MRC Attacks How Networks 'Censor' Anti-Abortion Hearing, Ignores How Its Own CNS Censored It
Topic: Media Research Center

In an April 21 NewsBusters post headlined "Networks Censor Congressional ‘Pricing of Fetal Tissue’ Hearing," Katie Yoder complained: "A congressional probe into whether or not businesses profited from aborted baby body parts should scream big news. But not so for the three broadcast networks."

But Yoder ignored the censorship of infor mation in the hearing going on down the hall at another Media Research Center division, CNSNews.com.

CNS published three articles on the hearing:

• Lauretta Brown played up Republican Rep. Mia Love's assertion that fetal tissue donation was like organ donation and asking, "Who protects the minor’s interests in this case?"
• Melanie Hunter touted Republican Rep. Joe Pitts sneering that the deceptively edited anti-Planned Parenthood videos issued by the Center for Medical Progress uncovered "the Amazon.com of baby body parts." Neither Hunter's or Brown's article quoted a person at the hearing who was not anti-abortion.
• Brown wrote another article actually getting around to quoting the other side, noting that "Reps. Jackie Speier (D-Calif.) and Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.) expressed concern at a Select Investigative Panel on Infant Lives Subcommittee hearing Wednesday." Unlike with her other article, Brown inserts the other side: "Rep. Larry Bucshon (R-Ind.), a cardiac surgeon, interrupted Speier to ask that it be noted that he took 'personal offense for it being said that I, as a physician, am here to allow people to die.'"

But Brown and Hunter, along with Yoder, deliberately excluded information from the hearing that didn't make the anti-abortion side -- the one CNS and the Media Research Center are on -- look good.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank pointed out that committee chairman Marsha Blackburn, a Republican, ave an opening statement mentioning the buying and selling of “baby body parts” no fewer than seven times despite the fact that none of the several state investigations launched in the wake of the misleading videos have found any wrongdoing, and that Blackbur's staff handed out an exhibit claiming without evidence that abortion clinics have no costs in obtaining fetal tissue so payments made to them for the tissue are "pure profit" -- despite other exhibits noting that clinics do have reimbursable costs. Rather than offer evidence to back up the claim, Blackburn simply insisted there was "no discrepancy."

And while Yoder complained that "MRC Culture found that the six Democrats on the House Energy and Commerce Committee's Select Investigative Panel had received more than $81,000 from Planned Parenthood," neither she nor the CNS reporters mentioned that, as Milbank mentioned, Blackburn took part in an anti-Planned Parenthood protest before coming to the hearing -- which you'd think would compromise her hearing's objectivity at least as much as Planned Parenthood donations to Democrats.

Even though the hearing's witness list was stacked in favor of Blackburn's anti-Planned Prenthood agenda, there were at least two witnesses who were on the other side: one who pointed out the state investigations finding no wrongdoing, and another who noted that the committee has yet to order CMP's David Daleiden to testify under oath, presumably because she knows his stories wouldn't hold up under penalty of perjury. Neither Yoder nor the CNS reporters mentioned this testimony.

If Yoder really wants to have an easy job of finding journalistic censorship, she doesn't even have to leave the MRC offices. But perhaps she's totally down with censorship that helps her agenda.

NEW ARTICLE: The Gallup-ing Conspiracy Theorist
Topic: WorldNetDaily
WorldNetDaily wants its author Carl Gallups to be taken seriously, but his promotion of wild conspiracy theories (not to mention his birtherism) keep putting WND in cleanup mode. Read more >>

MRC Hides Behind Levin Again To Criticize Fox
Topic: Media Research Center

The Media Research Center still can't quite find a way to criticize Fox News in its own voice.

As it did last month, the MRC uses right-wing radio host Mark Levin as cover for its Fox News criticism. Tim Graham writes in an April 20 NewsBusters post about how Levin was "hitting back at all the election propaganda being spouted by the media and pundits after the New York primary results," going after Fox News in particular:

The Fox News Channel – the Donald Trump super PAC – hasn’t discussed any of this, all day long. Instead, the pom pom boys and girls are dancing all over the place. Telling you that everything’s changed, even though nothing’s changed. They repeat what Donald Trump says. They repeat what his sycophants say, his surrogates say.

Graham doesn't explain why the MRC doesn't criticize Fox News itself and instead trots out Levin to do the dirty work for them. Because Brent Bozell would like to continue appearing on Fox, perhaps?

