Books Mark as Read It’s a Really Good Time to Get Loud About the Books You Love Some ideas to help keep literature and the book community alive. By Molly Templeton | Published on November 21, 2024 Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash Comment 0 Share New Share Photo by Fallon Michael on Unsplash I’ve been trying to write a new column for three weeks. I’m pretty sure you can guess what’s been holding things up, distracting me, sending my attention off in approximately 97 directions at once, each more upsetting than the last. I’m not going to harp on the looming state of affairs in this country, but I am going to acknowledge that people are scared, worried, angry, concerned, furious, fired up. And distracted.  One bit of advice I keep seeing is to find our lanes. To acknowledge that no one person can do everything, or try to help fix everything at once. And in that spirit, I’ve been thinking about something in my lane that always needs doing, but especially now: supporting the art you love. And specifically, supporting books and their authors. Book bans aren’t going away. Companies’ obsession with what they like to call “AI” isn’t going away. Authors aren’t swimming in new and exciting (and affordable) ways to promote their work. Tired arguments about the role of politics in art, alas, aren’t going away either. I worry about library funding, I worry about school boards, I worry about corporations complying in advance, I worry about how anyone is supposed to focus on their art when all of this is happening. Each of us is just one reader. I’m not about to ask you to buy every book by every author you’ve ever loved; who has that kind of money? But I am going to make a few suggestions on what a reader might do to help keep art, and community—which is so necessary—alive. Subscribe. Find your favorite authors’ newsletters and sign up. Maybe they have the kind of newsletter that they send out once or twice a year with news; maybe they have a rich Substack or Patreon full of writing advice, recommendations, interviews. Whatever it is, sign up, and if there’s a paid tier and you can afford it, pay for it. It’s a direct way to support them and it’s a direct line into what they’re doing. At the very least, you’re likely to hear about new books and events first.  And what’s more, you may learn about what is affecting them. Authors write about attempts being made to ban their books; they write about books they love by their peers and friends; they write about the reality of being an artist in these times. Not all the newsletters I subscribe to are SFF, but: I love Alexander Chee’s newsletter, which is kind of all of the above and more; I love Jami Attenberg’s wonderful pep talks (and her adorable dog); I love Catherynne M. Valente’s beautiful rants and recipes. I love that John Scalzi has been inviting other authors onto his blog forever (and you can subscribe to his blog, too). I would love to know which author newsletters you love. Attend. Are there author events in your town? If it’s safe and comfortable for you to do so, go to them. (It would really be nice if more event hosts so much as encouraged attendees to mask, but they probably won’t. That doesn’t mean you can’t still do it.) I used to run author events; I have been to a lot of them. And yet I have almost never regretted going to another one. They are a community space, and a space of connection; they are often at independent bookstores, who don’t even usually make that much money from events and can also really use your support. They are a way to be surprised and delighted, usually for free.  I’ve bought books because authors recommended them during their talks. I’ve been moved to both tears and fits of giggles by the stories writers tell when they’re sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair like the rest of us. When I went to see the men known as James S.A. Corey last summer, Daniel Abraham said one of the single most useful things I have ever in my life heard about writer’s block (that it’s usually actually editor’s block; that it’s the editor part of your brain getting in the way). You never know what you’ll realize you really wanted to hear. Yell. If you are very online at all, you have probably seen authors reluctantly asking their readers to review their books on the major online review sites, saying that there is a magic number of reviews after which Amazon treats books better. Whether or not you use that particular website (or Goodreads), it is always, always worth yelling about a book you loved on the internet. Write reviews, if you like to do that. Write blog posts. Write social media posts. Take artful photos for the ‘gram. Whatever it is that you find fun, do it. Make cross-stitches of your favorite quotes and post them. Make up themed cocktails and share the recipes. There is no wrong way to draw attention to things that you think deserve attention. You may even make some similarly enthusiastic new friends in the process. Pre-order books. I’m really sorry that this is a thing. I am. I think it’s screwy and terrible how much weight pre-orders have come to have in publishing. I wish there were more support for books that grow steadily and slowly, that find their fans over months and years. But that is not the world we live in. We live in the world where pre-orders can, in theory, make more people pay attention, might inspire a publisher to spend more money on a book, or a bookstore to carry it, or tweak the mysterious algorithms of online retailers so that they treat it more favorably. It is also a nice thing to do for yourself, when you forget you bought yourself a book and then a little present shows up in the mail (or at your local independent bookstore).  