Jonathan Larsen Profile picture
Oct 12, 2021 10 tweets 5 min read Read on X
NEW: We found out who secretly bankrolls the National Prayer Breakfast, keeping the purportedly nonpartisan, ecumenical event in the black every year:

Franklin Graham.

tyt.com/stories/2ilAKs…
Every year, a source told me, Graham funnels $100,000 to the Fellowship Foundation, the legal entity of The Family, which stages the breakfast...

...through his two nonprofits, Samaritan's Purse and the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association.

Past tax filings reveal traces.
Both the BGEA and Samaritan's Purse are openly anti-LGBTQ.

Last month, an LGBTQ group warned congressional Democrats about participating in prayer breakfasts, which an EU parliamentary report found to be part of a right-wing networking strategy.
The Family's Democratic defend the breakfast as a time for reconciliation...

...but internal docs we obtained show that reconciliation rarely happens with advocates who favor LGBTQ or abortion rights... because they're not invited.

tyt.com/stories/7K5fbf…
Instead, Democrats have told us they didn't know their names were used to invite anti-LGBTQ leaders to the 2016 and 2018 breakfasts...

...and a source close to The Family says virtually no one in Congress who lends their names to the event has a clue who's being invited.
Graham himself has used Democratic participation in the breakfast to make a case that Christian politicians are better for America.

Here he is talking to Fox specifically about the prayer breakfast.
Trump's first year in office, the BGEA cited @RepJuanVargas' participation to make the case that the breakfast is above politics...

...and then went on to praise Trump's breakfast speech for defending religious liberty (aka, allowing anti-LGBTQ discrimination).
While Democrats help boost Graham's claim that the breakfast is above politics, Graham uses the event as a political weapon against Democrats who participate in it.

Obama was too critical.
Biden not religious enough.
You can check out all the stories in our current series on The Family -- based on internal docs we obtained -- here:

tyt.com/stories/franch…
Glad to see Twitter having a sense of humor about all this...

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More from @jtlarsen

Sep 2
NEW: Sen. @JDVance recanted his Trump critiques, but the media haven’t asked him about how he disparaged evangelical Protestants.

I went back to old Vance interviews and essays and found multiple examples.

Now Catholic, Vance hasn’t recanted it.
🧵
You can find an easy-to-read article version of the info in this thread…

…as well as subscribe and support my reporting, here:
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/vance-dispar…
Some highlights.

Vance told Religion News Service in 2016 that for “a fair number” of Bible Belt Christians, Christianity is “a cultural tchotchke.”

Like fishing or country music. Image
Read 7 tweets
Aug 10
NEW: In 2016, JD Vance wrote that he didn’t see “significant” combat.

Or “real” fighting…

…without explaining why he added those qualifiers, which left room to infer that he saw minor action.

There are other instances, too, including the RNC.
🧵
I’ll thread some highlights, but you can read the full article here:
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/vance-wrote-…
Image
Vance has gone after Gov. Tim Walz for “stolen valor” after Walz referred to weapons that he carried in war.

The Kamala Harris campaign today said Walz “misspoke.”

But Vance, too, has been ambiguous about his service. Image
Read 10 tweets
Jul 31
I see the Buttigieg-for-veep star is rising, so I wanted to remind folks about my reporting on him in the 2020 campaign.

Here's a guide to the most notable stories, but I'll thread some of the details. thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/the-buttigie…
Image
Indiana state law lets county officials destroy campaign-finance records after a few years.

I learned that Buttigieg's first mayoral filings were gone.

He refused to release his copies and AFAIK never has.
documentcloud.org/documents/2494…
I learned that Buttigieg allegedly fired a city attorney for failing to deep-six a state police investigation of Buttigieg's police chief.

I would later learn a lot more about this investigation, which Buttigieg claimed exonerated his chief.
web.archive.org/web/2023092722…
Read 25 tweets
Apr 22
On Tuesday, Mike Johnson was praying over what to do about Ukraine.

On Wednesday, Johnson gave his news conference saying Ukraine was worth losing his speakership.

Here’s what happened in between.
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/johnsons-com…
Image
You can read the full article, and support this and upcoming reporting, by subscribing at .

And a big hat tip to @NastyOldWomyn, who flagged the key piece of this one.

Here's what we know...thefuckingnews.substack.com
@NastyOldWomyn As I reported on April 10, the Ukrainian point man for The Family--the prayer breakfast people--had met with both Johnson (January) and Zelenskyy (April)...

...pushing a new rationale to support Ukraine: "Religious freedom."
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/dying-for-us…
Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 31
Speaker Mike Johnson is calling it "abhorrent" for Pres. Biden to name today "Transgender Day of Visibility Day."

Because it's Easter.

Johnson said Biden "betrayed the central tenet of Easter." Image
Trump's campaign said Christians -- but also Catholics! -- believe today is "for one celebration only"...

..."the resurrection of Jesus Christ."

But is it? Did Biden REALLY betray Easter's central tenet...? Image
"Easter" only appears in the Bible 22 times. Each time, with an 'n' at the end.

The actual WORD "Easter" appears in The Bible 0 times.

Which means that Biden is celebrating Easter today more literally and explicitly than The Bible does. And... Image
Read 6 tweets
Mar 5
The House impeachment of DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas is expected to go to the Senate this week.

I dug into the staffers who put together the House impeachment report. THREAD...
Image
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(BTW, all of my stories on this can be found at . If you need a family-friendly URL, there's .

Either way, you can make sure not to miss future reporting by becoming a subscriber. Thanks!)

Back to the thread...thefuckingnews.substack.com
jonathanlarsen.substack.com
The top staffers in the Mayorkas impeachment have had ties with, and training from…

…multiple right-wing and even theocratic groups.

Some leaders of those groups have used lies to dispatch political foes.
thefuckingnews.substack.com/p/mayorkas-imp…
Image
Read 25 tweets

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