Conservative Manipulation
1971
1971-08-03 Virginian corporate attorney Lewis Powell wrote a confidential 8-page memo “Attack on American Free Enterprise System” outlining efforts for corporations to take over universities and media. He was later nominated by Nixon to the US Supreme Court in 1972. He sat on the Phillips-Morris board and argued cigarettes did not cause cancer.
https://www.inequalitymedia.org/explainers/v/the-powell-memo
https://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/powellmemo.html
https://scholarlycommons.law.wlu.edu/powellmemo/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=klVyGr3rnAE&list=WL&index=2&t=155s
1988
1988-01-01 Canon Press founder Doug Wilson tried to buy Christianity Today.
2004
2004-10-28 The Center for Public Integrity reported that more than 95% of Sinclair Broadcasting Group’s contributions go to Republicans.
2006
2006-04-01 A research study found that Republicans gain points in districts that broadcast Fox News.
https://www.nber.org/papers/w12169
2010
2010-06-01 James O’Keefe founded far-right group Project Veritas, which is notorious for fabricating “gotcha” material against political opposition.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas
https://yaf.org/people/james-okeefe/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_Veritas
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/us/politics/project-veritas-ilhan-omar.html
https://time.com/4536212/james-okeefe-project-veritas-video-democrats/
2016
2016-01-01 A Cambridge Analytica whistleblower revealed harvested Facebook data was used by Trump’s 2016 campaign to build psychographic voter profiles.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facebook%E2%80%93Cambridge_Analytica_data_scandal
2018
2018-02-16 After LeBron James and Kevin Durant criticized conditions under Trump’s leadership, Fox News host Laura Ingraham told James to “shut up and dribble.”
2018-03-08 An MIT study concluded that social media was designed to spread lies six times faster and is incentivized to go viral when laced with anger, fear or hate.
https://news.mit.edu/2018/study-twitter-false-news-travels-faster-true-stories-0308
2019
2019-01-01 Alt-right women’s magazine Evie was founded by the Hugoboom family. Its 2024 cover featured “Ballerina Farm” and “The Importance of Being Sexy,” promoting the trad-wife movement. Hugoboom also launched the “Toxic Breakup” supplement, marketed to “detox the body” after stopping birth control. In 2022, the owners launched a menstrual-tracking app funded by Peter Thiel that drew controversy for its pro-life rhetoric.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evie_Magazine
https://www.wired.com/story/burnt-hair-and-soft-power-a-night-out-with-evie-magazine/
https://28.co/shop/toxic-breakup
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZ-Hsh1B2TA&list=WL&index=2
2020
2020-05-27 Trump wrote, “Republicans feel that Social Media Platforms totally silence conservatives voices. We will strongly regulate, or close them down, before we can ever allow this to happen. We saw what they attempted to do, and failed, in 2016. We can’t let a more sophisticated version of that…happen again. Just like we can’t let large scale Mail-in Ballots take root in our country. It would be a free for all on cheating, forgery, and theft of Ballots. Whoever cheated the most would win. Likewise, Social Media. Clean up your act, NOW!!!”.
2022
2022-01-01 Blue Check verification can be bought on X, and since then research has shown a significant increase in hate speech.
https://news.berkeley.edu/2025/02/13/study-finds-persistent-spike-in-hate-speech-on-x/
2022-01-01 PragerU announced they would “go toe-to-toe” with PBS Kids and Disney to promote conservative-only content.