Don’t ignore series books. I know, I know, I know that there have been ever more series fakeouts in recent years. You pick up a book that has no indication that it’s part of a series, and then you get to the end and surprise! As a reader and especially as a reviewer, I do not love this. As a person who has done time in publishing and bookselling, I reluctantly understand why it happens. There is a perception, accurate or not, that readers don’t want to start unfinished series. (I cannot imagine where people have gotten this reluctance from.) But if a writer you know you love has a new series starting? Pick up the first one, if you can. Or get it from the library. But the thing about a series is that it has to get read in order for publishing to continue it. What I am saying here, yes, is that I desperately want the sequel to Asunder. But substitute your own favorite series and you’ll get the picture. Volunteer and get involved. I have a little bit of a hard time with suggesting things that involve public events, these days, because it usually means telling people to go to indoor spaces in which people are often pretending covid is over. (I just had covid last month. It’s not over.) But if you can: Get involved. Volunteer at a library or a local book festival. Find out what’s happening locally and who needs help. Sometimes “getting involved” is calling or emailing your representatives or senators about local issues; sometimes it means going to a school board or neighborhood meeting. It means paying attention to what matters to you when you can, and acting when you are able to. Appreciate. More than two years ago, Alex Brown wrote about book bans and what you can do to help fight them. I highly recommend reading this post. The key points they made apply to so much else: Know what you’re talking about; donate if you can; advocate; communicate; appreciate; and vote. I’m stuck, right now, on “appreciate.” Alex was talking specifically about appreciating library workers, but I think this is an undervalued part of the whole art ecosystem. Appreciation is the widest net, the biggest bucket, and ranges from liking or boosting an author’s social media posts to writing them a letter to just saying something nice to a librarian or bookseller or teacher or writer. I’m shy, in person; I have all but run away from the chance to talk to authors whose work I love. I get sweaty palms just trying to prepare myself to ask a question at an author event. But I am trying to get over myself, because I think these things matter.  One of the first things I learned when I started writing for a weekly paper was to keep every nice email someone sent me. (When you write for a weekly, you tend to get more of the other kind of emails.) I had a wall in my office where I tacked up printouts of the best ones, the ones that made me feel like I was maybe okay at my job. I still do this, though now it’s more likely to be screenshots in a folder on my computer. I imagine that anyone else writing for a public audience probably does too, in their own way. (Or just anyone, period.) It is often said that writing is a solitary experience, and it’s true that the work gets done between a writer and their keyboard or paper. But there is community, and there is connection, and there is appreciation, and these things keep people afloat. Don’t be afraid to say the nice thing.  Read, and keep reading. It is an obvious statement, but I am not afraid of being obvious. I am not going to give you any of those treacly, trite, and all too often untrue statements about how books will keep us alive or bring us together or save the day or make us better people. But I am going to say that books, or the stories within them, are art; that we need art, and we need stories, and it’s cool if some of those stories are about better ways for the world to be and for us to live in it. It’s also cool if they’re about horny unicorns and magically good coffee and mythological figures who just won’t go away, or impossible odds and daring capers and even those tired old chosen ones. Escape one day and find inspiration the next. But keep going. And help others keep going when you can.[end-mark] The post It’s a Really Good Time to Get Loud About the Books You Love appeared first on Reactor.

ICC Endorses Hamas Terrorism In Absurd Arrest Warrants on Netanyahu, Gallant

An in-Seine tale of classical conditioning.

We’re still not completely shire.

Louisiana is home to a rich tapestry of folklore, where stories of mysterious creatures that “go bump in the night” are as much a part of the culture as the music and food. Among the state’s most famous cryptids are the Rougarou, a werewolf-like figure rooted in Cajun legend, and the Honey Island Swamp Monster, a creature said to roam the murky wetlands of St. Tammany Parish. In a recent episode of the History Channel’s series The Proof Is Out There (Season 4, Episode 16), video footage of an alleged Honey Island Swamp Monster takes center stage. The footage leaves little middle ground: This is either video of someone in a suit, or this is video of an actual Sasquatch in the wild. The Honey Island Swamp Monster is a legendary cryptid said to inhabit the dense, isolated wetlands of Louisiana’s Honey Island Swamp. First gaining public attention in the early 1960s, the creature has become a prominent part of local folklore. Witnesses describe it as a bipedal creature, standing about seven feet tall, with matted grayish hair, glowing yellow eyes, and webbed feet—an attribute that sets it apart from other Bigfoot-like creatures. The legend began with Harlan Ford, a retired air traffic controller, and his friend Billy Mills. While exploring the swamp, the pair claimed to have encountered the creature. Ford later reported finding massive, mysterious footprints, which he documented with photographs. Skeptics, however, suggest more mundane explanations—such as misidentified wildlife (like black bears) or outright hoaxes. The post Alleged Honey Island Swamp Monster Captured on Video appeared first on Anomalien.com.