Then, as befits someone with a mutual business promotion deal with the MRC, Levin retweeted Graham's post, adding: "Newsbusters, a great site where accuracy matters." We assume it matters even more when the check clears.

WND's Bitter Its Dubious Miriam Carey Crusade Didn't Win A Pulitzer
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Back in January, WorldNetDaily proclaimed that it had submitted its reporting on the death of Miriam Carey, killed by law enforcement agents in 2013 after apparently attempting to crash the White House gates and then fleeing. In usual self-aggrandizing fashion, WND editor Joseph Farah is quoted as saying that "WND has already been cited by other news agencies for its determined leadership in rolling back the layers of an enormous and scandalous cover-up" (despite citing only one actual example of such, Mother Jones, which noted only that WND was obsessed the story). Farah followed up with an even more self-aggrandizing column declaring that "If WND’s diligent commitment to this case resulted in a Pulitzer Prize or two, it would give the Miriam Carey case more prominence and exposure – the kind that could ultimately result in a measure of justice being served."

Well, the Pulitzers were awarded last week, and WND's entry did not win. We're guessing it's because its lead reporter on the story, Garth Kant, apparently did little more than file FOIA requests and has not proven that Carey's death was the result of a conspiracy instead of being merely a tragedy involving a woman driving suspiciously and erratically in a nervous Washington, D.C., just two weeks after a shooter killed 12 people at D.C.'s Navy Yard. The facts that nobody believes WND , the Pulitzer bid is a desperate stab and acquiring some credibiity, or that it's Farah is clearly using the Carey story to continue his (largely failed) war on President Obama are probably irrelevant to the Pulitzer judges. The bitter headline of WND's article on the awards says it all: "Major WND probe snubbed by Pulitzers."

Speaking of bitter, Farah devoted a column to the Pulitzer snub, beginning with rehashing old glories and then whining that the "new media" didn't win any Pulitzers:

Only Old Media news organizations were selected for the honors, even though the public long ago began getting its news from the New Media.

I’m only a little disappointed because what happened is just what I expected.

The old institutions die hard. The good old boys’ networks don’t usually open their doors unless you knock them down.

But I’m also more than a little disappointed that the Pulitzer insiders didn’t see the value of honoring our reporting on the Miriam Carey case. Their recognition would have done something much more significant than make my day. It would have made it nearly impossible for the official cover-up and stonewalling by the most powerful people in America over the death of Miriam Carey to continue.

Farah seems not to be aware that the Pulitzers have accepted nominations from online-only outlets since 2008, and that such outlets have, in fact, won Pulitzer Prizes, like ProPublica, InsideClimate News and the Huffington Post.

Of course, neither of those outlets have the lengthy history of presenting partisan and personal attacks as "news" that WND does.

CNS Slobbers All Over Brent Bozell's Buddy, Charlie Daniels
Topic: Media Research Center

Media Research Center chief Brent Bozell is not just a huge fan of country music artist Charlie Daniels -- he's Daniels' buddy as well.

In a 2015 column, Bozell huffed that critics of the Confederate flag were by extension attacking Daniels, "a friend of mine." In 2010 he devoted an entire column to Daniels, touting how "In recent years, I’ve come to know Charlie Daniels personally." And in 2012, Bozell wrote in a NewsBusters post: "Charlie Daniels, a man for whom I have so much respect, sent me his new video," adding, "Amidst all the anti-American garbage poisoning our culture, it gives me—and I’m sure you—great comfort to know that patriots like Charlie Daniels continue to make such inspirational, pro-military music."

So it should not be a surprise that CNSNews.com, the "news" division of Bozell's MRC, has made Daniels a regular columnist, which he has used to tell lies about Margaret Sanger.

It should also not be a surprise that CNS also gives Daniels fawning "news" coverage.

On March 29, CNS managing editor Michael W. Chapman wrote what is effectively a press release on Daniels' upcoming induction into the Country Music Hall of Fame -- indeed, all of the information from the article appears to come straight from a Country Music Association press release, so rewriting it and putting a byline on it seems superfluous. Maybe Chapman was trying to kiss up to the boss.

On April 19, CNS' Brian Lonergan repeated a Twitter post from Daniels announcing that he will not be canceling any concerts in North Carolina in protest of that state's new anti-gay law. In other words, not news at all. Fully half of Lonergan's article is biographical information copied from Chapman's article.

As much as the MRC likes to complain about other media outlets giving allegedly fawning coverage to its political enemies, it clearly has no interest in holding itself to the same journalistic standards.

