine recruits cannot throw a grenade past its burst radius. https://t.co/JtTLnsO54w

— andieiam (@andieiamwhoiam) March 6, 2017

On Reddit in the USMC group, where anonymity is easier to maintain, the comments were as ugly as we feared. It is a long, gross thread. We include this post only so you get the idea:

“Of course this is only a problem because of the Pussification of the Corps/Mothers of America/OBUMMER/PC Culture/Feminazis/Libtards/Splittails/POGs/Officers/Female Integration/Repeal of DADT. If they didn't want their nudes up there, they shouldn't have taken them in the first place. It's just Marines being Marines. It's okay because MU is about Marines not killing themselves.”

Other Reddit threads from five months ago also suggest that the naked Facebook pictures were not a one-off. In fact, one user, who claimed to be from Marines United Public Relations, issued an official warning to the group for inappropriate, sexual content. The comment links to another member who claimed he “shut down” the Marines United group on Reddit after finding “the vast majority of posted items were pictures of girls posted without permission, revenge porn, creepy stalker-like photos taken of girls in public, talk about rape, racist comments, and just straight bullshit.” 

3. Is Ainsley Earhardt the Most Influential Woman in Media?

Our president is said to watch Fox & Friends religiously every morning. In fact, as Jenna Johnson of The Washington Post noted in a mind-blowing piece, Trump’s tweets yesterday appeared to be a direct reaction to what he viewed on the show.

Given the enormous influence Fox & Friends appears to have on our POTUS, it only seems fitting to give some background on the show’s female weekday co-host, Ainsley Earhardt.

Earhardt grew up in North and South Carolina, graduated with a B.A. in Journalism from the University of South Carolina, and worked as a reporter for WLTX News 19 in Columbia while still in college and later KENS-TV in San Antonio. She joined Fox in 2007. Currently, she also reports for Sean Hannity with her own segment, “Ainsley Across America.” She is married to Will Proctor, a former Clemson Tigers quarterback, has a daughter, and wrote a children’s book.

Some notables: Ainsley defended the former Fox News chairman, Roger Ailes, after he was sued by Gretchen Carlson for sexual harassment. “I want the public to know that this is a man with a really good heart,” she told People magazine. “In my experience, he has had my best interest in mind and he has my family’s best interest in mind. He is a family man and he is a father figure, and I will always be grateful to him for giving me a promotion when a lot of people wouldn’t have.”

Ainsley is also a devout evangelical Christian. She praised Trump’s Congressional speech last week, tweeting:

Love that he quoted John 15:13 "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends," when honoring #RyanOwens...

— Ainsley Earhardt (@ainsleyearhardt) March 1, 2017

Her “dream interview”?, She told The Hill in 2016: “I would love to interview the former first lady Nancy Reagan and the next president of the United States. I wish I could have talked to Audrey Hepburn and look forward to sitting down with Jesus Christ.”

Also, as the liberal watchdog Media Matters pointed out, she helped circulate the conspiracy theory seeded by Gateway Pundit that Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower. On Tuesday, Ainsley asked Robby Mook, the former campaign manager for Hillary Clinton, how he could explain this tweet by Clinton on October 31: “Computer scientists have apparently uncovered a covert server linking the Trump Organization to a Russian-based bank.” Ainsley told him that the tweet suggested that Clinton knew about wiretapping requests. Mook pointed out that the tweet “was actually in response to reporting that was done by Slate magazine.”

4. A Day Without Women: Don’t Do It

The organizers behind the Women’s March have called for a general strike by women today that they are calling “A Day Without Women.” Women are being called upon to forego both paid and unpaid labor, as well as wear red, in solidarity with the cause. Color association aside, the Red Media was almost universally against the protest. National Review argued that the strike was a misplaced attack on white men.

“Before joining the picket line, American women would do well to ask: Who, exactly, are we striking against? Given the targets, it seems clear the organizers see men, particularly white men, as the equivalent of management, ruling America’s economy, and therefore meriting a boycott. Yet that’s a gross mischaracterization of the modern economy, belittling the prominent role women play.”

“Doubt this? Just imagine if men went on strike. The bulk of law-enforcement officers would disappear, putting everyone in jeopardy, particularly women and children. Power, basic infrastructure, and transportation systems would shut down, as would factories and most construction. Trash would literally pile up. The truth is, men do most of the county’s dangerous, dirty, and physically unpleasant work. They are killed on the job far, far more often than women. Compensating them for these risks is another reason, incidentally, that the wage gap exists.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Times and others in the Red Media predicted an unforgivable disruption to schools

“It’s being billed as “A Day Without a Woman,” but apparently only pro-union, pro-choice, anti-Israel women who can afford to skip work need apply. The one-day “general strike” is coming under fire from the right and the left for its mixed political messages, as well as the havoc caused by the closure of some schools Wednesday driven by anticipated staff absences. At least two large school districts — Alexandria City Public Schools in Virginia and Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools in North Carolina — have announced that they will close in anticipation of hundreds of staff absences, igniting a backlash from parents.”

The folks are twitter were equally non-plussed:

Michael Frisbie‏ @ItzJustMichael,  with 5.5k, followers, wrote:

I employ twice as many women as men. Without hesitation, I will fire anyone who fails to show up for work because of a day without women.

— Michael Frisbie (@ItzJustMichael) March 6, 2017

Mary Katharine Ham‏  @mkhammer,  with 195k, followers got 4117 likes for the following:

Same crew that told me DeVos' appointment would shut down public schools is shutting down public schools Wed. For the children. Noted.

— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) March 7, 2017