2022-05-01 Allegedly Larry Ellison participated in a conference call after the 2020 election focusing on strategies for challenging the legitimacy of the vote. The call included members such as Sean Hannity, Lindsey Graham, Jay Sekulow, James Bopp.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Ellison
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/20/larry-ellison-oracle-trump-election-challenges/
https://www.yahoo.com/news/billionaire-larry-ellison-reportedly-participated-211805216.html
2023 February
2023-02-16 In a $1.6B defamation lawsuit between U.S. Dominion v. Fox News Network, Sean Hannity, Rupert Murdoch and Tucker Carlson allegedly did not find election fraud claims fully credible or found them “crazy” but reported election fraud claims anyways.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fox-news-hosts-2020-election-fraud-claims-dominion-defamation-suit/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/03/07/fox-news-lawsuit/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RuPvv0maCQ&list=WL&index=7
2023 March
2023-03-29 Governor Ron DeSantis and his allies initiated a “hostile takeover” of New College of Florida as part of a political campaign.
https://www.whathappenedtonewcollege.org/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFMc07F1UUU&list=WL&index=9&t=7s
2023 October
2023-10-01 Israel reportedly launched a multi-million-dollar global propaganda campaign, paid influencers to say positive things about Israel, and funded tours for MAGA and pro-Trump influencers. In November 2025 FARA (Foreign Agents Registration Act) filed complaints against the Israeli government.
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/israel-influencers/
2023-10-16 The Daily Wire launched Bentkey, a children’s streaming service offering explicitly conservative indoctrination to children.
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/16/daily-wire-streaming-kids-bentkey-disney
2024 September
2024-09-11 Trump was recorded on Fox News requesting preferred anchors for the debate.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-insults-fox-news-anchors-163830353.html
2024 October
2024-10-07 Pro Israel groups including Canary Mission peddled conspiracies on social media that Columbia University student and pro-Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil helped plan Hamas attacks. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt also alleged Khalil distributed fliers with a Hamas logo. On March 8 2025 the Trump administration arrested him and shipped him to Louisiana.
2024-10-07 The Heritage Foundation developed Project Esther to “help combat antisemitism”, but some believe the façade of antisemitism is covering up the true attempt to crack down on activism, create censorship, control speech, and an effort to diminish humanitarian rights.
https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/whats-project-esther/
https://ca.cair.com/updates/project-esther-a-dangerous-blueprint-for-censoring-palestine/
https://www.heritage.org/progressivism/report/project-esther-national-strategy-combat-antisemitism
2024-10-20 Bari Weiss said about Columbia University protests, “Those students were holding these janitors hostage at [Columbia University].” Weiss said. “How can that be construed as being on the side of social justice, I will never know. But first, what I would say is to enforce the law on all of the students … that destroyed property.” Her media company Free Press also features articles claiming the starvation in Gaza isn’t really happening.
2024 November
2024-11-05 Kenneth Copeland frequently meddled in elections, ordering the viewers of his America Stands organization on how to vote.
https://americastands.govictory.com/
2024 December
2024-12-12 Trump named Kari Lake director of Voice of America.
2025 January
2025-01-13 Prediction market Kalshi named Donald Trump Jr. as their paid advisor.
https://news.kalshi.com/p/donald-trump-jr-strategic-advisor
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/04/15/kalshi-and-polymarket-congress-regulation-washington-influence.html
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/oQdttmT5rb0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8F2z0_Qedk
SUB WALL https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/15/us/politics/donald-trump-jr-prediction-markets.html
2025 February
2025-02-22 Lara Trump scored her own opinion segment on Fox.
https://www.foxnews.com/shows/my-view
2025 July
2025-07-07 Paramount and Skydance announced a merger.
2025-07-24 Trump signed off on an $8.4B merger between Paramount and Skydance.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c5ypylq0vnko
2025-07-24 Senators requested an investigation into corruption and bribery related to the Paramount megamerger.
2025 August
2025-08-08 PragerU announced plans to totally replace PBS with conservative programming for children. Some example material includes:
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Who’s behind the anti-ICE riots
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How Foreign aid keeps Africa poor
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Laughter on Lockdown featuring Roseanne Barr
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Their Lives Mattered - a spin off the Black Lives Matter movement
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MIA: Masculinity in America
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Why do you hate conservatives
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And an artificially generated AI version of John Adams who tells children, “Facts do not care about your feelings”.