AIM's Kincaid, An Obama Birther, Won't Touch Cruz Eligibility
Topic: Accuracy in Media

WorldNetDaily's not the only ConWeb outlet that wants nothing to do with Ted Cruz's eligibility issues. Cliff Kincaid writes in his April 20 Accuracy in Media column, in the midst of an anti-Trump tirade complaining that "there is no eligibility requirement to be a Republican":

Trump, for a while, was harping on the fact that Cruz was born in Canada, as if that had any bearing on his credentials as a Republican. It was a diversion from the fact that Trump really wasn’t a Republican and had no business in the race. The real question, therefore, is not the eligibility of Cruz but the eligibility of Trump.

Kincaid, however, did think Barack Obama's eligibility was an issue. From September 2009, AIM proclaimed that Kincaid released his own birth certificate in order to raise questions about Obama's:

“My birth certificate includes the names of my mother and father, my mother’s doctor, and the hospital in which I was born,” said Kincaid. “This certified copy of an original long form document is what anyone who wants to be president should be prepared to produce.”

Article II, Section 1 of the United States Constitution, states, “No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.”

[...]

“Journalism used to ask who, what, when, where, why and how,” said Kincaid. “But today’s pro-Obama journalists want to ignore those questions when it comes to the constitutional eligibility of the current occupant of the oval office. They would rather accept what the Obama campaign (and now administration) wants them to believe. The Obama document may reflect what is in another document, but we really have no way of knowing. The only way to address these questions is to identify where exactly he was born, in what hospital, and what doctor was present. All of this information should be on an original birth certificate.”

Kincaid continued, “It is not unreasonable to ask questions about Barack Obama’s birthplace. Anybody who has an original copy of their own birth certificate, or a certified copy of their own original birth certificate, should immediately understand that the Obama version is lacking in basic information that should be publicly available.”

Kincaid asked, “Whatever happened to the public’s right to know?”

We haven't found anything by Kincaid stating that he's satisfied by Obama's release of his long-form birth certificate. He has promoted discredited filmmaker Joel Gilbert's debunked claim that Frank Marshall Davis is Obama's father.

Additionally, several members of AIM's "Citizens' Commission on Benghazi" kangaroo court are serious Obama birthers who, as far as we know, have not raised similar questions about Cruz.

Apparently, Kincaid's concern about "the public’s right to know" doesn't extend to questions about candidates he supports.

MRC's Graham Joins Bandwagon to Defend Discredited Anti-Obama Filmmaker
Topic: Media Research Center

Now the Media Research Center is joining the right-wing bandwagon to portray far-right filmmaker Joel Gilbert as the victim of Democratic meanies at the Federal Election Commission. 

MRC director of media analysis Tim Graham writes in an April 19 NewsBusters post:

Our friend Paul Bedard at the Washington Examiner reports that the Republicans and the Democrats on the Federal Election Commission are divided over a vote to punish anti-Obama filmmaker Joel Gilbert for distributing free DVDs in 2012 of his movie Dreams From My Real Father, which made unsubstantiated claims that Obama's real father was the communist Frank Marshall Davis.

Lee Goodman, a Republican commissioner (and former chairman) at the FEC, issued a statement accusing the Democrats of “regulatory avarice within the agency to regular press entities.”

In 2014, anti-birther activist Loren Collins filed an FEC complaint against Gilbert, arguing that the filmmaker had a responsibility to disclose his donors. He wanted the FEC to force Gilbert to disclose his funding sources. The FEC only recently deadlocked in a 3 to 3 party-line vote. Gilbert was considered “press,” and thus not subject to donor disclosure. 

Graham is understating the lack of veracity of Gilbert's film. Gilbert's claims weren't merely "unsubstantiated" -- they were outright lies. Even the far-right American Thinker debunked Gilbert's insistence that Davis is Obama's "real father," and his claim that Obama's mother posted for nude pictures has been similarly discredited.

Graham also doesn't explain how being forced to disclose the source of the funds he used to make those millions of DVDs of his discredited film to key swing states during the 2012 election is "punishment." He also doesn't explain how someone who has promoted demonstrably false claims -- and deliberately so, since he adjusted the promotion of his film as its claims were debunked -- should be covered under the First Amendment.