The opportunity to encounter exotic phenomena makes life thrilling. In contrast, the boring routine is to meet the mundane. We crave for the exotic over the mundane. Because of this tendency, Richard Feynman warned: “We must be careful not to believe things simply because we want them to be true. No one can fool you as easily as you can fool yourself.” This pearl of wisdom cautions not to get carried away with the interpretation of Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP). Yesterday, a reporter from the New York Post sent me a video taken by a television news crew from a helicopter over Manhattan, showing a fast-moving ball of light during daytime. He asked: “Do you believe it is an object or a phenomenon of the camera or light? Does it appear to bear any resemblance to other types of UAP that have been reported to be seen around the world?” I thanked the reporter for sharing the interesting video, and explained that the moving spot is most likely an optical artifact from the helicopter glass in front of the camera, namely a bright spot from reflection of sunlight as the camera gradually changed its orientation relative to the Sun and the ground. But even if this was a real object, its apparent speed is of order the speed of sound and not extraordinary. The Galileo Project that I am leading just posted last week a new extensive paper that describes a detailed careful analysis of commissioning data on half a million aerial objects, collected over a period of five months. The paper was posted on this webpage. In the coming months, our research team will attempt to triangulate outliers and figure out whether they are exotic or mundane based on their measured distances. Two days ago, the new director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office, Jon Kosloski, stated in a U.S. Senate hearing: “We do have some very anomalous objects… Many reports resolve to commonplace objects like birds, balloons and unmanned systems, while others lack sufficient data for comprehensive analysis… only a small percentage of reports received by AARO are potentially anomalous.” Kosloski mentioned a UAP observed in 2013 near Aguadilla, Puerto Rico. The infrared video from a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol helicopter, shows the object flying above the ocean before disappearing into it, or possibly splitting in two. AARO assessed that the UAP was actually flying over the airport the entire time, and disappeared in the infrared imagery because it had the same temperature as the water behind it. The apparent splitting was due to two distinct objects that were close to each other, coming in and out of view. A “trans-medium” UAP that traveled between air and water and split in half, was explained by the new AARO director, Jon Kosloski, during a U.S. Senate hearing on November 19, 2024. (Image credit: AARO/DoD) Kosloski also reported that AARO explained the well-known GOFAST video, shot by a U.S. Navy fighter jet in 2016 off the coast of Florida. In that case, the object’s apparent speed in the video was actually due to parallax associated with the camera’s perspective. In another case from 2018, a drone flying over Mt. Etna “was actually 170 meters away from the plume — not flying through it.” AARO’s new report examines UAP cases dated between May 1, 2023 and June 1, 2024 as well as historical incidents that were not included in previous reports. AARO’s ability to resolve cases “remains constrained by a lack of timely and actionable sensor data.” AARO’s 2022 report studied 510 UAP cases reported by government agencies and the U.S. military. Out of those UAP, AARO was not able to identify a minority of 171 objects and stated: “Some of these uncharacterized UAP appear to have demonstrated unusual flight characteristics or performance capabilities, and require further analysis.” Identifying most of the unidentified might be satisfactory for national security purposes. But even if one object in a million is exotic, that particular one could inspire a revolution in astronomy. This is why the Galileo Project is conducting a thorough and careful systematic study of the sky over many months rather than rely on anecdotal reports by those who happened to be at the right place at the right time. By summer 2025, we hope to have three operating observatories with triangulation capabilities for identifying distances to millions of aerial objects. There is precedent for U.S. government data uncovering exotic phenomena while seeking the mundane, and as a result promoting new knowledge in astronomy. In 1967, gamma-ray bursts were discovered by the Vela satellites which were searching for flashes of high-energy photons from covert nuclear weapon tests above the atmosphere. After the bursts were identified as cosmic in origin, their existence was revealed to astronomers through a paper published in 1973 by a research team in Los Alamos National Laboratory. In 1997, the X-ray afterglows of the gamma-ray burst were linked to galaxies at cosmological distances. Long-duration bursts, lasting more than a few seconds, are now known to be emitted by relativistic jets piercing through the envelope of massive stars as their core collapses and gives birth to a black hole. The possibility that some UAP might have been sent by intelligent cosmic neighbors is the reason that the public is fascinated by their existence. Following Feynman’s advice, we should let data guide us rather than wishful thinking. The nature of UAP will be revealed by scientists, not journalists or politicians. The post UAPs: Exotic or Mundane? appeared first on Anomalien.com.

