Last month, we covered the saga of Boston Children's Hospital, where documents showed they were performing gender transition surgeries on minors. They, along with help from the mainstream media and fact-checkers, tried to cover it up, even scrubbing their YouTube channels.
There appears to initially have been some confusion as to if threats were made directly to the hospital. Christopher Rufo, who has addressed the hospital's surgeries, had also been in touch with law enforcement about the threats.
If the NBC News report is accurate and the FBI has apprehended the person who made the threat, that's good news: threats of violence should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. We will learn details at 4pm ET. https://t.co/FBB53FnH0w
— Christopher F. Rufo ?? (@realchrisrufo) September 15, 2022
On September 15, it was announced that the FBI had apprehended a suspect, Catherine Leavy of Westfield, Massachusetts, for a hoax bomb threat. She was charged with "one count of explosive materials - willfully making a false bomb threat," according to a press release.
— U.S. Attorney Massachusetts (@DMAnews1) September 15, 2022
"The charge of making threatening communications in interstate commerce provides for a sentence of up to 10 years in prison, three years of supervised release and a fine of up to $250,000," the press release noted.
Rufo, as well as Libs of TikTok, which has also covered the procedures performed on minors, expressed relief that a suspect was apprehended.
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This is great news. Threats of violence should always be taken seriously. We’re grateful the FBI tracked this person down, but we’re disappointed the media had no interest in helping them. They never once mentioned the cash reward we offered for information leading to an arrest. https://t.co/0M7SC2ytIw
— Libs of TikTok (@libsoftiktok) September 15, 2022
That wasn't enough for the mainstream media, though, especially The Washington Post. As Jonathan Edwards wrote on September 16:
The Aug. 30 bomb threat was one the most extreme parts of a weeks-long harassment campaign waged against Boston Children’s, which says it’s one of the country’s largest pediatric hospitals. Boston Children’s told The Washington Post last month that it started getting threats after the right-wing Twitter account Libs of TikTok on Aug. 11 tweeted a video produced by the hospital about gender-affirming hysterectomies.
The right-wing Libs of TikTok account, which frequently amplifies anti-LGBTQ messaging to its nearly 1.4 million followers, didn’t immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment early Friday. But on Thursday afternoon, it reacted to Leavy’s arrest, calling it “great news.”
“Threats of violence should always be taken seriously,” the account tweeted. “We’re grateful the FBI tracked this person down.”
The outlet, which still employs Taylor Lorenz, has been particularly obsessed with Libs of TikTok. Matt highlighted last week how out of hand that's gotten. Libs of TikTok also wrote a blog post to explain the situation:
The media claims that Libs of TikTok is to blame for the alleged bomb threat at Boston Children’s Hospital, but that’s not true. In fact, the conservatives the media smears as being evil are the only ones making a concerted effort to find whoever made the threat, even going so far as to offer cash rewards for information that leads to an arrest. Incredibly, the media refuses to report this.
...
The Washington Post, Axios, Forbes, NBC, and the Boston Herald all wrote articles blaming me and other “ring-wing” outlets for the bomb threat. So, I reached out to each reporter and informed them about the cash reward. My hope was that they would help us get the word out by updating their stories—or by writing new ones—that amplified the fact that there’s now a massive reward out for information about the anonymous caller.
None of them—not a single one—updated their articles with that information. How is that possible, given the concern they expressed about these threats? Were they just faking it? Do they not actually care about catching the person responsible?
As the post continued, with original emphasis, there's been serious misinterpretation from the mainstream media:
Instead of helping us find the person responsible for the threat, activists-masquerading-as-journalists continue to maintain that Boston Children’s Hospital is “under siege” from “far-right activists” because I spread “misinformation” with the intent to incite violence. That’s a malicious smear. I reported nothing but the truth. I accurately documented what these hospital websites and staff have said in their own words.
This bomb threat is just another example of media malpractice. They never investigated to try and find out why hospitals are saying they perform gender-affirming surgeries on healthy minors, and they never investigated whether a bomb threat actually occurred. They just took the hospital’s desperate PR spin at face value, and dropped their interest in the bomb threat story as soon as it had served its purpose.
How are we supposed to get to the bottom of what’s really happening at these hospitals without a media that’s willing to do some digging? How are we supposed to know whether the bomb threat even happened, or if it wasn’t just a false flag operation carried out by a Leftist who wanted to make conservatives look like violent extremists? We won’t know the answers to these questions because the media doesn’t want us to know them. They aren’t protecting kids from threats; they’re protecting their precious narrative at all costs.
Notorious crybully Taylor Lorenz accused me of being responsible for threats against children’s hospitals, but she declined to answer whether she feels responsible for the threats against me that have been inspired by her vicious hit pieces. At least I told the truth in my reporting.
That post also highlighted how Seth Dillon of The Babylon Bee had even offered a cash reward about information on threats made to the hospital. Dillon also retweeted the Libs of TikTok tweet included above.
6/ One way or another, the anonymous coward who called in this threat needs to be exposed and face justice. To that end, I'm putting up a $20,000 cash reward to anyone who comes forward with information leading to his or her arrest.
— Seth Dillon (@SethDillon) August 31, 2022
Send your tips to: tips@libsoftiktok.com
Besides going after Libs of TikTok, who decried violence and expressed relief over an arrest being made, the mainstream media has provided problematic coverage in other ways.
Paul Blest, writing about Levey's arrest for Vice, wrote in his headline that "Woman Charged With Threatening Boston Children's Hospital Was a Huge Trump Fan," which fails to make clear it was a hoax threat.
While Blest does mention in his first paragraph that the charge was "a hoax bomb threat," the rest of his piece focused on Levey's support for former President Donald Trump. He also goes after Libs of TikTok.
Blest's calling out suspects for their political connections appears to be one-sided. He did not call out President Joe Biden for demonizing his political opponents in his September 1 speech outside of Independence Hall in Philadelphia. He also has not written about 41-year-old Shannon Brandt, the suspect accused of killing 18-year-old Cayler Ellingson in North Dakota. Brandt claimed the teen was "part of a Republican extremist group," although no evidence has surfaced corroborating that.
It also does not appear that Blest has expressed concern for pro-life individuals and organizations that have been victims of violence, or the illegal protests that conservative justices on the U.S. Supreme Court faced after a draft opinion of Dobbs v. Jackson was leaked in May.
Articles of his include "The Right Is Obsessed With the Roe v. Wade Leak—Not the Erosion of Abortion Rights" from May 3, "The GOP Is Extremely Concerned About 9 Specific People’s Right to Privacy" from May 9, and "Brett Kavanaugh, Who Just Stripped Millions of Women of Healthcare, Forced to Skip Dessert" from July 8.
Blest's colleague, Carter Sherman, wrote an article on July 28 downplaying such violent actions that pro-abortion extremist group Jane's Revenge has taken credit for. "The Right Is Freaking Out About Jane’s Revenge. But What Is It?," the headline read.
It's not merely the mainstream media that seems to not care, or has even downplayed violent attacks against pro-life organizations, pregnancy centers, and churches. Under this Department of Justice (DOJ), Mark Houck, a husband and father, was arrested in an FBI early morning raid last Friday for allegedly violating the Freedom of Access to Clinic Entrances (FACE) Act.
It does not appear that the DOJ has the same concern for what the pro-life movement has been through. A letter from Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) sent to Attorney General Merrick Garland on Monday not only demanded answers on the tactics used to arrest Houck, but called him out for the lack of action taken to charge violent pro-abortion extremists as well.