It's telling that Graham cites Paul Bedard, who has also helped to ridiculously portray Gilbert as a victim despite the fact he effectively won his case, as his source. He's such a "friend" of the MRC that he writes a weekly item trumpeting the MRC'slatest bit of "liberal bias," which the MRC then compiles at NewsBusters.

WND's Anti-Hillary Witch Hunt Continues, Still Isn't Transparent
Topic: WorldNetDaily

True to form -- and as we predicted -- WorldNetDaily is not telling anyone who's funding its anti-Hillary witch hunt. But WND editor Joseph Farah has an update on how exactly it's witch-hunting:

Maybe conventional wisdom is right, for once.

Perhaps Hillary Clinton will get the Democratic presidential nomination.

It certainly appears Barack Obama’s Justice Department is not going to derail the Democratic presidential nominee with an indictment – no matter what the FBI turns over.

But will she be able to survive the storm brewing from a series of investigative articles, books, movies and surprise witnesses about to unload on her character, her past, her secrets and her blunders?

Yes, it’s all coming. Soon the world will know more about Hillary Clinton’s shocking foibles, failures and follies that Hillary has conveniently forgotten.

Much of what’s coming is a result of the work of the Hillary Clinton Investigative Justice Project, which is about to break a series of reports that may short-circuit her January 2017 plans to move back into the White House she looted 16 years ago.

But, as the center of gravity for the anti-Hillary effort, the project headed by Jerome Corsi and Joseph Farah says there’s plenty of head-turning potential ahead.

Nothing says bad reporting like the involvement of Corsi, a guy who pushed fake documents from Kenya and perpetuated the birther fraud in an attempt to falsely smear Obama.

WND is apparently also coordinating with the right-wing Judicial Watch for this hit job: "series of investigative reports to be published in WND coinciding with Judicial Watch’s upcoming questioning of Hillary Clinton and her top aides, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills. That’s right. It looks like there is no stopping Judicial Watch from deposing Clinton and her two top aides."

And because this is WND, this would not be complete without Farah begging for money (not that he'll tell you how he's spending it, of course):

So, if you’re serious about stopping Hillary before she becomes the next president of the United States, there’s something you can do about it – no matter who you support to beat her.

Now’s the time to halt the Hillary Express dead in its tracks by making your best financial contribution to the Hillary Clinton Investigative Justice Project, which is doing its best to ensure she doesn’t have a second chance in the White House.

The root problem with all of this, of course, is that WND's history of factually flawed anti-Democrat hit jobs demonstrate that it has no credibility, and even if there were some substance to its anti-Hillary hit job, WND's past as a nakedly partisan smear artist virtually guarantees that it will never be taken seriously.

Dear MRC: Hate-Watching TV Shows Does Not Make Good TV Criticism
Topic: Media Research Center

Dylan Gwinn starts his NewsBusters review of the latest episode of "The Real O'Neals" by declaring: "To say that my hate for ABC’s The Real O’Neals burns with the heat of a thousand suns, would be…well…an accurate statement."

Well, if you hate it so much, Dylan, perhaps you shouldn't be watching it. And you shouldn't be blogging about how much you hate watching it.

But hate-watching is what the Media Research Center is paying Gwinn and others to do. Gwinn also hate-watches "Blackish" for the MRC, the latest in a long line of white MRC staffers and bloggers to pass (usually negative) judgment on a show aimed at a black audience.

The MRC's hate-watchers are particularly tuned to any hint of gayness, and they predictably freak out over it when it happens. Alexa Moutevelis Coombs had the anti-gay cow you'd expect when there was a girl-on-girl kiss on the show "Once Upon A Time":

Alas, we know that Disney has not been wholesome for years and once again they are purposefully pushing a gay agenda. Once Upon a Time's executive producers have said their gay advocacy is "important to do" and something that needs to be "normalized," not "marginalized." Last year, when announcing the storyline was coming, they said, “It’s [an LGBT relationship] something we think is due and important to do on the show. This is the world we live in.” But then they became uncomfortable with the hype the news was receiving, saying, "[T]he more we talk about it, the more does it seem marginalized as opposed to normalized."

[...]

It's no wonder that gays continue to be over represented in the media and thus in the public's minds when you have show producers wanting people - especially kids - to think it's normal and every day life. But it's just another Hollywood fairy tale. 

Gwinn also hate-watches the reality show "I Am Cait," about the former Bruce Jenner, and he recently ranted about a "stunt" in which "Caitlyn and the Trans friends that the E! Channel provided him with" checked out a bridal shop. "I too thought this day would never come. Let me fix that, I hoped and prayed this day would never come," Gwinn sneered. "And yet…here we are."