Leave it to America’s most popular country stars to give the rest of Hollywood a masterclass on unifying the country when it comes to participating in an awards show,— as this year’s event was completely void of political lectures.  On Wednesday, ABC presented the 58th Annual Country Music Awards, hosted by singers Luke Bryan and Lainey Wilson and Hall of Fame  quarterback Peyton Manning. Right off the bat, the hosts joked that they had already planned not to discuss politics during the show. Wilson: All right, side note, y'all. There is one thing that I want to say to everybody here about the recent results, whether the candidate you voted for won or lost, we all need to get together behind the winner. Manning: Whoa, whoa, we talked about this now. Let’s not get into politics tonight. Wilson: No, Peyton, I’m talking about people voting for the sexiest man alive. Over the years, unsuspecting Hollywood fans have been bombarded with the left-wing agenda, anti-Trump rants, and lectures on who to vote for from some of the most rich and powerful celebrities, among other crazy demonstrations. Not this time. The CMAs were all about honoring their best singers and performers without any distractions, which is a breath of fresh air considering how polarized everything has become. The group Old Dominion also carried on the message of ‘unity’ after being awarded their seventh Vocal Group of the Year win,— with lead singer Matthew Ramsey encouraging all artists and music creators to come together despite 'weird' times. Ramsey: If you are an artist of any type or a creator or a musician, this is when the world needs you the most, when it’s weird like it is right now. So get out there and get together and create.  It’s also worth noting, that the awards show was family-friendly, as there weren’t any hypersexualized or satanic performances. Most of the celebrities showed up in elegant or classic country attire, and not one man was spotted in women’s clothing.  While politics were skipped during the show, that didn't stop outsiders from accusing Country Music Association judges of racism for not giving singer Beyoncé any nominations for her country-themed album Cowboy Carter, which was one of the top country albums of the year.  Let’s Be Clear: The CMAs Don’t Deserve Beyoncé https://t.co/yA1P66NgDL — Harper’s BAZAAR (@harpersbazaarus) September 9, 2024 Many celebrities had weighed in on the alleged snub, including Luke Bryan who explained "a lot of great music is sometimes overlooked, and sometimes you don't get nominated." He said this during an interview with Sirius XM's Andy Cohen Live.  

Former NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams stopped by his old stomping grounds on Wednesday as he joined Late Night host Seth Meyers to recap the presidential election and discuss what Democrats need to do differently. Both men agreed that part of the problem Democrats face is that “there is a nihilism afoot” that makes it harder for the party to get its message across. One critique Williams did lob towards Democrats was that they “have become the fancy party,” but Meyers was not convinced, “But it’s so strange, because, of course, you know, they do still, you know, they do still win a bigger share of, like, the non-white working class. So, they are speaking to someone.”     He further wondered how a working class person could prefer Donald Trump, “I mean, I understand that it's getting eaten into, but I — you know at the same time, like, we're talking about it like — you know, and again, I agree they have to communicate better to the working class voter. But I sometimes think it's a little unfair to say, you know, they're elite, when they — certainly Joe Biden stood up for unions. And, you know — and I think it's very fair to say that Donald Trump, and certainly Elon Musk, will not. And there was a time where that meant something. And I don't quite know why it doesn't anymore.” As it was, Williams replied, “To use a big word, there is a nihilism afoot, and it has been since the first Trump term. Let's — you know, ‘It's not working for me, let's burn the damn thing down.’ And that's kind of a germ that's going around the world, it's not limited to us. So, these are gonna be — strap in, these are gonna be interesting times.” Meyers agreed, “I do think you're right about the nihilism. I think it's really tough to communicate a message when that is the pervasive feeling. But I think it's the job of Democrats, if they really want to get through, it's gonna be harder than they maybe put the effort in this time.” Part of Meyers’s problem is his unwillingness to consider that elitism, or, as Williams might say, fanciness, is not just about money or rich people versus the working class. It also involves the culture wars, Democrats being unwilling to offend progressives on crime, and immigration. Here is a transcript for the November 20-taped show: NBC Late Night with Seth Meyers 11/21/2024 1:12 AM ET BRIAN WILLIAMS: The Democrats have become the fancy party. SETH MEYERS: But it’s so strange, because, of course, you know, they do still, you know, they do still win a bigger share— WILLIAMS: Yes. MEYERS: — of, like, the non-white working class. So, they are speaking to someone. WILLIAMS: Yeah, they are. MEYERS: I mean, I understand that it's getting eaten into, but I — you know at the same time, like, we're talking about it like — you know, and again, I agree they have to communicate better to the working class voter. But I sometimes think it's a little unfair to say, you know, they're elite, when they — certainly Joe Biden stood up for unions. WILLIAMS: Yep. MEYERS: And, you know — and I think it's very fair to say that Donald Trump, and certainly Elon Musk, will not. And there was a time where that meant something. And I don't quite know why it doesn't anymore. WILLIAMS: To use a big word, there is a nihilism afoot, and it has been since the first Trump term. Let's — you know, "It's not working for me, let's burn the damn thing down." And that's kind of a germ that's going around the world, it's not limited to us. So, these are gonna be — strap in, these are gonna be interesting times. MEYERS: I do think you're right about the nihilism. I think it's really tough to communicate a message when that is the pervasive feeling. But I think it's the job of Democrats, if they really want to get through, it's gonna be harder than they maybe put the effort in this time. WILLIAMS: A lot of people would agree with you. MEYERS: It is just so lovely to see you. WILLIAMS: Oh, it's great to see you. MEYERS: I'll tell you, it's so nice to have you back in the building.

Amid the furor over the 2024 election, many leftists abandoned pro-free speech X for a social media alternative, and the results are stunning. Platform Bluesky is attempting to cater to its most anti-free speech users, claiming it will increase censorship to “max capacity,” but apparently it can’t crush speech fast enough to satisfy its user base. Many leftists, especially after the 2024 election turned into a landslide victory for Republicans, lashed out at President-elect Donald Trump’s ally and X owner Elon Musk, leaving X behind. Many chose to create accounts on Bluesky instead, and the platform soon announced that its censors couldn’t handle the deluge of censorship demands, though it plans to keep trying. The platform even encouraged users to report content for censorship. On Nov. 15, Bluesky Safety, the platform’s censorship team, posted, “Bluesky has grown by over 3M people in the last week — welcome! With every wave of growth naturally comes an increase in moderation reports. Here’s a status report on how the Trust & Safety team is handling it[.]” The account then acknowledgedthe massive flood of censorship requests and promised to “dial” its censorship group up to “max capacity.” Bluesky Safety explained, “In the past 24 hours, we have received more than 42,000 reports (an all-time high for one day). We’re receiving about 3,000 reports/hour. To put that into context, in all of 2023, we received 360k reports. We’re triaging this large queue so the most harmful content such as CSAM [child sex abuse material]  is removed quickly.”  There is “increased spam, scam, and trolling activity” on the platform, Bluesky Safety asserted, urging anti-speech users to “help us by reporting them by clicking the three-dot menu on each post/account.” Bluesky Safety concluded by promising increased censorship, “We appreciate your patience as we dial our moderation team up to max capacity and bring on new team members to support this load.” But when users are determined to be offended and demand censorship, they won’t stop even after moving to a more restricted platform. One high-profile, pro-free speech account already blanketed with censorship on Bluesky is The Babylon Bee. The Bee’s Editor-in-Chief Kyle Mann posted a screenshot on X Nov. 19 showing that each of the top three posts made by the satire outlet on Bluesky were censored for what the platform apparently considers “Intolerance.” Mann joked that The Bee’s “debut on Blue Sky is going great.” Intolerance is a highly subjective standard, and Bluesky’s Community Guidelines do not even seem to include anything specifically on intolerance, making the humorless censorship of The Bee’s jokes even more mystifying. The Babylon Bee is a member of the MRC-led Free Speech Alliance. Conservatives are under attack. Contact Bluesky here and demand that it be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on so-called hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.

