By Tom Blumer | April 4, 2015 | 11:28 PM EDT

UPDATE, April 6: An email sent by "Virginia Commonwealth University News" insists, despite the November 2014 tweet originally found at the link about Bryan's "GoFundMe" effort, that Alix Bryan "has not been employed by Virginia Commonwealth University." Accordingly, the text in this post's final sentence now refers to Bryan's claim in her WTVR bio and at her LinkedIn profile to have received a "Master’s in Multimedia Journalism from Virginia Commonwealth University."

Opening up a new frontier in the left's ongoing effort to intimidate opponents into silence, a Virginia TV reporter tweeted on Wednesday that "I have reported the GoFundMe for Memories Pizza for fraud. Just in case." In doing so, social media reporter Alix Bryan of CBS affiliate WTVR-TV in Richmond, Virginia, effectively admitted that she had no factual basis upon which to file such a report — but did so anyway.

To the surprise of very few, after she was publicly criticized for this disgraceful behavior, Bryan went to a wide variety of failed defenses before she ended up very inadequately "apologizing."

By Bryan Ballas | April 4, 2015 | 6:09 PM EDT

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters was asked on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Thursday about the difference between the Indiana religious-freedom law as it was originally written and as it stood now. Peters decided to unveil the bigger issue with the RFRA laws themselves: "these laws look as if they're coming from a dark place. They are designed in many cases to express a disapproval about gay relationships. And that's what's so upsetting to people about this."

By Tim Graham | April 4, 2015 | 11:43 AM EDT

The April 13 edition of People magazine displays the usual liberal bias – trashing Gov. Mike Pence on religious freedom with attack-quotes from Hillary Clinton and the policy genius known as Miley Cyrus. (College: None.)

But they also published a gushy two-page spread on “Ted Kennedy’s Treasures.” Geared like everyone else in the liberal media to the opening of the new Teddy shrine. A subheadline noted "The late Senator's office -- from photos to letters and dog bowls -- has been re-created at Boston's Edward M. Kennedy Institute."

By Clay Waters | April 4, 2015 | 8:19 AM EDT

On the front page of the New York Times sat "Religion Laws Quickly Fall Into Retreat," a label-heavy (14 "conservative" labels) 1,500-word story on Indiana's controversial religious freedom law. The Times' coverage has also been consistently slanted with both that labeling bias and scare quotes surrounding the term "religious freedom."

By Tom Blumer | April 2, 2015 | 10:41 PM EDT

Update, April 3: The Indiana man who claims to have been hacked now admits that he wasn't, but says he was "joking" about robbing Memories Pizza, and is threatening to sue those who exposed his (ahem) public comments. 

Those of us following the Memories Pizza story won't have trouble remembering it as the years go by, thanks only partially to the Walkerton, Indiana store's fairly unusual name for a pizzeria.

What will also easy to recall are the "memories" of the unhinged and threatening leftist behavior that accompanied its owner's simple statement that, if the request ever arose, they would have to turn down catering a same-sex "marriage" because participating in or supporting such a ceremony violates their firm Christian religious beliefs — and the press's attempts to cover up what their journalistic malfeasance unleashed.

By Clay Waters | April 2, 2015 | 10:28 PM EDT

If it's Thursday, it must be...yet another front-page New York Times story on the issue that is going to tear the Republican Party apart and doom prospects in 2016 (the actual issue changes every week, of course).

On cue with the ginned-up controversy over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act, came reporter Jennifer Steinhauer's story, under a liberally stacked deck of headlines: "Rights Measures Expose Divisions In G.O.P.'s Ranks – Debate Enters '16 Race – Laws Seen as Targeting Gays, and Posing a Peril to Business."

By Tom Blumer | April 2, 2015 | 6:49 PM EDT

A short unbylined Associated Press report at its national site on the situation at Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana this afternoon made sure to mention that the pizzeria "won't cater gay weddings" (in the headline).

It also misstated the owner's statement to a South Bend TV station, claiming, using its own words, that she "said the state's new religious objections law backs their right to deny catering to a same-sex wedding." (Sorry, the statement that they wouldn't cater a same wedding was independent of any legal opinion.)

By Jack Coleman | April 2, 2015 | 12:20 PM EDT

Where have I seen this before, Rush Limbaugh asked his radio listeners while talking about the left's manufactured flash-mob anger over Indiana's religious freedom law?

Come to think of it, Limbaugh said, this last happened in the previous presidential campaign when the same Democrat operative/ pretend journalist played gotcha with another GOP politician to kick-start liberals' bogus war-on-women meme?

By Jeffrey Meyer | April 2, 2015 | 11:21 AM EDT

During NBC’s coverage of Indiana and Arkansas’s religious freedom bills on Thursday morning, Meet the Press moderator Chuck Todd did his best to tie the potential 2016 Republican presidential candidates to the ongoing religious freedom debate. 

By Bryan Ballas | April 2, 2015 | 9:50 AM EDT

Mika Brzezinski has never been one to shy away from smearing conservatives and Wednesday was no exception. Still furious over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), Brzezinski said of Governor Mike Pence "People are calling him a bigot because it sounds like one and looks like one. I'm sorry."

By Jack Coleman | April 2, 2015 | 8:24 AM EDT

Having paved the way for television comics to make the unlikely leap to the rarefied sanctum known as the United States Senate, Saturday Night Live alum Al Franken wants David Letterman to follow suit.

Franken, now in his second term as a U.S. senator for Minnesota (and my apologies for the profound shock to anyone who recently awoke from a decade-long coma and still wasn't aware of this), appeared on Letterman's Late Show last night and thanked Letterman for his work as a comedian and broadcaster as Letterman prepares to retire in May.

By Jeffrey Meyer | April 2, 2015 | 8:15 AM EDT

Appearing on MSNBC’s The Last Word with Lawrence O’Donnell on Wednesday night, Nina Burleigh of Newsweek crudely joked that Republicans who defended Pence and Indiana’s Religious Freedom Act were experiencing “premature intolerance ejaculation.”