And Karen Townsend was appalled that Smithers came out of the closet on "The Simpsons," complaining that "The writers of The Simpsons have slowly brought homosexuality into the show over the years" and whining that "the storyline is also a piece of political activism." She adds, "What will be next for the liberal writers -- transgender characters?"

Townsend also freaked out about a recent episode of "Empire": "  A familiar subject in prime time television was broached between Jamal (Jussie Smollett) and Cookie (Taraji P. Henson) tonight - fluid sexuality. What is with Hollywood liberals pushing this theme on TV lately?" She then huffs that "Hollywood is determined to promote fluid sexuality as normal behavior."

Really, what good does the MRC apparently forcing (as Gwinn suggests) its lower-level bloggers to watch shows they clearly despise and have no interest in reviewing in any objective manner? 

Hate-watching does not make for good criticism. The MRC apparently hasn't figured that out yet.

WND Complains About Trump Impeachment Talk -- But Promoted Hillary Impeachment A Year Ago
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Joseph Farah rants in his April 19 WorldNetDaily column:

Amazing!

Barack Obama has defied the Constitution in dozens of ways since swearing an oath to uphold and defend it on Jan. 20, 2009 – maybe hundreds.

He has, by his own admission, exceeded his executive authority to rewrite laws, defy laws and neglect his responsibility to enforce laws.

Pledging the most “transparent administration in history,” his administration has been characterized by secrecy and stonewalling.

Before his first term was even finished, it took an entire book to catalogue the “Impeachable Offenses” he had committed.

Yet, no matter what he did in his campaign pledge to work toward “the fundamental transformation of America,” the Republican Congress gave him all the money he need to accomplish his objectives – even if was borrowed from future generations. The Republicans never even considered impeachment. In fact, they took if off the table early in the first term.

Yet before Donald Trump even gets the presidential nomination of the Republican Party, there are already forces in the Washington establishment – including some Republicans – talking about impeachment!

[...]

Who’s talking about impeachment more than six months prior to the election and months ahead of the convention that will nominate a Republican candidate?

First, that "entire book" to catalogue the purportedly "Impeachable Offenses" Obama had committed was utterly laughable and filled with factual errors and outright falsehoods.

Second: Who was talking about impeachment more than 18 months prior to the election and months ahead of the convention that will nominate a Democratic candidate? WorldNetDaily.

In May 2015 (!), WND's Cheryl Chumley touted an effort to impeach Hillary Clinton even before the election:

Special Operations Speaks PAC, an organization to educate Americans about threats to the United States, has started a petition to impeach Hillary Clinton – and so far, nearly 31,000 have signed.

“Fact is, congressional precedent dictates that all elected officials remain subject to impeachment and disqualification from holding office even after resignation,” SOS said, on its website.

As such: the PAC says Clinton must go.

Just in time for the 2016 election, hear Hillary Clinton say she would NOT run for president, in “Hillary Unhinged” by Thomas Kuiper.

“[SOS] is calling on the United States Congress to impeach former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for ‘high crimes and misdemeanors’ pursuant to Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution of the United States.”

The organization lists three reasons to impeach Clinton. First, she “absented herself from the besieged in Benghazi on September 11, 2012, costing four American lives.”

Second: “As Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton received, through the Clinton Foundation, emoluments from foreign governments, despite Article 1, Section 9, which proscribes the reception of foreign ‘gifts’ by U.S. officials without the express consent of Congress.”

And third: The groups decried Clinton’s “unlawful” storage of official secretary of state emails on a private email server set up in her New York home, calling it a “detriment of national security” and a violation of the Freedom of Information Act.

That's right: WND promoted an effort to impeach Hillary Clinton before the election. And Farah is complaining about a proposed impeachment of Donald Trump that wouldn't take place until after he takes office?

MRC Documents Fox News Bias, Won't Use The B-Word To Describe It
Topic: Media Research Center

On April 14, the Media Research Center's Kyle Drennen touted how Fox News host Megyn Kelly "ripped into her media colleagues for their excessive and skewed coverage of the billionaire’s campaign." Of course, as we've documented, a lot of that "excessive and skewed coverage" of Trump appears on Fox News itself. But, hey, Kelly typically gets a free pass from the MRC, even as she laughably denies that Fox News is biased.