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The quote “Facts do not care about your feelings” comes from right-wing influencer and propagandist Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro, who accuses public schools of being “almost designed to be anti-Catholic indoctrination centers”.
https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/422812/prageru-education-pbs-npr-cpb-defunding
https://prospect.org/2025/08/15/2025-08-15-prageru-wants-to-capitalize-on-pbs-defunding
https://www.youtube.com/@PragerU/videos
https://www.pbs.org/video/prageru-1757971049/
https://x.com/benshapiro/status/695638866993115136
https://www.vox.com/today-explained-podcast/422812/prageru-education-pbs-npr-cpb-defunding
https://www.youtube.com/@PragerU/videos
https://www.pbs.org/video/prageru-1757971049/
2025-08-18 Teachers in California, Oklahoma, and New York are now required to pass a PragerU-developed “America First” assessment which promotes partisan ideology and includes questions that push 2020 false electoral claims.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/aug/18/oklahoma-teachers-america-first-test
2025-08-19 Nexstar Media (managed by conservative donor Perry Sook and Fox exec Bill Shine) announced acquisition of TEGNA for $6.2B.
2025 September
2025-09-05 Paramount announced its intent to buy Free Press for $100M and make its founder Bari Weiss editor in chief of CBS.
https://www.thefp.com/p/the-gaza-famine-myth
https://www.theunspeakablepodcast.com/p/bari-weiss-derangement-free-press-debate-review
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/dec/20/things-that-matter-bari-weiss-debate-series
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/07/opinion/were-all-fascists-now.html
https://www.thefp.com/t/zohran-mamdani
2025-09-11 Paramount announced its bid for Warner Brothers Discovery, which would then place two of Hollywood’s most powerful studios under the same owner.
https://deadline.com/2025/09/paramount-exploring-bid-warner-bros-discovery-1236529093/
2025-09-14 During a prayer vigil for Kirk, Kari Lake claimed the suspect was “brainwashed” by woke and then warned not to send their children to universities, which she labeled “indoctrination camps”. Kari Lake also stirred controversy in 2022 when she demanded ballots be counted by hand.
https://www.rawstory.com/kari-lake-2673993519/
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kari-lake-blames-college-indoctrination-for-charlie-kirks-death/
2025-09-17 Sinclair Broadcasting demanded the FCC and ABC take further action on Kimmel to make a direct apology to the Kirk family and make a meaningful personal donation to Turning Point USA.
2025-09-17 Sinclair Broadcasting announced they would be replacing the Jimmy Kimmel time slot with a Kirk tribute.
2025-09-21 Following the sharp reaction to cancelling Jimmy Kimmel, Sinclair Broadcast changed its mind about filling the Jimmy Kimmel time slot with the Kirk tribute and had it moved to YouTube.
2025 November
2025-11-03 Conservative activist Laura Loomer received Pentagon press credentials.
https://thehill.com/homenews/media/5587848-pentagon-credentials-laura-loomer/
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4877506-laura-loomer-trump-criticism/
https://x.com/LauraLoomer/status/1985560924720124414
2026 February
2026-02-22 Trump threatened Netflix with consequences unless it removed board member Susan Rice.