After failing to stop the return of former President Donald Trump to the White House, Google appears to have settled for going after his cabinet-level nominees.  On Nov. 19, MRC researchers searched Google for names of each of Trump’s cabinet nominations, and additionally the FCC chairman, and compared the news results against the AllSides media list, which classifies publications based on their “right” or “left” bias. MRC researchers found that in 10 out of 14 queries, Google provided zero right-leaning media sources on the first page of results. Worse still, even when Google did display news outlet articles in search results for the nominees’ names, it showed over 11 times more left-leaning media articles than right-leaning in its general search.  Google featured articles from leftist outlets including Teen Vogue, The Daily Beast, The Atlantic, CNN, The Hill, The New York Times and The Washington Post among many others. Indeed, out of the 100 news articles that Google displayed, the search engine produced a shabby eight articles from just three right leaning news outlets, Fox News, New York Post and Catholic News Agency. In follow-up queries, researchers examined the results of searching the same names using Google’s news tab. These searches produced similarly biased results. Searches for FCC Chairman nominee “Brendan Carr” and Trump’s other first fourteen cabinet-level appointments were filled with leftist and legacy media sources that far outnumbered any right-of-center results that appeared on the front page. Out of 130 news results that appeared on the first page of a Google news tab search, only 16 were from U.S.-based right-leaning sources.  The first page of the Google news tab search not only displayed articles from leftist outlets, but it also flooded the results with vicious or negative headlines and attacks about the potential cabinet secretaries. For example, the results for Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s name included a Vanity Fair piece titled “Cheryl Hines Has a Choice (Other Women Sure Don't!).” The article included aggressive and personal attacks on Kennedy’’s wife, even going so far ast to call for her to divorce her husband. RFK Jr. has been nominated for Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.  Google search results for Trump’s nominee to run the Department of Justice, former Congressman Matt Gaetz, and Trump’s choice for Secretary of the Department of Defense, Pete Hegseth, were similarly littered with media outlets whose headlines skewed heavily against the nominees. Google also featured a Daily Beast article labeling Gov. Kristi Noem (R-SD), potentially the next Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, a “puppy killer” in its headline.  Google featured similarly ugly attacks from leftist publications such as Salon, Teen Vogue, The New Republic, Mother Jones, CNN, NBC News and others. The search engine did not provide any relevant news results for Department of Energy nominee Christopher Wright and Veteran Affairs secretary nominee Douglas Collins.  This study follows a breathtaking campaign of election interference by Google exposed by the Media Research Center. A Sept. 6 MRC Free Speech America study showed that Google required users to wade through a deluge of leftist news articles before getting to Trump’s campaign website. This study was followed by studies on Oct. 1, Oct. 9, Oct. 15, Oct. 22, Oct. 30 and Election Day itself that demonstrated that Google was burying right-of-center search results. The Trump prompt for Oct. 9 produced the most egregious results. The Oct. 9 study found that Google buried the first U.S.-based right-of-center result—a Fox News video—for the Trump prompt on page 23. Nowhere on any of the 26 pages of results did a U.S.-based right-of-center news article appear.  Methodology  For this report, MRC Free Speech America analyzed the Nov. 19 Google Search and News tab results for the first and last names of fourteen men and women nominated for cabinet-level positions in the second Trump administration as well as Trump’s choice for FCC Chairman. MRC Free Speech America created an algorithm to automate this process in a clean environment. A “clean environment” allows for organic search to populate results without the influence of prior search history and tracking cookies. MRC Free Speech America also utilized the AllSides media bias chart as a gauge to determine which outlets are “right” and “lean right.” AllSides notes it has a “patent on rating bias and use[s] multiple methodologies,” not a homogenous group or an algorithm. “Our methods are: Blind Bias Surveys of Americans, Editorial Reviews by a multipartisan team of panelists who look for common types of media bias, independent reviews, and third-party data.” Readers should be aware that this report only uses the AllSides list to analyze ratings of outlets considered by AllSides to be “right” and “lean right” and does not necessarily reflect MRC’s characterizations of these outlets. Nominees searched include: Douglas Burgum, Brendan Carr, Douglas Collins, Sean Duffy, Tulsi Gabbard, Matthew Gaetz, Peter Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Howard Lutnick, Kristi Noem, Marco Rubio, Elise Stefanik, Susan Wiles, Christopher Wright and Lee Zeldin.  Conservatives are under attack! Contact your representatives and demand that Big Tech be held to account to mirror the First Amendment while providing transparency, clarity on hate speech and equal footing for conservatives. If you have been censored, contact us using CensorTrack’s contact form, and help us hold Big Tech accountable.