Now, the MRC has finally gathered evidence of Fox News' pro-Trump and anti-Democrat bias. But, even more laughably, it won't say the B-word.

Perhaps tired of us pointing out that the MRC's political coverage analyses have focused almost exclusively on the broadcast networks seemingly to avoid having to document bias at Fox News, the MRC has at last gotten around to analyzing cable news coverage of the 2016 peridential election.

An April 18 NewsBusters post by Rich Noyes and Mike Ciandella admits the obvious:

Our study found that FNC spent much more time interviewing Trump and his surrogates than either of his GOP competitors. Over the past four weeks, Trump was interviewed for a total of 178 minutes on Fox, vs. 106 minutes on CNN and 43 minutes on MSNBC. (Interviews includes network-sponsored town halls as well as sit-downs with a network host, but not debates or live coverage of rallies or speeches.)

[...]

Adding in the airtime for campaign surrogates (family members, campaign staff, or designated surrogates), Trump’s tally grows to 397 minutes on Fox, or nearly 60 percent of the total, compared to 164 minutes (25%) for Cruz and 105 minutes (16%) for Kasich.

We don't know why the MRC excluded rallies and speeches from candidate coverage, even though they star the candidate. Perhaps that would have made the Fox News numbers even more skewed for Trump.

Interestingly, Noyes and Ciandella refuse to use the word "bias" in describing Fox News' hlighly skewed coverage of Trump, though the post given the "Bias by the Minute" taxonomy.

The next day, Noyes and Ciandella highlighted an even more stark example of Fox News' bias, noting that while "the three main Republican candidates (Trump, Texas Senator Ted Cruz, and Ohio Governor John Kasich) and their surrogates were interviewed for a total of 666 minutes on the Fox News Channel during this period ... neither former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton nor Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders gave any interviews to any of FNC’s prime time programs during the four weeks we examined, and their surrogates appeared for a total of only 13 minutes — a greater than 50-to-1 disparity."

Noyes and Ciandella given excuse and justify Fox News' clear anti-Democrat bias:

What’s the reason? Since 2007, Democratic presidential candidates have generally boycotted Fox News, refusing to let the top-rated cable network host any of their presidential debates. Earlier this year, Fox News anchor Bret Baier pressed DNC chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz about “letting the Fox News debate team handle” one of the then-upcoming debates; Schultz demurred.

At the same time, FNC’s core audience is decidedly right-of-center. A 2012 Pew Research Center survey of the Fox News audience found conservatives outnumbered liberals by a 6-to-1 margin (60% to 10%), while on shows such as Hannity the gap was a whopping 78 to 5 percent. So FNC may have concluded — not unreasonably — that its audience is more interested in hearing from the GOP candidates and their surrogates than the Democrats.

Those aren't excuses the MRC are likely to grant to the "liberal media" for their allegedly biased coverage. And, again, at no point do Noyes and Ciandella use the word "bias" to describe Fox News' clearly biased coverage.

As we've noted, the MRC has a vested interest in not being more explicit in pointing out Fox News' media bias -- its officials appear regularly on its air, something that would likely stop if the MRC actually held the channel to account.

You can bet that if Kelly or any other Fox News host denies the channel is biased, the MRC will ignore its own research and continue to give them a pass.

WND Doc: Being Gay, Transgender The Same As Being A Serial Rapist
Topic: WorldNetDaily

Elizabeth Vliet -- the WND-fave doc who's tied to the far-right-fringe Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -- demonstrates her ignorance about transgenders in an April 12 WND column:

Indecent exposure (males exposing genitals to women in public is the most common occurrence), sexual battery, assault, molestation, sex with minors and rape are all crimes in almost all jurisdictions. It shouldn’t take a rocket scientist to see that telling men they can suddenly decide they “feel” like a woman and thereby use women’s bathrooms is a slippery slope to more of all types of these sexual crimes. How does the “feeling” of a gender dysphoric man take priority over the safety of your wife, daughter, girlfriend, mother, sister or friend?

Vliet adds: "Just recently, a Seattle man began undressing at a public swimming pool women’s locker room when a group of young girls were changing for a swim team practice. He was not arrested, as a result of Washington’s new law allowing 'transgender' men to use women’s restrooms. I use quotes around the term transgender because this man had no outward identifying statements or attire to suggest he thought of himself as a woman."

Actually, that was apparently a protest against the gender-equity law-- and since the man "had no outward identifying statements or attire to suggest he thought of himself as a woman," he was in violation of it.