https://www.axios.com/2026/02/23/trump-netflix-susan-rice
https://theweek.com/business/trump-netflix-susan-rice-state-run-capitalism
2026-02-25 Paramount Skydance outbid Netflix to buy all of Warner Brothers Discovery.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/netflix-warner-paramount-skydance-deal/
2026 April
2026-04-06 Gulf investors, including Abu Dhabi sovereign wealth fund L’imad, backed Paramount’s proposed $81 billion acquisition of Warner
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/may/07/uae-ruling-royal-family-eu-farming-subsidies
https://deadline.com/2026/04/paramount-wbd-merger-foreign-backing-gulf-funds-deal-1236780058/
2026-04-13 Hollywood actors, writers and directors signed an open letter to voice opposition for the Paramount-Warner Brothers-Discovery merger. Part of the letter reads, “The integrity, independence, and diversity of our industry would be grievously compromised. Competition is essential for a healthy economy and a healthy democracy. So is thoughtful regulation and enforcement”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz0egvr94zro
2026-04-16 Tennessee enacted House Bill 1476 “Charlie Kirk Act,” restricting campus walkouts and certain protest activities.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJ5hlrDtFYk&list=WL&index=3&t=98s
https://www.wkrn.com/news/tennessee-politics/charlie-kirk-act-passed/
https://www.newsweek.com/charlie-kirk-act-tennessee-free-speech-11837604
https://wapp.capitol.tn.gov/apps/BillInfo/Default?BillNumber=HB1476&GA=114
2026-04-23 A Paramount-Warner Brothers Discovery merger for $111B was approved.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cgj09ny0dq6o
https://www.npr.org/2026/04/23/nx-s1-5793628/warner-bros-discovery-paramount-skydance-merger
2026-04-28 Shortly after Trump and First Lady Melania Trump demanded Jimmy Kimmel be fired, the FCC opened an investigation into ABC and Disney for DEI practices.
https://abcnews.com/US/fcc-orders-early-review-abcs-broadcast-licenses/story?id=132466823
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/fcc-disney-abc-early-license-renewal-jimmy-kimmel-dei/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/fcc-threatens-abcs-licenses-as-trumps-call-for-kimmels-firing
2026-04-30 Trump withdrew Casey Means’ nomination for Surgeon General and replaced her with a Fox News contributor. Even MAHA leaders opposed the decision.
https://apnews.com/article/trump-surgeon-general-means-saphier-cebadfb452fb577b6cd5254e2e55d86b
SUB WALL https://www.politico.com/news/2026/04/30/casey-means-murkowski-surgeon-general-rfk-maha-00902206
PAY WALL https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cr5p4pp1407o
2026 May
2026-05-11 The BBC censored a documentary “Gaza: Doctors Under Attack”.
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/eh69K_7pAuE
TIMELINE: https://www.camera.org/article/timeline-the-bbc-gaza-documentary-controversy
https://www.bbc.co.uk/helpandfeedback/corrections_clarifications/
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/clydv5yngq4o
2026-05-27 After Bari Weiss pulled a story from 60-Minutes about CECOT, reporting correspondent Sharyn Alfonsi wrote in a parting statement, “In the coming days, network leadership may attempt to hide behind corporate euphemisms like ‘modernization’ and ‘restructuring’ to explain away my departure. Don’t be misled. This was not a routine corporate transition; it was a deliberate choice to penalize a journalist for refusing to sanitize factually accurate reporting, and it sends a chilling message to the entire newsroom”.
TIMESTAMP 9:33 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yUjicp6VqU
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2026/may/27/60-minutes-sharyn-alfonsi
2026-05-28 Student journalist Santiago Campos delivered a speech during a news Emmy award ceremony, “…as corporate elites take hold over the very pipes through which our information flows, journalism that serves people becomes increasingly harder to come by, yet ever more crucial. And what people want is the truth. So if at any time you hesitate to utter the word ‘genocide’ or remain silent in the face of blatant lies, remember to ask yourself who is this for”.
https://www.the-independent.com/bulletin/news/santiago-campos-cbs-news-bari-weiss-b2985217.html
TIMESTAMP 10:50 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5yUjicp6VqU
2026 June
2026-06-15 Fox Corporation wants to buy Roku for $22BN.
https://www.nbcnews.com/business/media/fox-buys-roku-22-billion-rcna350097
https://www.foxcorporation.com/news/corp-press-releases/2026/fox-corporation-to-acquire-roku-inc/
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/xJ33k1WKwmE
2026 July
2026-07-08 Salem Media Partners released a taxpayer-funded movie By Dawn’s Early Light that chastises non-Trump supporters and claims systemic bias against Christians during the Biden administration. Salem Media Partners also promoted election fraud claims in their other movie 2000 Mules.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt42950619/
https://baptistnews.com/article/taxpayer-funded-by-dawns-early-light-woos-trumps-evangelical-base/