Michael “Mikey” Weinstein, perennial critic of religious freedom in the US military, celebrated the close of 2017 by happily saying, essentially, he’d ‘transitioned’ into a well-paid blogger. Apparently stung by the revelation he was soliciting funds for lawsuits that weren’t actually happening, Weinstein now says his primary mission is to communicate, not litigate [emphasis added]:

MRFF’s mission to ensure military religious freedom scored big wins this year with battles achieving massive publicity…

We [need your money to] fuel MRFF’s campaign to illuminate federally funded fundamentalism. We must open the public’s eyes. The spread of knowledge is our arsenal’s most potent weapon.

In other words, whereas Mikey Weinstein once bragged of how much he accomplished, he now brags of how much he talks. Apropos.

More tellingly, Weinstein included a list of 14 “achievements” for 2017 that read like a list of non-events — and other people’s events.

Within that list of 14, Weinstein included four with which the MRFF was passive, essentially uninvolved, or unrelated to the final outcome.  For example, one of the MRFF’s “achievements” was the installation of a homosexual commandant at USAFA, Gen Kristin Goodwin. (Apparently, Mikey Weinstein now runs the Air Force Personnel Center.) A further three had nothing to do with religious freedom (a FOIA case, for example, from January 2017 — one that doesn’t seem to have amounted to anything, anyway). Another was about posters at Langley — an incident that Weinstein is claiming as an “achievement” but for which NOW actually achieved the end result (the Air Force had actually rebuffed Weinstein’s complaint).

Two more “achievements” were complaining about individuals associated with the military, including Air Force Chaplain Sonny Hernandez and Mr. Patrick Dunleavy. In his celebratory remarks, however, Mikey omits the important fact those “achievements” have not achieved anything.  Both Hernandez and Dunleavy — and their parent Services — seem unfazed by Mikey’s “achievements” on their behalf.

Of 14, that essentially leaves 4 MRFF “achievements.” Of those, three are not publicly verifiable — meaning everyone has to take Mikey Weinstein’s word that some sort of “violation” occurred and that he swooped in and saved the day. The secrecy is due to Weinstein’s discovery that if he lets his more nefarious actions become public knowledge, religious liberty groups will contact the military and protect those whom Weinstein is attacking. In other words, his “achievements” will be undone.

Thus, Weinstein keeps the details of some “victories” vague — likely weak ones he knows he’d be unable to defend or sustain. Still, he’s able to claim an “achievement” that is neither provable nor refutable. They stay that way, however, because they’re practically non-events. For example, one of those vague MRFF “achievements” Weinstein initially published and then apparently reconsidered was credited to US Soldiers, not the MRFF, as:

MRFF Clients Force Supervising NCO to Retract Statement Regarding non-Christians

Weinstein is apparently referring to an incident in which Soldiers told their NCO they called Mikey on him because he said bad things about Obama and good things about Trump — and then he “got all scared and all,” to quote the complaint. There are no more details than that.

In another, a “client” complained because a Bible study was held in public — and he heard the word “Jesus” six times in the space of two minutes.

If those are the top MRFF “achievements” this year, Weinstein is truly scraping the bottom of the barrel.

It has been noted several times that little happened for Mikey in 2017. He had a rough year — both professionally and personally. Weinstein even essentially admitted this, noting with unintended irony that his cause in “the past year” [emphasis added]

has seen massive backwards steps across the nation

Weinstein has been particularly ineffective — so ineffective he hasn’t even been able to maintain the status quo — and it seems he’s even willing to admit that, to a degree.  That didn’t stop him from laying blame, however, and doing so at the feet of Christians he hates with such vitriol.  Mikey Weinstein even went so far as to claim Christians are “violent”, saying

Those who do not bend the knee to their twisted version of “faith” are singled out, harassed and harried, and browbeaten into submission.

Weinstein — claiming that Christians in the military are harassing and “browbeat[ing others] into submission” — cites exactly zero examples or evidence to support his characterizations of US troops.  Apparently, it’s true because Mikey Weinstein says so.

Weinstein even tried to tie the list of “achievements” to President Trump, but a cursory review indicates the President had nothing to do with any of them — Weinstein is just trying to coat-tail public outrage. (Besides, most of the “achievements” were rooted in situations begun in the Obama administration or earlier.)

With Weinstein-nemesis Secretary Heather Wilson leading the Air Force, and other Trump administration officials not open to Mikey Weinstein’s hate-filled rhetoric, much of the air has left his sails. Still, it is likely Weinstein’s finances haven’t suffered, as much of his income come from institutional or charitable “funds”. Thus, while he hasn’t done much, Mikey Weinstein is probably still being well paid to do it.

And that’s ultimately all that matters to him.

You can read Mikey Weinstein’s claims of achievement here.

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