But she's not done. She thinks she's an expert on the subject:

Let’s look at real-life issues. I am a practicing physician with specialty training from the Johns Hopkins Sexual Medicine Consultation team. I have treated people seeking help for many sex and gender issues: gay/lesbian, pedophilia, transvestism, gender dysphoria, voyeurism and serial rapists. At the time transgender patients have undergone surgery to become their new gender, it is then appropriate to use the bathroom facilities for their gender reassignment. Until then, common sense and public safety should require those with male genitalia (regardless of self-perception) use men’s bathrooms, and those with female genitalia should use women’s bathrooms.

Several striking common denominators emerged from many years of treating patients in this area of medicine:

• The unpredictability, and at times uncontrollability, of sexual drives to engage in behaviors potentially harmful physically and/or psychologically to others.
• The complete lack of empathy for the victim shown by sexual predators, whether “mild” predation of voyeurism or the obviously serious and criminal acts of rape and assault.
• We cannot predict who will engage in sexual assault, or when they will do it.
• Statistics show that women and girls are overwhelmingly the victims in such cases of sexual predator actions.

Did the Johns Hopkins Sexual Medicine Consultation team really teach Vliet that homosexuality and transgenderism is equal to being a pedophile or serial rapist, complete with similar psychological pathology, as Vliet suggests? Somehow we doubt it. The Johns Hopkins Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit examines many sexuality-related issues, which it clearly separates by type.

If Vliet actually retained what she learned from the unit, she would not be thinking there's no difference between being transgender and being a serial rapist. But, alas, Vliet's misinformation continues:

Speaking as a physician, separate bathroom and locker facilities for men and women helps provide physical and psychological safety, particularly for women and girls, from those who would do harm by giving into their sudden urge to rape or molest others. While such safety issues may apply to men as well, it is far less probable that a female enters a men’s restroom and starts molesting males, who are typically bigger and stronger and better able to defend themselves.

In fact, exactly zero transgender people have molested people of the opposite biological gender in bathrooms under gender-equity laws.

Vliete closes with the rant: "The election of 2016 is becoming about far more than “politics” as usual: It is about restoring common sense in the public arena, public safety and enforcing laws that are designed to maintain civil order and civility for ALL, not just a favored few in the minority group du jour."

But should we be concerned about civil rights for all and refuse to discriminate against a minority we may not like or understand? Not according to Vliet, apparently.

Ex-MRCer Avoids Critics In Plugging New Climate Change Denial Film, And MRC's Bozell Plays Along
Topic: Media Research Center

An April 15 NewsBusters post touts how "MRC President and Founder L. Brent Bozell moderated an invitation-only panel discussion on the subject featuring former Gov. Sarah Palin, R-Alaska, climatologist Dr. David Legates and Climate Depot’s Marc Morano, host of a new documentary from CFACT: Climate Hustle."

Legates is a climate-change denier like the rest,  meaning that everyone involved in the "panel discussion" holds basically the same opinion -- which makes it not much of a discussion at all.

But also note that term appearing before "panel discussion": "invitation-only." It appears that if you held a different opinion on climate change from Morano, Bozell and the others (only one of whom has any actual background in climate science), you apparently weren't even allowed in the room.

That refusal to engage with critics, perhaps not surprisingly, has been a hallmark of Morano's promotion of his little film, as well as Morano and CFACT's apparent lying to continue to refuse engagement. Graham Readfearn writes at DeSmog about trying (and failing) to gain admission to the Paris premiere of the film:

I had previously asked a French group helping to organise the premiere, Institut Coppet, for a ticket.  They had accepted my RSVP, but a few days later said I wasn’t welcome. Other reporters at DeSmog and at the Irish Times had a similar experience of having a 'yes' turn to a 'no' days later.

Morano has told sympathetic media since the premiere that there were “hundreds” of people queuing down the street and that they had to turn people away. But one person who watched the Paris premiere, but asked not to be named, told me the cinema was “half empty” during the screening. An estimated 100 people had been inside for the cocktail reception, the source said. Another attendee told DeSmog after the film let out that the theatre was at best 70 percent full.

Those being “turned away” it seems were those most likely to criticise the film’s content.

Morano also told me he would be at the Paris conference later that week, but complained that “we only have two passes for our organisation” — continuing a theme that denialists were being shut out. 

According to a list of Paris conference participants, the UN actually granted passes to six representatives from CFACT. Three (Morano and his CFACT colleagues Craig Rucker and David Rothbard) were accredited with a CFACT delegation and three more were listed as CFACT representatives in a ten-strong delegation from the Competitive Enterprise Institute, another conservative think tank that pushes climate science denial.

We're guessing that Bozell and his one-sided "panel discussion" didn't mention that Morano refused a bet with Bill Nye (the science guy) on whether  2016 would be one of the ten hottest years on record and that the current decade would be the hottest on record... because he admits it's “obvious” the official records would show more global warming.

CNS' Barbara Hollingsworth did a "news" article on the "panel discussion, which ironbically quotes Legates saying, “If you can’t argue the facts, you have to demonize your opponent.” Or, you know, ignore them completely.

Oddly, while the NewsBusters post disclosed that Morano used to be a reporter for CNS -- where he used his final days there to audition for his future career as a professional climate change denier, first as a PR flak for Republican Sen. James Inhofe and then for CFACT -- Hollingsworth's CNS article did not, though CNS was the MRC division where he actually worked.

WND Wants Hillary Arrested For Riding The Subway
Topic: WorldNetDaily

 

 

Hillary Clinton has committed the crime of riding the subway in New York City while a TV camera followed her, and WorldNetDaily's Douglas Ernst is on it:

Lost in media coverage of Hillary Clinton struggling to use a subway turnstile in New York City on Thursday was the fact that she broke Metropolitan Transportation Authority rules.

The ‘Stop Hillary’ campaign is on fire! Join the surging response to this theme: ‘Clinton for prosecution, not president’

MTA’s “Rules of Conduct” subject the city’s street performers to fines and possible imprisonment for taking shows on subway cars. A review of Section 1050.6(c)1 of the subway rules by the Guardian on Friday shows the presidential hopeful flouted them on her way from Yankee Stadium to 170th Street.

“The incident is all the more galling because there are actual, regular New Yorkers trying to make ends meet who are arrested for violating the same rules that Clinton disregards with impunity,” the newspaper wrote. “These regular New Yorkers are, of course, the acrobatic showtime performers and musicians – a cultural point of pride for the city – who perform legally on platforms and other areas of the transit system (not always without harassment) but are barred from playing on board subway cars by the same rules that should have prevented Clinton’s campaigning.”

Matthew Christian of BuskNY, an advocacy group for New York subway performers, said Clinton should not have been allowed to operate by a different set of rules.

“When performers are playing music they are thought to be committing a crime and arrested,” Christian told the newspaper by phone. “Apparently, when Hillary Clinton does public speaking on a train car that is not considered a violation of the statute.”

Performers who do not keep acts to subway platforms may be subject to civil fines up to $100 and imprisonment of up to 10 days.

The former secretary of state was joined by Rubén Díaz Jr, the president of the borough of the Bronx, and a gaggle of reporters.

Ernst doesn't mention that the Guardian piece he's regurgitating is opinion, not reporting, and the author, Ali Gharib, offers no evidence of politicians arrested for politicking on the subway.

Further, neither Ernst nor Gharib seem to understand there's a difference between a politician and a busking musician.

MRC Whines About Boston Globe's Trump Front-Page Satire
Topic: Media Research Center

The Boston Globe's opinion section recently published a fake front page projecting what might happen if Donald Trump is elected president. And even though the Media Research Center despises Trump and supports Ted Cruz, it hates the "liberal media" expressing an opinion even more.

Tim Graham dismissed the page as an "enormous prank" and declared himself arbiter of "serious" news: "A serious newspaper doesn't satirize the news. It leaves it to The Onion." Graham doesn't mention that the fake front page didn't replace the actual front page; it ran on the front of its "idea" section well inside the paper.

The MRC's Rich Noyes sneered at the "sophomoric anti-Donald Trump parody" and complained that "liberal newspapers have published a spate of obnoxious, over-the-top covers that the broadcast networks immediately picked up as meaningful contributions to political discourse." (This from the same website that does a post every time Tim Allen makes fun of liberals on his sitcom "Last Man Standing.") Noyes later ran to Fox Business (of course) to rant that the fake front page was "sophomoric" (again) and "absurd."

MRC division CNSNews.com -- which has had its own problems with making up the news --  ran an April 14 story by Susan Jones under the headline "Boston Globe Defends Its 'Unconventional New Approach' to Making Up the News." Jones does later explain that it did not run as the actual front page but in the opinion section -- which means it was not "making up the news" at all.